Big Dreams, Big Guns and Bad Taxidermy

For sheer insanity and awe-inspiring self-belief, Moussa Castle has to rank pretty high in the fields of all human endeavour. It’s like a peculiarly Lebanese answer to Field of Dreams.

Over a period of 60 years, Moussa Abdel Karim Al Mamaari single-handedly built his very own castle, stone by stone. And filled it with the stuff of – well, either dreams or nightmares, really.

No self-respecting castle could be without guns, of course. Be those concrete cannons, rifles, pistols or bayonets…

And, given the Lebanese obsession with waxworks and mannequins, I guess the soldiers are OK, too.

But bows and arrows? Wielded by a chick wearing fur? Who has, clearly, just shot a rather manky-looking deer?

Both the boy and I are connoisseurs of bad taxidermy (as per the panda sanctuary in Chengdu), but this two-headed lamb took things to a whole new level of unnerving.

Though, in the weirdness stakes, the baby camel and mouldering pelican ran it a close second.

Now, the Lebanese love waxworks, and most tourist towns of any size will have at least one show. But Moussa’s mannequins and waxworks of traditional Lebanese life are pretty, well, special.

I must confess I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here.

But this is Jesus, at the last supper. (Moussa was made a papal knight, so he must be doing something right.)

These are schoolchildren, imprisoned in the alcove, on the way to the classroom where a wicked teacher beats the young Moussa for daydreaming about his castle in class.

And this is a humble craftsmen, like Moussa himself, who, incidentally, still lives in his castle. Albeit in another wing.

And, as the boy said, several times, “It’s so amazing that he had his dream, and achieved it, all on his own, no matter what people said against him.”

And, you know what? That is just plain amazing.