I arrived in Beirut last night to find that my right hand man, Walid Rashid, had lost the use of his left hand (and by default his right) by falling from a cherry tree and breaking his collar bone. Walid has been the organizational brains behind the Lebanese portion of Hadaya and we are incredibly grateful for all his hard work and help...and for letting us completely take over his apartment and fill it with soccer balls and toys!
Another big consequence of the accident is that I’ll be driving in Lebanon. This is not a task for the faint of heart! If you’ve ever had a reckless, wild west, drag racing, driving fantasy, then Lebanon is the place to go. You need to be fearless, aggressive and mildly insane, while maintaining a sense of good humor about the complete lack of rules or etiquette. I have it covered, although, according to my passengers, I’m not always the most pleasant driver... sorry guys, I’m sure I will soon learn to laugh while driving down the wrong side of the road and swerving to avoid an oncoming bulldozer soon:)
Today, we headed out to buy some extra items for the bags. We reached 113% of our funding goal (thanks to our amazing donors and sponsors) so were able to add linednotebooks, pencils and sharpeners to the mix so the kids will be able to practice their writing and storytelling skills.
An hour into the trip the car broke down in front of CRAZY NUTS....(is there some kind of hidden meaning to this?). Luckily, within five minutes, Walid found Hamza who was able to fix the mechanical problem for 10 usd in about 7 minutes.... another reason to love Lebanon - the drivers are HORRIBLE but the mechanics RULE! Thank you Hamza for saving the day :)