Yesterday we planned a trip to Byblos, an ancient city in the North eastern coast of Lebanon. The intention was to also involve the volunteers participating in our classes in order to spend some time together and continue to build up our relationship beyond the classroom walls.
However, in what was a sort of domino-effect, out of 30 participants who had shown interest in joining us earlier through the week, one after the other one declined until it was only us eight and the hosting family who were ready for the trip.
In any case, we still enjoyed our time, although we still couldn't help feeling disappointed as we were all looking forward to get to know each other more. It seems that we will have to resort to the last twelve hours spread over the last four remaining days to give our best in making the project a success.
On the other hand… from our end we enjoyed it immensely and naturally had our little adventures along the way. Through selfie positions and other camera angles we managed to capture a lot of the scenery which you enjoy in the video above as well.
Another experience… another truth!
An unexpected vista caught my eye yesterday. On our way back home, we passed through the coast-road of Beirut surrounded with high class areas of a modern city, similar to our Sliema front with longer stretches. This part of the city was rebuilt from ashes within the last 20 years just after the civil war.
Our aim was to reach Raouche - a touristic landmark, where despite all the natural elements and beautiful scenarios, piles of rubbish are left over by the Syrian immigrants. This perfectly illustrates the Syrian crisis and its effect on the citizens.
The Lebanese citizens are forced to choose other places rather than free public spaces since the huge number of Syrian asylum-seekers are taking given preference for the free spots. Take note, here we might be speaking about illegal immigrants and not refugees since much of the refugees live on the outskirts of the city or other rural areas which are drastically cheaper. This is one face of the story which gives those in true need a mistakenly bad name and are being treated like the others who, in spite of having everything, still try to manipulate the rest.
I'll stop with this thought for today and allow you time to enjoy the video. perhaps one more time… it speaks more than a thousand words! After a well deserved break, it is now time to put all our charged energy back into the project… off to prepare!
Adrian Cassar
from The Malta Independent http://ift.tt/2hgJOfC
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