Prior to joining A Rocha, Chris had wide experience of science teaching and schools’ management in the UK and the Middle East, attending Bible College and learning Arabic (in Jordan) along the way. He joined A Rocha in 1997 working, until 2009, as Lebanon Director where he cofounded the work. He oversaw the habitat restoration programme at the Aammiq Wetland, the development of the environmental education project and the field research programme, identifying 11 new Important Bird Areas. Since April 2010 he has been Executive Director of A Rocha International and is based in Oxfordshire. His book Postcards from the Middle East: How our family fell in love with the Arab world was published by Lion Hudson in March 2015.
History is written in the landscapes of the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. Baalbek with its magnificent Roman ruins, more ancient rounded hills known as tells, and long rusted barbed wire and tank emplacements. For good or ill we leave our mark on the land long after we have gone. Can people tell what we believe about God from what we write in the landscape?
A cross-cultural team is hard work. Each of us brings a set of norms, ways we see the world and ways we expect others to see it. It all led to a lot of discussion. Time, punctuality, and lateness were certainly one of the default conflict zones; another was status.
We were often asked to study the wildlife of areas in need of conservation, but even more often groups came to Aammiq to see how a community dialogues and decides to restrain itself from more and more consumption of land, resources, and wildlife to the benefit of all and for a heritage to be passed on to future generations.
“You are breaking the mould. Abu Charbel, like many others, thinks the church should keep to traditional areas of work.” “But what about priorities?” I pressed. “What is the most important thing? Preaching, poverty relief, or conservation of rare species?”
This April there were unseasonable storms in Cyprus. Travelling around to see if there was any potential for an A Rocha project, I was struck by the contrast between the resulting shadow and the sunlight. That combination of light and dark seems to typify the island.
It was a transformed class that reconvened under the shade of the ash tree a couple of hours later. It was like conducting an orchestra to establish the learning objectives of the lesson; the wetland provided invaluable services to the human communities of the Bekaa, it contained rare and beautiful species and it needed protection. We didn’t stop there; questions tumbled from the class all the way back to the bus.
The tent was dark but warm inside, a simple wood stove providing a flickering light. The bitter, piping-hot coffee was in an elaborate brass pot. Most of the year they lived in Homs in Syria but each spring, and sometimes in the autumn, they would get the tent out of storage and make the trek to the Bekaa for extra work.
After explaining that I was going to be the new science teacher at the large secondary school in the valley (which seemed to explain my weird views on animal life), I was escorted by a gaggle of boys and young men into the wetland proper, on the trail of Yusef.
Today’s Middle East is beset by tragedy: a litany of human suffering, migration and exile in a region of such beauty and cultural richness. Yet, the Middle East is also one of the great wildlife migration routes: millions of birds take this route to and fro each year. What insights can we gain from linking these two mass migrations, one human, sudden and involuntary, the other avian, regular and instinctive?
I have a small, determined grandson. He can insert an astonishing number of vowels into the word NO. Whether in two-year olds or adults, strong differences of opinion may need to pass through several stages before a degree of cooperation is reached − mutual listening, clear communication, appropriate compromise, and peace-making − which in his case means a cuddle.
