For those of you following my blog and the international news simultaneously, you may have wondered about my whereabouts/safety as Beirut is burning (turns out that many people were wrong in their belief that violence would wait until summer). I was in Beirut on Wednesday, but the quick escalation of tensions and military presence led to a game time decision not to spend Thursday on the Mediterranean, but instead flee the country Wednesday night. With Beirut waking to demarcation lines, burning tyres and roadblocks on Thursday morning, we made the right decision and are now safe in Damascus again, missing Lebanon and sending positive thoughts to all the wonderful people we met while there.
More detail on this adventure will be forthcoming. For now, just wanted you all to know that I am safe.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Yoga With Hezbollah
So far Lebanon seemed to offer everything I had missed traveling in the Middle East - chunky meal-sized salads, an active nightlife and style. The ecolodge I visited after a big weekend had one more refreshing offering: yoga.
Arriving at the ecolodge I expected to see Lebanese hippies with scraggly beards and lose-fitting pants eating all-organic vegetarian meals properly balanced with lentils for protein. Instead, after the long descent on a bumpy dirt road, I arrived to find the majority of the beds rented out to a number of conventional Muslim families, the women in full dress - hijab, long sleeves, long pants/skirts. There was one trendy hippy soaking in the serenity of this valley venue along the river, but I soon discovered that she was the yoga instructor and had been enlisted by one of more progressive Muslim women to teach a class at 5:00. It was 4:00.
Over the next hour none of the women said hello. They seemed to resent our presence as they puffed their water pipes and watched their children run around. I made a quiet quip to Heather about the potential of them being Hezbollah...or at least supporters. Later this suspicion was confirmed when some we overheard them speaking politics. I looked at their conservative dress and tried to picture how this yoga class with Hezbollah was going to go...and what was I going to wear that would both be acceptable yet provide the freedom that downward dog requires of attire?
The ecolodge deck was covered with 11 yoga mats - 5 on each side and one for the instructor in the middle. The class started promptly at 5 o'clock with 8 of the participants present. Heather and I had taken two mats in the back hoping to avoid the discomfort of accidentally showing crack to Hezbollah. Five uncomfortable looking women huddled close on the other side. The division was stark and verging on confrontational. "Hezbollah" v. "The West" with our new age Lebanese yoga instructor figuratively and literally in the middle acting as the DMZ. Her spiritual intuition caught on and she wanted to broker peace if not understanding. She asked one of the women to move to the mat between Heather in her knee-bearing peddle pushers and me in zebra print pajama pants.
I wasn't sure if she was going to break through the terror that made her eyes expand and shrink at the same time behind her glasses. With hesitation she rose and cautiously walked towards us in her ankle-length corduroy jumper. The discomfort rose a notch. Soon back-up arrived and two men and another woman joined us. Heather and I had already been moved forward at the instructor's orders. Hezbollah, as a result, strategically shifted positions to avoid placing the men behind us in full view of our dangerously seductive bottoms. The class continued with breathing exercises and continued slowly: child's pose, the warrior, the mountain (or downward dog) leading up to salutation to the sun. The pre-teen boys had gathered to watch much to the dismay of their mothers.
If yoga with Hezbollah wasn't uncomfortable enough, the mainly vegetarian diet I had been maintaining while traveling with my legume-loving friend, Heather, was causing some intestinal disruptions. I clenched in the name of peace. If fired, I would have launched a direct hit on the still traumatized woman in the corduroy jumper now behind me.
The class lasted an hour and a half. Some of Hezbollah lost interest around 2/3 of the way through and started putting on the shoes over the socks that they had kept on. Others lasted through the whole session, battling with their insecurities on the fairly public display of body movement. A few asked about classes offered in Beirut and seemed to be drawn to the Thursday morning class that attracted and "older female crowd." While only one offered a smile of acknowledgement and a few words to Heather and me later that evening, I couldn't help but think that this experience had brought all of us closer and given us a bit of clarity about the politics of people. Our silly tensions were based on perceptions of the West and of fanatical Muslims and our assumed perception of us. Our fear of each other's rejection was probably the strongest factor in our pseudo stand-off and could have easily been tossed aside for a comaraderie surrounding a few of our undeniable commonalities like it was hard to touch our toes and keep our knees straight at the same time.
Arriving at the ecolodge I expected to see Lebanese hippies with scraggly beards and lose-fitting pants eating all-organic vegetarian meals properly balanced with lentils for protein. Instead, after the long descent on a bumpy dirt road, I arrived to find the majority of the beds rented out to a number of conventional Muslim families, the women in full dress - hijab, long sleeves, long pants/skirts. There was one trendy hippy soaking in the serenity of this valley venue along the river, but I soon discovered that she was the yoga instructor and had been enlisted by one of more progressive Muslim women to teach a class at 5:00. It was 4:00.
Over the next hour none of the women said hello. They seemed to resent our presence as they puffed their water pipes and watched their children run around. I made a quiet quip to Heather about the potential of them being Hezbollah...or at least supporters. Later this suspicion was confirmed when some we overheard them speaking politics. I looked at their conservative dress and tried to picture how this yoga class with Hezbollah was going to go...and what was I going to wear that would both be acceptable yet provide the freedom that downward dog requires of attire?
The ecolodge deck was covered with 11 yoga mats - 5 on each side and one for the instructor in the middle. The class started promptly at 5 o'clock with 8 of the participants present. Heather and I had taken two mats in the back hoping to avoid the discomfort of accidentally showing crack to Hezbollah. Five uncomfortable looking women huddled close on the other side. The division was stark and verging on confrontational. "Hezbollah" v. "The West" with our new age Lebanese yoga instructor figuratively and literally in the middle acting as the DMZ. Her spiritual intuition caught on and she wanted to broker peace if not understanding. She asked one of the women to move to the mat between Heather in her knee-bearing peddle pushers and me in zebra print pajama pants.
I wasn't sure if she was going to break through the terror that made her eyes expand and shrink at the same time behind her glasses. With hesitation she rose and cautiously walked towards us in her ankle-length corduroy jumper. The discomfort rose a notch. Soon back-up arrived and two men and another woman joined us. Heather and I had already been moved forward at the instructor's orders. Hezbollah, as a result, strategically shifted positions to avoid placing the men behind us in full view of our dangerously seductive bottoms. The class continued with breathing exercises and continued slowly: child's pose, the warrior, the mountain (or downward dog) leading up to salutation to the sun. The pre-teen boys had gathered to watch much to the dismay of their mothers.
If yoga with Hezbollah wasn't uncomfortable enough, the mainly vegetarian diet I had been maintaining while traveling with my legume-loving friend, Heather, was causing some intestinal disruptions. I clenched in the name of peace. If fired, I would have launched a direct hit on the still traumatized woman in the corduroy jumper now behind me.
The class lasted an hour and a half. Some of Hezbollah lost interest around 2/3 of the way through and started putting on the shoes over the socks that they had kept on. Others lasted through the whole session, battling with their insecurities on the fairly public display of body movement. A few asked about classes offered in Beirut and seemed to be drawn to the Thursday morning class that attracted and "older female crowd." While only one offered a smile of acknowledgement and a few words to Heather and me later that evening, I couldn't help but think that this experience had brought all of us closer and given us a bit of clarity about the politics of people. Our silly tensions were based on perceptions of the West and of fanatical Muslims and our assumed perception of us. Our fear of each other's rejection was probably the strongest factor in our pseudo stand-off and could have easily been tossed aside for a comaraderie surrounding a few of our undeniable commonalities like it was hard to touch our toes and keep our knees straight at the same time.
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