Trips and Tribulations

This past weekend was something of a milestone for me. I had my first visitors (Lily and Trevor, up from Beirut for a village weekend) and I rented my first car (which we used to go to a sad little grotto in the next town over, the neither sad nor little Barouk Cedar Reserve, and the palace at Beiteddine). Driving in Lebanon was surprisingly easy (although granted, it was a Sunday) and the feeling of liberation was tremendous. It was money well spent!

I was coming off of this lovely weekend on Monday when they asked me at school to bring in 2 passport pictures for my work visa. I was a bit puzzled, seeing as I had already given them passport photos (and my passport!) for this very reason on November 3rd, but brought them anyway. They then ushered me into a car and we drove to the gendarmerie at Beiteddine, which looks just like you would imagine a Lebanese bureaucratic center to look like...a courtyard piled with construction remnants and cast-off desks, offices crowded with people and papers, and stamps for everything. I (still) don't speak Arabic, and my handler from the school only speaks broken French, but I did understand when they pulled out a brand new work visa application for me...nothing had been done since I turned in my passport! They then told me it would be 20 days to process my visa, which means that my tentative "Christmas in the Netherlands/Paris" plans won't come to fruition.

I was beyond frustrated, and so I used the only weapon in my arsenal suitable for confrontation with unjust authority. Reader, I cried. I didn't burst into tears--that wouldn't have suited the occasion. Rather, it was more of a silent protest wherein a single tear would slip down my cheek every 2 minutes or so. They had the effect of everyone (including the commandant) trying to pacify me, which probably meant empty promises on their part--but at least it got me noticed. This makes me sound manipulative, but in my defense it was 2/3 genuine emotion and frustration and 1/3 self-awareness. I was really excited about seeing Molly and Edwin, not to mention Amsterdam, Paris, and the Vermeers!

It's another lesson in inshallah, which means God willing. Maybe I will get my passport back in 10 days and be able to buy a last-minute ticket, or perhaps it is the will of the Almighty that I spend Christmas in the Levant. We shall see.