Every journey starts somewhere and, although mine probably started four years ago over an arguile-puffing conversation, today seems like the tangible beginning. Paying for a ticket to the other side of the world and watching those Rands escape your credit card definitely indicates the start of something big. The journey to Lebanon has begun...
When I joined a group of 12 friends (most with Lebanese ancestry) on a trip from South Africa to Lebanon in 2005, I was fascinated to see the country I had come to love over many family holidays through the eyes of first-time visitors. Basking in the Mediterranean sun around our pool at the Bel Azur hotel in Jounieh, two of my girl friends suggested the three of us return the following year for a work stint in that extraordinary country. It never happened.
Fast-forward to 2010 and it's happening. Minus the other two girls (but I'm hoping they'll visit!). As a 30th birthday present to myself (I turn 30 in May this year), I have just spent R3 200 on a one-way ticket to the country of my mother's birth (the same country from which my father's father emigrated in 1924 at the age of 20). Staying true to my father's evaluation of me being a gypsy, I'm once again transporting my life to another destination - the sixth one since leaving home at the age of 21 - and making new things happen in a world that continues to delight me.
Departure date: 9 April 2010. 86 sleeps. Let the countdown begin!
