Only on a Friday ...

Beirut .... that unfathomable yet beautiful city, home to my son for the 

time being, is driving me crazy.  

Just when things were going so well for son at uni; he's evacuated by 

the Jordanian Embassy along with two hundred other Jordanian students, 

as chaos runs riot, loud and menacing, through the streets of this beloved 

of cities. 

He ducked and dived his way from Hamra to the AUB campus on Bliss, 

on that fateful Friday, as the sound of gunfire and loud explosions ricocheted 

from building to building.  He chatted with friendly masked gunmen along 

the way who guided their passage to safety, as bullet casings crunched underfoot.  

He would have to wait a whole day along with a crowd of Jordanians that had 

swelled to nearly two hundred, some anxious, some panicked, some blase, 

some sleeping and still others just enjoying the fleeting moment of freedom 

from academic toil and the stress of exams.  Nightfall, and the all clear was 

given to board the four buses that would leave in convoy northwards towards 

Tripoli; ironically the scene of some of the worst clashes in this current bout 

of political bullying, and then a long drive from one end of Syria to the other, 

homeward bound.

 

Twenty four hours later, starving, worn out but safe, son arrives home with 

a story to tell, leaving behind unfinished end of year exams, and starlit nights 

playing guitar on the veranda.  No-one knows what the outcome will be .... 

this never ending story that is Lebanon.   

Bellapais Abbey

So I shall put those thoughts on hold for a while and think of pleasant 

memories of a recent trip to northern Cyprus, another divided land, dotted 

with a rich cultural heritage of monasteries, castles, abbeys and mosques 

.... so calm and tranquil ... and ponder about the madness of men and their 

creative genius so easily destroyed by a flick of a pen, a remote control or a 

wagging tongue ... J

Bellapais Abbey

St. Hilarion Castle, Kyrenia

outside the courtyard of the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque, Famagusta