From a cafe in Beirut 2: Beside the Sea

Beirut’s so beautiful…the sun’s going down, the light’s warm but the heat’s not so bad…though unfortunately the smell of arghileh isn’t quite enough to cover bad whiffs coming off the sea. It’s a relief to be alone actually; and a real relief to be with my computer, scrambling to remember all the conversations.

Tea with mint has just arrived, and life feels so good…

At the end of the second official day, and the first day of cycling, I’m exhausted without even having biked at all – I’m beginning to be scared of the prospect of cycling, even though the wonderful Danish room-mate-doctors have said I’ll be able to after a couple of days. I’m scared that I can’t manage it, and anyway I’m having a lovely time just talking. We got to one village a good half an hour before the women (it seems our bus driver for one isn’t very good at following women – there’s a long way to go for our cause, if that is our cause, of which more later) and talked to so many people – it was tough because the colloquial language was a pain but really rewarding. (At one point I had another Lebanese translating from their dialect into Beiruti Arabic for me.)

Locals in these villages that we're passing through are unbelievably welcoming: the whole village seems to turn out and provide a display of traditional dancing from men and children (never women); speeches, food, drink, flowers...how much is encouraged by the PYO organisers and how much is spontaneous is difficult to tell - the welcomes are unfailingly warm (especially shy and giggling girls who cluster around when they find I speak Arabic) but it is very carefully planned. The speeches are beginning to get a bit samey already and we're not even into Syria.

Some girls have been hopping on the bus for stages so I've talked a lot about what Follow the Women is for everyone; how they heard of it, what made them come, what they think it's about, what it will achieve, what it's what they expected...there's a surprising range of answers, which includes dissension in the ranks: the loose definition of Follow the Women works for a catch-all feel-good factor but it's difficult to work out what we're achieving.

But we’re off to dinner in Byblos now, so I must save my interviews for another time. I don’t know how I’ll keep up…the ratio of talking to writing time is not promising. Perhaps the ankle was a blessing in disguise…