A "Week Without Walls" in Lebanon

Yes, it has been a long time since a blog post but with the school year winding down we have been VERY busy!!

Week Without Walls is something I had never run into until teaching overseas. It is an opportunity for students to get away from the classroom and learn in a different way.  While our 8th graders were in Sri Lanka, our 7th graders were in Armenia, and most of our 6th graders (including Tim and Delaney) were in Turkey, I was here with the students who did not travel outside of Lebanon.  This also allowed Janna to experience a little bit of the activities because we did a camping trip for one night.

I was quite excited to see more of Lebanon and also get the chance to be with some great students and staff.

Here are some pictures of our activities that week!

The first day, we went to a nature reserve called Jabal Moussa.  We hiked down the Roman stairs there. It was quite steep but what a beautiful view!

 

Janna was quite a trooper

 

What a view!

We walked down into the town and went past this newly renovated church.  The new bell tower was beautiful!

We then went up a little into the mountains to Chahtoul Camp.  There was no electricity and we were in tents but what a beautiful location! The kids were able to rock climb and repel, zip line and try some archery. Here are some fun pictures!

Janna and I in our tent

Janna and I getting ready to do the zip line. She was pretty nervous!

There were some neat rock outcroppings to climb all around the camp.

A beautiful view.

Janna trying rock climbing. She went a little ways then came back down.

Our future archer.....

Me and my friend and colleague, Joumana.

The clouds rolled into the valley below us.

My favorite picture of the view from the camp.

The next day we went to a place called "Rio City". This is where the kids got to take a driver's exam and learn to drive golf carts.  Now Janna can drive Grandpa Jack around the golf course!

Watch the road!

She had a very nice instructor that knew a little English.

The next day we went to a local beach to do some clean up.  Since it was very sunny and about 95 degrees we only worked for about three hours.  Sadly, we were only able to clean a small part of the beach but it still felt good to use a shovel again!

We would shovel sand onto the screen to get the small stuff. The sift out the sand.

This is what we were removing. The whole beach was full of the stuff. Very sad. We ended up taking away a large yard sized garbage bag full of the stuff though. You could tell where we had been.

One of the highlights of the week for me was going on a tour of a UN ship in port.  The Bangladeshi Naval Ship Osman welcomed us in true Bangladeshi form.  The people seemed to have this "aura" of gentleness around them. We took pictures of them while they took pictures of us.  They left to return to Bangladesh this week. I wish them safe sailing!

Other colleagues of mine, Jeremy and Wassam were on the tour as well. Notice the Bangladeshi flag behind them.

The U.N. Flag next to the Lebanese flag.

Gunnery men.

Just a fun picture of Wassam.

Overall, it was a wonderful week with great students and friends!