I have been away from this blog for the past couple of months because I was busy getting married! Finally after 4 years with Youhanna, we decided to tie the knot and held two spontaneous and simple weddings, one in Lebanon and one in London a month later.
When considering honeymoon ideas, we thought that since we spend more time outside Lebanon than inside it (and although Lebanon spends more time inside my head than I spend in it), it was legitimate to have a honeymoon in Lebanon rather than abroad.
So where in Lebanon? Everywhere! And this is how our honeymoon ties into my PhD research. One of Safia Saadeh’s barriers to social integration is geographical immobility. The Civil War restructured an unofficial physical geographical segregation in such a way that every major social group now dominates at least one area: The Druze in the Shouf, the Shiites in the Bekaa and South Lebanon, the Sunnis in Tripoli and Sidon and parts of North Lebanon, and the Maronites in Metn, Keserwan and parts of North Lebanon. Three decades of geographical segregation led to the growth of young individuals isolated from their counterparts in other social groups (Saadeh, 1992 pp. 79-81).
Through the Explorations and Expressions Corner research methods I carried out as part of this PhD, I was able to identify that very few participants across Lebanon have traveled around Lebanon, and know more than the area that they are living in or were brought up in. This denotes that the barrier that Safia Saadeh wrote about in 1992 on a theoretical level, is still applicable today on a practical level.
Throughout my work with Uscreates, we try to ‘practice’ what we ‘preach’, and to place ourselves in the shoes of the target audience. We have even initiated the Uscreates Comfort Zone blog, where we try out things that we expect target audiences to change about their lives for the better. For example we would try to do 30 minutes of physical activity a day, or eat 5 pieces of fruit and vegetables a day.
So going back to having a honeymoon in Lebanon, this gave me the perfect opportunity to move myself outside my comfort zone, and move myself around other foreign areas in Lebanon; areas I have never been to before. The rules were:
1. We have one week
2. We can’t plan in advance
3. We can’t go to a place we have already visited before. So Tripoli, Tyr, Baalbeck, Beirut and both of our hometowns were out of the question of course, but we had the green light anywhere else!
We visited the Ministry of Tourism in Hamra, and explained our plan. The staff were very helpful, and gave us a bag full of leaflets, brochures, booklets and interactive CDs showing the multitude of touristic destinations around Lebanon – but no road maps. So we borrowed a Satellite Navigation device from a friend, hired a car, and hit the road! The Sat Nav backed up with lots of stops to ask very friendly residents for directions worked magically! We arrived at every destination with no trouble at all, and realised that lack of knowledge around roads and regions was definitely not a barrier to discover new places in Lebanon.
The map below shows the routes we took and the regions we visited. Because the journey was unplanned, our itinerary doesn’t look very intuitive: From Faqra down to Mtein and further down to Maasser El Shouf, and then back up to Taanayel and back down again to Jezzine. It actually looks pretty damn stupid! But it was fun. And although it meant driving more than four hours every day, that was the best part; going past roads we’ve never been on and seeing beautiful scenes and villages we never knew existed in Lebanon.
We spent only one day in every place, and stayed overnight in places we found out about through a brochure we had from the Dhiafee Programme. This is a programme that compiles a database of low-cost temporary accommodations around the country; from guest houses, bed and breakfasts and convents to eco-villages, charities and family homes that have an extra room to rent out! The Dhiafee Programme was an ingenious service and all the information and contact details were up to date.
So here are a few highlights of what we found out from this road trip:
• All the residents we came across from wherever in the country, were equally and genuinely nice and helpful! Of course we didn’t expect people to be hostile, but we did think they might not be very welcoming, as we did look quite foreign in most places we visited. The first questions were always: ‘Which region are you from?” and this question of course helped them locate the social group we belong to. But apart from that, and surprisingly, most people were very happy and proud that we were interested in their region, and were wonderful at pointing out all the pleasurable things we could do and see to enjoy our stay to the fullest. We shared meals, drinks and stories with them, and promised to visit again.
• Lebanon is tiny in surface area but enormous in diversity. We traveled short distances, 15-20 minutes sometimes between two villages to find that they are completely different in different ways and that they signpost that difference quite clearly: More churches or mosques suddenly, people dressed differently, different dialects, different photos and flags of political leaders and parties, etc… The shift was so sudden that sometimes in one hour we would have driven through villages denoting at least four different social groups.
• Some regions obviously receive more attention than others from governmental and non-governmental organisations. This was evident either in terms of regeneration, development, education or environmental and cultural preservation and restoration. We felt this was a real shame as it reflects non-equal opportunities controlled by varying influences that political leaders from different regions have.
All in all this was a wonderful learning experience that I will repeat in the future. There are a lot more places to discover especially in the north and south east regions. I would definitely recommend it to others, and I’m happy to share the leaflets and brochures I have from The Ministry of Tourism!
