ETI... the Basketball Team?

Staying in quiet Tripoli on the secluded mountaintop of the Balamand Monastery, Alia and I were pretty desperate for something to do.  So when we heard that a Tripoli counselor named Mustapha El-Akkari would be playing in a basketball game on a Thursday night, we were eager to go.  Mustapha is one of the best basketball players in Lebanon, and he plays college ball at at BYU-Hawaii.  As soon as we arrived, my homesickness was ameliorated by the crowds of people, American hip hop music, and a generally familiar sports atmosphere.  But what we didn’t realize when we left the monastery that night was that this basketball game was arranged completely for the benefit of ETI and Camp Rafiqi Tripoli! After the best 14 basketball players of Northern Lebanon had a short warm up, a thug-ish announcer “colorfully” announced the teams.  We had a good laugh at the MC’s use of American slang like “young blood” and “boi”, but then we realized that Mustapha’s team was named “Team ETI”, and they would be playing the game just to promote our organization!  We cheered even louder for them, of course.

Half time rolled along, and Mustapha came over to our sideline to take one of our blind campers, Nasser, by the hand.  Nasser is one of our oldest campers at Camp Rafiqi Tripoli, and he has become a leader due to his skill on the drums.  Watch a clip here—he’s truly amazing!  On this night, Nasser fit in on the basketball court in his baby blue uniform.  He took the microphone from Mustapha and spoke to the crowd about Camp Rafiqi, how it feels to be a blind person, and how much blind people love sports just like sighted people.  To prove his point, he moved over to the foul line, basketball in hand, and took a shot.  The crowd clapped in rhythm, and as it turned out, Nasser is a great shot!  He wasn’t quite lined up for the first two attempts, but once Mustapha told Nasser to take a step to the left, he sunk the third shot without any problem.  You can watch Nasser's shot here..

The ETI team won (of course) and thanks to donations from the other fans, Camp Rafiqi Tripoli even raised some money for the next two weeks.  I can’t speak for everyone, but it was a powerful night for me.  It feels wonderful to see our mission being shared with the larger community, and it feels even better to see people receive our work so warmly!

Thanks, Mustapha, for an incredible night and all your hard work!

Living with Lebanon

holiday inn

We’ve heard all about Lebanon’s instability.  If you haven’t, just take a quick look at the U.S. State Department’s travel warning for Lebanon, which offers:

The potential in Lebanon for a spontaneous upsurge in violence is real. Lebanese government authorities are not able to guarantee protection for citizens or visitors to the country should violence erupt suddenly. Access to borders, airports, and seaports can be interrupted with little or no warning. Public demonstrations occur frequently with little warning and have the potential to become violent. Family or neighborhood disputes often escalate quickly and can lead to gunfire or other violence with little or no warning.

So before I left the States to help Empowerment Through Integration’s Camp Rafiqi in Beirut and Tripoli, I asked around for advice about Lebanon.  The diversity of advice was troubling, to say the least.  Without fail, each person I talked to who had been to Beirut supported my itinerary.  Of course, a foreign woman should be careful and aware, but none of them believed there was any reason for me to stay away from Lebanon entirely. On the other hand, people who had not been to the Middle East gave advice that ranged from “Stay in your hotel room the whole time” to “Don’t go there at all; you could get yourself killed.”  Their concerns are valid, considering that popular news outlets like to feature the most dramatic incidents in Lebanon, but I was still intrigued.  A little wary of living in this part of the world, I decided to work at Camp Rafiqi anyway.

crater

I’ve been in Lebanon for over two weeks now, and I still can’t give an adequate gauge of my safety in this country.  Just as I began to feel comfortable, my greatest fear was realized: the UN tribunal investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri issued four arrest warrants and demanded that the Lebanese government deliver these men immediately.  Two of those indicted are linked to Hezbollah, which at the moment, is in control of the Lebanese government. Lebanese political leaders have warned publicly that the Tribunal's findings could spark civil unrest, and Hezbollah has threatened to retaliate if they are accused (which, of course, they are).  Furthermore, leaders of Hezbollah are painting the indictments as American-Israeli conspiracies, making me feel even better about my blonde-haired, blue-eyed appearance. This was the one event that might spur serious violence and instability in Lebanon, and here I am in the thick of it.

At this point, I should come clean that I am an anthropologist, so I am well-read on social and political instability.  In fact, many of my Harvard professors have this fascination with how people endure ever-present threats to their wellbeing, so I was forced to read ethnography after ethnography on this type of social and political climate. I was able to engage with the concept in only a detached, abstract way when I read them in some posh café in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Now, I get it, and I am confounded.  The first couple days after the UN indictments, I lived with chronic tension in my shoulders, and I jumped every time a car backfired on the streets below.  Even on insignificant errands in Beirut, I moved through the streets with stifling paranoia—a novice mistake.  To the people of Lebanon, this is business as usual.  Everyone continues as if nothing has happened and nothing significant will happen.  How can they be this relaxed, even as many of them are prepared for protests and uprisings at any moment?  How does their heart not drop every time they see fireworks on a Friday night?  (Protests are most likely to occur on Friday nights after mosques let out).  How is this society not riddled by stomach ulcers and heart attacks?!

I wish I could answer any of these questions, but all I can say is the reason that navigating opinions about security is such a quagmire is that Lebanon itself is exactly that: a quagmire. I think blogger Nasri Atallah at www.ourmaninbeirut.com describes the Lebanese reality best:

I’m never quite sure how to answer that question [about security in Lebanon]. And it comes up quite a lot. On the one hand, walking the streets at night in Beirut is probably safer than anywhere I can think of. There are no hooded youths on the streets waiting to steal my Blackberry and use it to film me as they go about on a happy slapping rampage. On the other hand, we tend to pepper our existence with Ak-47s and the occasional car bomb. Armed with these two realities, I gave my usual answer, which is “it’s safe until it’s not”.

The Lebanese have somehow adapted this sort of relaxed-vigilance to cope with ever-present dangers, and I don’t envy them for it one bit.  “It’s safe until it’s not” is not exactly comforting information, and it hasn’t exactly helped me cope, but it has given me a new way of thinking about our work at Camp Rafiqi.

cute10

At the Beirut camp, the most difficult part of our work is not assisting the blind; it is trying to understand the strange behavior we witness from many of the sighted children.  In the past week, I have seen children scream without provocation, insist (falsely) that another child is their sister and refuse to leave her side at any time, hit themselves repeatedly, ask to use the bathroom twelve times in a day and compulsively use every stall, and one 12-year-old even drank out of a urinal!  After the first two days, I had no idea how we could relate to—let alone teach—these children, until our insightful dance instructor Clara put their behavior in a different perspective.  She concluded to the staff that these kids have serious personal and social “luggage” (“baggage” to Americans) that they are acting out at the camp.  I was already fascinated with the emotional balancing act that the Lebanese people perform, but I never thought about how children would respond to this atmosphere!  How terrifying and dizzying it would be to be a child in a society that asks them to face such adult problems every single day.

cute6

As frustrating and confusing all this new information is for us Americans, I think it makes us even more committed to the work we are doing in Lebanon.  A couple of us have even adopted the troublesome campers at Beirut as our favorites.  As sappy as this may be, thinking about some of these children brings to mind Jason Mraz's "Love For A Child".  Although we have kept our focus on empowering the blind youth of Lebanon, I’m glad we’re here to give all of these children a little security in their insecure world.

Like Fish to Water

Wednesday, we took the campers to the pool at Lebanese American University, and Alia Januwalla from Making Waves Canada taught them how to swim.  A few of our campers were pros, but for the majority, it was their first time in the water!  So a couple children were able to get instruction while they swam around the shallow end, many others were learning to dip their faces in the water and blow bubbles.  Below are a few pictures from the day, and as you can tell, campers at every level of experience had a blast!  There are also short videos here, here and here. For even more updates on the swim training at Camp Rafiqi, follow Alia’s blog.

Camper Close-up: Aya El Khawaja

Not to be outdone, Camp Rafiqi in Tripoli has its own song, too. Unlike the Beirut camp song, this one was written by one of our very own campers!

Aya El Khawaja is only 12-years-old, but she is mature and smart beyond her years!  She even skipped a grade in school, making her a young, but stellar, 8th grader.  We sat down with Aya for a brief interview, and we fell in love with her. We’re sure you will, too:

Aya, what is your favorite part of Camp Rafiqi? Aya: I love when we sing! The period when we sing is the best period of all day. My favorite song is “Akent.”

What did you expect when you first came to a camp for blind and sighted people? Aya: First, I thought it might be difficult. Here in Lebanon, we feel like blind kids can’t do anything, but it turns out that this isn’t true at all! They can do anything; they’re very fun to play with, it’s really nice to talk to them… they’re just like any other kids.

What’s the most important thing for you to get from this camp? Aya: Friendships.

Who are you becoming really good friends with at Camp Rafiqi? Aya: The Blind kids—Maestro and Nasser. And you guys! [The counselors]

What do you want to be when you grow up? Aya: A heart surgeon because my Mom had a heart problem when I was younger. She had heart surgery, and it was really hard for Mom, and I used to cry for her a lot. So then I decided I wanted to be a heart surgeon so I could fix other people’s hearts, too.

She’s certainly having an effect on my heart already. Below is a rough translation of the Tripoli Camp Rafiqi song (to be performed at the closing ceremonies at the end of July):

“The Neighbor of Gratitude”

Oh neighbor of gratitude, We will miss playing in this summer camp, What a shame! We don’t want to leave! Enough- we don’t want to do nothing all day! Every day at 8 we woke up, We left without breakfast, They sent us to the camp, They fed us the nicest food!

We don’t want to leave, Shame, shame! [repeat]

From Monday to Friday they taught us, Even Saturday they gave us fun times, On the nicest trips they took us, And we’re very happy! What a shame! What a shame!

We’re very grateful, For miss Sara and Mr Imad! We’re very thankful, We’re very interested in this work. Inshallah, next summer we’ll come here!

Day 1: Beirut!

Monday was the first day of Camp Rafiqi in Beirut, and it was wonderful to see our hard work come together.  After months of organizing things from the States and weeks of planning and negotiating in Beirut, it was encouraging to meet our adorable campers and be reminded of the reason for our work.   Every member of the ETI team had a huge smile on their face all day; we couldn’t help it! Our camp is at St. Joseph’s University’s Medical Science campus.  It is a beautiful venue, and in true Jesuit fashion, everyone here is helpful and kind (Sorry for my shameless plug for the Jesuits).  The first day had a smaller turn-out than we would have hoped--with only 6 visually impaired students and 6 sighted students—but we aren’t worried at all.  With the way Lebanese culture works, our numbers will double by the end of the week, we should have more campers than we know what to do with by the end of the month!  Plus, the kids are having such a great time that we all feel like our camp will be fulfilling no matter what happens.

First, our camp director Hussein gathered the campers together and played some name games and ice breakers.  Here you can see him joking with the children.  Hussein is not only an intelligent guy, but because of his theater background, he is charismatic and the children adore him.  I don’t speak Arabic and I seldom have any idea what is going on, but the kids are always laughing at his jokes, which in any culture is a great thing!

Next, our superstar counselor Eliane led us in the Camp Rafiqi song that she wrote.  I’ve attached a video of this teaching session here: Rafiqi Song.  As you can tell, the Arabic song sounds amazing—so amazing that we Americans are determined to learn it over the next few days.  Roughly translated, the song says:

We’re coming with a great joy.

We’re coming extremely happy.

We want to play and learn.

The summer is very nice.

Once upon a time, there was a camp in our neighborhood

With gals and boys playing in that neighborhood

And you would be my friend And I would be yours.

Forever and Ever.

And Ever.

Sounds like a nice song for us :) After a delicious lunch provided by Socrate, the kids ran around like mad during sports.  At first, we tried to lead them in more organized activities, but we quickly learned that the children were not trained like American children; they’re not used to quietly forming lines or teams and wait for instructions.  We found it was best to let them play duck, duck, goose (or their slightly more complicated version of it in Arabic).  The kids had a blast and ran off some energy, and that’s what matters.

Finally, Clara and Julien taught the kids dance and theater, and it turned out to be such a relaxing activity for them.  These kids—who are naturally rambunctious and wild as kids are—found zen in the theater and dance classes.  I was amazed at how focused the children were!  Hopefully by the end of the month we will pick up some of Clara and Julien’s tricks!