Best and Worst Memories of Lebanon

From Lucas

My best memory of Lebanon is definitely a wide smiling laugh out loud Elias running towards me for a clumsy jump on my stomach. I love this
guy.

Worst memory-The cockroach fight for sure. No wait, this huge hairy spider coming
out of Moritz bed. Horrible, gives me the shivers...

From Amelie

Best memory: Generally the work with our handicapped friends, and once a memorable Holy Mass downtown with a 3 hour brunchinner (breakfast, lunch, dinner)

Worst memory: Policemen! very rude people

From Moritz

My best memory of Lebanon: the village festival in Bkassine and the BO evenings for free

My worst memory of Lebanon: stone in my window and strangers in my room at 4am , working moral of the Lebanese people

From Daniel

Seeing most of the boys and girls very happy about the smallest presents from Papa Noel such as towels, underwear, shoes and scarves, which were made possible by all the Christmas donations and our fund raising campaign. 

Staying one week of service and university sick at home in bed. After weeks of service it's just so boring with nobody around you singing, dancing, talking or doing anything, because the team leaves at 7.00am and returns earliest to the apartment at 4.30pm. 

From Maxi

My best memory in Lebanon: There are loads of "best  moments" during my time here in Lebanon. Most of them are with the boys and the girls of the homes. I have one moment in my mind which impresses my till now. During the Winter camp Taghrid, one of the girls from Deir el Quamar, was lying in her bed and could not sleep. So I went to her and asked her why? She was smiling at me, with a smile which was brighter than the sun in the Sahara, and told me, that she is just too happy to sleep. Her day was so nice that she just does not want it to end.

My worst moment in Lebanon: Of course during our time here, we experienced some sad moments. Problems in the family at home, boys are sick or even die. A really tough moment for me was, when i heard that my boy i took care of in the Summer camp, was about to die. In the end everything went fine and he is healthy again, but such moments are really the toughest for me.

From Caroline

My best memory of Lebanon is that one of my boys in Deir el Salib, Nicolas, suddenly hugged me. He is a really shy boy and every time I was sitting next to him he was walking a way from me. Of course I was always trying to get a better relationship with him but it didn't help at all. On one day I was trying it again, this time it went better than all the other days, weeks, months before suddenly he came very close and hugged me very tight. He laughed and was smiling! It was wonderful, I was so deeply touched by it, not only I was glad that the effort i gave was answered but the strange thing was i felt glad because he came out off his shy-self.
 
 My worst memory of Lebanon is the timing of the Lebanese. They some how mange to never come on time. Of course there are some exceptions but for the most people it is like this. If we say be there at 13.00 they come at least 30 min later. They use most of the time the traffic as excuse, and indeed the traffic here is really bad. Now we are used to it so we are more clever and say that the meeting is at 12.30 so they come at 13.00. So we try to attempt this culture what is not always easy

From Johanna

Best experience: Work with the boys and girls, every time again amazing!

From Suzanne

Best Memory – Actually there are many , but one that really stands out for me is the first time that I saw Karim standing really tall and reaching up for a shock – his determination and strength our things that will stick with me .

My worst memory was possibly been head butted by one of the boys in Deir El Salib , I think the pain and blood will always stick with me as I got such a shock .  Or second worst memory was in preparation camp when I ended up telling Letti that we where going to Lebanon for 10 months instead of 6 months , the information she received was incorrect and she was all organised for 6 months . Another negative memory was getting bitten by a dog in Deir El Quammar and having to travel around half of Lebanon to get the medication - it was an ok experience as I had Lucas with me and Fawzi our arabic only speaking driver . Unfortunately once Fawsi brought us to downtown Beirut we had to get taxis  , this left me with a rather sad memory as I was already very upset without getting taxis and traipsing through a country that I do not speak the language alone. 

From Maffi

Best memory is when Maroun from Antellias recognised her after an extended time . Maroun was my boy in the 2^nd camp and I was pleasantly surprised that he recognised me after 3 or 4 weeks . Maroun has down syndrome and is a very docile and calm boy who really liked the beach , playing with a football or chilling in the hammock. it was with difficulty to gauge the emotion of Maroun as he barely reacted even with a smile . When he saw Caravan arriving in Antellias we could all really see how happy he was and that he probably connected us with the good memories of Chabrouh .

Worst memory for me was coming from Chabrouh to the apartment and been sick for three days . We had to do a lot for cleaning and organising while we really needed a rest. It was easy to become homesick when I realised that everything that we had spoken about for the last 6 weeks had just become a reality and that we will not be returning home for some months .

From Matthieu

 Best memory so far:

Johanna's birthday. It started like a very bad evening. The way to this restaurant up the mountain was absolutely endless, we had to wait in the car for ages in the freezing cold and even had pretty bad arguments about tiny things. But then we made it to this place, which was rather cosy, and all our friends were gathered for a nice open-food and open-arak meal. The evening was spent eating amazing food in huge amounts and drinking arak, then dancing until late in the night. The atmosphere was amazing! And then it was time to go back, so Maxi and I hopped into Elio's car (his fathers actually, a nice Mercedes) and drove down. But in the middle of nowhere, a wheel broke. Maxi looked out of his window after I shouted that the bumpy feeling most probably came from a broken wheel, and seeing nothing on his side, just shouted back at me: "No, the wheels are perfectly fine!" Hopefully I was sober enough to know that there were wheels on both sides of the car, and we stopped to change it. Then followed a good hour of intense efforts, changing this wheel somewhere in the mountains. Maxi and I knew how to do it, so Elio was just holding the light. We were cracking out laughing from time to time, for reasons that shall not be mentioned on this blog. Finally, the wheel was fixed and we made it back to the apartment, exhausted, more than full and slightly drunk. On the next morning, we all went to university in a secondary state. Arriving there, Maxi and I realised that are pants we full of mud, and neither of us both had been bright enough to see that before. A good laugh!

Worst memory:

Being sick in the camps. I've had a very bad tonsil infection and I could hardly swallow. But I had to continue on with service. I really didn't want to pussy out, so I kept on going, although my girl gave me a hard time. Every minute was spent trying to look alright while actually being completely f*cked. Worst moment: realising I would not be able to eat the fancy diner because nothing would even enter my mouth. That also meant I had crossed my limits, I had to leave my girl.