August 2008
3 posts
What I've Learned: The LONG Version :)
In response to the plague of emails asking me if I made it home okay, yes, I did. I’m sorry I didn’t update earlier. It’s been quite a journey: I was stranded at O’Hare when tornadoes canceled my flight to Arizona, and upon getting to Arizona I’ve been rather sick. Yuck.
Security: I had a much easier time with security than some of my other friends. I’m not sure why, although I have to admit I...
Solidarity
As my bags are packed and I make my final rounds of goodbye, I have continued to process the thoughts that plague my mind: “What am I going to do when I go home?” “What is my role here?” “What is the most effective way to help?” “How can I help in a way that is sustainable and causes a difference?”
It is very tempting to become overwhelmed with the...
“My children don’t need charity, they need change. We need more than...”
– A father living in Deheisha Refugee Camp, Bethlehem.
July 2008
35 posts
It's beginning
It’s beginning. The deep ache that pulls your throat into your heart, tempting tears and tainting all interactions of joy with its desecrating somberness is beginning to encroach on my living space. With only a few days left, I have begun to say goodbye.
It’s hard to watch the sweeping hillsides fly past my window on the bus and realize that a few days from now I will no longer be...
Jordan, debriefed
Jordan was absolutely phenomenal. I’m really glad I decided to go: the horror stories about the long waits at Allenby (King Hussein) Bridge were more than true, but waiting 8 hours to get across the border paled in comparison to the fun of Amman!
It was fantastic to be in a real city again. Driving on a highway to get through town? Weird.
The dynamics of Amman’s population are very...
Taxi Service to the Lost Ark
I played Indiana Jones yesterday, climbing and exploring Petra’s large rock facades. The colors of the stones and the movement of the rock as it twists and soars to the sky were unbelievable. I made friends with two little boys trying to sell “taxi” rides on donkeys through the park: “free air conditioning!” was their favorite selling point. As they led me to the best...
Culture Shock?
I’m spending my weekend in Amman, Jordan with a few of my friends. It’s neat to be back in a ‘real’ city, and although Amman is notorious for being really expensive their ice cream is really cheap! yay!
Getting to Jordan was an experience in itself. I met up with a few of my friends in Jerusalem and we took a taxi service to the border. This is where the culture shock hit...
Sderot
The town of Sderot, 2000m from Gaza, is continually in the news. It is one of Israel’s poorest towns. Since the erection of the border by Gaza, they have been showered with over 9000 Kassam rockets. Plagued by uncertainty of their safety and security, the streets are lined with safety rooms next to every bus stop and all new buildings are built with bomb shelters inside. Everyone kept on asking...
“Eat until you die!”
– My host uncle’s command as he served me lunch. The motto of Palestine.
Yad Vashem
Yesterday we toured through Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum. As my guide book says “the effects which the Holocaust wrought on the Jewish people still reverberate strongly in the Diaspora and, especially, Israel. It was a tragedy from which grew the modern state of Israel and its legacy has defined the national psyche for more than half a century.” The museum itself is a...
God is Good
Yesterday I received an email from a settler who had been atop the hill at Oush Grab last week. In fact, he is the one who changed the “coexist” graffiti I had mentioned in my previous blog. Small world! At first I was a little surprised because I really didn’t think my blog was that widely circulated; however, it was a very very good surprise. My main goal here is to gain my own...
Future World Leader
I met a future world leader yesterday. She may be young, 4 months old, but I see the potential. Sarah, our future leader, and her mother sat down next to me on bus 21 as I headed into Jerusalem. Wide eyed with a smile that could charm the coldest heart, I had to start commenting on how beautiful she was to her mother. We talked a little in Arabic while I explained what I was doing in the area. She...
Oush Grab: A microcosm of the complications.
Note: for background of Oush Grab and the recent Jewish settler activity which is threatening the Beit Sahour community, please scroll down and read the July 9th entry “Unavoidable?”
Monday night the settlers came— 150 total, according to their latest email— to spend the night at the abandoned military structures on the top of Oush Grab, where they hope to establish a settlement. ...
“They [Israel] want to take my freedom, my life, my smile….but I...”
– a late-night conversation, sipping tea beneath the canopy of an old grape tree
Unavoidable?
My least favorite thing about political season is the slanderous ads. Apparently, they are unavoidable. In the Jerusalem Post a new ad has appeared from the McCain Campaign. Barak Obama’s photograph is put beside Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, with a comment “Is it OK to unconditionally meet with anti-American foreign leaders?”. I’m going to leave politics aside here, but just use it...
Would you notice?
If your neighbor lost his job, would you notice? If your neighbor had fallen sick, would you notice? If your neighbor had to sell some family heirlooms to pay the mortgage last month, would you notice? For most of us, myself included, I would guess that no, we would not notice. It’s not from a lack of sympathy or empathy— I believe that most people would cook a meal or offer a helping hand...
Wedding, Completed
The wedding is officially over. Thursday, my birthday, was more of the same that I wrote about before: traditional songs, drums and revelry. I have to correct myself, however, because I learned that the sheer mass of people was not the two families but instead only the groom’s family. Right at the moment when I was missing my family and friends out came a surprise birthday cake! That was really...
They Say It's My Birthday...
I’m 21 today! Mabruk ili (congratulations to me). I’ve only really been awake for about 2 hours so far but everyone in the office keeps on coming in and kissing me, so I feel loved. Jill gave me a bottle of Coke Zero which is phenomenal: The Middle East factory stopped producing it, or at least shipping it here, a few weeks ago and I’ve been in withdrawal. I’m not quite...
June 2008
20 posts
Nablus
Yesterday our group got a chance to go to Nablus. Nablus is an area where IDF incursions and Palestinian resistance is still very active and alive. Our group was escorted by a local and the police because here even other Palestinians are suspect as collaborators in the eyes of locals. Honestly, it was heart breaking. The refugee camps are so cramped and tight that at points you had to turn...
“What ARE you going to grow up to be if you have no outlet?”
– A friend, in somber reflection of children living in the face of violence who often become martyrs
Celebrations
If you’ve never been to a Palestinian wedding or engagement party, you need to understand that the whole town shows up to celebrate and rejoice together. Nightly we see fireworks in the sky hallmarking another wedding, engagement or birthday. I went to an engagement party Saturday where there had to be over 300 people. The engaged couple walks in and everyone stands up, welcomes them and...
Random Excerpts From My Journal...
- “I’ve heard ‘It’s raining men’ twice now. Once inside the wall and once outside the wall in Israel. I wonder if it’s prophetic…”
-“It’s been 115-120 degrees here in the days. Walking in this heat actually makes you nauseated…”
-“At night I’ve started hanging out with a group of nuns from the local Catholic...
Is Peace too Trendy?
Yesterday I participated in the “Big Hug” of the Old City of Jerusalem hosted by a Sufi Sheik, a religious Jew sporting peyos (side curls), and a few other Jerusalem “Peacemakers” who seek to unite the diverse factions of Jerusalem together. The idea was great. Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze; old, young, mid-life; Jerusalemites (Palestinians with permission to leave the...
Ebrahimi
Coming back from Jerusalem the other day I was waiting on Bus 21 when I made a new friend. Bus 21 is an Arab bus route that only International Aid workers and Palestinians with special permits are allowed to travel on because it travels on certain roads and through a different checkpoint than the main Bethlehem checkpoint (if you try to travel on it without the right permits they will send you...
Inclusion
I think having a theory of inclusion is an essential tool for transformation and progress in conflicts. Especially here.
There is a desire within all of us to be recognized and to be acknowledged by those around us. To be affirmed that we are human, that our existence is legitimate and that as an individual we are of enough value for someone else to affirm our existence, I believe, is one of the...
“9% of the world population, 28% of the world’s conflicts: The Middle East”
– GPACC
Have You Ever Felt Small?
I do here. All the time. Every moment I’m brought to my knees. I praise the blessing I have of my faith in God. His greatness and my faith that He is bigger than my imaginations and bigger than the roadblocks and destruction I see, is all that gets me through my days. I am small but I have a Great God.
Lately I’ve been really struggling with systemic injustice and trying to retain...
No Water, Kamaan mara (again)
Fiss ma’ kamaan mara (there is no water again). But we had an overnight trip around Northern Israel seeing Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee and Akko and Capernum and Ciserea, etc. so I had the opportunity to shower which was wonderful.
I’ll write more about my thoughts and our trip when I have the internet longer. It was so neat being able to see the real sites from the...
Orphanage
You may have received an email chain letter talking about the Palestinian orphanages currently threatened to be closed by Israel. I just had the opportunity to witness first-hand the tragedy I had read about back in the states yet never really internalized. Me and a few friends spent a night sleeping over in the Hebron Orphanage as a sign of solidarity with the children’s plight and the...