Ryan's Birthday

This was another whirlwind week. I can't believe it is already the middle of November and we have been here for three months. We had Thursday off this week, and we took a trip with Jamil (our neighbor) and Jesse to Jezzine. Jezzine is in the south of Lebanon and it has a waterfall there. It was a wonderful day out of the city, and we finally got to have bread purses called Kaak. In mine, I had the cheese and spices, Ryan went with Nutella and bananas. They were delicious.

Picture of the bread purses

Jamil's dogs Steve and Duke

The whole crew at the waterfall

Wednesday at school we started our community service project that Ryan has been organizing for a long time. Some groups of students volunteered to help clean up an area that a lot of us walk through daily to get to school called the Rainbow Stairs. The buildings around this area were covered in graffiti, and filled with trash. We worked Wednesday clearing the garbage, rocks, dirt etc. Friday we painted over all the graffiti. Saturday we repainted designs on the walls and steps. It is incredible what we got accomplished all because of Ryan's amazing idea, vision and hard work, and these impressive students who gave up a lot of time, got dirty and covered in paint, for the good of the neighborhood. 

Before we painted. 

Group of kids who helped. 

After the first coat of paint. 

Ryan's spray painting design

The stairs I painted green. 

Kids cleaning before we painted

 Gretchen and Mike's stencil

 

Saturday was Ryan's birthday, so we had a few people over that night. Sunday was the big adventure. Fabio took Jamil, Ryan and I to Jounieh to jump off a mountain and paraglide down the beach. It was an incredible experience. I went first, and had really no time to think about it at all. Ryan got a great video of me jumping. Ryan went next, and I have some great pictures of him landing. The guy he tandemed with was about 5 feet tall, so it was hilarious to see them together. While we were in the air we were both able to take the controls for a while, which was really cool. I was able to do a downward spiral dive which was a G force. It was so crazy. It seemed like we went around one hundred times, but probably closer to five.  Then we stopped for a little while along the beach. It was such a beautiful place to relax, and another part of Lebanon that we really haven't been in.  There are some great hotels there that we might go back and stay at some time. 

Where we sat after the jump

The water where we were landing near

Yachts in the water still

Jamil flying

Ryan flying

Sweet helmet

Ryan's selfie

Ryan's feet

My foot

view from the air

Ryan's landing

Me before take off