The Wayfaring Wordhack

This post brought to you thanks to mallorys_camera, who has told me more than once that my ordinary might hold interest for those not living in this country.  Herewith a little anecdote of everyday Lebanese life.

What is a person to do when she needs to buy groceries but has neither US dollars or Lebanese lira, only euro?  If you answered "pay with her credit card," you would be wrong.  After the series of crises Lebanon has undergone and most notably the collapse of Lebanese banking, no one in their right mind would pay with a credit card* here for fear of the official exchange rate and banking fees.

The first thing she would do would be to drive to one of the many, many currency exchange bureaus who operate with the black market rate.**  However, when this outing happens at 3:00p.m. on 31 December, our intrepid shopper finds the bureau closed.  What to do, what to do?

She calls a freelance money exchange operator (broker?), someone who deploys his couriers on scooters throughout the city!  This particular individual speaks impeccable English (buy hey, many Lebanese do) and works all the time with the staff at the French embassy.

OK, the "she" business is getting old....

So I send the broker a WhatsApp message*** detailing that I need 300euro in USD and 100 euro in Lebanese pounds.  Pronto. At the supermarket in a neighborhood near me.  

Deal!" he promptly responds. 

"When will he be here?"

"30 minutes tops. Promise."

"OK, I'm going to start my shopping.  Have him text me when he arrives. I'm wearing sweats, glasses, and my hair is in a braid." (Yes, I am glamorous; glad you noticed.)

"Deal."

Thirty minutes later, I finish my shopping and position my cart by the checkout stands.  Just then my phone dings.

"He's outside by Starbucks."

I go out and start looking around.  I feel a bit like someone about to make some kind of illicit deal in public.  I almost wave to one man I think might be the courier, but it's not him. No one is by Starbucks that isn't a customer...

And then, there he is; short smiling man with a bulging bandoleer bag, who makes a beeline for me. 

He hands me a massive wad of 100,000 notes-- millions of lira--which I am not going to stand there and count, so I shove it in my purse.  I give him 100 euro.  I then give him 300, and we count it together.  I feel like the dollar amount he gives me is pretty high for the rate I am used to, but I haven't checked it in a while so say nothing.  After a "thank you" and cheerful goodbye, I head back inside to pay for my groceries.

A couple of hours later, I see I have a missed call from the broker. I call him back, and he asks me how much money I gave the courier.  300 for the dollars and 100 for the pounds, I say. 

"Oh, you asked for the equivalent of 330 euro."

Oy!  Indeed I had. Typo.  Oh, how embarrassing.  But the courier hadn't said anything!

The broker, so kind and understanding, "Don't worry!  These things happen!" ****

We agree his courier will swing by the embassy and pick up the missing 30 euro from J at work.

Lebanon is a very service-oriented country. :P

_____________________________

* Online banking payment options like Revolut are starting to become a thing, and J has an account he now uses for doing the groceries. I, as a US citizen, without US residency or US bank account couldn't set one up through my French bank without lots of hoops and paperwork.

** Snippet courtesy of Wikipedia entry on Lebanese pound: From December 1997 through January 2023, the exchange rate was fixed at LL 1,507.50 per US dollar.^[4] However, since the 2020 economic crisis in Lebanon, exchange at this rate was generally unavailable, and an informal currency market developed with much higher exchange rates.^[5] On 1 February 2023, the Central Bank reset the currency peg at LL 15,000 per US dollar.^[6] By mid-March 2023, the "parallel market" rate had fallen to LL 100,000 per dollar. (Today's rate is 89,700 LL to 1 USD) The term "parallel market" sounds so nice, doesn't it?

***Hardly anyone (businesses included) uses the regular phone lines because they are way too expensive.  WhatsApp is where it's at.

****Actually, the first time I used his services, HE misread the amount I wanted and brought less dollars. :P

This has been a crazy month.  I thought to have some downtime between the end of my drawing time and the start of my painting class, time I could spend continuing with my drawing practice, improving and cementing what I learned.  But life had other plans.  I got exactly one drawing in.

With the two Easters celebrated here in Lebanon and Ramadan, the school attended by our kids' friends was out for three weeks.  So, we were inundated with invitations and activities. We went to a big Easter egg hunt in a park in the mountains, fossil hunting, lots of informal playdates, dinner with friends, and on and on.  And our kids worked several times on the fort they have built with friends at a nearby creek.  We also loaned (and are still loaning) our car to J's Lebanese cousin, G, because her son is using hers to attend his internship. I periodically have to borrow our car back and that weirdly makes me feel like I can't because I don't want to put G out.  

I also had crowns put on my top two front teeth by the most unprofessional dentist I have ever visited in my life.  It was a process so long and painful as to become almost comedic in its sheer badness.  What should have taken a week, maybe two, ended up taking a month.  The dentist said, "See you in 20 years," but I fear we will have to see him sooner. Not for dentistry--that will never happen again--but because he is a spearfisher and J is a spearfisher, and the two of them plan on spearfishing together. And the dentist would like to invite us out to dinner at a good fish restaurant he knows. Maybe I can ask J to get himself invited in the family's stead while the rest of us are in France for the summer.

If it isn't enough to have to fix my teeth, I have to get new glasses, after only a year of having these.  Progressive lenses are expensive! And the fact that I have to wear the glasses all the time now means that I am getting to where I can't stand the weight of my current frames.  My nose is constantly sensitive, and I feel my nasal passages are being pinched, meaning it isn't so easy to breathe.  So, I sprung for some reallllllly light frames. Only I didn't ask the price first.  OUCH.  But I really think they will be better--and I am stuck with glasses for the rest of my life--so I went ahead and got them.  They should be ready next week.

In the past month, our Internet went out twice, a week each time. And of course, my online painting class started just when I really needed access to the Internet.  

So, I lay all that groundwork to bring up the thing that was really hard.

Amidst all that bustle, not one but two families in our circle of friends here had their kids (one seven and the other four) diagnosed with brain tumors.  The 7-yo ( a little Lebanese girl) is reacting well to medication. She'll have another MRI on the 3rd to find out what the next steps are. But the 4-yo (an American boy) had to have emergency surgery. It went amazingly well, and I was able to donate blood for him.* They are still waiting on the pathology report.

This is such a hard, terrifying thing for the families to go through. I cannot begin to imagine the fear that gripped (and still grips) them.  It seems silly and self-centered to say how we have been affected, too, but yes, it *has* affected us and our kids. It makes it hard to be in a good state to get things done.   

We are going back to France for the summer in less than a month now (eep). I need to get myself together so I can prepare for that and take care of some remaining logistics.  It is going to be a quieter, more relaxed time there, but we already have two birthdays lined up--one a camping trip--plus visits to the south to J's family.  Also, I know from experience, there are going to be other things to either do or field, which for my personality is exhausting.  Still, I am looking forward to being a bit of a hermit when permitted.  Also, we travel before my painting class ends, so I will have a week of that to do in France. One of the logistics is figuring out the Internet situation.  Do we get a router for 3 months and then resign or try to do everything off a mobile phone data subscription?



________________

* I don't know if I already blogged about this--what stays in my head as something I would like to blog about and what actually makes it into pixels is hard to keep track of--but giving blood in Lebanon is a nightmare.  I tried to give before, only to be told I didn't have enough blood.  When I asked what I could do about that, the answer was nothing. I then, a week later during a personal blood test, asked a lab tech (a young 20s something woman) why I couldn't donate, she told me, "Women are not desirable donors."  Ugh. 

Since then, I have also heard about people being turned away because the hospital didn't want European blood, another didn't want American blood. Just turn around and go home if you have ever been to Africa...

I have officially crocheted 4 more rows than I needed to on the cardigan.  Since I went down a size, I needed to do less rows (this will affect the overall length).  However, I am just going to go with it.   On the model the cardigan looks long enough, but I figure I have enough yarn to let my mistake stand without fear of running out now that I am making the smaller size; and the extra length is not going to bother me.

Time to start working the decreases...  This is where the pattern gets less straightforward, so yeah, paying attenion--especially from now on--is a very good thing.

I had mentioned the weather cooling off, but then it has been warm again, so warm we are back to sleeping with only a sheet.  So, if the weather doesn't snap to unseasonably cold, I'll get some good use out of this cardigan.

That is one of my tags here on my blog, and I really like looking back on the projects I have completed and thus tagged.  Today I browsed through them looking for a photo of the hooded jacket I made for Farmer Boy when he was a wee lad (I had forgotten what an absolute pain that was to make. I complained copiously about the hard-to-follow pattern and see my links to it no longer go to the right page; I was not the only one to remark on its lack of clarity).

Anyhow, I went looking for that project to show a friend a picture of the only garment I have ever crocheted because I am getting ready to make a cardigan for myself, and from the way I was talking it about it, she thought I was an experienced garment maker.  Sadly, not so.

The one I am going to attempt for myself is this one.  I hope it is as easy as the designer says it is.  I really like the colorway that the model is wearing, but unfortunately it was sold out.  I picked "chai latte" instead, and I hope it isn't too pale.

I shall commence soon for the weather, she is a-changing.

 I am still a little fried from my week, which not only involved an intensive workshop, but two nights of almost no sleep (yes, being an insomniac sucks), so this summary might not be very eloquent.  I'll break it down day-by-day and include some images.  It was, after all, a visually-rich experience.
( Art process this way )

In the meantime, I think I am going to customize myself some t-shirts with my mottos from this week, one of them being "Get Wonky!"

____________
* I think this is because H, my friend, made suggested changes to my intro email and said I should say "I am a self-taught artist"

**I wish I could say who the character was or what the video was, but I don't remember and am too tired to look it up now.  Are you as tired of reading "tired" as I am of typing it? :P

*** I hope to get the beginnings of a work plan in place concerning all my projects so that I can get down to brass tack.  Because I am going to do this!

I have dedicated as much time and energy as I could this past week to prepping for my workshop with children's book illustrator Maya Fidawi.  Her beautifully-colored work is fun and fresh, full of heart, whimsy and glimpses of Lebanese life.  I am very excited for the opportunity to learn from her.

( What I have been up to on the creative front this week )
_______________

* The ending is still pretty wobbly, and I don't know if I can fit in into a 32 page format; might have to go for 40, which is not the best for a Mrs. Newbie No-Name.

I have been talking for years about wanting to illustrate my children's stories, and I work on that goal as life allows.  Which sometimes is not very much.  It is too easy to push it aside in favor of more urgent things.

However, my friend H shared an announcement about an illustration workshop happening next week.  J* convinced me to sign up for it.  And I asked H to sign up, too.  I need handholding. :D

So now we are waiting to see if there is space for us.  If so, we will be in class Monday-Friday (35 hours) next week.  Should be a big boost to make headway with all these dreams.

_______________
* Whether H and I get to do it or not, I want to take a moment to praise and thank our husbands.  As soon as I started hemming and hawing over it, J said I definitely should.  Then he messaged L, H's husband, and said, "I can do childcare these three days, can you take the other two?"  We have six kids between us. :D

It is no small thing to have spouses who love and believe in you and actively seek to make your dreams happen.  H and I are so grateful for ours. <3

We could go with:  "Ti'Loup's Crocheted Baby Blanket, Five Year's Coming,"  OR "Well-Traveled Yarn," OR "Better Late Than Never"  OR "Ça Tombe à Pic"*

For each of my babies, I made at least one blanket, and I wanted them all to have one I crocheted.  I so loved Farmer Boy's blanket, featured here (hello, old Egyptian apartment!): 


that I wanted to reproduce the color-scheme for Ti'Loup.  These two boys were born 26 months apart (and their yarn bought in two different countries), so I was unable to get the exact weights and colors.  I had decided on a ripple pattern for Ti'Loup, but I did not get farther than half of the starting chain while we were in Egypt.   Yes, we did leave that country when Ti'Loup was 14 months old; why do you ask? :P  What, you don't think he was still a baby? ;)

So, international move, settling into a new home, farm life, et al, and the yarn was stuffed away in the craft room after only a few stitches added to the chain.  When, over four years later, we moved again, here to Lebanon, I re-packed all that yarn into our suitcases, justifying its presence because of how nicely it filled the empty spaces, firmly lodging our other belongings, aka necessities.  Oh, and because Ti'Loup was no longer an infant and I knew I needed the blanket to be a bit bigger if it was to be of any use to him, I also added any other yarn that might fit the color scheme and buy me a few extra rows.  Mixed bag of yarn in hand, I set out to find a pattern that would play nice with all the factors I was having to juggle for cohesiveness.  I settled on this rainbow baby blanket sampler.

In true me style, I decided upon arriving here that the Most Pressing Thing To Do was finish the dratted patiently-awaited blanket.  After many hours of crocheting, and a couple more of ripping out over 20 rows and re-doing them because I had inadvertently added stitches, we have a blanket!  It might be missing the pattern's border (yeah, don't have enough yarn to do that), but it is a bona fide usable, cuddle-worthy, cozy-making, memory-building blanket.

Sorry for the fuzziness; I zoomed to take the photo from the landing on the floor above:
  

And one with the not-so-little happy owner:


_________
* "In the Nick of Time" or "This is Timely" or "It's Opportune", take your translation pick, whichever conveys to you that it is freezing here in Lebanon and a lap blanket is a wonderfully useful thing to have about one's self.  

To paraphrase from The Princess Bride, There is too much; I'll sum up...about our trip to Oklahoma, that is.

For three weeks:

We rested, following the sun's rhythms pretty closely, not bothered at all by the yapping of coyotes, which is so much more melodious as it rolls down hills and creeks, echoing off oaks than is the barking and snarling of the wild dogs that run the concrete labyrinth of this city.


( Rest of the trip, this way... )

_________________________

* Has anyone else been in proximity to an armadillo? There was one funky smell in its wake, and we don't know if it was the creature itself or something it had come in contact with. It smelled like skunk and wild garlic/onions.

 I ate a fried grub tonight.  Precision: I ate half a fried grub tonight.  Julien had the other half.

I could have had a cricket. I should have eaten the cricket.

Apparently, it was only crunchy and not so...filled with goodness.

So, grubs.  Not terrible, and pas terrible, in the French sense.  Maybe better fresh and hot. Not likely to eat a plateful of them any time soon.