When planting trees in Lebanon

Yesterday I left the city for the first time since November 24th!!  I was feeling suffocated, dizzy, just utterly overurbanized.  

Thanks to ISBAR, an environmental group based out of AUB (American University of Beirut), I got to leave the city for the first time with environmentalist-types and plant trees in Akaar, a region in the north near the city of Tripoli.

I anticipated mountainous terrain, goat herds, dogs hooting at their flocks, and working in a forest.  No, we worked on the side of a road in a fairly developed, quasi-urbanized area.  

The Absurd:

1. Trees planted in holes that have more roadside trash in them than soil.  Examples of trash include shoes, sweater sleeves, and KitKat wrappers.

2. Child skinning a cow's head.

3. Child skinning sheep in front of butcher's shop.

4. Sheep tied to a pole, standing under fellow flock member's carcasses waiting for its turn under the knife.

5. Riding up and down mountain roads standing on the bumper of an early 80's pick up.  And surviving, somehow.

For some reason, our group of tree planters had a lot of overlap with capoeira kids.  What is that?  Are trees somehow involved in the global capoeira conspiracy?  Or are the capoeira maestres of the world scheming to evolve humans into trees?  Time will tell.