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