With the Camp Folk in the Mountains

Among the Pines of the Dhour

... A while ago, the sun of our mountains lazily gathered up its transparent, fiery veil... and it was not long before the vanguard of darkness began its slow creep down into the tranquil valley, accompanied on its way by a gray mist that engulfed the pine trees one by one... And behold, the deep valley and the mountain stretching away into the distance were greenery and shadows... shadows and greenery...

And I, at the mouth of the valley beneath a neutral pine, was drinking in the melancholy sunset, motionless as a rock among the rocks, but for the fluttering of my two tired eyelids from time to time...

For a long time now these green summits of Lebanon have been the destination of the camp folk and the resting place of their caravans. They pick out the loftiest and the greenest of them and spread their brown tents across those wide horizons — and behold, the whole world lies crouching at their feet while they soar above it... like eagles!... And behold, the paths are boys and girls, coming and going... and the nights are fire and evening talk, and voices ringing out with the night, distant and deep as the night!...

Our Camps in Lebanon

Our Lebanon leads the Arab countries in the practice of the scouting life, having borrowed it from the West in its certainty of the fine benefits it holds for our rising generation. I do not consider myself the skillful historian who will take up this movement in detail, though it deserves detail. No, I will not entangle myself in that thorny attempt, lest I be called to account for dozens of errors; I will content myself, in this tale, with the journalist's task — a passing chance carries him to some "situation," and suddenly, to the very last of his senses, he is stirred by the effect of this "situation," and the pen in his hands flows on, recording what it can of these emotions...

Yet I know, at least, that the boys' camps had driven their tent pegs into the flanks of the mountains for dozens of years before the girls, in modesty and timidity, dared so much as to utter such a wish!...

And the summer camps in our mountains grew up and grew large, as does everything that begins small and then grows and grows... And I know that the Muslim Scouts here have fine women's branches in Beirut, Tripoli, and elsewhere, and that on the heights of Aynab, in the last three summers, they set up camps that brought together students and non-students alike, who practiced the scouting life with nature in the open air and reaped — in health, in education, and in society — benefits beyond price.

And I know that Lebanon has also a camp unique of its kind, gathering a mixed cluster of brothers, sisters, and age-mates, founded last summer in memory of, and in the name of, al-Ghazzawi, the Lebanese scout who died a martyr during a scouting expedition in Europe.

As for the camps of the Young Women's Christian Association, they are older in history and more firmly rooted than any others.

Under Exceptional and Exploratory Circumstances

This summer I found myself inside these camps for the first time in my life — and behold, I was all listening ears and watching eyes... and a heart beating young and light, as though it had run back fifteen years! Is it not sweet to feel, all at once, that fifteen years have been erased from your age, and that you have come back once more fresh in wishes and dreams, merry, your one and only care... the lesson and the examination, say??

With Miss Edma Bayoud

I do not know how we can come to mention the Young Women's Christian Association without there leaping instantly to our imagination the name of a lady who has accompanied this institution since its birth, and who to this day still steers the helm of its ship with sound wisdom and a large, tender heart — I mean Miss Edma Bayoud.

It is a lovely thing to watch Miss Bayoud at her work: she never ceases to guide and direct without ever imposing her word by force, drawing her guidance from the need of our girls, each according to her own particular surroundings. It is as though she were before me now, speaking to me in her confident tone:

"What benefit, pray, do we reap from our camps if we do not prepare the girls for a life of independence and self-reliance? Here, in this free atmosphere far from the sway of traditions, our girls learn their first lessons in depending upon themselves... Here individual talents are polished, suppressed capacities are strengthened, and weak spirits are fortified — this quite apart from the incomparable benefit to health.

"Then, too, our camps have several principal aims, the most important of which is to accustom the girls to a love of applying themselves — not only to public service, but also to the service of themselves, and to adopting a philosophy of practical simplicity in their daily lives, so that they may overcome the hardships of living, conquer the problems that arise, and set about solving them by themselves.

"In a word, we prepare the girls for sound married life, and at the same time we arm them with an honorable manual trade that will help them toward independence and material freedom should the need arise."

... Over a cup of coffee, on the eastern slope of the green mountain, my ear was listening to Miss Edma Bayoud's talk with the deepest attention... and my eye was on the girls at their morning tasks — a ceaseless motion, like a swarm of busy bees: some of them laying the table for breakfast, one group sprinkling the ground with water, another sweeping, or burning the refuse far from the camp, while the leaders made their round of inspection through the tents, to raise the Lebanese flag at the last over the tidiest tent, as reward and recognition...

And every now and then cheers and merry uproar and patriotic anthems rose from here and there... followed by peals of laughter. Is this not innocent happiness in its plainest form?

... I took the last sip of my coffee and closed my eyes, to forget my whole past if I wished — to remain under the spell of this pleasant feeling that had taken hold of me... leaving my heart to beat, light and young, like the hearts of these girls.