An Afternoon with Alin Tataru and His Family

It was my second day in Beirut when I called Alin Tataru's home. He wasn't home. But a small happy voice answered the phone and said daddy wasn't home. I told her I came from Romania and the little girl was very surprised to hear the language again. People who called looking for her parents almost never spoke Romanian. She put down my name and i promised I'd call back to look for Alin again. I didn't call again that night. I had to meet a Lebanese girl and we talked till late in the night.

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Wednesday morning. Rainy day in Beirut. When it rains in Beirut any other rainy day in Europe seems a child's play. The Beirut Philharmonic Orchestra is rehearsing in the St. Josef Church, in Monot, just across the street from the St. Josef University. The taxi driver, who only spoke French -which made me so proud of myself because I really found out that I remember the French I learned in school - left me at the university. The lady at the reception only spoke French too. She told me I was in the wrong place. Darn. I mean I could see it was definetly not a church. She showed me the parking across the street and she told me to cross it. And there, the old catholic church surrounded by people. The players in the Beirut Philharmonic Orchestra I found there were almost all Romanian. 28 out of 56. They stood together under a tree smoking, talking with a strong Moldovan accent, complaining about the lack of running water and the electricity that went off from time to time, about the very expensive heating and the too expensive plane tickets they had booked to come home for Christmas and New Year's Eve. I met the flute player Alin Tataru there, under that tree. A blond blue eyed German looking guy who had been in Lebanon for 5 years already. He never said he missed Romania. Not even a bit. After I shot the interviews and the whole rehearsal he invited me over for lunch with his family. We picked up his wife from work and that was the beginning of a very beautiful afternoon.

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Crossing Beirut was hell. Rain was pouring down like a dam in the skies suddenly broke and let the water fall over the city. And then the thunder. So strong it really made your stomach ache. Thousands of drums played all at the same time (ok the comparison sucks, I admit). I was on my way to the mountain. I couldn't believe it. I lived for a week in a hotel in the Muslim part of the city. It was exactly what I had expected it to be. But the northern part of Beirut the Tatarus showed me was different. As we went up to the mountain the blocks became houses, really huge houses. They were happy I had noticed how big the houses were. We passed Michel Aoun's house, very much guarded by soldiers, we went to the supermarket and bought fruits I only read about in books and we went home for a treat. I wanted to buy a box of strawberries. Alin asked the supermarket caretaker if I should buy them. He said I shouldn't bother, they lacked the real strawberry taste. Hm, that would never happen in a western supermarket. I loved the honesty of that guy. I wanted to have the Lebanese chocolate. Oh boy, had I known! Chocolate in Lebanon does not mean just chocolate. Sweets are just something else. Nuts in all their forms. Pistachio, three layers of marzipan filled with pistachio cream. Oh I loved those. My aunt loved those.


And there they were, the two little guys. Nana and Andrei had already came back from school and were playing. They are the first brother and sister I've seen playing together without fighting. I fought Andrei with a sword (I loved this ever since I was a child and I was dreaming about being a knight, not a princess). Then Nana was all over me. We took pictures of eachother taking pictures of eachother. She showed me her notebooks. Andrei kept away, politely. But then he took my camera and took a picture of the spaghetti his mom had already made. Beautiful children both their parents were very proud of. But the greatest thing about them was not the fact they were so lively. They sounded like Babel Tower. They spoke a language placed somewhere between Romanian, French and Arabic. They had a contest with an ashta fruit. Nana won, she had found more ashta pits than Andrei. They were counting them in French. They they hid under the table and tried to startle me in Romanian. I guess that's what happens with expat children everywhere. But I could tell they missed Romania. They were so happy to see me. They hanged to my every word. Nana eventually came with me and her father to the hotel. She wanted to spend the night with me at the hotel. Alin convinced her in the end that she had to go back home.

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Mrs. Tataru used to be a layout editor in Romania. She's never said she loved Lebanon. Alin was much more forward. He admits he misses home. But not the Romanian habits. And especially not the log time it take you to do paper work in Romania. He kept telling me about the Lebanese food (which I found out it was exactly what he said it would be, delicious) and the Lebanese hospitality (which I found out again that it was exactly what he said). He told me that even under the bombs last year, it took him just two days to get his children's school papers and take them back to Romania for the Ministry of Education in Bucharest to keep track of their school records. It took him two months in Romania for the public administration guys to accept those records. So, ya, i can understand why he is happy in Lebanon.