A few days gone past without much done
We have now been in Beirut for three days. I have stopped hearing the constant car horns and have become slightly more accustomed to the heat.
On Tuesday evening we met up with Tony Chakar, a Beirut resident, occasional DAI guest, and Here As The Centre Of The World project co-coordinator during the Beirut and Enschede workshops. He took us to Barometre, a small café/restaurant not far from where we are staying in the centre of the city. The food was very good, the local beer also, and it was also great to catch up with Tony and have a few laughs.
We ended up spending most of Wednesday inside Zico House trying to get some work done. Whilst Nikos was busy with a presentation about Here As The Centre Of The World, I set about compiling a list of questions for the Beirut-based participants. The purpose of our trip is of course to collect information for the book which is to be published about the project, since efforts to solicit opinions and feedback remotely via email have largely failed. The idea of the questions was to try and provide a stimulus for extensive feedback, since “what did you think of the project?” is of course quite difficult to answer beyond “it was great” or “it was a waste of time”.
In the evening, Nikos cooked dinner (we had gone shopping at a local supermarket earlier), and later project leader Alite arrived from the Netherlands.
After quite a slow start on Thursday, we went to visit Beirut-based artist and former HATCOTW participant Reine Mahfouz, who has just had a baby boy. On the way to her house on the eastern edge of Beirut, we had our second experience with taking a taxi, this time thankfully not so expensive.
Taxis on the street here are a bit different to Europe. Instead of hailing a taxi and asking the driver to take you to your destination (although this is possible), it is cheaper to hail one of the frequently passing taxis (which are usually bashed to bits and full of holes), even if it is already carrying passengers. You tell the driver that you want “service”, which means that you are happy to be crammed into his car with as many people as possible and are prepared to reach your destination by whatever route is necessary to deliver the other passengers as well. Following our experience when coming from the airport, it has become clear that it is essential to agree the price before getting in the car.
As it happened, we ended up being in our own in the car which was perhaps a bit of a shame. This will doubtless not be the last time that we take a taxi, so there is plenty of opportunity for experiencing this strange taxi/bus combination.
When we went to see Reine and her little baby, we were served a sort of pudding made from rice and flavoured with cinnamon, coconut, and nuts. This is traditionally served to guests when a new baby has been born. It was delicious, and certainly an improvement on Beschuit met muisjes, the dry and crusty Dutch equivalent.
In the evening, we once again went for dinner with Tony at Barometre, this time accompanied by some other residents at Zico House – a Turkish girl and a couple of Belgians who have just finished an art workshop here in Lenanon.
I am a little concerned that, despite the fact that it is obviously very enjoyable to be spending time in this exciting city, we have not made very much progress on our mission. Hopefully things will accelerate a bit during the next few days.
