We were told we would be housed on campus and each room would be equipped with a bed, dresser, desk and wireless Internet. I had signed up for a double, thus expecting to have one roommate. The dorms ran about $700 for the six-week period, which is quite expensive, but I figured the amenities were worth it. It turns out classes at LAU were still in session, meaning none of the dorm rooms were vacant yet. This meant SINARC (my Arabic language program) had to scramble to find housing for students off-campus. Students were placed in various buildings around campus. Some were awesome, with separate kitchens, wireless Internet, satellite TV, balconies with gorgeous city views, the works! Others, like the one I got stuck in, did not have any of these amenities and lacked some of the basic ones as well, like hot water. Our bathroom flooded constantly, meaning we were standing in a few inches of dirty water every time we wanted to get ready. I also got placed in a triple room. I didn’t have a problem with this and my roommates are quite fabulous, but we were paying the same price as other students who were living in luxury and it didn’t seem fair. Also, our room contained 3 beds and that was it, no dressers, closets, desks; the only place for our stuff was on the floor, which meant we were constantly tripping over each other’s stuff. Additionally, our room opened up to a small kitchen and we lacked privacy, so in order to change, we had to go into the bathroom. Every time someone used the kitchen, we would be woken up.
I lived in Morocco for almost a year with no hot water and quickly got used to the giant cockroaches sharing my space, but my rent was cheap and I was expecting those kinds of living conditions. To pay over $700 for the dorm SINARC placed me in was ludicrous! I knew in order to be able to fight to get at least some of my money back, I would have to move out ASAP; so with Dina’s help, we began the apartment search. Luckily, I knew I wanted to live in the Hamra neighborhood. This area is predominately Sunni Muslim and also houses the major universities (AUB, LAU, etc). Since Tylor and I are hoping to get by without a car for the first year, living in Hamra made sense. Also, if the Israelis decide to bomb Lebanon, Hamra will be the last place they will touch, so safety also played a role in this decision. Because of the safety and the convenience, Hamra is also the most expensive neighborhood in Beirut, Tylor and I were aware of that going into this, but nonetheless, I still experienced massive sticker shock!
In America, it’s very simple to find apartments. We search on Craig’s List (CL), many universities have listings, word of mouth is often helpful, and there are always the old, reliable city weeklies. None of this exists in Lebanon. Yes, there is a Lebanese CL but the Lebanese don’t use it! So Dina and I started our search by walking. And walking. And walking. We looked for posted FOR RENT signs, we entered various apartment buildings and asked if there were any vacancies and we asked people on the streets who would then tell us their brother’s wife’s neighbor’s son knew of a place and we would go check it out!
I realize I am spoiled coming from Tucson, where rent is cheap and houses were often the same prices as apartments. As I have learned, you get what you pay for. Tylor and I desperately wanted a 2 bedroom apartment, two graduate students who don’t have their own work space spells trouble and we also know when people come and visit, they aren’t going to stay for a day or two, it’s going to be at least a week or two and we wanted to make sure even though we had visitors, we still had space for our own work. Studios were available and definitely a lot cheaper, but unless we wanted to get a divorce six months into our marriage, we knew we needed a larger space. I looked at both one and two bedroom places ranging from $700-$3,500 per month. Some buildings included utilities, A/C, gyms and maid service, but these were considered luxury apartments and were financially beyond our reach. I looked at some places that were $1,000/month and they were just one room consisting of a bed, dresser, desk, small fridge with a hot plate and bathroom. I would gladly give up luxurious amenities like a gym and maid service for more space.
Keep in mind, there are two types of apartments here, furnished and unfurnished. Furnished means you pay between $200-500 more per month, but the apartment is equipped with a stove, fridge, beds, linens, pots and pans and dishes, living and dining room furniture, etc. Unfurnished comes with NOTHING, not even appliances! After doing a cost-benefit analysis, Tylor and I decided it would be financially advantageous for us (in the long run) to get an unfurnished apartment, which would mean a cheaper monthly rent, and then we would buy our own stuff. This way we would own everything and when we moved, we could take everything with us. Also, I have learned not to put money down on anything until I see it; many places I looked at assured me for an extra $200-500 per month, they would furnish it for me but I had to put money down first. After seeing the way the dorm rooms were furnished in a hurry, there is no way I was going to rent an apartment and put money down without seeing what kind of furnishings, if any, it contained.
Like NYC, many of the apartments here have brokers, meaning we have to give an extra month’s rent for the privilege of renting the place. Foreigners tend to leave suddenly, which makes landlords weary about renting to us, so we also had to pay six months of rent up front. Now, I just need to sell my 2007 Toyota Yaris (anyone interested)? Luckily, my brokers are also in charge of daily maintenance issues, so I am utilizing them constantly and Iman, the manager’s wife, speaks English, so she has been my lifesaver. I can talk about academia, politics, and the weather in Arabic but my functional Arabic vocabulary (like, my ceiling is flooding, help, is quite limited)! I ended up find a 2-bedroom/3-bath apartment (most apartments were one bath, so this was definitely a rare find) that I love! It’s closer to LAU than my “dorm” room was and it’s huge! The living/dining room area has floor to ceiling windows, meaning when the electricity gets shut off for four hours a day, we can use the natural night to be able to function. The bedrooms are large and both rooms also contain a built-in closet with drawers and shelving, which is also rare and saves me having to buy dressers, wardrobes/closets, which can become quite expensive. Our rent is $1,000/month, which my teachers assured me was a steal in Hamra, especially during the summer, which is high season. I also discovered had I waited until August, it would have been extremely difficult to find an apartment because that is when the students, faculty and professors return. So in all, the dorm fiasco turned out to be a blessing in disguise! Plus, my main group of girlfriends here are the 6 girls I shared the dorm room with and I was thankful to have met them when I did!
Although our rent is at the top of our budget, I am in love with our apartment! I was also luckily enough to get Sara, another disgruntled LAU student, to move in with me, which will help out financially as well. I also have some roommate possibilities for August, although I can only rent to other females since it wouldn’t be good for my reputation (or Tylor’s) to be living with another guy, one who wasn’t my husband, especially when Tylor isn’t here. We are also hoping to sublet our place to other foreigners when we are traveling, so we have some ways of recouping some costs. Electricity runs anywhere from $50-100/month (and I learned it was important to ask if the apartment building contains a generator since Beirut has power outages at least 4 hours per day and luckily, I say this now, I am sure I will be whining in July when the weather and the humidity rise drastically, but we don’t have an A/C, which should keep the electricity costs on the lower end as well). We also pay a yearly fee of $500 to cover water and concierge fees. Internet runs about $80/month for wireless and it works about 75% of the time. At this point, I am just happy to have internet when it works!
Most buildings here come with a concierge, which I am thankful for; to have someone to go to when my ceiling floods, my water shuts off, and the toilets quit working (all of which has happened to me), is quite priceless. Most of the concierges here are Palestinian of which the majority do not speak any English, so it’s been great practice for my Arabic! We are on our second concierge, who has been quite helpful in a short amount of time, his name is Shadi. As I learned in Morocco, it’s important to get to know my neighbors and in times of crisis, they will be the first to look after me; so now been on a mission to meet my neighbors, all of whom have numerous children who are a blast to play with and are absolutely adorable. When I see the little babies, I use my limited knowledge of Lebanese Arabic to communicate with them and they get the biggest smiles on their faces. My favorite thing to do is to say “biddi busa” which means give me a kiss and they always oblige! I have heard that in the fall, my building houses many AUB faculty, professors and students, so I won’t be the only foreigner here. I have already met one of my neighbors who is an Iraqi journalist employed by a Japanese television network!
I have been on frantic shopping missions, beds were my first purchase (done all in Arabic☺ and today, I just got my stove, fridge, washer and dryer delivered, not an easy feat considering I don’t really have an address so it’s a matter of describing where I live, which is quite difficult in itself. I miss America’s system of actual street names and house numbers! A coffee table (which comes with 4 little cubes to sit on) is on its way and a couch and a loveseat will arrive in approximately 2 weeks. That’s about all we can afford at the moment. It’s been difficult finding furniture stores (luckily, Iman’s 17 year old son took me to buy the beds, keep in mind he drove me to places but is not old enough to have his driver’s license) and it seems to be either really cheap (I already went the cheap route and my bed lasted about 2 days before it broke, literally) or very expensive, there is really no middle ground. I desperately miss Goodwill and Target! I am excited for Tylor to arrive so that we can finish furnishing our place together!
Switching gears a bit, our weekends are composed of traveling throughout th
e entire country (last weekend we went to Byblos where we got to see the Faqra ruins and have a seafood lunch right on the Mediterranean, rode in a cable car to Harrissa and got to explore the Jiita Grottos (which is up for the honor of being one of the seven wonders of the world), next weekend it’s Baalbeck and Beiteddine where we are going to tour some wineries) and in a few weeks, we are going to Syria for a 3 day weekend, so I will try to give some detailed descriptions of our tri
ps with links to photos! Also, I am posting quite a few photos on facebook, so check those out as well.That’s it for now, ma3salama (good-bye)!
Xoxo! Tam
Check out these links for some photos of Byblos, Harrissa and Jita!
http://www.facebook.com/photos/?ref=sb#/album.php?aid=2022900&id=127103011&op=18
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25795&id=1061471434&l=4477a89025
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