the only two problems

The only two problems with the Beirut trip were:

(1) It was too short (less than 48 hours), but I have to get back to the office in Cairo.

(2) It was so humid here this weekend. I don’t remember it this way last time, nor have I ever had to keep wiping myself with a towel during a lecture before. (“The James Brown technique,” as someone kindly put it.) Not since my last trip to India have I experienced such humidity.

The final activity for today was a taped interview of 1 hour, 15 minutes, with the whole group sitting around the table. It was a nice discussion, and it will appear in print relatively soon.

This was a nice bunch of people, and I’d have liked a few extra days to talk with them a bit more.

The walk from Hamra to central Beirut (which I did this morning) seems a lot more complicated this time than in 2001-02. The military presence is a lot greater than I remember it being, and there are also strange dead ends in heavily armed residential districts, presumably featuring the homes of Cabinet Ministers and other such figures. It’s fairly dead there on Sunday, in contrast with Cairo where Sunday is a normal work day.