By the time I'd taken two buses and a share-taxi down to Qana, the comparative serenity of traveling without Mr. Ibrahim had already made the trip worthwhile. Once in the town, I was more impressed by the sight of daily life in southern Lebanon than I was with the clumsy Syrian memorial to Israeli atrocity. South Lebanon is a predominately Shi'ite Muslim area, and huge pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeini hung on buildings and along roadsides. Some neighborhoods flew the yellow flag of Hezbollah, while others displayed the green Amal flag. Despite the violent fanaticism associated with such symbols, however, the town itself went about its business at a casual, friendly pace.

Resolving to overcome my instinctive fear of all the Hezbollah iconography in the area, I hiked out into the countryside beyond the town. After about 15 minutes of walking along a dusty road, I came to a U.N. roadblock manned by a couple of Fijian peacekeepers who introduced themselves as Vasco and Reef. The Fijians were stationed there as part of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), a mission that -- despite its temporary-sounding name -- has been in operation since the first Israeli invasion 22 years ago.

After I had been chatting with the blue-bereted soldiers for a couple of minutes, a loud explosion rang out, and a plume of smoke rose up from a hill on the horizon.

"Israelis?" I asked the Fijians nervously.

"No," Vasco laughed. "A rock quarry."

"How can you tell the difference?"

"Well, the Israelis usually call on the radio before they start shelling us."

Vasco encouraged me to hang out at the checkpoint for a while, and Reef went up to the watchtower to prepare some tea. Both Fijians seemed desperate to talk to someone who was fluent in English, and I was certainly thrilled to speak with someone who let me finish my sentences. When Reef returned with cups of milky tea and toast, the three of us chatted about politics, rugby and whether or not Jesus actually came to Qana. Reef was convinced that Jesus had turned the water into wine here in Lebanon; Vasco insisted that the miracle had happened at Kafr Kanna in Israel.

After a while, a couple of local teenagers walked up to greet the Fijians, and Vasco encouraged them to give me a tour of the area. Mahmoud, the older one, jogged off down the road and came back 10 minutes later in his father's car.

"Mahmoud," I said as I got into the car. "Is that a Muslim name?"

"Yes, I am Sunni. But many of my friends are Christians. Maybe you've heard bad things about Lebanon, but we all get along in my town."

"What about Shi'ites, do you get along with them?"

"Yes, the Shi'ites are good people. But they don't like sin, so sometimes they stay to themselves."

"So does that mean you're a sinner?"

"Yes," Mahmoud said seriously. "I like to sin very much."

After showing me some Roman-era Christian caves on the far side of Qana, Mahmoud took me to an archaeological dig that contained a couple of ancient stone wine vats. A third stone urn sat, broken, at the edge of the pit.

"Were these used to turn water into wine?" I asked Mahmoud.

"I don't know," he said, "but I know they are very old. I feel bad for breaking that one." He pointed to the fractured urn at the edge of the pit.

"That urn is enormous," I laughed. "How could you have possibly broken it?"

"Well, my father owns a construction company, and I broke it with his bulldozer when we were building a street a couple weeks ago. I thought it was a rock until we took it out of the ground."

I looked again at the broken urn. Archaeologists go for years without finding anything that big or old, and here Mahmoud had discovered it during his after-school job.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

That evening, I returned to Beirut in good spirits. Buoyed by my successful foray into the south of Lebanon, I went out for an evening stroll through East Beirut and ended up stumbling upon (though not entirely by accident) none other than the Hole in the Wall pub. There, I drank a couple of beers and listened to music until just short of 10 o'clock.

When I arrived back at my hotel, Mr. Ibrahim and Abdul the Bodyguard were in the lobby waiting for me. I noticed that Mr. Ibrahim was cradling an enormous plastic tub full of pudding.

"I told you to call me!" he bellowed as soon as he caught sight of me.

"Yes, well, I was just going to call --"

"Where have you been?"

"Well, I started out by going to Qana --"

"Qana? What about Sidon?"

At this point, I was too flustered to do anything but lie outright. "Sidon," I said. "Well, wow! It was great."

"What did you see there?"

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