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Damascus
I am back in Damascus, Syria,
after a journey around the country that led me throught
Lebanon.
Some of you were worried
following the events in the States. There are absolutly
no trouble here. Bush thanked the syrian president for
its support (which made people feel a bit better here),
nobody points the Palestiniens, Jordan and Egypt are on
the US side.
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I won t go to Israel
(eventhough i will be a couple km away in the dead
sea and the red sea) and the more i think about
it, the more i balance to skip Soudan and Ethiopia,
by flying from Egypt to Kenya. Thoses are tuff countries
to travel through, unstable, very poor, and i only
give myself two months to travel down Africa. I
am not a hero, i am just on holidays...
So far, so very good.
The funny thing of touring around a country is that
you end up meeting the same people 2 or 3 times
here and there.
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Lebanon was a really nice
experience. I met Zouzou and Danny, two lebanese brothers
my age that had just terminated there military service.
They really live in another dimension. It is really hard
to define Beirut as you can t compare it to anything.
It is a total mess with 3 armed groups (Lebanese army,
Syrian army and Hezbollah) doing there own stuffs. Christians
are leaving remotly in the beautiful area of Jounieh while
moslems are in Beirut. Some commercials are only in French,
others only in Arabic. It s like people are cohabitating
but coming from different ages . You wonder what the rules
are. Danny and Zouzou are driving since they are 16 whithout
a driving licence an antique fiat whose weels are so used
that can almost see through. They can t find jobs and
they dream to emigrate to France. I felt people have very
little hope in the future and only their incredible faith
in god (i only hang out with christians) was keeping them
from sinking.
I was in a snack in Beirut
when a lebanese girl sitting next to us got a call from
London. She was working in the London stock exchange and
she was informed that there had been a crack because a
the events in NYC. Zouzou advised me to postpone my departure
for a day to wait and see who was involved. So i did,
to follow the news on TV.
People here intend to think
that Ben Ladin is not involved...
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