| 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.
| 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. | |
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... |
