First Week of Service (24/09/12 - 30/09/12)

We began our nine months of service this week by meeting sister Manal and the staff of Deir El Salib, then the sisters of Deir El Kamar and, most importantly, the sick boys and girls of those homes. It was incredibly touching to be with the boys and girls, who were so desperate for our company. We are committed to helping them and stimulating them as much as possible, so for example we are practising songs and planning weekend entertainment for the boys and girls. We are building up a healthy relationship with the Lebanese Youth of the Order of Malta, who will join us at occasional weekends in Deir El Salib.

Besides service, we are busy in the flat tidying, cooking and cleaning on a rota. We gather for meals and prayer at regular intervals throughout the day. Most of us are tired from the heat of late summer in Lebanon, which is a huge adjustment from Europe. 

We have also begun Arabic lessons. It is very tough and none of us is very good yet!

by Callum

 

The Palestinian Camp (16/09/12 - 19/09/12)

So after our 4 days of ‘rest’ we went back to Chabrouh for the first ever camp with Palestinian volunteers!  Apparently the camp was originally meant to have Belgian volunteers, but for some reason they fell through and the Palestinians volunteered at the last minute to step in.  As none of them had done a camp before Father Romanos asked CARAVAN to come and help, which we were of course delighted to do!  The camp was for 2 days with the guests leaving on the third morning, and the guests were 18 girls from Deir el Salib who had never been to Chabrouh before – yes ex-CARAVANISTS and anyone else who’s surprised, there are apparently 6-700 girls in Deir el Salib.  Of the CARAVAN team 2 became Masul and Masuli, and also doubled as the entertainment team, 4 became equipe leaders and the other 3 joined the 23 Palestinians at the camp in either having a guest or being a jumper (for those of you unfamiliar with the camps, a jumper is someone who has no guest but is around to replace anyone who needs a break – e.g. for the loo – so that no guest is ever left alone).

We had one big problem during the camp, which was that very few of the Palestinian volunteers spoke French or English, so explaining what we wanted to do, or trying to provide ideas of how to keep the guests entertained during the day, proved to be harder than we had expected.  On the first day the traffic in Beirut was appalling, so the girls arrived over an hour later than we had planned.  However this did mean that everyone at Chabrouh had the time to not only set up the house but also do a singing round, meaning that everyone knew ‘A-ram-sam-sam’ and ‘Running Over’, which they could sing to the guests as they arrived.  The guests were all really good fun, very chatty and enthusiastic about everything!

On the first day we had a ‘Yalla Pepsi’ and walked to a different tavern to those used by the German camps, which was a nice walk and once there we had an amazing view!  On the second day we did an Olympic Games which degenerated into a water fight, with Father Romanos (who, since he had a guest, had a painted face and a wigJ) protecting all those guests who disliked being sprayed.  In keeping with their authority Maxime and Aglae, the two masuls, were not only attacked with water guns but also had buckets emptied on them, to the shared joy of the Palestinians and the guests!  The day ended with a bonfire, and after the guests were asleep a lot of shisha by the fire!

I’d also like to say a big thank you to all our Lebanese friends who drove up on the 17^th in the evening, despite having university early the next day, to bring cake and help celebrate Maxime’s birthday!  It was a really nice of all of you to come and he was really touched by it.  We’d also all like to thank Father Romanos, who not only organised the camp and invited CARVAN to come, but was also great company and a pleasure to talk to at all times.  We all had a really interesting time, and hope that the Palestinians will do another camp next year!

by Maxime

The POPE was in Lebanon (14/09/12 - 16/09/12)

And of course we went to see him! We joined the Pope on Saturday, when he had a meeting with the Christian youth gathered on the square in front of the Maronite Patriarchate. It started at 6 pm but we arrived already 6 hours earlier to have nice seats close to the pope. On arrival everybody received a little bag with water, sweets, a YOUCAT and the New Testament. Sadly both books were written in Arabic. But we have a YOUCAT and many bibles in our apartment anyways. Until the pope arrived we spend our time listening to Arabic music, which was played very noisy and switching our position from sleeping to sitting - to standing on our white plastic chairs and partying hard with all the Lebanese who were creating a great atmosphere. The atmosphere got tense and tense the closer the arrival of the pope came. Finally HE was there. We were able to glance at him a few times when he drove slowly with his popemobil through the crowd. I think we can claim we got as close to him as 5 meters!

Regarding all aspects of information/speech given from the pope and the other announcers - a few of CARAVAN did not understand a word, because we barely know French or Arabic. But as those of us were informed later on, his main message was that "it is vital that the Middle East understands that Islam and Christianity can live side by side without hatred, with respect for the beliefs of each person.” He called Christians and Muslims to a "revolution of love". After he finished his speeches everybody was cheering, music started, people were dancing on their chairs. Shortly before He left there was a huge firework out of the sudden, not to be expected at all.

The music and dancing continued for a while after He left. Hymns were sung to Benedict XVI. We went home and had the feeling, that we just had a huge, very much enjoyable party with our pope.

The next morning (Sunday) we were supposed to celebrate Holy Mass with the pope, every one of us taking care of one handicapped. We got up at 5:45 am in order to join our guests in the bus already. Mass started with thousands of people at 10 am at Beirut City Centre Waterfront, a huge open area. There we met the Lebanese youth of the Order of Malta, 24 people in total, who were in company with us every single person taking care of one disabled. We gave our guests shelter from the sun, supplied them with food and water and cheered them up.

The pope appealed for peace in the Middle East, for "silencing of weapons" and "cessation of all violence".

The mass ended at noon and we were all sad to leave this joyful place and our guests.

by Julius

The Summer Camps (19/08/12 - 13/09/12)

With the exception of Aglae none of us had done a camp in Chabrouh, and despite talking about at the preparation camp none of us truly knew what to expect.  In 48 hours we went from Dusseldorf to Beirut Airport, met Michel who looks after us in Lebanon, then on to the apartment in Naccache (pronounced Na-ash), then visiting Naccache on foot, then to Chabrouh and meeting a group of Germans which most of us did not know, to setting up the house and then meeting the guests from Deir el Salib which we would look after!  I have to say that already knowing from the preparation camp the liturgy of the Hours and all the songs, especially for the non-German speakers, helped a lot in the first few days.

7 of the 8 CARAVAN members at Chabrouh had a guest for the first camp, and despite some of us had rarely looked after the disabled before we all became friends with our guests.  For all three camps we did pretty much the same set of activities, if in a different order.  These included a day at the beach, the fancy dinner (tin foil galore J), the Olympic Games, a fashion show for the first two camps, shaving sessions with the boys, a walk in the direction of the Dam, one big mass and ‘Yalla Pepsi’ time where we went to a nearby tavern for soft drinks.  Every day we would start at 7am with Morning Prayer on the terrace, after which we would go get our guests and start that day’s activities.

It was quite interesting to compare the three different camps that we had, and how different the guests were.  The first camp only had boys from Deir el Salib, the second camp had girls from Deir el Qamar and Antellias and the third camp had boys from Antellias and Deir el Salib.  The first camp had a huge range in the mental and physical capabilities of the guests, which meant that different volunteers had completely different experiences of the camp – some volunteers ran around all day, whereas others stayed pretty much in the same place.  Of course this was the case in all the camps, and it was always interesting to see.  With the second camp the girls as a group were much livelier, and many of them loved dancing, which gave the whole camp a party feel from beginning to end.  We also stopped jumping from getting our asses pinched by one of the boys at lunch, and instead jumped when we had a raspberry blown in our ears by one of the girls!  They managed to leave everyone exhausted by the end, but it was so much fun!  With the third camp many of the guests were older, and several spoke some English or French, so far more of us had conversations with our guests rather than just trying to demonstrate activities that we could do.  Overall each of the camps had a very different feel to it, but they were all great fun and very rewarding, and all of us missed our guests very much as soon as they were gone.

Seeing how happy we could make them with just 6 days was however very inspiring, as it made all of us realise how much joy we could bring them throughout the year with our visits.  This impression was reinforced when we visited Deir el Salib two days after the first camp, and saw how different some of the guests were in their home, and how overjoyed most of them were that we had come to visit them.

When there were no guests we had a great programme of activities, thank you Masul!  In between the first two camps we went to Byblos, where some of us visited the ruins, including a really nice castle, and all of us had an amazing lunch!  We also visited downtown Beirut, where we were shown around by Windy, one of our Lebanese friends, and walked up to the cross on the mountain next to the centre in Chabrouh, where we had a mass. 

After the girls’ camp we visited the Holy Valley, which is stunning, and slept overnight in a monastery.  After the third camp we went to the Jeitta Grottos, which I would heartily recommend to anyone who has not yet been, as well as a lovely dinner in a tavern and a great night at Pier 7.

We all had a great time at the camps, made many new Lebanese friends there which we are now seeing again in Beirut, and we all look forward to going to Chabrouh again for the Christmas camp.

by Maxime