The south the south the beautiful south

Yesterday my friend S took four of us on a lovely tour of south Lebanon. S’s father escorted us much of the way, from just south of Saida all the way to the border at Adayssa, back up through Marjayoun and Hasbaya to Khiam, and back up again towards Saida for lunch at S’s maternal grandmother’s house.

The skies were moody – beautiful tone poems of cloud and grey.

I took this photograph looking a bit further into the valley that separated us from Beaufort Castle.

 

This photograph I took a bit further south, in the rolling hills just past the “enter in peace and safety” sign erected to mark the lands recovered after the 2000 Israeli withdrawal.

 

Naturally our day also included a sheep crossing .

This photograph requires a bit more explanation. My friend K, whose apartment view I posted in “Your goal the sky”, has a partner whose greatest fear is being killed by a piece of rebar, the lengths of steel used to reinforce concrete buildings.

Although I sympathize greatly with fear-of-death phobias (mine are more of the fear-of-deathly-embarrassment variety and generally involve staircases), the incredible specificity of this one struck me as funny.

As we continued southward, however, it struck us all that in Lebanon at least this might be a more logical fear. Between the shattered bridges and buildings we passed, their destroyed floors and supports hanging from odd angles, and the intensive reconstruction efforts, rebar is everywhere.

Rebar is everywhere – including in the back of this old station wagon. K took one look at this car and said, I wonder what would happen if I said: when we get married I want to leave the church in a car like this?

I think the wedding would be off.