A lazy blogger indeed !!!!

The week from the 11^th to the 18^th of February was quite casual. CARAVAN made an amazing service in the homes; just as always. Deir El Quammar was truly excellent with our Lebanese friends Joy and Kathy acting as translators for a game of duck duck goose  . We also had spiritual meeting which was rather interesting , the topics vary and after much discussion we never really make a conclusion , such is the nature of the topics . 

How weeks change? , just a few short weeks ago we reported all of the boys as been healthy in Deir El Salib . Unfortunately on Saturday when we went with the Lebanese youth to DES,  little John has become quite sick and had been brought to the hospital . The staff suspect he suffers from a illness, which afffects his heart or lungs- we are not sure as he is still been accessed in the hospital . CARAVAN already plans another donation request if  our little angel requires the heart surgery they have already mentioned – we will keep you updated !. Antellias was a quiter affair what with having 5 Caravan missing and no guitarist – still a lot of fun and the sister responsibile upstairs is a legend – what a dear , sweet sister she is . 

Over to university ,we started our courses in Islam Science in University, which enable us to dig once deeper into the Lebanese culture.

The sisters of Amelie arrived in the apartment on Friday. Therefore some fresh air is guaranteed. Ten minutes after the entire Krecu dynasty conquered the main base, Mafalda smashed with light velocity into the frame of the door. Lucas Comment: “Boahhh… weggefetzt!”. Edited to add that Maffi blames the entire incident on Moritz slamming a door just as she ran after him, after the collison Maffi ended up sitting in a laundry basket cradling a bruised eye - ice was quickly applied and the situation is now well under control although retaliations are possible  ! 

However, tonight is the CARAVAN´s “Before-Lent-Dinner“. We are looking forward to meet, Agile and Arak. Let´s work…

Painting in DES - downstairs playroom

Loving all the guest blogs !

27th week over, another 16 to go! how time flies. „mish ma3‘oul“!

This week was rather relaxing. We did not have University because all Universities are on Semester break. We used the time to sleep in, go on trips and adventures and to listen to a talk.

Paul Saghbini, the hospitaller of the Lebanese Order of Malta, gave us a talk on Thursday. He came to tell us about the History of the Order of Malta in Lebanon and as requested, modern History of Lebanon. After listening to the on one hand really interesting and on the other hand very confusing explanation of Lebanon‘s History I had to immediately think of what Professor Messara once told us: „if you think you understood the complexity of Lebanon‘s history and politics, it must have been wrongly explained to you.“ Nevertheless, as we are all highly interested in this matter we can honestly say that Paul‘s explanation helped us a lot to understand Lebanon between 1975-1990. I want to take the chance to say a THANK YOU to Paul to offer himself up to give us the talk and to answer any questions we had and to wipe out unclearness.

Friday we had planned on going skiing or snowboarding in Faraya since we didn‘t have service (exchange with saturday). But the weather didn‘t want to fulfill us this dream. Thus we made us a chilled day at home. 3 of our boys though, Maxi, Lucas and Matthieu, decided to so something MANLY and walk up to the cross on Mzaar‘s peak. Soon, they realized that they were too late for Mzaar, but that they could still hike up to the cross where the big Hollywood, pardon, FARAYA sign is and sleep there in the chapel. Equipped with sleeping bags, several layers of warm clothes, waterproof boots and a ton of motivation they went into the car and Lucas turned on the motor. Or tried to. „tatatattataaa“ - silence- „tatattatatattaaaa“ - again silence - „tatatt ata tatata“. Nothing. The car would not move. Surprise boys, no gas! Extremely frustrated and almost exploding from anger Maxi and Matthieu had to get out of the car and push it up the drive way and on the main road during rush hour. In my opinion a mission that is already quite manly. Considering the traffic on Beirut‘s road on a Friday afternoon... Fortunately we have a gas station just down the road so that Lucas could just roll into it. But wait, this is not the end of story. As the five reasonably and logically thinking women knew, the three brave men would not make it up to the summit. Convinced and probably also encouraged by female demotivation the men ensured us, that they would sleep in the chapel and return early in the morning on Saturday to be able to attend the Mass in Deir el Salib. Suzanne, messaging with her mom, made a bet with her at what time the boys ummmm men would be back.
7 pm, surprise, who‘s back? MatLuMax! They told the rest of the Caravan what they already knew: it got darker and darker, became cold and too windy so that they had to return to the foot of the mountain. Good try to man up though!

On Saturday, Deir el Salib held the National Day of the Sick. With the Lebanese Youth‘s help we could manage to bring 25 boys from St. Dominique up to the church of the nuns. We were extremely happy to bring some of our boys who are mostly in bed up, like Karim, Little John and Rani. Everybody got a cross on their forehead and even the nervous boys maintained still and solemn on their seats until Holy Mass was ended.And let us not forget how proud Suzie was when Totee behaved amazingly well right up until a slight melt down at communion when he was allowed to leave the church - what a typical 6 year old ! :-)

Uh, and a quick weather update while Europe is freezing: Sunshine, 18° plus!! On Sunday we moved our Sofa on the balcony and read, listened to music and talked there for hours.Lucas and Suzanne went on a cultural and spiritual retreat around Beirut , we heard it was very productive and a stop at the Jasmine Room really topped their evening ! CARAVAN ROCKS!! 

The truths

This Blog is about the week between January 29^th and February 5^th, which was actually not boring, we had Girls-Night, we painted the playing room in Deir e Salib, Houseparty and it was Letti’s last week in the Caravan-Apartment. This is what happened in Caravan’s life:

On Sunday the 29^th we where due to do general cleaning  after Mass and Caroline’s sister arrival the  night before so we extended our Caravan family for just a short while. The two Dutch girls made a really nice couple and the funny thing about it: they talk in the exact same way. On Monday, we had service in Deir L’Qamar where we painted mandalas with the girls. It was rather a quiet service because half of the Caravan - six people - were sick. Due to the fact that eleven people are living together in the smallest space we unfortunately all get sick at the same time. Next day, Tuesday, the essay for our politics-professor was due so some specialists that didn’t have time before had to wake up really early to finish their Essays before twelve noon. Wednesday and Thursday University was cancelled so Caravan used the time wisely and slept.

Coming closer to the weekend our life became more and more interesting. On Thursday the six Caravan-Girls left the apartment after service and went to Achrafieh ABC Mall with Amelie as driver. It was our last girl’s night with Letti. We had a very chilled dinner in Roadster. Unusual for us we talked about politics in Lebanon until we realized that our girl’s night is rather turning into a boy’s night so we quickly changed the topic to wedding dresses and baby names! So cliche for a girls night. After our amazingly filling dinner we went to the cinema to watch “Man on a Ledge” which was luckily not as crappy as the movie we watched on the first girl’s night. It was a very thrilling movie which all of you should see !. When we came back home we were happy to see Marie-Alice who had moved in to Caravan apartment that evening. Marie will join our Caravan family for a little over 2 weeks.

Next day was Friday, the week was nearly over, but we worked the entire day, from eight in the morning until six in the evening. Why? We had the painting in Deir el Salib.  Let me tell you, the playing room downstairs is not just a playing room anymore. It is now a Walt Disney adventure room. Caravan chose “comics” as topic for the playing room. The wall is covered now with Winnie the Pooh, his friends Piglet , Tigger , Eeyore , Donald Duck, Goofy, the Teletubbies, Dumbo, and in order to leave some personalities of our Caravan on the wall you can find a Lucky Luke, Flounder (in the aquarium above the windows), Max & Moritz and Mafalda. After ten hours of working, the room AND Caravan had changed a lot, especially Amelie’s Jeans looked really artistic afterwards. And also some others of us didn’t really have the ambition to keep their clothes clean. For this painting we especially have to say thank you to Letti who organized most of it and helped a lot with her painting skills and artistic knowledge. With the help of Marie and Machteld (Caroline’s Sister) we were thirteen people, which made it possible to finish the painting in one day.

After painting the entire day we came back to the apartment and started preparing for our house party. The motto was “What I always wanted to be”. We had a Lenin, a Revolutionist, a Gangster/Rapper, an Artist,  SpongeBob, James Bond and his Bond Girl, two Hockey-Girls, a Gynecologist and his Secretary, a Surfer, a Gypsy, a Hooker, an Indian Princess, a Reporter, a Superman. Although Caravan was rather tired the party was successful and we had a lot of fun with our Lebanese friends.

The Saturday was therefore quite exhausting because we had to clean the entire apartment, again. And in the afternoon Letti and Luci came back from skiing completely sunburned. But as Caravan usually says in an uncomfortable situation: “It’s fine, it is a good experience'' - we are not allowed to show you the pictures of Letti until she is fully recovered so prepare for those pictures in the coming days !

Anyway we wish you a blessed Tuesday and we look forward to showing you more pictures soon .

Caravan xx

Lots and Lots of pictures

I will not tell you how long it has taken to load these pictures so you all better enjoy our snapshot of life in Lebanon