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!

Spring Break #3 - Our Trip to Batroun

On Monday, we hired a taxi to take us about an hour north to a sleepy little town on the coast called Batroun. This town dates back to the Phoenicians.

Here is a quick map to give you an idea of where it is in comparison to Beirut.

Here are some pictures of our first day there.  It was VERY windy!

This was the view from our room on the top floor. They hadn't filled the pool yet but there was still the beach.

We had two different rooms and this was the wallpaper on the girl's room wall....YOU CAN BOOGIE!!

There was a public beach right next to us and this is where this sail surfer (as they call them here) launched from. He was moving really fast!

The windy weather didn't stop the girls from playing in the waves.

Or the sand....

It was a beautiful day.

Here is a view of the houses and the public beach next door.

Tim and I walked out to the point. That is our hotel behind him.

This was the son of the sail surfer. He and his mom walked over to our beach. Apparently he has a thing for older girls.(That's what his mom said.) He followed Delaney and Janna until we went into the hotel. He was very cute at 2 1/2 year old.

As we walked into town a we saw an empty house with a walled in area with a ton of bunnies. Not sure if they were pets (if you know what I mean).

There were also turtles with the bunnies.

Across the street from the place we ate there were preparing for a wedding. We were impress with this balloon sculpture.

Here are some pictures of day two. It was much warmer and we went for a walk through the town in the morning.

We found St. Steven Church right next to the water.  It also looked like it had a school as well. St. Steven is on the top of the building. It was really hard to take a picture of because the sun was right behind him when we were there. 

We then went in search of the Phoenician Wall along the water. We thought we had found it when we went around a corner and found this cool house on the water.

We did find this small church called "Our Lady of the Sea". 

This was the view from the church and the Phoenician Wall along the water.

This is the other side of the church where Tim got the picture above.

It's hard to believe that this wall has been here for over 2500 years and was 225 meters long!

As we were walking back we saw this store sign....doesn't look like the Al Paccino I know!

We saw this neat statue of a deep sea diver on our way back to the hotel. Shows a little bit of the history of this area.

Of course, that was just the morning. The rest of our day was quite relaxing.

There was swimming.

There were these very territorial and quick crabs on the beach as well. They were fun to watch. 

These two were very protective of their space.

 We went and had a late lunch and then Janna wanted to see the sunset so we went out to the point and waited.

Delaney found a good spot. 

Janna was being very thoughtful.

The only picture Tim didn't take that evening.

Still waiting.....

This was worth the wait though....

After the sun set we went up to our room. This was the view.

We did get hungry so we called room service and got some hummus, labneh, feta cheese, veggies and bread. There was so much Tim and I ate some for breakfast!

On the last day, we went swimming again and Delaney and Janna made this sandcastle. Overall, we had a very nice and relaxing trip!