Lebanon
Hi Folks,
Well I made it home safe and sound last Wednesday afternoon and am busy trying to catch up on email, bills, mail etc. I wanted to take the time however to recap the trip and let everyone know what it was like. For those of you who don’t know, Leading EDGE was asked to provide one of the six day trainings (3 days in September and 3 days in February) that we do in conjunction with Antioch New England Graduate School of Keene, NH for International College (IC) in Beirut. International College is a private school founded originally in Turkey in 1891 by a Canadian educator. In 1936 it moved to Beirut, Lebanon and became a preparatory school for the American University of Beirut. During the Lebanese civil war (1975-90) the school was noted for serving all religious sects. It is interesting to note that the school is accredited not only by the European Council of International Schools but also by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. IC has about 3,400 students and about 20% of the teachers are expatriates ( i.e., a citizen who has left his or her own country to live in another, usually for a prolonged period) from the U.S. and Canada. Private schools are very common in Lebanon and I believe make up over 50% of the schools.
IC has been trying to get us over to do the training for well over a year. We were originally supposed to go over last September but the July, 2006 attack of Beirut by Israel caused us to cancel our trip. We finally arranged to go this fall after many assurances from our IC host Raouf Ghusayni the Director of the Educational Resources Center. As you can imagine my business partner, Bruce, and I had considerable reservations and to be perfectly honest I was more resigned to going than excited. That all changed soon after our arrival. After a brief layover in Paris we took off for Lebanon and arrived at 3:30 PM at the bustling Beirut airport. Without any problem we got through customs and were picked up by a driver and a gentleman, who spoke pretty good English, and driven to our apartment in downtown Beirut. We were introduced to the building concierge and given keys to our apartment and told that Raouf would call us around 7:00 PM to take us to dinner. The jet lag was not as bad as what we had commonly experienced traveling to the UK. The only reason I can guess is that we left NYC earlier in the day thus arrived at a more civil hour (at least based on our body’s time clock). We took a brief rest and went out to a traditional Lebanese restaurant. Since the Lebanese generally eat a much later dinner than we usually do the restaurant was empty. We had a wonderful meal of lamb, hummus, tabouli and other Lebanese dishes. I also took part in the traditional Lebanese drink of Arak, an anise flavored alcohol while Bruce tried the local beer.
After a good night’s sleep (pretty good anyway considering the jet lag) we ate breakfast in our apartment (they had stocked it with cereal, juice and milk) and then Raouf picked us up and drove us up to Byblos a 7,000 year old city about 40 minutes north of Beirut. Around 1,200 BC the city was called " Byblos" ("papyrus" in Greek), because this commercial center was important in the papyrus trade. We visited some ruins there and learned a little of the long and complicated history of Lebanon in general and Byblos in particular. We met Diana (French pronunciation), a middle school principle at IC’s Ain Aar campus north of Beirut, for lunch. Diana is charming and made us feel right at home. She ordered us a lunch of fresh fried fish and the standard hummus and tabouli along with French fries. They were aware of the huff over "French" fries at the start of the Iraq war and thought it was hilarious that some Americans went so far as to call them "freedom" fries. After much talk and lots of food we headed back to Beirut. I rode back with Diana and found it quite sobering when she pointed out that a couple of the 4 lane highway bridges we crossed had been destroyed during the Israeli attacks of July the previous year. Beirut by the way is a typical cosmopolitan city with lots of stores, traffic and billboards hawking everything from Panasonic TVs to Accu-View contact lenses. The traffic patterns are different as there is little in the way of traffic control. People honk their horns continuously but in a polite way to let you know they are there. There is a real (and generally very tolerant and polite) give and take at intersections as a result of the lack of traffic control. My take on it was that drivers clearly had to use good judgment as there were few rules… a true experiential education.
We arrived back at our apartment building, which by the way is also where most of the expatriate teachers live so virtually everyone in the building speaks English, by late afternoon. We checked out the TV and were surprised that FOX TV is around the world. Fortunately, in my opinion, it was only FOX sports and not FOX news so we were able to watch a U.S. football game. There were a number of news channels including BBC World news and British Sky News but we found ourselves watch the English version of Al Jazeera news which we found more unbiased than our FOX news by far.
Monday we spent most of the day preparing for our workshop, meeting people on campus and getting a feel for the school. We met the President of the school John Johnson an American originally from Long Island. We had a common acquaintance in Tom Fisch a retired Saranac Lake school teacher who worked for us during our work in the United Kingdom. The President and his wife hosted a dinner in the evening for new faculty and we were invited. We had a chance to learn a traditional Lebanese dance and Bruce was one of the star pupils.
Tuesday through Thursday kept us busy with our workshop with an extra day of support on Friday. Each night we went out for dinner with different people. Tuesday we went to the home of one of the teachers. Her father is a former Prime Minister of Lebanon. Now in his nineties he shared with Bruce some of his experiences and about an assassination attempt on his life. The house they lived in was like a museum with mother of pearl decorated furniture throughout the house. Much of the furniture was from the Ottoman Empire. (Here’s a website that will give you an idea of what it the furniture looks like http://www.tughra.net/4436.html Wednesday we went to the Blue Note Jazz Café of Beirut for dinner with President Johnson and his wife and Thursday night we went to a more traditional Lebanese restaurant with all the department heads that were in our workshop (5). Finally on Friday night we had dinner with the expatriate teachers on the roof top of our apartment building. We got to chat with a number of teachers our age from the U.S. and Canada that have traveled the world making a career of teaching at international schools. There were also many young teachers just starting out.
5:45 AM Saturday morning we were driven to the airport to catch our flight home via Paris. Our flight left a bit late and as a result we missed our connection in Paris. Fortunately we were able to get another flight within a couple of hours but while I was to spend a few days in New York City visiting my son Dustin, Bruce was heading to Albany and missed his flight and couldn’t schedule another one until the following day. So Bruce went with me via subway (3 transfers) to Brooklyn and Dustin’s apartment. We joked that we felt less secure on our subway ride than we did in Beirut. We made it to Dustin’s (he was working late on a sketch comedy project with his friends) and grabbed a meal at McDonald’s and crashed having been awake for about 25 hours.
Sunday morning Bruce made his way back to the airport and home while I chilled out in the morning while Dustin went to work some more on comedy projects with his friends. For those of you who don’t know Dustin, my youngest son (24), is an aspiring improvisational comic. He is taking improv classes at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater and works as a production assistant for the Food Network for his day job. In the afternoon I met Dustin in the city to attend an off-Broadway musical comedy called "Walmartopia" which recently opened. Anybody familiar with the small town USA battles against Wal-Mart (like Saranac Lake) would love the show. A great set, excellent music and a storyline I could really identify with made for great entertainment.
Monday I took a long walk around Prospect Park and down part of Flatbush Ave. It is healthy to get a view of Brooklyn city life. It certainly makes me appreciate where I live. Dustin loves it though and I understand why. It is where he can pursue the career he desires.
Tuesday was a big day. I would be part of the audience of the "Iron chef" TV show on the Food Network. This is where Dustin is working so I went into Manhattan with him, got to see his cubicle where he works when he isn’t on the set or in the control room. After I went through the audience orientation and signed all sorts of releases saying I wouldn’t tell you anything about the show (I know what the "secret" ingredient is so eat your heart our "Iron Chef" fans) Dustin pulled me aside telling me his boss wanted to meet me. We traveled through a labyrinth of hallways and ended up in the control room where, as he describes it, "The magic happens." The producer was a very nice lady who gushed how wonderful Dustin is, "He’s intelligent, he’s proactive, he’s wonderful…." How could a father disagree? It is really quite nice to hear how wonderful your children are. I finally worked my way back to the audience just as they entered the TV studio where the show is taped. It was a blur of red, purple and blue lights with dry ice billowing out more fog than a fall morning on Saranac Lake. We were led to our chairs and told not to move. Around us it was a bee hive of activity with assistants, grips, directors, chefs, sous chefs, the "chairman," Kevin, Alton (if you watch the show you know who I’m talking about), and many others running around making things happen. If I heard, "Quiet ladies and gentleman we need quiet," once I heard it fifty times. Soon the taping started…I’d tell you more but you have to watch the show to get the full story.
Nearly five hours later the show was wrapped up and the announcement was made that they would take a one hour lunch break before they taped the next show. They tape two shows a day. Whew…it was fast paced and fun. After a tour of the studio I headed out to get some lunch and planned to meet Dustin at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater for one of his improv shows that evening. I wandered around the city hanging out in a couple of parks and visiting bookstores. I got to the theater early and got a front row seat. The form of improvisation that Dustin’s group was working on is called the "Harold". It is long form improv and considerably different from what you see on the popular TV improv show "Whose line is it anyway?" It was fascinating but to be honest I had a hard time following some of it. Dustin was really pleased with the group’s performance and I take great pleasure in watching him work on his craft.
I finally got home late Wednesday and am busy catching up. What little time I have had to reflect has me thinking what wonderful people I have been fortunate to work with whether it is Lebanon, United Kingdom or domestically. Lebanon is special because the people have such a challenging time dealing with security. They helped me understand that no matter what happens life goes on and you can’t live life scared. We may well be going back a couple of times a year over the next few years and I can now say I look forward to it.
If you want to look at some pictures follow this link: http://share.shutterfly.com
Regards,
Jack