Dancing and Ayman

Well after my last blog and the long silence in between I figure perhaps I need to tell you some more cheery news. Hence my two topics of choice today: Dancing and Ayman.

First, on dancing: Let me let you in on a little secret. Despite, or perhaps in spite of the war, Beirut is a fabulous city. The city is stunning and the bars here are second to none, and ever since the first night of the cease fire when we cautiously ventured out into a street of bars and restaurants, where other people were also nervously coming back out on to the streets, the bars have been pumping. Any night of the week you can head down to an area full of style and glamour and fun and fantastic music and dance the night away. Now, given the demands of work I can’t confess to doing that every night… but I have indeed managed to get in a fair bit of dancing in since the cease fire came into effect and have been truly admiring this fantastic side of Beirut. It definitely is right up there in terms of happening cities of the world in every respect!

Second, on Ayman: Ayman is our driver. A colleague the other day said he is like a caricature. His face is so full of character and so is his personality. He’s a little bit crazy and a lot funny. He doesn’t speak a lot of English but is a determined teacher of Arabic, each day teaching me something new like the different between Hamam and Hamam (toilet vs pigeon). He jokes all the time and plays the music loud in the car and insists we dance to it and takes me grocery shopping and runs around helping me find things and jokes about turning me in to the military checkpoints so I can’t leave the country but instead stay. The thing I love about my trips is the wonderful people I meet and the small daily life things like going shopping with someone crazy and sharing jokes and all those simple things and good people and friendships that just start to develop when normally I am about to leave. There are lots of them here as everywhere of which Ayman is just one very amusing example.

And on that note, in true form, its time to leave… The good side of which of course is I get to come home to all the good people at home and enjoy some simple daily life pleasures in my own town. I leave here on Wednesday, spending some time in Jordan for both work and pleasure (work meetings followed by long weekend at Dead Sea Spa resort… life’s tough sometimes, but hey I earned it). Will be home around Wednesday 14th I think. Looking forward to seeing you all, especially my bro's new house. Not that he ever reads this blog...