Saturday at the office

Well, here I am sitting in the office this Saturday morning, and I`m realizing that the internet connection is inactive. Today as well. My plan about reading mails and do some more research on clusterbombs is then spoiled, and instead I`ll try to dig down into some thick documents about organizational development. From the radio in the corner comes a fine mix of oriental tones, old hits and the hottest new rhythms from Beirut`s dancefloor. People are coming and going, and soon I`m expecting that some of the volunteers from the Red Cross Youth will drop by the office. The airconditioner is sending a stream of warm air right into my face, and from the hallway there`s a constant drone from construction work and from people talking. By now I`ve become used to this working environment, and I`m wondering how it will be to come back and work in Norway this summer. Maybe then I`ll have to bring my colleagues some Lebanese elements in order to make myself comfortable the first days or weeks. Hehe. I can feel that I`m a bit sleepy as well. The last week I`ve slept little and uneasy, and I suspect this is connected to all the recent movements in the ground plates. Monday night I woke up to find my whole bed shaking, and it took a little while before I understood that it was an earthquake and not some serious desorder on my balance nerve. It was a somehow strange experience. The quake measured around 4 on the r-scale, and struck the south and the nearby areas first and foremost. People I spoke to in the southern part of Lebanon told me that they hadn`t known any comparable quake for 40 years. Yesterday again the office furnitures started to shake, and this one was a bit more powerful that the other one. Our secretary colleague Milia can tell about several quakes the last two weeks, and with this I feel more convinced that my problems with sleeping lately has less to do with the increased level of shootings and political tension, and that they are more likely caused by seismological factors. Two volunteers from the Aaley center just entered the office, and they have brought pictures from our visit there. I think I`m gonna postpone the reading for a while, and instead pour myself a cup of tea:)

Muffins on Valentine`s Day

Tonight my dear Trude made supertasty chocolate muffins to her ”husband” (that would be me) :) I am really happy for this clear token of her love! Hehe, a little extra fun is needed when you`re sitting indoors all day. You see, today we were strictly told to stay home due to what now just goes under the term “the situation”, and this can easily become a bit boring after a while. This whole week we`ve had instructions not to leave the neighbourhood from the afternoon and out, but today we have been extra careful. It`s been three years since PM Rafik Hariri was slayed, and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese took part in a protest rally in Beirut today. In fear of riots the government had decided that today was a public holyday, and all schools and public offices were closed, as well as many private shops. We were not the only ones who stayed at home, even though many went to the streets to participate in the rally. I woke up this morning to hear shooting outside, but hopefully this was nothing more than one of the Lebanese ways of celebrating a successful speech etc. Inch Allah.. Anyways, I want to wish all my friends and everybody else a cozy night filled with LOVE! Big hug from Beirut!

Trip to the south and Olio on visit

Tuesday I finally got down to the southern part of Lebanon, for the very first time. Early in the morning we got into the 4WD of Anne-Kathrine, who`s the head of the IFRC Delegation in the country. (The IFRC is the umbrella organization of all Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies.) It was a good thing that we had a solid car, since parts of the road felt a lot like bad Norwegian countryside roads with their large holes and sudden “floods.” We drove the beautiful route by the coast down to Tyre, with the sea and the shoreline on the right hand side, and the green hillsides with the typical arabic brickhouses on the left. In Tyre we just had the time to stop for a glass of juice and fresh bakery products. The Lebanese hospitality also granted me some extra sweets in my hand as I left, as a greeting for the visit. We continued our journey through the Lebanese landskape, and then stopped by a school, where we attended a theatreplay about taking care of the nature and the environment, performed by the Red Cross Youth. We also visited a Red Cross clinic that provides medical and social services. Both the school and the clinic were partly rebuilt after the bombs that fell over Southern Lebanon in 2006. We found the time to stop for a short, but sweet private visit as well, and here we were treated with fresh almonds from the garden trees and tea in tiny glasses. On our way back we were surprised by a rain- and hailstorm that dewed the windows and filled the road with water. Again I was happy about the choice of car made earlier in the day. Back in Beirut I could feel that it had been a long day, and by then we had also been out on mission for more that 10 hours. However, I still had enough energy to talk Anne-Kathrine into letting us babysit her little Jack Russel puppy the same evening, and just like that we suddenly had a wonderful and very energetic little Olio snooking around in the apartment. It was a new experience to walk a dog in the middle of a city like Beirut, and neither is it a common view in these streets. But, we did good, all three of us, and back in the apartment little Olio fell happily asleep on his blanket, after several rounds of jumping up on the couch and lifting down again. No matter what, there`s a lot of joy in a puppy, and I hope Olio will visit us again:)

February 9th

I hear cracking sounds outside the kitchen window. From weapons or from fireworks. I haven`t quite learned to distinguish between the sounds yet, maybe it`s from both. I`m planning to attend a Red Cross party in Beirut tonight. There`s a new Lebanese rapper performing, and I think it can be fun. To be on the safe side I`ll wait until it calms down outside. Poor Trude is in bed with fever, so I`ll have to try to find this place on my own. With my sence of directions, hehe.. Yesterday it was me who were raving around dizzy at work, and who had to stay in bed from the moment I entered the apartement. Fortunately, the trick of taking large doses of vitamin Cs and sleeping a lot seems to work down here as well, so hopefully my dear wife will be better tomorrow. Today I`ve been in an ectaticly good mood – I got confirmation that my beloved Kajsa Liisa is coming to visit in the beginning of March!! And a week later my dear Leila will come as well!! Despite bombs and warnings from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs they have chosen to come and visit me in Lebanon. Trallalalala..oow, how much I`m looking forward to having my girls visiting!! Yohoo!! Then I may have to seize the possibility to be a little bit tourist here as well, since until now I haven`t seen many other attractions than Byblos and the ancient ruins in Baalbek. And, Now I have to hurry and write a wishlist from Norway. Even though you can get hold of most of the things you need here there are still a few items that I`m starting to miss from Norway. The famous milk chocolate of course, but also small things like dark flour (!) and iron tablets that are not coloured pink..

Happy New Year!

Hey there. Sorry for neglecting my blog completely. I`m back now, I promise. A lot has happened since last time, and one of the greatest experiences was coming home for Christmas. It was just wonderful to spend almost two weeks together with my loved ones, after being in totally strange surroundings for 3 months. Christmas would of course not have been the same without my family. And my mother`s stuffed turkey and papa`s juicy lamb...Mm! And imagine, I who always was a bit extra sensitive to pollution and toxines, when I was standing there in the middle of the capital city I couldn`t help taking a deep breath and express my joy over the fresh “mountain air” in Oslo. Something which I never would have thought could happen. So it`s true then, all things can change! After racing the time in order to see and hug family and friends in two different places in the country, I went back to Lebanon again. Truly happy. I celebrated the New Year`s Eve together with good friends in a cozy hotel in the lebanese mountains. I had a really good time, far away from cheap fireworks and drunk drivers, in a place called Laqlouqe. (This is pronounced la2lou2, since most lebanese don`t pronounce the q. If you need an explanation for the 2s feel free to send me a request.). The New Year was celebrated twice in Lebanon by the way, since we entered the year 1429 on the 9th of January according to muslim tradition. This country is special in the way that several religions are presented in the calendar of holydays, something that occationally results in a sudden day of from work due to some moving holyday I didn`t know about. But that`s just a little thing that makes it all more interesting.

Unfortunately it hasn`t been all joy since I returned. My first January in Lebanon has been cold and wet, and sadly enough marked by deadly bombattacks and riots. Last Friday another carbomb took many lives, and then what was presumably going to be a peaceful demonstration against the electrisity problems in the country developed into bloody riots Sunday night. The situation is more tense than in a long time, and many are obviously afraid and worried about the further development, even though they don`t talk too much about it. The lebanese are tired and fed up with all the violence and insecurity, and they just want to live their lives in peace and quiet. This it is not hard to understand. Even though I`ve just lived here for 4 and some months I too can feel the stress, despair, fear and anger that comes from the constantly tense situation and the continual attacks. Some days it is all a bit too much to handle alone, and in these moments I`m extra thankful that I have my dear Trude here with me. 7abibti!:)