Christmas Blog

A little bit late but here it is, the blog about how Caravan spent Christmas this year. Okay guys, I have to make a warning in advance: this blog is basically just about food. This is easy to explain. Caravan means student-life, which means having cheap food. But Christmas means having really nice food, even for students. So we used this time as an excuse to not think about money anymore but just eating. And we had really nice food, in German we would say: “Dieses Jahr haben wir es uns so richtig gegeben.” So if you don’t want to become jealous do not continue reading:

After becoming fewer and fewer there were only 8 Caravanistas left in the apartment in the last week before Christmas. Although we had a lot to do with wrapping gifts, baking cookies and doing the Christmas-Concerts in the homes ( you can read about this in the other blogs), we started celebrating the Holy Feast on the 21^st of December. In the evening , Caravan went out for an amazing team-meal to Sake Sushi Bar in Ashrafieh. Thanks to the EU, that this was possible! We had a lot of fun while having really good food together. The atmosphere was very relaxed. Afterwards we drove home, 8 people crammed in our s****y old Audi. This was the night in which Lucas left us and flew home for Christmas.

After we got over the fact that Lucas left us there were only seven people left in the house. Christmas Eve was moved to the 23^rd, because I (anonymous) insisted on having Christmas as a family, just us together in the apartment. Finally we had no concerts, no gift wrapping, no cookie making and no schedule any more and we were FREE. We decorated our home really nice. It was very cosy with our plastic Christmas-tree, our crib in a post-carton and our tacky candles in the shape of Christmas-trees. The  entire day, Maxi was standing in the kitchen to prepare the Chili con Carne. The result was great! After drinking a few glasses of wine some of us (Johanna and Matthieu) started to dance a waltz in the living room. But it was the night, when Daniel had to leave. So we had to say good bye again. Now only Amelie, Johanna, Caroline, Mafalda, Mattieu and Maxi were left.

On the 24^th Valerie arrived. The day was very chilled. In the afternoon we all skyped with our families. Then we gathered in the dining room in front of our Christmas tree and sang “Holy Night” together. Those who got packages from the parents opened them and Valerie brought us all a little present (a red cup with each of our names written on it). We agreed beforehand to not give each other something, so nobody would have the stress to get presents for 5 other people. After reading the Reading and the Gospel together we walked down to Dr. Issa and had a great Christmas dinner together. We didn’t expect European food but something new. But for our all’s pleasure we got a huge turkey with stuffing and some amazing sides. Celebrating Christmas with Dr. Issa, his mother and sister and especially with Valerie was really nice. At twelve o’clock we went to the midnight Mass, which was unfortunately in French so not all of us were able to understand. Luckily we had read the Gospel and Reading beforehand. After coming back home we all fell into our beds completely satisfied by our first Christmas that we didn’t spend with our families but with Caravan.

But it was not over yet. On the 25^th , the girls woke up quite early and prepared a great brunch. We had scrambled eggs, fruit salad, ham, cheese, Nutella and Speculoos etc. We were sitting for two hours at breakfast and enjoyed our luxurious brunch. I told you not to continue reading.

Here we have the end of the story: That very same afternoon we had to pack our stuff and leave to the Christmas camp. So our lazy-doing-nothing-but-eating-amazing-food-time had an abrupt end. 

A Christmas Blogger

Winter Camp
So there we were on Christmas afternoon, still completely full of the opulent brunch we’d had in the morning, preparing our luggage for the winter camp in Chabrouh that would last for the following week. Everyone was running around because we’d been told that a storm was coming and the roads may become impassable.  We left the apartment in a hurry, leaving behind us wet laundry hanging all over the place. The non-Germans then discovered the pleasure of drinking beer in the bus. We eventually made it to Chabrouh and started decorating the whole place. Thanks to our two fairies Elena and Tatiana, the centre was soon transformed into Winter Wonderland.

The next morning, we were still finishing the last details of the decoration when suddenly people started shouting in the entire building: “They’re here! The girls are here!” We awaited 18 girls of Deir El Qamar. Everybody ran outside to greet them at the exit of the bus, singing for the first of many times our famous “Running over” and “Aramsamsam”. And so the camp began with loads of dancing, singing and laughing. It was as a whole a rather chilled, cosy camp . We have had beautiful weather almost all the way through but it was still pretty cold outside so most of the time was spent inside relaxing, cuddling or chatting with our guests. 

The first group activity consisted of a beauty session. Nail polish, mascara, powders, colours, all sorts of hydrating, soothing, skincare, refreshing, beauty lotions and many other stuff that we men tend to call torture devices. The girls ended up as lovely as mannequins. On the following day the girls had to get dressed up for theatrical representations of the nativity. Some girls were disguised as angels, others as shepherds, some had the hilarious role of the goats, and the rest of them played the stars. On the third day the Olympic Games took place. We were all divided into two teams, the red one and the pink one. The girls then revealed to us their amazing skills at playing basketball, bowling, running, and other tough disciplines.  They broke almost every world record and astonishingly everybody won !!. On the fourth day, we had the chance to have a special entertaining team visiting us. Believe it or not, Santa (the real one!) was among them. He then proceeded to give every girl gifts and hugs, and finally left accompanied by plentiful applause and Christmas songs. The entertaining team then gave the girls the opportunity to decorate the Christmas tree with stars they had cut and coloured by themselves. At the end of the day, the guests had the opportunity to receive the unction of the sick. The fifth day was partly spent at the Tavern where everybody enjoyed soft drinks in the sun on the terrace with a spectacular view of the snowy mountains. We came back to the centre to get dressed for the world famous fashion show. All the girls put on their most beautiful outfits , a half a ton of make-up and then walked graciously on an elevated red carpet through the crowd and towards a very cheerful jury. We crowned 18 new Misses Lebanon. In the evening we enjoyed a fancy dinner with shaded lights, mannerly waiters, three different dishes which were all ktiir tayeb (very tasty)! Special thanks to Michel who has done an amazing job in the kitchen not only for the fancy dinner but during the entire camp. On the morning of the sixth day, it was time for the girls to go back to Deir El Qamar. We helped them into the bus and sang the last of our usual songs, which the girls never grow tired of, unlike us.The following afternoon was spent cleaning the entire place up, which took us a long while. We then stayed a few more days to party for New Year’s Eve, but that’s another story.

The camp was very well organised under the leadership of newly appointed mas’oul Alain, with Maxi and Elio as team leaders. A chilled camp indeed, which doesn’t mean that waking up in the morning was easier than usual, as highlighted by the late appearances during morning prayer. Some of us were sick (Amelie, Maxi and Matthieu), too, making the camp a bit less cosy for them. We all appreciated the fact that this camp was a rather “small” one, with only 18 guests and around 30 volunteers.

It gave us the opportunity to really meet and talk to everybody. We’ve had the chance of having among us Tabea, Antonius, Yorck, Michael and Carlo. We’ve had a great load of fun with them not only in the camp but later on in Beirut, too.

Christmas concerts

A belated happy New Year to you all . We wish you peace , love and happiness as we enter this New Year.

The boys with huge smile and sparks in their eyes, more than 200 wrapped gifts, ten musicians, 26 scouts, a lot Lebanese volunteers and Michel as Santa Claus. This scenery happened on the 17th of December in Saint Dominique.The CARAVAN threw its glorious and amazing Christmas-Event.
The preparation for this event started actually long time ago in November, when we did our fund raising-event in a Bar in Monot, to buy gifts for the boys and girls in the homes. This fund raising continued with an e-mail campaign, to raise as much money as possible to let Papa Noel arrive in the homes of our friends. After buying more than 400 gifts, CARAVAN where proving themselves as the perfect little helpers of Papa Noel and wrapped all of them.
But this was not the only preparation we had to made: the girls baked more than 2000 typical German Christmas cookies. These went on little plates together with a bottle of wine as a gift for the caretakers in the homes. Of course there were some leftovers, which were the source of many happy faces with in the CARAVAN.
In between backing cookies and wrapping gifts, we started to rehearsal Christmas songs, to play them at our Christmas events in the homes.
So on Saturday the !7th „Christmasweek“ started with our event in Saint Dominique. With the great support of the Champville Scouts, the Lebanese Youth of the Order of Malta, Michel, the caretakers and our musicians, the afternoon turned out to be a great success. The next day we were invited by Fabio and Nicola, our musician friend, to play some songs as a special guest at their Christmas concert in the Champville School. CARAVAN spread one more time the CARAVAN-spirit to more than a hundred people.
On Thursday the 22nd we had our Christmas event in the home in Antelias. We had the opportunity to play in a big concert hall in front of 200 hundred boys. Yann, as always on the sax, and Fabio, on the bass, supported us for this event, faithfully as always. Since we didn´t had someone to play the darbuka, the typical Arabic drum, Elias, one of the boys, just went up on the stage and played with us. Elias gave the rhythm, one of the caretakers grabbed a microphone and sang Arabic songs with the support of Yann playing the sax. So all in all a great concert, with a lot of fun for the boys and of course for us as well. At the end of the concert Santa Claus, this time Daniel, came and distributed the gifts to the boys.
Thanks to everybody who supported us so great, to bring Christmas to homes of our friends.