Reflections on Visiting Beirut

Reflections on Visiting Beirut Lebanon is a beautiful mountainous country, with ample amount of nature at every corner that you turn. I visit the Harissa, 400 meters above sea level of Beirut. This is a Lebanese Christian pilgramage site, devote to the Virgin Mary. We climb up winding mountain roads to the Mary pilgramage spot. There are Christians from various sects. I even occasionally notice an Iranian Muslim woman wondering around the holy site, since Mary is a saint in their tradition of Islam as well.

We arrive to this mountain which is devoted to Mary, the mother of Jesus in the early afternoon 640 meters above the altitude of the sea, to a Lebanese Pilgrimage site called Harissa. In order to walk up to the stature, you need to walk around a winding path way 8 stories in the air. From there you can view all of the pine trees in the distance leading down towards the city of Beirut and neighboring cities near the city. The Mediterranean is in the distance, going until what looks like infinity.

A top the mountain my father and eye lightly pray and feel the healing energy of Mother Mary on the Mountain. I think to myself “this is surely a powerful spiritual area, I wander if it a fusion of all the 100s of thousands of people who have came to pray hear as well as the loving, warm, northing energy of Mary. Mary stands their majestically, with her head looking up to the sky, to god, the sun shinig above her, making any shot I can take with my canon, blinding the clarity of the details on her face. As if the sun and the statue were one and the same image, showing the shining luminosity of Mother Mary a top the mountain.

I wonder if before Christianity there may have been shamans or animistic believers who cam up the to this spot to pray as well, to be closer to their creator? I wonder if their creator is my creator? I wonder how different I may actually be than them in the essential nature of human-ness any way. So often and easily humans get lost in their religion, being the only right one, and hence a need to destroy other who’s religion is different than their becomes present.

Poem
By the hostel in Gemayze
The motorcycle engine revs so loud
That you can feel it turbines rumbling
through the concrete of the bridge
and into your bones, the loud boom
almost exploding ear drums.

That evening I went home to my youth Hostel, called Saifi Gardens, in the Gemayze neighborhood of Beirut, right by the Martyrs square and downtown souk. This area, which is south of Martyrs square has traditionally became a Christian area, while areas that are north of the Martyr square have come Muslim. Of course there is mixing in of where people live, but these neighborhoods and their religious constitution and majority are of a result of wars.

Lebanese Food is Divinely Delicious
The following day I eat lunch with family members, visit the American University of Beirut, where my cousin studies engineering and then in the afternoon go swimming by the Pigeon Rock. This is a well-known site in Beirut. We take a group service car, which coast around a 1$ for each person, based on how far out of the city you’re going. We walk underneath a guard railing and find a rock, where people are diving off of it into the fairly cool water of the Mediterranean.

My father and I visited my uncle Jano’s cool music festival in downtown Beirut, and even got to see live Lebanese traditional music and rap performance. I was able to meet his wife and my first cousin, Jack who is a really cool kid too. I even got to meet Jack Kassabian, who with me, Raffi and Ara Kassabian, will be continuing the Kassabian Lineage and name into the future.

My father and I would meet family during the day, and than go home to our hostel, Saifi Gardens. This hostel, also served as an Arabic café, Shisha lounge, café and restaurant. Every morning, we’d eat a life changing Foul Madamas. This is a hearty breakfast of Chick Peas and foul beans, which are cooked slowly for hours. Than salt, pepper and paprika is added, with some green pepper and olive oil at the very end. It is served with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and Olives and eaten with pita bread in your hand. For a meal, it is a deep spiritual experience or at least a gastronomical orgasm. I think I just made up that work!

Em Naizi, who is the mother in law of Mac, the man who runs the hostel, makes life changing Lehmujna, which is like a middle eastern pizza with out the cheese but meat instead. She makes both the bread and puts the meat on fresh with every breakfast order. She lets it sizzle on both sides of the bread on the sage, which is a traditional Lebanese inverted bowl, used to heal bread and Markouk, which is a kind of thin bread sandwich. Easily reaching my top five meals I’ve eaten in my life. Its so healthy yet so delicious.

Another favorite place of my father and mine was surely, Bourjahamoud, which is traditionally an Armenian neighborhood of Beirut. It was settled by Armenians, after the Genocide, they walked through the Syrian Deserts to Syria and later came to settle in this neighboorhood. Some of these homes, were they same ones that were built by people when they straight from the marches, or as we call it in Armenian "Chartera"

We’d spend hours on end, just eating Shawarmas, buying Soujouk and Basterdma and drinking Sarkis Juice. Our stay in Lebanon was short, only four days. But we were able to see many things, and most importantly spend a considerable amount of time with my family. This was the first time I met everyone there. I always feel blessed when I can meet people who have the same blood running through their veins as I do.

This trip with my dad was a true blessing to connect with family on the other side of the world, my next stop is Jordan. My trip has been made, I met my family, and can’t wait to see them again. Next stop, Amman, Jordan airport, than to the South Acaba… we’ll see...