Looking back on 4 months in Lebanon

My stay during the autumn of 2009 in the Burj Ash-Shamali Camp in Tyre, Lebanon, involved everything from warm new friendships, frustration about the miserable conditions within the camps, magnificent cultural, religious and barrier-breaking personal experiences (for example when I fasted the day before Eid el-Adha).

Shortly after my arrival in Lebanon I participated in a leadership seminar arranged by MS ActionAid together with around 30 Lebanese and 10 Danish young people from different NGO's. We were separated into groups in which we were to prepare campaigns on relevant political or religious issues. I was in the group for Rights of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, which was a great way of being introduced to the actual purpose of my stay. The seminar was very fruitful and well organized, so thumbs up for the trainers and what a nice way of meeting people with common interests!

During my stay I lived with a family in the camp where the youngest daughter, Rabab (25), was my contact person from the NGO "Palestinian Youth Centre". The fact that I lived with Rabab and her being the organizer of my volunteer programme was a bit confusing at the beginning. The formal and private relation melted together which made it difficult in the first weeks to get a clear idea of my role as a volunteer. I'm used to jump out of bed every morning, but living with Rabab meant a very slow morning routine. Although frustrating at times, I realized that following the lifestyle of my host family was one of the purposes of my stay, namely the one of "cultural exchange".

MS ActionAid and the NGO called Palestinian Youth Organization arranged my stay, but I mainly worked on my own project, which was a photo project for an exhibition that would be shown in Denmark in Spring 2010. Besides taking pictures myself, I had bought 30 disposable cameras that I handed out to children from three camps: Burj al-Shamali, Rashedieh and Shatila. The idea of giving children cameras had been done before, I found out, by a Lebanese organization. At the charming bar "Torinos" in Beirut I met the publisher, Sarah, of a book that had been made with pictures taken by 500 children from all of the twelve camps in Lebanon. She was one of the inspiring persons I met during my stay.

Five days a week I met with the children who participated in my project. We talked about the pictures they had taken; we played games and had fun. This was one of the most noticeable things - there are no playgrounds inside the camps, and the conditions for children are insufficient. After a month I started teaching English on the Assoumoud centre in Burj Al-Shamali, which was a very well functioning centre with a kindergarten, a dentist and some young female social workers that helped the poor families in the camp. I  did a lot of interviews with Palestinians, including politized ones and human right organizations. Rabab was of great help, both in the way of introducing me to people and she translated everything from Arabic into English. She was respected inside the camp for her intelligence, her stubbornness and her charms!

On my way back to Denmark the 23rd of December it suddenly hit me that time is a strange thing. I had been filled with new impressions, and being a witness to a paradoxical world, like the one I had been witnessing during my stay, it was difficult to understand, that it had only been four months. It felt like a lifetime!