Borderlands Sri Lanka with ACS - Day 4

Yesterday was probably one of the most heart touching days of our lives. Some of us started the day out by yoga, and after that we all stretched and went for a morning swim. After that we went on a forty minute bus ride to a local school which we have donated a new roof to, which has not been used in eight years.

When we arrived, they warmly welcomed us with a parade and flowers. Every student from ACS held the hand of an appreciative Sri Lankan student. They had prepared many dances, performances, and speeches to welcome us.

After the opening ceremony, we tasted many different types of Sri Lankan food and snacks. By the time we finished our snacking, it was time to paint the classrooms under the new roof. We painted the walls with the children.

Later on we played different types of games with the children, from both our cultures. We also ate curry with our hands for lunch.

They prepared many activities for us, and we made many friends with the children and exchanged emails with them too.

After returning to the camp, we discussed our day and shared how we felt. We played games in group, then after a long day we went to bed.

Borderlands Sri Lanka – Day 3 – ACS

The experiences we had today would most probably be some of our most memorable moments. In the morning we played a few games to wake us all up. We had also done some morning stretches to prepare our selves for the hike we were all about to experience.

After breakfast, we were once again split into two groups. The first group would go repelling down a waterfall while the other would go hiking through the rainforest and into the cave.

While repelling, most of us were able to face and overcome our fear of heights. Most of the students had repelled down the waterfall in enjoyment, some even mentioning it was the favorite activity they have done so far! However, there were a few people who found themselves too frightened to go through with it, but they tried and that has shown their willingness to participate through their fears.

After we had all finished, we enjoyed our lunch, which consisted of a delicious chicken sandwich with some juice. Later, the groups switched and went to experience the other activity.

The hike to the mountain was long and tiring but everybody pushed themselves to continue the journey despite the many obstacles they faced. Among those obstacles, we faced a heavy rainfall due to the monsoon season. Many students were forced to face their fear of bugs due to the fact that the rain had caused a surprising increase of leech appearances - although a lot of screams were heard, some people had embraced the leeches as well as the rain (the rain had cooled us down as well as relieved our stress after such a busy day). The record breaking number for leech bites was "about 70 leeches" and was set by Mahdy Yassine.

(The guides would like to jump in and say that leeches are harmless creatures, and everyone is fine now).

After the exhausting day,  the students came back to Borderlands where they enjoyed refreshing showers and a short break. Additionally, they had a wonderful dinner with some fried bananas for dessert.

 Although the activities can be viewed as risky, all students came out with a few leech bites and a smile on their face for being as courageous as they had been.

Borderlands Sri Lanka – Day 2 – ACS

Today's blog is written by Haya;

Today was one the greatest experiences any of us are going to ever have. We did a morning jog at first, where we got to see more of the marvelous nature of Sri Lanka, and then we did morning stretches and a couple of races as teams so that we'll have to depend on each other to win. Afterward, we had a morning swim in the river so that we could freshen up, and then we had a delicious breakfast. We then split into two groups; one group went canyoning and the other did some high-rope activities (Zip-lining and crate-stacking.)

During canyoning, we first crossed the river together. We then went to this amazing canyon, where we jumped into the water, glided into it, and swam all the way back to camp. We had a long hike on the way there, in which we passed through a Sri Lankan village, with its extremely nice and friendly people. The other group zip-lined over the river to the other side, and then had to pass through the river on the way back.

The high rope activities were a lot of fun, and they were challenging. In the crate-stacking activity, we were tied to a rope, and then we had to stack crates above each other without touching the floor or losing balance – it was hard. One of our classmates broke the ACS-Borderland record in this activity, when he stacked 15 crates above each other without dropping. The zip-lining was great, because it was challenging but fun, no matter how scared you might be.

We came back to the base camp eventually, and then we had another swim and showered. We then ate dinner and watched a slide show of the pictures taken on the past two days, and then we played a game along with our teachers. We are extremely excited for what is to come.

Borderlands Sri Lanka – Day 1 – ACS

The blog from the first day was written by Pia:

"After an exhausting 12 hours of travel to reach the Borderlands campsite in Sri Lanka, the American Community School at Beirut finally arrived with their minds at peace when they found out that the campsite was even more than what expected it to be. The first (and obviously the funnest) activity that we did was have a swim in the refreshing river. This certainly woke the ones who felt really tired after the long travels.

After the cooling swim in the river, we took time to set up our tents and make sure that they were bug-proof.

Lunch for us today was a delightful east cuisine. I personally have never had such food before so this really opened my mind towards other amazing things that I haven't yet tried before.

After we had lunch, we were challenged with many different activities that demonstrated the necessity of synchronization in a team.

We went again to have a swim in the river. This was by far the highlight of my day.

Right after dinner, we set up our sleeping equipment and got ready to go to sleep.

The unique way that Borderlands has helped us feel at home, prevented the homesickness that we were afraid to feel.

I can't wait until what tomorrow's adventure brings us!!"

ACS - Nepal 2014

After the conclusion of another programme with ACS Borderlands would like to thank all the participants for sharing this adventure with us. As part of this final blog post let us listen to Sara's thoughts of the final day outside the city.

           "I woke up this morning and my first thoughts were those of intense frustration and anger. I was horrified. I had just spent the night sleeping in a tent with bugs everywhere, sand seeping into my tent, and was awoken by a piercingly loud "caw caw" of a rooster. We had a true camping experience, brushing our teeth in the river and packing up our tents. However, my day picked up significantly because the next thing we did was go rafting. Rafting was definitely a highlight of my trip- it was a little scary but mostly exciting and thrilling. Afterwards, we took an unfortunately long bus ride to Kathmandu but luckily caught up on the sleep we had missed. We looked at the modernity of the city that was so contrasting to the environment we had grown accustomed to and were excited for our new adventure. We then checked into our guest house and showered and the best part was of course the wifi, electricity, and hot water. We then had dinner at a traditional Nepali resteraunt where they performed their cultural dance and we tried the new cuisine. It was an overall interesting day and we are excited to spend a day in the city tomorrow"
                                                                                                                           Sarah Chedid


After almost a week out of the bustling streets of Kathmandu the students spent their last day and a half in the streets of Thamel shopping to their hearts contempt. 

As always it has been a great pleasure to have ACS with Borderlands and we look forward to our next adventure with you all.

ACS - Nepal, 2014 Update 3

It's day 5 on the Week Without Walls for ACS here in Nepal. Lets here what the students had to say about their day.....

                                      "Today was our first day of community service in Nepal; a day we've been looking forward to for a very long time. At 5:30 students were beginning to line up to sign for the activity they wanted. We chose to visit a school and help out. To get to the school, we had to hike up an intense exhausted mountain full of slippery rocks. The one think that kept us going until the end was the beautiful view and the idea that we are lucky enough to have an opportunity to help out the less fortunate. We reached the school and were warmly welcome by the students and teachers. It was so beautiful to see the entire student body singing dancing and performing to our arrival. In return, we offered a DVD player and school belongings that we had bought through fundraisers. We started the day by interactive activities with a certain group of students where they taught us their language, culture and traditions, and in return, we shared our Arabic culture. This experience along with many other had a tremendous impact on us. We realized how fortunate we are to be living the way we do, and to be able to travel farther than 50 miles away from home. But most importantly we were shocked to see the joy and innocence that filled the children despite their hard living conditions. We now know to never complain again"             

                                                                                       Cayanne

                            "

Hey everyone, so today we started our community service. Our group started the day off by crossing a suspension bridge. Although there were a few missing spots along the way, we all managed to safely reach the other side. We then continued to climb over a fairly steep mountain, overseeing a beautiful view of a river, amongst other natural beauties. Panting heavily we arrived to the warmest welcome of school kids and teachers, a perfect reward for our tiring hike. As they put flower necklaces around our necks and bindis on our foreheads we felt integrated into a community and culture, appreciative of all people, based on their common form of greeting, “namaste”. By this they acknowledged the divine with in us and we returned this with sincerity. Teaching the children not only made us feel deeply gratified but brought us close to each other. The combined experiences of painting the classrooms and teaching them inspired a sense of selflessness with in all of us as individuals. All in all this experience will stay with us forever, and we can only hope that we made an impact on them as well."

                                                 Habib and Layan

ACS - Nepal 2014 Update 2

Today's blog update is brought to us by Sakshi, Hanadi and Mona.

"What was once the bottom of the ocean is now the top of our world. With that, the Himalayan Mountains already seemed magical, and with our 16km hike around it its enchantment did not fail us. The juniors left at 9:30 this mourning heading up the road for about 2km, while the sophomores faced their fears while repelling down one of Nepal’s beautiful waterfall. 

The weather was great, and the view was amazing. We passed many villages where we saw men and women carrying large amounts of leaves and firewood in baskets. After walking, what seemed to be 40,000 stairs, which lead to the forest, we reached the village. We had lunch with a wonderful view of the river and the Borderlands camp. We finally reached the highlight of the hike: a gorgeous waterfall. After half an hour of splashing in the water and cooling down, we took the “short cut” skidding down the rocky dirt path. We arrived the camp at 2:00pm and enjoyed the rest of the evening playing card games, and planning what we are going to do for tomorrow’s community service activity at the local school."

ACS - Nepal, 2014

Namaste to all,

We're here in the beautiful country of Nepal along with the American Community School of Beirut for another Week Without Walls experience. For all of you eager to know what is happening over here Faizal is giving us a short report of the first few days.

"Hey,

As many of you may have heard we experienced some frightening turbulence and wound up in Lucknow, India. After a short wait we departed to Kathmandu and felt relieved to land in the place we'll be calling home for the next week, Nepal. We spent our first night in the Bhaktapur guest house ending a long and stressful day with some tea and fresh samosas. The next morning we explored the highly diverse and culturally rich town of Bhaktapur. We visited a Ganesh temple where we actually got to witness three traditional Nepali weddings.                                                                                                                                                

  We spent the rest of the after noon exploring the beautiful Bhaktapur market as we all grouped up and set off to compete in a scavenger hunt. We faced challenges such as learning to navigate new territories, communicating with locals and bargaining through currency exchanges. We engaged as team assigning roles to each member, teaching every one of us some great traveling etiquette.

 That same day we took a bus ride through some of the largest and most beautiful valleys and landscapes most of us had ever seen. We finally arrived at Borderlands and were welcomed by some lovely rain showers. We had some time to settle into the gorgeous Borderlands camp based right by the massive Bhote Koshi flowing all the way from the Tibetan peaks. 

The next morning we woke up to some refreshing morning stretchings and enjoyed a great Nepali breakfast. We split in to two groups. The 10^th graders embarked on a long trek through the nearby mountains where they stopped for a refreshing dip at a waterfall. Meanwhile the 11^th graders split into two smaller teams, one of which started of with a short hike to the top of a canyon and enjoyed some knee shaking and adrenaline filled canyonning. The other team stayed at the base camp where they engaged in some great team building activities. These thought us much about teamwork, corporation and leadership. We are all really excited for the remainder of this trip and the many more adventure to come."

                                                                                                                          Faizal