We are Caravan

Between the camps !

In between our two Easter camps in Chabrouh, we’ve had the chance of enjoying a few vacation days in Beirut. We came down from the camp on the 14^th, and took the afternoon to rest a bit. But astonishingly, some of us we still motivated to go out in the night. So they did, showing great strength and determination after this exhausting week in Chabrouh. Only Stéphane, Carole and Matthieu stayed home to play endless Risk games.

On the next day, the Risk players went to Batrun, while the others finally had to surrender to their beds. We met all together in the evening for a very nice barbecue at Hadi’s place, 5 minutes away from our house. Hadi’s flat is quite amazing, I have to say, with an awesome view on Downtown. No need to describe the evening, I guess: every Lebanese party starts with arak and ends up with guitars. Stéphane and Carole had to leave us during this night. We enjoyed their presence a lot and hope they had a good time here in Lebanon with us.

On the 16^th, some of us stayed home to write their essays, while other left to Kaslik to do some shopping. Mafi, Amelie, Maxi and Matthieu plundered all the shops and came back with heavy bags and light wallets. The most important event of the day, however, remains the 5 hours team meeting we’ve had from 7h30 to 00h30. We talked about the camp, giving feedback ad providing ideas for the following camp. (Even) more motivation was what came out the most in our feedback, which we all loudly agreed to improve. Then we discussed all the issues of a normal team meeting, meaning organisation of the week etc… The last topic, which took a heck of a load of time, was normal feedback. We were all released when that endless meeting finally stopped.

On the 17^th, some of us stayed again at home to write all of these papers for university, while Johanna, Marie, Josepha and Matthieu went to in the Shouf region for some site seeing. They stopped by Deir El Quamar, then Beiteddine, then the beach and finally came back home after watching the sunset in Corniche. We went out almost all together that night. We met at Barometer for some arak and dabké. Cosy night that was, but for the Austrian guests, Luci and Matthieu who decided to go for a bath in the sea.

On the 18^th, the main event of the day was the visit of the Jeita Grotto by Caroline, Suzi, Maxi, Matthieu and Luci. They all loved the site, which is quite impressive indeed!

The 19^th was the last day for Marie and Josepha, Johanna’s friends from Austria. So we decided to go party (like almost every evening of the week, but this time we had a good excuse). We had a very nice evening in Hamra which ended up in the lower apartment. We said goodbye to our guests and wished them a safe flight home. It was a great pleasure to have them with us not only for the camp but also during this time of vacation! We enjoyed their presence and hope they liked their stay among us. Another important event of the 19^th was, of course, the arrival of our German doctor, Dr. Hans Peter Müller, whom we thank from the bottom of our hearts to make the journey from GHANA (!) to take care of the boys and us in the camp.

The 20^th was the day of the great news. Amelie got accepted in PPE in Bolzano, and Yan in the TU München. Suz, Maxi and Daniel kindly took care of inviting the doctor to visit Byblos. The others finished their essays or this blog.  

 

Jordan Trip

As you might have read before on this blog, some of us had planned to go to Jordan during the Christmas break, only it didn’t work out because of multiple reasons… So Matthieu proposed to go during the Easter break, but then again, most of the team couldn’t or wouldn’t come. Just a few days before the break, Amelie and Caroline decided to join Matthieu on an adventure of 5 days through Jordan. As he had already been there, Matthieu organised the trip and served as guide.

So we three left on the same day as Moritz, and flew to Amman. We were quite scared as the steward announced a local temperature of 5°C. A bad joke obviously; we fried during our entire trip! After passing through immigration and getting cool stamps on our passports, we rented a car at the airport and began our journey on the great Hashemite Kingdom. We drove West to Madaba, where we were completely immerged in a different Middle East than the one we are now used to and saw quite impressive mosaics. We quickly drove further West to the Dead Sea. Now that was some proper self-spoiling. We landed in a four star “spa” hotel, with our own bungalow as a room, 3 or 4 pools, a great view and a lot of awesomeness. So we spent a bit more than a day there, going to the sea, floating for a while, then putting mud all over ourselves, and resting a bit in the sun to rest of all these previous efforts and to work on our tan a bit…

We left the Dead Sea fully relaxed and drove South the next day on the Kings’ Road. So the afternoon was mainly spent looking at amazing landscapes and wadis along that road. We lost our track right before sunset, which seemed to bother no one but Matthieu. The girls were more into playing with the kids than finding our way before the night fell… We fortunately found our way after a while and made it safely through the desert to Petra.

It would be pointless to describe the awesomeness of the hotel we stayed in, as we would only appear spoiled (again!). We woke up early in the next morning to start a day that will probably stay in our minds for a very long time. Petra is a world wonder, no wonder why. Seriously though, it is proper amazing. Matthieu did the guide during the whole day and obviously enjoyed his explanations more than the girls who seemed a bit more concerned by taking pictures of themselves while posing or jumping or whatever. We hiked the whole day from temple to tomb, from cistern to monastery or sacrificial place. Quite impressive, the whole thing! And then happened something unexpected, to say the least. We were coming down from the mountain as two Bedouins proposed to take us on the top of a temple to watch sunset. We accepted and enjoyed some appetizers on the top of this huge temple, our feet almost hanging in the empty, watching sunset over Petra. Cool. Very cool! But that was only the beginning of our adventure. The Bedouins invited us to share diner at their cave in the middle of nowhere. We also accepted and were off to a memorable evening. Matthieu first had to run next to the donkeys while the girls and the Bedouins were on them until we made it to the Bedouin village. There, we first enjoyed tea at their family home before setting off to the desert again. We arrived on a sort of a cave which was more of a platform on a rock in the right middle of the desert. There, we lit fire and they started to cook an absolutely delicious diner and boiled tea. We ate with nothing above us but the Milky Way. We talked quite a lot and learned a lot from them. These guys were completely free. It inspired us a lot and instigated reflexions in our minds concerning our own life and conception of happiness and freedom. Then they brought us back to our hotel and wished us good night. As we laid in bed, we thought to ourselves that this night had just come out of a dream… It did, in a way.

On the next day, we left Petra and drove South again direction Aqaba. Amazing landscapes again, but the temperature was rising by the minute. When we came to Aqaba, we were just about toasting. So we dropped our stuff at the hotel and left to the beach. The Red Sea wasn’t so warm, unfortunately, so we decided not to spend too much time bathing but rather to go for a drink. And so we did! But after one or two cocktails, it was about midnight already and we somehow felt like a little bath again. So back we went and bathed under the stars in the Red Sea… Don’t be jealous, maybe you’ll do it one day, too.

We woke up early on the next morning, and drove North to Wadi Rum. Vast, echoing and Godlike were the terms used in the tour guide to describe this area in the desert. We spent our morning walking in this desert, chasing the camels and drawing words in the sand. And then it was already time to go back to Amman. 350km of highway through the desert. That might look cool, and indeed it is, but it’s also quite long, especially since that highway is just about straight… Completely straight. We eventually made it to the airport and back to Beirut safely.

It was an wonderful trip. We three enjoyed it so much, the words are missing me. The atmosphere was funny and relaxed between us and everything went perfect in this dreamlike journey. Coming back to Beirut felt like waking up.

Since we had no Uni this week because of our vacation , our Tuesday began with the first service in Deir el Salib this week, where some of us Caravanistas went with the boys to the garden, to the playing room or just entertained the boys down in St. Dominique by playing games or playing with the guitar for them. It was again great fun for all the boys as well as for us to spend the afteThis week we started our service as usual in Deir el Quamar and this time as well with the friendly support of some of our Lebanese friends. In the service we visited our disabled friends again in their different rooms, sang with them, danced, played the Bseine- Khalib Game and afterwards went with most of the girls for a little walk outside, where we picked some flowers with them. We ended our service again with the singing round. At the spiritual meeting we had this day an interesting talk with Father Thom about bad spirits and their influence. On Monday evening we had a visitor in our apartment: a good friend of Mathieu’s sister, who is working for the UN in Lebanon and who could tell us more about the work of the UN in the region and their mission in Lebanon. It was a very interesting talk for us and we appreciated her presence very much.

Wednesday morning we left our apartment in Naccache quite early to drive with our bus to Faraya. Not for skiing, as you might think but for preparing Chabrouh for the Caravancamp starting at the 10^th of April. So preparing and cleaning the kitchen, carrying mattresses, decorating the rooms with pictures, checking the storages, etc. were our tasks on this day.

Also at our service in Antelias we had again the great support of our Lebanese friends. This week we had again service in the 2^nd floor, where we made a long singing and dancing round, played Bowling, stop dance, and the Bseine- Khalib game with the boys. All in all we were able to make more different activities because of the bigger number of volunteers in the service, which caused obviously more fun, entertainment and attention for all the boys. At Thursday evening we invited our Lebanese friends to our apartment to celebrate the last evening together with Moritz, since he had to leave us to start his studies in Germany. So we had a nice last evening together with our friends in the apartment, where Moritz also donated Pizza for all of us. Later on some of us still went out to continue partying in Moritz favorite nightclub BO18.

Friday we had our last Caravan service in Deir el Saliib before our vacation and the two Camps we are organizing in Chabrouh. So we all used this last possibility for a while to spend a really good time with our Boys from St. Dominique and gave our best to make them feel happy and loved by spending our afternoon with them. We just will continue the service in the homes at the first of May because of our two camps and the week of Easter vacation.

Friday evening we Caravanistas had a nice last dinner, which Lucas and Moritz prepared as cooks in our kitchen (very delicious Spaghetti Bolognese), before we brought him on early Saturday morning to the airport. There we said goodbye to him in our way by singing some songs for him in the airport. We are all sad to lose one more of our friends before June and wish Moritz all the best for his studies and his plans for the future. Anyway we all will see each other again.

Caroline, Amelie and Matthieu also left on this morning for their trip to Jordan. We’re sure you have to tell a lot about your trip in the next blog and can’t wait to see you back in Naccache.

On Saturday the little rest of us left to Deir el Saliib to bring the boys of St. Dominique with the support of the Lebanese youth to the “Palm Sunday” Mess. It was a great success to go with the all nice dressed boys this day to church. Also some of their parents and relatives came to attend Mess and to spend this time with them, which is always nice to see for us since we spend a lot of time with the boys. After the Mess we took part with them in the procession and afterwards brought them back to St. Dominique, where we helped the caretakers with feeding the boys. In the following days many of the boys go for Easter vacation home to their families and are very happy about it as we are for them. Some boys already told us weeks before that they leave to their families.

On Saturday Mafi also arrived back from Germany together with her brother Alfons in order to bring our empty apartment back to life since Lucas and Maxi also left on Sunday morning to a hiking trip in the mountains and the surrounding of Sourat. Also Daniels parents arrive on this Sunday to spend a week in Beirut. But we will be united again as a complete group shoi shoi this week.