New delights for the boys and girls

[Habitual apologies for another poor show on updating the blog, and thanks to the commentator below who has, rightly of course, accused the blog of ‘dormant’ behaviour. Dormant blog means hectic programme, so we hope we may prevail once again upon the reader’s forgivingness]

Tonnes to tell from Beyrouth: first and foremost, we record, mirabile dictu, the welcome news that Simon (Reiners, who took prime position in blog 1) has booked his flights and is rejoining us at the end of November, following the medical all-clear. The Levantine Coast has received these tidings with delight, rejoices wildly and waits with baited breath for the Caravan fellowship to be reunited.

All driving lessons are now completed and certified by Chamoun, who took tireless pleasure in the teaching (even if his students (Mareike, Ann-Sophie and Antonius) were more lukewarm at 8 in the morning); there’s barely a centre-metre of Beirut (and its vicinity) which they have not covered with the Chamoun School of Driving. Put positively, the car is a vintage (at a pinch “antique”), dove grey specimen of Audi which works. Conversely, bits of it are falling off/disintegrating, passengers are accommodated unglamorously on seats which feel as though you are about to fall through them... and the car now smells of soy sauce due to an unforeseeable domestic accident (thanks due to Ann-Sophie). The car has opened up a wide range of personal liberties, e.g. shopping and collecting rancid paper packages from McDonalds. Marwan, Finger-Charbel and Rashed (some of our boys from Saint Dominique) even had the distinct pleasure of hopping aboard the Audi for a “road-trip” around Deir el Salib, with Mareike/Ann-Sophie at the wheel. I need hardly describe the elation which resulted from this almighty adventure.

In fact, innovations of various kinds have been taking place in the homes where we work. At Deir el Qamar we have honed our programme to take account of the large number of girls with whom we were working: now we take two groups (around 10 each), playing games (not just volleyball, but versions of cricket/baseball, ‘blind man’s bluff’ (can’t imagine what the translation for that is, German-speakers) and other activities which make more demands on their cognitive abilities), singing songs (familiar to all who attended Chabrough) and every week there is a birthday party to devote undivided attention to one girl in particular – this week’s renditions of ‘happy birthday’ were downright bad, but we’re working on it, and Antonius the wandering minstrel even supplies some musical backing on the guitar. The main advantage of this arrangement is of course that we can provide closer, one-on-one attention to the girls.

The birthday party idea has also made it to Deir el Salib where now once a week we take a group of boys out into the garden and celebrate a birthday (regardless of whether or not it is actually their birthday; the scenario more often than not is that the birth date of the boy is inconnu). Raed was the lucky chap this week (who is almost permanently bed-bound) and the provision of birthday cake and songs in the garden made him, needless to say, extremely happy.

On the other side of life: we went camping up in the mountains, almost contracted hypothermia from a near enough glacial river, ate Stockbrot and had an interesting chat with a man and his mule who were passing through. The setting was very beautiful and thanks as always go to Michel who organised it all so well and chose such a marvellous place; nine people, two small tents was, however, a squeezed ratio, particularly given the odd sleep-talking and some quite possessive sleeping habits.

Michel (along with Dr Issa) also organised our latest adventure to the Valley of the Saints (Qadisha) which really was a treat: an enormous valley with on average one monastery every hundred metres; the place is dominated by a kind of holiness which is difficult to describe hors du contexte. We were fortunate enough to walk most of its length and stay in a monastery for Saturday night and even sup with a shepherd whose family (dressed rather incongruously in addidas sports gear and label clothing) prepared and served the most fantastic supper. The drive out of the valley was extraordinary, giving us the chance to look back over what we had walked and to observe this secluded, quiet part of Lebanon which was in olden days a place of refuge for Christians in trouble, the evidence of which still exists so powerfully in the form of caved monasteries and hermitages (one hermit in particular, a Colombian (don’t ask), was not/is never in a socio-interactive mood and seemed more than a little dismayed to see 10 hikers traipsing through his little piece of land; his “yes, welcome” sounded tired and ironic).

The weekend before, most of us went, as a result of Dr Issa’s continual generosity, to Sourat where the doctor has a ‘country residence’. He hosted us magnificently and the visit also gave rise to a lemonade tasting which was apparently top class. A bit of monastery-visiting the next day, mass in the evening at St Joseph’s Church and then Halloween was acknowledged in Gemese with a few tipples and some disgusting (if appropriate) face graffiti (which didn’t quite make it off everyone’s face by Aabla-time the next morning).

Hala Ghoryab very sweetly invited us round for a beachside party at her pad near Damour, just south of Beirut. Perfect sunset, wonderful setting amidst the banana trees, food excellent and, for some, the sea was forgiving enough to allow swimming. So kind, many thanks.

Another point of (dubious) local interest was my birthday last week (if you’ll forgive me for breaking my very ill kept authorial anonymity) which resulted - *completely* without my knowledge – in a surprise party. I am very grateful to be able to use this blog as an opportunity to thank all those who came (and especially of course my Caravanista comrades who organised it). I think I almost suffered a heart-attack when greeted by all those familiar Lebanese/German/Irish faces last Friday and it was a perfect, if unexpected, way to smooth the aging process as I begrudgingly slip into life as a 23 year old. Thank you very much.

That’s about it for this time, except to mention that we have now started at the Université St Joseph and have already had a series of lectures on Lebanese history, now comes the ‘religious bit’ starting with an already entertaining series with Ralph Sleiman (I particularly enjoy his use of ‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’ when answering questions). Nour (our history lecturer) took us on a historical tour of the ‘downtown’ area of Beirut which culminated in a fantastic ice cream session at Chocolat Milano and she also showed us the National Museum which was a joy.

Keep tuning in for more updates – I really must apologise once again for our dismal communications skills, but, in summary, all is going well, we are attempting different, more interesting activities with the boys and girls, our Lebanese friends remain exceedingly generous (this blog, due to constraints, does not even approach a full report of our evening-to-evening activities with our friends out here, on whom we are so dependant) and the weather is lovely. Over and out, for the time being.

Here we are - Better late than never

The Caravan approaches the end of its first month in Beirut: the days have grown shorter, the sea remains tepid, the air warm and close, and the locals even begin to speak of a ‘second summer’. It seems appallingly mismanaged that we have issued only three missives on this blog in that time and that we have to reiterate the apologies which introduced last week’s update. Anyway, apologies aren’t very interesting so let’s get on with what we’ve been up to since our last communication...

Our programme of service at Deir el Qamar and Deir el Salib becomes increasingly second nature. In the case of the girls especially we are now a regular, recognised (and positively received) part of their Monday afternoon. It is, admittedly, exhausting work as we commit ourselves to an (over)active programme of ceaseless volleyball, colouring pictures and, making its debut appearance this week, nail polishing. The girls who sustained this treatment paraded their newly decorated fingers (a seductive brand of Parisian pink), whilst others jealously looked on; their turn will come! The ratio is quite intense: 40 girls to 7 caravanistas, and this accounts mostly for the exhaustion. I keep on making the usual GCSE errors in French as I insist (don’t know why) on addressing each girl as ‘madame’, to which one girl gave (or rather, screamed) the pretty sensible response: ‘Ahh! Je suis mademoiselle! il n’y a pas de madames ici!’ [repeated 10x, as baffled nuns look on].

The main change in dynamic this week was that Nick’s mother and sister were staying in Beirut. They are now hugely impressed witnesses to the work and worth of the Caravan Project. They have visited both the homes at which we work; I took them up to see Sonia (my girl at the camp in Chabrouh) who, for the most part, remains in her bed for the whole day along with many others in their cots. Lydia (sister) found it especially meaningful that they recognise us, shout our names and gain such pleasure from even the most basic interaction. From overwhelming expressions of gratitude and wide-armed hugs through to the last simple, quiet ‘merci’, these are merely an acknowledgement of how valuable our presence is in these homes. Some, of course, cannot even muster a ‘merci’, but then it becomes even more necessary to understand what they are saying inside and perhaps what they wish they could shout out loud. So we send two impressed and admiring visitors back to England. Belinda (mother) simply said: “I am just amazed by all of you and what you do here”.

Our intensive Arabic lessons have now finished and we shift to one lesson a week to keep the language ticking over. Aabla has been a super teacher, delivering three lessons a week up to this point. We have now been introduced to (though few of us have mastered) most of the Arabic letters, have got as far as the past tense of select verbs and I think we know most of the vocabulary for food stuffs (Aabla is very keen to ensure that we can survive the restaurant scenario). Next week university begins and a carefully constructed timetable which covers Middle Eastern socio-politics/religions will begin to unravel.

Kelly Sehnaoui has been especially kind in the past weeks in hosting our ‘film night’ with her fantastic projector: Gosford Park (wonderful piece of English drama with the waspish Maggie Smith at the helm of a superb cast) was much enjoyed, as were the excellent chicken sandwiches and even an interesting pre-film viewing of a Lebanese wedding (Kelly’s elder brother). Very many thanks.

Michel Yanni unleashed the most active part of our programme to date last Saturday with a day of climbing, abseiling and caving up in the mountains, with a nice supper thrown in at the end. Utterly terrifying at times, though the alpha males were happy bunnies, some of the girls less so.

We were all extremely delighted, and moreover lucky, to be able to attend the closing night of Skybar, Beirut’s (indeed the Middle East’s) most popular nightclub. We are greatly indebted to Sheikh Whalid for his characteristic generosity; I don’t think any of us had seen anything quite like it before and the fireworks were astounding.

We have all just this minute returned from a trip with Chamoun (our tireless driver) around the Bekaar Valley, (re)visiting Baalbek, home to the tallest Roman columns, and the best preserved Roman archaeology, in the world and set in an entirely vast, beautiful flood plain (although Baalbek the town is a dump, complete with second-hand ice creams and bad smells), and exploring one of the chief joys of the Bekaar: wine tasting (at Ksara). Stunning views over the valley and Syria in the far distance. A jolly old day, even if the traffic was predictably dire at points.

So back to Deir el Salib tomorrow where we have are currently making such a difference in the ‘small boys room’ (where some of the most severely handicapped, young and near permanently bed-bound cases reside) by playing the guitar and singing: the atmosphere changes completely and one is greeted by those really wonderful, though rare, smiles. Life out here continues to be a really positive balance between uncovering more about Beirut and Lebanon, and working with the boys and girls, from whom we gain so much – and perhaps it is not too much to hope that they gain something from us.

On with the dance in Beirut....

The Caravan 2010/2011 (excepting Heidi and Valerie)

Many apologies for the unforgivable lack of communication since the first instalment of this blog: the Caravan has been frantically busy as our adventures on the Levantine Coast continue and as we all get a bit more local colour (not a great excuse).

Little has changed in terms of our schedule, though for some reason it went unmentioned in the last communication that on Mondays we go to Deir el Qamar to work with the girls in that particularly beautiful part of Lebanon, up in the mountains just south-east of Beirut. The number and nature of the girls is quite different to that of the boys in Deir el Salib: there are around 350 girls living in a home which is, by most standards, very pleasant, clean and comfortable. Their handicaps are less pronounced and their cognitive/physical abilities are, relative to the boys, impressive. They are receptive to even the most feeble efforts at French and at points I even drew one lady into a conversation about Parisian politics, before she told me that she didn’t care about France and wanted to end the conversation forthwith (“hallas”). Back to volleyball and colouring books then – there is, incidentally, evidence of some supreme, near Brazilian standard, volleyball from the girls.

Away from the schedule, we have had a brilliant time exploring some more Beirut bars. One recommendation for a particular bar (called ‘Level’) would be to turn the volume down – headaches and temporary deafness abounded the next day. Conversely, we have embraced Beirut’s classical music scene in a big way; Dr Issa is in effect our classical patron and steers us towards a concert series which occurs every Friday involving some very fine Bruch, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Mozart. Golly we’re lucky.

We went up to the hills above Beirut the weekend before last for a day out with the elderly from a Maltese home which was very lovely, gave some us the chance to converse in French, and it was of course different to spend the day with people who are fully compos mentis. Food was fantastic to boot. Later that day, for a judicious bit of variety, we went to a party called “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” which bespattered its guests in firm-clinging glitter and offered practically unlimited amounts of “candy” to the revellers. The glitter has yet to remove itself from some unfortunate victims. Music was good though.

Michel, our superb Caravan assistant (as credited in last week’s blog), organised a terrific trip to a rock-pool/beach in between Batrun and Byblos. Great lunch and some long-awaited swimming in the enduringly warm Mediterranean made it a memorable Sunday.

We must once again thank our Lebanese friends for their seemingly endless hospitality: Daniel very kindly invited us round for a copious and excellent supper, Kelly generously allowed us to watch Pulp Fiction in her house (which appears to double as a cinema), Carl at basically no notice invited us all round to watch Pan’s Labyrinth and have some supper which was much enjoyed; though on one night a week we stay at home for a Caravan Night, ‘team-bonding’.

The highlight of the last week, naturally, was Cecily’s birthday which was commemorated with an eight hour shopping trip on the actual day, an elaborate breakfast in the morning (eggs, bacon and... a chocolate cake) and a spot of 80s music in the evening (because Cecily is a massive devotee of the 80s). She self-evidently had a super cool birthday and we all wait curiously to see the results of that 8 hour dive into Beirut’s shopping district.

Last Saturday we took off to ‘Pierre and Friends’ (a beach bar) painfully aware that the beach season’s days are numbered in Lebanon. Quite an intrepid choice: like something out of that rather good Walt Whitman poem the waves crashed upon receiving shore and sprayed the drinkers with unforgiving brine. Break, break, break, on thy cold grey stones, o Sea! The weather has definitely turned here in Beirut; it is cooler, cloudier and the air conditioning is fast becoming redundant. Even the Filipino mass which we go to on Sunday morning was a little less uncomfortable; if a little more stressful given that we were required to make a stage appearance this week singing (in four voices, I might just say) Confitemini Domino and Bless the Lord, my Soul – the Filipinos appear to be very preoccupied with stage (more often than not ‘pop’) culture, and so our gesture had a perceptibly warm reception.

The work with the boys and girls continues to be extremely rewarding and really very worthwhile. It would, I think, be fair to say that each day we forge new and better bonds with those for whom we care; the positive impact of the Caravan’s work in these homes is easy to see. The Deir el Salib staff still eye me with some suspicion (this week’s choice piece of pretentious Arabic was: biraye enno fekrit Wittgenstein aan assel el leghat ktir moushawika (‘In my opinion, Wittgenstein’s theory on the origin of languages is very interesting’)), but we get on with them and Soeur Manel very well; nothing bad to report.

Apologies for the absurd length of this dispatch – no doubt if we actually write the blog on time this week, you can expect a more concise version of events. As it is, many thanks for your patience in making it this far and we hope you’ll join us next Tuesday for a résumé of this week’s excitements.

And so it begins...

Greetings from the sweltering suburbs of Beirut and welcome to the blog of the Caravan team for 2010/2011. We are a team of eight, but (and I'm sorry to begin this blog with sad news) tragically we have had to say a far too premature goodbye to one of our members, Simon Reiners, who has returned to Germany for medical reasons. We hold out much hope, however, that he will soon rejoin us in Beirut, we remember him in our prayers and, in the meantime, miss him enormously: he remains, as much as before, a member of our team.

So the rest of us: Ann-Sophie Moreau is our Bavarian guardian angel (and, more terrestrially, our team leader), a goddess of organisation and ever reliable in hard times, she is to be at the helm during our stay in Lebanon over the next five months. Following in her steps from Germany: Lexi Clary, who lives near Frankfurt, Antonius Aulock, from Schwerin, Cecily Bernsdorff, from near Cologne, Mareike Jonczyk, also hailing from Cologne. And then there is a significant minority from the English-speaking nations: Nicholas (Nick) Wingfield Digby from Dorset in the south-west of England and Eoin O'Conor from Roscommon in the north-west of the land where Whiskey and Guiness flow in the rivers [Ireland, for the unenlightened]. The name for this group is still a work in progress, but at the moment we haphazardly refer to ourselves as the 'Donkeys' in memory of Antonius's shooting skills at a Volksfest (funfair) in Heilbronn where the old boy was rewarded with an absolutely hideous synthetic donkey. The donkey has subsequently made it's way through an embarrassing altercation with the officials at Frankfurt Airport to Lebanon and has now flown back to Germany with Simon to cheer him up a bit. We'll let you know if our joint imagination can come up with anything more gratifying/appropriate...

Doubtless if you are reading this, you are interested in what we have been up to so far. We are now entering the third month of the project. We spent nearly a month in a monastery in Bad Wimpfen, near Heilbronn, undertaking a series of formative lectures and courses about, inter alia, the history of Lebanon and the Middle East, the conditions of the people with whom we would be dealing and more generally we bonded as a team. Then we shifted location to Lebanon, to the mountains above Beirut in Faraya where we spent a month caring for the so-called 'boys' and 'girls' who suffer from a range of physical and mental handicaps (most of them are in fact older, anything up to the mid-seventies). Malteser International has a beautifully situated centre up there for this purpose and I think the value of these weeks for the guests who we, and roughly 40 other German and Lebanese volunteers, hosted is indisputable. These weeks were interspersed with trips all over Lebanon, to Baalbek, to the Bekkar Valley and of course to Beirut. 10 days ago, we parted company with the other German volunteers, and the fellowship of eight, accompanied by veteran Lebanophiles Max Lobkowicz and Valerie Magnis, descended from the mountains to Naccache, a 'suburb' just removed from the hustle and bustle of urban Beirut.

We have been very busy since our arrival: practically every night has been spent sampling the multifarious joys of Beirut's evening culture (I suppose 'nightlife' is more trendy). By day we have now settled into a quite rhythmic timetable of Arabic lessons (three per week) which start mercilessly early; then we are picked up at exactly 12.45 by our driver, Chamoun, to be taken to Deir el Salib, the largest institute for handicapped and mentally ill people in Lebanon. We have lunch there (which is habitually cold, but Chamoun delivers tips on how to improve this misfortune), then we gather in the chapel, gloriously situated at the highest point of the area and commanding a staggering view over the whole of Beirut and its surroundings. We have a brief session of prayer and intercession to prepare us for the afternoon with the boys, and then we descend to Saint Dominique, the lowest floor of the Notre Dame institution. There we spend a maximum of three hours providing these people (whose disabilities range from middle degree mental impairment through to near complete paralysis) with the emotional care which the staff at Saint Dominique struggle to provide with such consistency.

The department is overseen by Sr Menal, a charming nun who gave us an effective introduction and who has since proved very helpful in spite of her terrific work load. Her team are equally pleasant, though some have zero English which creates misunderstandings. We try to deploy our rudimentary Arabic, but personally my attempts have led only to confusion: the one thing I can say with any great fluency in Arabic is 'chou rayik aam bisir bi siyesit Moscau' which means 'what do you think of the political situation in Moscow' - I have now desisted from saying this because the caretakers began to give me the kind of look which a doctor might give to a psychiatric maniac.

We have already had a party to which we invited all the Lebanese who we have so far met, at its peak probably around 35 people. Great success - despite one case of serious [Irish] drunkenness. We hope our friends enjoyed it as much as we all did. We have had light drinking sessions in Byblos, in Gamese, in local watering holes and some delightful suppers, the latest of which was with the excellent Dr Issa, one of the stalwarts of our project. Great fun has been had waterskiing, shopping, Sushi sampling, bowling, playing ridiculously juvenile slot machine games and this week we look forward to further steps being taken into Beirut nightlife (the famous, yet so far elusive 'Sky Bar' has been suggested for Saturday night and something called BO18 (??) as well).

In short, I wish to reassure the reader that we are having a super cool time here in Lebanon. That is due mostly to those who organise us: our Lebanese friends, our official Caravan assistant, Michel Yanni who has so far been invaluable in securing mobile phone cards, access to x, y and z... and haircuts, and in general the Maltese youth of Lebanon; we have so far found that the people of this wonderful country have been, with almost total consistency, hospitable, generous and so warm-hearted, as if it were in their genes (I say 'almost' because of the exception of the nun at Deir el Salib who thought I was a patient at the institution when I tried asking her in Arabic where the nearest loo was - she told me to be quiet and go away). Many thanks to all of you. Next update in a week....