Of LCACs and Marines...

On a particular morning a particular American looking type was seen riding his beloved Seven bike for what would be the last time...
in a long time...

I wore my Livestrong shirt...My pretty Fox racing bib...and took my time to think through a serious phone call I had at 5.
It was my sister...and I had some new information to throw into the mix...
The mix wasn’t getting better...

I then proceeded back home after and hour and a half of cranking around Dbayeh... The American’s were staging and the Marines were nowhere in sight...
It was all Lebanese troops on the outside... Parked cars were lined up on the bridge over to the military base...

The road was closed by a big khaki colored truck down in Dbayeh... so the loops I turned were set at my speed... it was heaven without the cars.

I saw two riders swinging around the other side of the road near Chopsticks as I passed the ugly office building that sits near the stadium that is under construction....

I thought it was Zaher and his Girlfriend...One was on a Scott bike but as I pulled up I saw the other was on a Trek. These were new people and the guy was spinning his legs at an amazing clip with his knees out like a damned penguin. SAD! He could move the bike when he wanted but I knew I could take him if I wanted on a sprint. So, I sat back and rolled along with them.

They would pull their wheel up to my back wheel doing what is a cardinal sin in group riding which meant I kept having to jump or slide back behind to prevent any accidents. They were constantly sprinting it out and changing the speed. They can't have been doing intervals it was just pretending to race me on my bike. I got bored and angry.

After three laps I peeled off and told them goodbye tacking a route back past the Medco stations and the three Gasoline and Oil dumps.

The ride up through downtown was haunting.
I wanted to take pictures of how empty it was but didn’t have the heart. The picture of Jibran Twainey is stuck in my mind... I knew it would as I stared at it...empty democracy...empty politics...empty unused oportunity....
Then I turned to my left and there was the blue domed mosque closed and memorial to Harriri deserted.

I pulled up that hill just past Starco that used to beat my legs into submission. I clicked over it without any alarm or abandon I just spun in my seat and rose over the climb past the medical building. I hated that I had to swerve around the demolition job they were doing to repair the sidewalk along AUB. The ground was dark and the terra cotta that is common to Lebanon was not present. This was not native soil!

I rode up past Smith’s grocery shop and down to my apartment building. I wheeled the bike in on the back and pushed it into the elevator as I had done in calmer times. I knocked on the door and Abed answered asking me to wait. After a pause I swung the bike in the door after Abed gave me permission to enter.

His wife didn’t have her Hijab on and she was getting ready to go back to the hospital..They were quite worried about their son.
Haider as he will be called was born at the beginning of this war... His age will be its anniversary. His mother ruptured her membranes and suffered a nosocomial infection post operation and the poor little guy is stuck in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
(Spelled NICU but said...NICK U).

There he will stay for four more days... That was my last thought as I rode up that hill... the decision was made...

I told Abed to drop of his worried wife and told him to come right back rather than deal with the Daman (social insurance in Lebanon).

He left and I took a shower and cooked the last ma’anek I had.... Some last supper...
I worked over the thoughts in my head...the bamiya I had soaked last night... how good they would have been for dinner.

How do I put it to this guy?....
What do I say?....

I laid the stack of money on the table...Just enough for 6 months rent and the water and expenses. There was a bit left over but that was it...
My shirts flapped lazily on the clothes line outside... all of the other clean clothes were a mound on the chair in the bedroom. I pulled down the sheet we had put up to keep the bedroom “theirs” if I needed to use the toilet at night...

Then I waited.

I sat down stuck in pause with my “go bag ready in the corner.”
My mind and blod froze...

He didn’t knock he simply rolled the knocker that made a scraping sound on the door. I let him in.
He asked me right out what was up.
I said sit down...
We are going to talk...
I’m going to tell you everything I have on the situation right now...

I felt that cold icy feeling that I knew well in the Emergency room. I was clicking out emotionally. This was going to be brutal to receive...

The facts rolled out slowly and I checked him over after each to see that he understood. I could see he felt his lower jaw drawing up into the back of his skull... He would feel it scraping and sliding horizontally until he was certain that he couldn’t breathe.
But he did breathe... and would keep on breathing.

I taught him what I could and tried to hand him the keys... He was shattered and took off with the money to visit his family. I pray I get the chance to get him out.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and marched the familiar track back to AUB waving Goodbye to a curious Abu Ali. That tanned jokester who used to make the most profane comments in the Dukan’e would be the last I would see of the guys who put a human face my neighborhood. I was still out of it emotionally so I smiled and waved.

I walked up past Arne’s door and phoned on my mobile. I had to tell him the bike would be with him... He was floored... Should I go? How long will it be?
I don’t know the answer to these questions...questions all the Lebanese have asked me lately... I know how it is now. I know where it will head given certain contingencies and I am seeing certain paths close off...

Bouncing into the faculty I didn’t run into anyone I wanted to see... There was just Dr. Nuwayhid.
He tried to make the slick comment "Do you want to help us?"
It made me IRATE and SICK to my stomach....
I grit my teeth and opened up my outdoor voice at his little meeting....
They got a bit of a jolt....
“I TRIED TO HELP”
THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE WOULDN’T HAVE IT
THEY WOULD LOVE THIS TO BECOME A HUGE CRISIS
THEY WANT TO BECOME THE ONE’S TO SAVE THE ARAB VERSION OF DAFUR. I CANNOT RELEASE ALL THAT I KNOW ABOUT THIS OVER A BLOG AND WOULD NEVER DREAM OF MAKING A STATEMENT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION. SO I WENT MUTE....
“BUT I WAS INFORMED I COULDN’T”
“RATHER THAN BURDEN YOU PEOPLE HERE I AM BEING PULLED FROM LEBANON”
I turned and walked away... and heard one of them comment that I should talk to BBC
I wouldn't talk to BBC... They needed to know that I wasn't walking out on them it was THEY WHO HAD WALKED AWAY FROM ME!

Abed’s wife was in the hospital and I had to drop off the keys...
It took ages to get her away from her son. She asked where Abed was...
Idiot that I am I told her the whole truth.

“Why is he going to Ouzai? His Family doesn’t need him RIGHT THIS MINUTE! Why are you giving me the keys? What is going on?”
The questions came out fast and desperate...I was still running ice in my veins...I said nothing other than he was busy sorting out papers with the Daman... and that I had to give him the keys.
“Are you going?”
“Abed knows what’s going on.... talk to your husband”
“Bye and God be with you Rayan” I got this frigid feeling that she would be a KIA....
Her round face and plump little Cherub expression was marred by the wide eyed toddler look.
She was a child waking up in a dream where she was falling. All there was around her was an abyss and the wind told her that she was moving down fast.

I dropped down four floors and spoke to those people at the desk in front of the Laboratory.
“Is Fadi around?”
“Nope he doesn’t get in Until 4”
“Are you certain?”
The greasy haired idiot bolted back the same reply and leaned back trying to show me his “I OWN YOU SECRETARY LOOK”
So I whipped out my phone and Fadi answered. I looked back at our pug little grease bag and whipped him the “Oh, so YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE A BIG $H^T” look.
Fadi came up and I handed him the locker key...He may need those supplies...and he is the best person to distribute them.
We walked back to the faculty so I could show him the locker. Then came a march up to Bliss House. I got a grilled chicken sandwich on a sesame philly roll, of course no Mayo.

I humped out to that crazy intersection below the Medical school and down to that strange little drop where the trees seem to hold up the street before it plummets down toward Clemenceau. Fadi was angry I paid for the meal he insisted upon flagging down a cab and I hopped in. I told the driver to go to the spot where they are evacuating American’s in Dbayeh but first I wanted to grab some water... I spent all but my 10000 Lira in Lebanon...I find it STRANGE how there is always 100000 that comes out of Lebanon

I got up to the line at around noon and presented my passport. The US is currently doing first come first serve. I sat down in a plastic chair and readied for a long wait. Then I saw him...
My first DOC!
Yup, this was a Marine! The others were silent movers saying nothing this one noticed I was checking my blood sugar.
“Sir”(they always address you in the most formal fashion) “ Are you an Insulin Dependent Diabetic?” I could hear the southern drawl comming out smooth and caramel like maple syrup on pancakes...Wow it had been ages...

So that is how I got fast-tracked on the ship. I met a few officials I had been in contact with on the way out and was then to be loaded on the LCAC...

For the un-initiated...The LCAC is a FRIGGIN BIG HOVERCRAFT... and YES I HAVE PICTURES!

I was escorted down to the hovercraft after registration on the manifest. This battle gray craft with its deflated skirt was slouching up on the shore. Into what was a slapped together aluminum matchbox we were tossed.

I sat there next to piles and piles of Baggage. YES they had told everyone ONLY 15Kg but of course the Lebanese don’t understand that the rules ACTUALLY DO APPLY TO THEM.
I had wished the US military would just dump these piles of things for people that are too ignorant considerate and haughty to understand that the 15kg is not random or arbitrary.

A QUICK SCALE MEASUREMENT WOULD SUFFICE then just toss the other garbage out. You pick what you toss but you only get 15Kg in a backpack for each PERSON…by collecting kids you do not collect extra baggage!
The purpose of course it is to keep the ship light enough to sail properly and to prevent issues in weight and adverse weather in choppers.

Lucky for these idiots things were unremarkable but the next time I hope they go down with their baggage!

The clatter of the blades as the loaded the last of us up in what were tin boxes with benches was not as bone rattling as we had been led to believe. To be honest the ride was silky smooth. The shadow of the ship and the black pall on the window told us we had arrived…

THE USS WHIDBEY ISLAND…

We slid up the ramp at the back of the ship and walked down ramps to get to the main hold (which I also have pictures of). This being part one and me being so dead tired I shall fill you in on the rest of my trip and the Cypriot adventure stage of Otter’s chronicles tomorrow….
My prayers are with the people….My sympathy as well…My stern conviction is that the professional THEIVES AND CROOKS who conduct this flippant con game called politics will continue to steal from those who are most deprived.
May they suffer in this life far more than they can manage.
May they endure endless moments of want may they realize at every instance their existence is futile.... and... may God see fit to deny them the ability to continue!