In this process of revamping my blog, I’ve been forced to start from the beginning, 2012, and work my way forward. I now find myself in July 2013, in Beirut, Lebanon. And I remember this day as though it were yesterday. I wandered into a neighborhood with my camera and just started snapping away, not taking into account the potential dangers of doing such a thing. I did start to notice lots of Bashar al-Assad posters and at the time, I didn’t think anything of it – I just wanted pictures of the ‘life’ of the neighborhood. I may very well have been in a Sunni Islamist area with people, rightfully so, suspicious of this American just walking around taking photos. Men started yelling out of the windows at me – in Arabic, but I got the ‘gist’ from their tones…and a woman who spoke some English came over to me and walked me out of the neighborhood explaining to me that it wasn’t safe for me to be there.

21JUL13. Beirut, Lebanon.