Caravan 2011 /2012: 2011

This Friday evening we had our late but very nice welcoming dinner in our apartment for Matthieu since we were so busy during the week. So we all enjoyed original swiss rösti made with Lebanese potatoes by our German Caravanista Maxi, while we had a nice talk in English about the Middle East Conflict and drank some Ksara (Lebanese Wine). Enough intercultural dialogue for this evening.

On the next day we went to a Service of the Lebanese Youth for little children from families which are supported by the Order of Malta. We were invited to this kind of service by Lelia El Khazen (the president of the youth). It took place in an indoor playground for children in a big mall. After a little fight with plastic balls in the climbing contraption of the play area , we played “Stop-Dance” with the children, baked little Zatar cookies and coloured pictures of Christmas stockings with them. Besides the children enjoyed their lunch at the place and we as Caravan started a singing round with different Christmas songs like “Jingle Bells”, “We wish you a merry Christmas” and “Feliz Navidad” to create a perfect Christmas spirit before Father Christmas arrived to give them their presents. So they got little dolls or toy cars and some sweets as presents. All children really loved this excursion, where they had the possibility just to enjoy these moments without thinking of any problems their families may have. Also for us as the Caravan it was a good experience to do another kind of service then in the homes of our disabled friends and the many smiles of the children were really worth it.

At our first day of service this week we went as usual by bus to Deir El Quamar and started our service and the singing round this time without the support of a guitar (Maxi stayed sick in Naccache) but with our more loud than nice voices. Afterwards we played pot hitting with the girls, which they really enjoyed. Also because there were many sweets under the pot they won. As usual we had this kind of service with two small groups of about 20 girls. For the evening Maffi had prepared a very interesting discussion and presentation about how the crucifixion of Jesus is shown in art for our spiritual meeting with father Tom.

Tuesday: Also this morning we left quite early to attend our last course in university about Judaism with Ralf. Right or not?

Unfortunately we had to say good bye to Suzanne after University, who has to leave for personal family reasons to Ireland for a short while. We will hopefully see you soon, Suzie!! Wish you all the best for this time and can’t wait to have you back in our team soon.

After lunch in Deir El Salib we started our service with the boys for this week, went up with them to the garden, sang with them and paid attention to them, what they usually don’t get. Also some of us got to know the work of the Physiotherapist better and learned in this way, how to help some boys in the daily service with little activities. In the evening we had a lecture in our apartment from Marwan Sehnaoui, who is the president of the Order of Malta in Lebanon. So we got to know much more to know about the work of the Order in Lebanon and the stations of the Order, which are spread in whole Lebanon, also in the very south, which is mainly controlled by Hisbollah. After the lecture we continued with a talk about the role of Caravan in and for Lebanon while having dinner in a nice Italian restaurant. After all we all agreed, that Caravan should not only be a project for 10 months but also means responsibility for the boys in the future times.

This Wednesday we had our first lecture about inter religious dialogue and learned what the platform for such a dialogue is based on. The service this time in Deir El Salib in the afternoon with many team members missing (Maxi still sick, Lucas shopping for Christmas presents for the boys and Suzanne who just left us) was a bit different, what we latest noticed while the fed the boys. But as always we gave our best with the boys, brought them out of St. Dominique, sang, danced, spent time and showed them the love they need down in St. Dominique.

Our service in Antelias this week was composed of different games like passing balls, throwing balls in boxes, egg-and-spoon race, stop dance and as usual a singing round, which is often the most important part. The boys liked the games, also if you never can stick that close to the usual roles so that the egg-and-spoon race more turned out to be a throwing game with the fake eggs. But the most important thing is that they liked our service, what they really did.

After the service we had a discussion at Uni with Sunnit Muslims about prejudices in our religion and we are all looking forward to continue. It was a really interesting and personal talk.