Year 2 week 3 part two
I am sitting in the little mini bus waiting for people to come so that we can leave.
I miss Safwan and of course want to see him but I have a lot to get done before leaving for Egypt on Wednesday. But I have to go to Nablus today because while I am gone Safwan will have his seventh birthday and it needs to be planned.
It is almost noon and honestly I could be sitting here for more than an hour, easily…
On the other hand it is rather nice not to have a bus schedule to always be trying to figure out. Here in the holyland there are always buses waiting to go. It is just a matter of waiting, which isn’t a bad thing to learn to do.
Finally enough people have arrived…
I don’t know why but recently in the past few months I have started getting car sick in taxi’s, cars, and buses. The ride back and forth to Nablus is the worse both on the way there and back I felt horrible!!!! By the time I got to Nablus, everything in my stomach was starting to come up! Lots and lots of deep breaths helped but they can only do so much.
It was so good to spend the afternoon with Safwan. His big thing these days is to of course watch Winnie the Pooh on my computer but also his new obsession is to go through my photos that I have on the computer and make judgments about my photos from the week. I think in a way it is his way of monitoring my week… but also he loves to look at pictures of himself from the previous months.
I guess it is the same way that kids love to look at photo albums of when they were babies. My computer is the closest thing Safwan has to a baby book…. Or even a photo album of his life.
After I had been there for a few hours Jess, Safwan’s teacher at his school, and Marah, who used to volunteer at the school. Came over and we set Safwan up with the movie in the little area that has designated as my bedroom… and we hid with sister maria in another room and planned his surprise party.
Safwan will turn 7 on the 13th of April. He has had birthday parties before but never one with other kids much less his friends. Last year people in the community had a party for him. They put announcements on the radio and in the newspapers saying that a little orphan with no parents (which he actually has, they have just abandoned him) was having a party and it begged the entire city to come and give him presents. I wasn’t there but I have heard a lot about it and how it turned into a horrible mad house. Plus there were no kids and everyone came to see the “freak show” that is the orphanage.
This year instead, Marah and her family have offered to host the party at their beautiful house and have a dozen kids from his class come and celebrate with him. Their goal is for the other kids (and parents) to see him as just another student from their school. The theme is Winnie the Pooh..
At Christmas I asked my ten year old nephew Nathanael who had heard a lot about Safwan, to pick a movie or two out of his collection for me to bring back to Safwan. I had told him all about the time I showed Safwan the Harry Potter movie and how Safwan had gone home and had nightmares for a week after. Nathanael could really relate to that. He spent a bit of time going through his movies and really thinking about what Safwan might like and which of his movies wouldn’t scare Safwan. I was touched how Nathanael (who is autistic) was able to go out of his self and really think about what Safwan would like or need. He chose to give Safwan, Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan. In the end the Peter Pan movie was too scratched but Winnie the Pooh has been a huge hit.
Every week when I go to visit Safwan I am commanded to bring my computer so that he can watch Winnie the Pooh. In January when Safwan was in the hospital, he watched Winnie the Pooh everyday at least once if not twice.
The sisters don’t have a Tv at the house so Safwan hasn’t grown up watching movies like other people. Nimo, Pooh, and Sleeping beauty (and part of harry potter) might be the only movies he has ever seen.
Obviously Winnie the Pooh is going to be the theme of this surprise party.
After the meeting Sister Maria gave Marah a tour of the house which really impacted her. I guess most people have never been to a nursing home or around disabled people. I know I haven’t been to an actual institution before…
Sister Maria is really great when we bring new people over. She spends a lot of time in the room that has the “children”. The children they have are teens and young adults who are extremely mentally and physically disabled. Friday the children were really happy. It was sweet you could hear them “talking to each other” in their garbled babble. Some of them spent the day giggling. I have been there when that wasn’t the case.
For most people the first time there is sad… it was for me too of course.
But now, I think my two favorite places in Palestine are my house and garden AND Safwan’s house. They are so comfortable and peaceful. I am really able to let my anxiety with life melt away at each house.
The four of us; jess, marah, Safwan and I eventually went out to a new café in Nablus for coffee and juice before it was time for me to head back to Ramallah.
On the way home I stopped at the veggie stand and got a cucumber, tomato and avocado and made an amazingly yummy salad for dinner with some Palestinian olive oil that I had gotten a few days before.
The olive oil here is sooo good. Unlike anything we have in American grocery stores.
I really think olive oil here is like fine wine in America and Europe. People demand the best and the best is AMAZING…
I don’t know that I can ever go back to bad generic oil again.
I went to school today.. I hate Saturday school but it was okay today..
Now it is a beautiful foggy, rainy afternoon. I ran out in the rain to the kumquat tree in the garden and picked about a dozen of them. They were an amazing lunch. I love having a garden…
And now I am sitting on an exercise ball in my clean room, listening to Madonna and tying away a letter to you!!!! A perfect afternoon.
As soon as I finish this I am going to organize my sock drawer, junk drawer and start packing for Egypt.
Tomorrow I am off to Jerusalem walk in the procession for Palm Sunday…
Prepare ye the way of the Lord!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
ode to Waleed.....
Taxi’s…..
One of the big tricks to living here in Palestine is finding a taxi driver that you love and making them your regular person. Of course for me it also means finding a taxi driver that speaks English, that doesn’t want to rip me off, that respects that I am be an international but that they need to treat me like a Palestinian women (ie that I am not going to sleep with them). Once you find that person they become like a personal assistant. If you need a simple errand run they can do it for you. If you need clothes dropped off at the dry cleaners you give them 10 shekels (the price of a normal fare) and they drop them off or pick them up for you. Want take out? Call your taxi driver..
And as with the case of our beloved driver in Nablus, he has taken to teaching them Arabic in the evenings.
In Nablus it took me a few months but I finally found Waleed. Finding him improved my life dramatically. He is a really good person. I have gone home to have lunch with his family and met his daughter. When I went home for Christmas, his wife was one of the few people I HAD to bring a present back for. He has learned to love Safwan as much as i do and worries for him all the time. Through me, he has become part of the sisters life just as much part of mine.
Kaitlin one of the teachers at my old school was recently telling me that a few weeks ago one of the street kids near the school actually came up and grabbed her breast. Of course she called the school but the first person that she called was Waleed. She knew that HE would take care of it. He would find the kid, call the police talk to the neighbors and get it dealt with in the proper Palestinian fashion. She knew that if she needed something to get done the best person to call was Waleed.
Waleed is from Nablus but worked in Saudi Arabia for a German drilling company for more than 16 years. He learned to speak both English and German there. When he came back to Palestine it was during the second intifada. I know Waleed well. I know for sure that he is not an extremist or a militant. But somehow he got shot in the leg by the Israeli soldiers. This isn’t something he usually tells people but in January when Safwan was in the hospital I found out. Waleed brought Safwan back and forth between the hospital here in Ramallah and in Nablus a few times. The first time we had to find the hospital. Went to the wrong place many times but when we finally ended up at Abu Raja, Waleed sat there in disbelief. He told me that he used to live there at this hospital for many months. He then showed me his scar where he had been shot. He was horrified but strangely comforted that little Safwan was going to stay in the hospital that he once lived.
Several times after he dropped of Safwan over the next few weeks Waleed called me to check in on Safwan..
I miss Waleed…
I am still searching for a Ramallah Waleed…..
I thought I had found a replacement but then he started charging too much and got sleazy..
So my search continues….
Now I walk down to the street and get in a random taxi… drivers always give me their card in hopes that they will be the new Waleed…..
But I am still searching..
One of the big tricks to living here in Palestine is finding a taxi driver that you love and making them your regular person. Of course for me it also means finding a taxi driver that speaks English, that doesn’t want to rip me off, that respects that I am be an international but that they need to treat me like a Palestinian women (ie that I am not going to sleep with them). Once you find that person they become like a personal assistant. If you need a simple errand run they can do it for you. If you need clothes dropped off at the dry cleaners you give them 10 shekels (the price of a normal fare) and they drop them off or pick them up for you. Want take out? Call your taxi driver..
And as with the case of our beloved driver in Nablus, he has taken to teaching them Arabic in the evenings.
In Nablus it took me a few months but I finally found Waleed. Finding him improved my life dramatically. He is a really good person. I have gone home to have lunch with his family and met his daughter. When I went home for Christmas, his wife was one of the few people I HAD to bring a present back for. He has learned to love Safwan as much as i do and worries for him all the time. Through me, he has become part of the sisters life just as much part of mine.
Kaitlin one of the teachers at my old school was recently telling me that a few weeks ago one of the street kids near the school actually came up and grabbed her breast. Of course she called the school but the first person that she called was Waleed. She knew that HE would take care of it. He would find the kid, call the police talk to the neighbors and get it dealt with in the proper Palestinian fashion. She knew that if she needed something to get done the best person to call was Waleed.
Waleed is from Nablus but worked in Saudi Arabia for a German drilling company for more than 16 years. He learned to speak both English and German there. When he came back to Palestine it was during the second intifada. I know Waleed well. I know for sure that he is not an extremist or a militant. But somehow he got shot in the leg by the Israeli soldiers. This isn’t something he usually tells people but in January when Safwan was in the hospital I found out. Waleed brought Safwan back and forth between the hospital here in Ramallah and in Nablus a few times. The first time we had to find the hospital. Went to the wrong place many times but when we finally ended up at Abu Raja, Waleed sat there in disbelief. He told me that he used to live there at this hospital for many months. He then showed me his scar where he had been shot. He was horrified but strangely comforted that little Safwan was going to stay in the hospital that he once lived.
Several times after he dropped of Safwan over the next few weeks Waleed called me to check in on Safwan..
I miss Waleed…
I am still searching for a Ramallah Waleed…..
I thought I had found a replacement but then he started charging too much and got sleazy..
So my search continues….
Now I walk down to the street and get in a random taxi… drivers always give me their card in hopes that they will be the new Waleed…..
But I am still searching..
Friday, March 26, 2010
year 2 week 3
year 2 week 3
March 20th to 26th……
Ever since I came back from my Christmas vacation I been working with the first graders and fifth graders on preparing songs for the mothers day party. As the week before the mother’s day party came the teachers fought like crazy for time with their classes on the stage to practice. The actual day had arrived for the presentation and I was sure that my students would nail it.. well almost sure…
Seven years ago, I hadn’t been so lucky…. I was in korea and my students had prepared a musical for the summer camp show, about half way through the show the kids got into a huge fight on the stage and knocked down all the sets and well it was one of those “Charlie brown school play” moments where all you can do it roll your eyes.
So as confidant as I felt about the students ability to sing and do the dance moves, I didn’t know if I could trust them not to find another way to make a disaster of it all.
One of the things that I really do hate about teaching the most and I think if I were a mother i would also hate about that job is going to school performances. Two to three hours of your life that you can’t get back that are spent sitting there with no way to escape. At least at this performance no one was singing a Celine Dion song (can you tell I am still scared by living in China and Taiwan during the Titanic years?) and I was given the job of being the school photographer. Which gave me something to do and distracted me from the pain of listening to group after group of children got up and screamed out the songs their teachers had been practicing for so long.
There was a huge part of me that felt very sorry for the mom’s that they had to be honored this way.
The my song with the first grade had gotten left off the schedule which broke my heart. So as the even went on we were added in half heartedly… They were okay but not great.
Finally my pride and joys came on… they were the last event of the day… and they ROCKED!!!
They sang their own version of “Wind beneath my wings”… and they nailed it!!!
I couldn’t have been prouder…
I guess in the end that is why we do these shows, because in the end you feel so much pride for the little monsters.
After school I crashed out and spent the afternoon relaxing. The week before had been so stressful that I needed time to gain some perspective.
That evening Fahmida and I met our good friend Gabriella at a local restaurant called Stones. Gabriella had a friend visiting from England that we were able to meet and spend the evening chatting away with.
Ramallah might be the first place that I have lived overseas where we are able to have so many visitors. Every where else has been so isolated and not exactly on the top of the list of places to visit. The holy land is a different thing completely. In addition now that we have joined the Hospitality Club and Couch Surfers, I fell like we are in for a many more visitors, which for a social butterfly like me, just makes me so happy.
On Sunday I needed to go to Nablus. I hadn’t been in two weeks because the week before my passport was at the Egyptian embassy. Nablus is not the type of place you can go with out your passport. The city is surrounded by checkpoints and it used to be that you might be able to get in or out with out it since they weren’t overly concerned with the internationals coming in and out but the last six months have brought a big change to that.
Now the internationals seem to be the bigger focus at the checkpoints. There is a group called ISM (international solidarity movement) that fights for the human rights of Palestinians. Some of the members of ISM take great pride in referring to themselves as “human shields”. I understand what they are doing but it isn’t what I do at all. I really feel like education is a better means to the same ends or at least a better use of my talents. The Israeli government takes great insult to this group and has made many night raids in to Palestine to find and deport international members of this group.
Because of them, internationals are singled out at checkpoints and grilled over what we are doing here.
I absolutely doing not explain what I am doing here at all… instead I am a Christian pilgrim. Not that what I really do is too offensive, but it is more that then I would get pulled into extra questioning and taken in to detention every time I answered. It just isn’t worth it. And since my personal reason to be here is a pilgrimage it isn’t too much of a lie.
After mass I met Gabriella and her friend at the bus station in Ramallah and we took off for the one-hour journey. You never know if things are going to be bad along this journey. The week before both Israeli Settlers and Palestinian farmers along that road had been attacking cars and busses with Rocks and other things they could find to throw. We were hoping that the roads would be safe and checkpoints open. It turned out to be an uneventful and quick trip, which I greatly appreciated.
Once we got to Nablus we had a little less than two hours before Safwan would be finished with school. I wanted to take him out to lunch to surprise him. First I needed to call the sisters to ask their permission.
Recently the sisters had a change in positions at their house. Sister Jian used to be the superior but she was just moved to the house in Gaza so now Sister Karisma is the head. She usual says yes when I call her with crazy requests for Safwan. Sister Jian was a bit more reserved about his hanging out on the town with us crazy internationals.
My next call after I got her approval was to Lana, my old boss and director of the school. I needed her to call the taxi driver who usually takes Safwan home and have him bring the little tiger to the restaurant. She didn’t answer my call.
So I called the taxi driver directly and had Gabriella (who speaks amazing Arabic) talk to Nazi the driver. He had no problem agreeing to bring Safwan to see me. At times like this I love how trusting Palestine is. Once the house keeping had been done we were able to go off and explore the city.
It is going to sound horrible but this was the first time that I had a couple of people to walk around with, and time, that it wasn’t a Friday when everything is deserted, and that it wasn’t too hot to really explore. I had of course walked around the old city many times. When I first lived in Nablus I had to walk to through the old city to get home everyday. But I had been warned and had then gone on to warn all the other teachers to only walk on the main roads of the old city in Nablus.
Nablus is extremely famous for being the city of resistance to the occupation. Every suicide bomber was from Nablus. Most all of the major fractions of resistance are based in the old city of Nablus. As long as you stick to the main roads you are safe but it is in the little nooks and crannies in the old city that you find these groups and people.
I don’t know what quite possessed us to go and really explore. Maybe it was the fact that I had seen so much the week before in Jerusalem that gave me the guts to do this, maybe stupidity, maybe all the death around me this past year that finally had gotten to me. What ever it was, I had an amazing time exploring all the alleyways and tunnels. We had a magical hour and a bit wondering trying to get lost. The old city of Nablus is a huge web of an ancient city. It is strange to think that Jesus himself walked through parts of it. They still have old roman ruins amongst the ottoman buildings. We finally ended the fun with a quick visit to the world famous Kanafa stand next to the mosque and then made our way to the restaurant just before my little Safwan got there.
A few weeks ago Safwan told me that he much prefers me to surprise him then for him to sit and wait for me. The poor boy naturally gets up at 5 am and on a good day I might get up at 8 am much less on my one day off a week. And because Nablus is a good hour away by bus I don’t usually get there until 10am. This means that he has been waiting five hours for me by the time I see him. And he is always happy to see me but usually a bit frustrated with my crazy desire to sleep in till 8 on a Friday. And with all of the political problems going on these past few months there has been more than one time that I have had to call and cancel on him because it just isn’t safe for me to go there.
Nazi the taxi driver liked the idea of surprising Safwan and told him he had to stop on the way home to run an errand. Then he ran into the restaurant and got me and even the coldest stone heart would have melted to see the astonishment and joy on his face when he realized I was here to surprise him.
It was beautiful. He was so happy…
Apparently I had chosen the right restaurant. The housekeeper who has taken care of him since he was born has 8 children. They have all treated Safwan like a little brother. I didn’t realize that the oldest soon worked at this restaurant and that Safwan had been dreaming of going to eat there for two years. It is by far the nicest place in Nablus, and I wouldn’t have usually chosen to go there except that we were bringing Gabriella’s friend. For a first visit to Nablus that is the best place to go!
About half way through lunch the loud speakers around Nablus started ringing out with the sounds of he Iman’s voice. Something was going on… This wasn’t the call to prayer. I know this type of call… this was a call to indignation. Because there wasn’t much we could do, we finished lunch and the girls left to go and see “Jacob’s Well”. Safwan requested that we stay and continue people watching at the restaurant. Eventually we called Waleed (the greatest taxi driver in the world) and he took us back to the convent. On the way, he told us soldiers had killed two more boys. This meant that in just a mere 24 hours the Israeli soldiers in Nablus had killed 4 teens. This was not a good time to be there. I asked Waleed to call me if he heard anything more. Because these killing had happened next to the checkpoint I didn’t know if the checkpoints would be open or safe to go through. I also was planning to walk to the bus station but I didn’t want to do that if demonstrations started up. Walking around the old city with two others was one thing in the middle of the day but demonstrations in Nablus were another thing.
It was Palestinian mother’s day and Safwan had made a mother’s day card at school. It is rather bazzar to send the orphan home with a mother’s day card… and only one card. (I am not criticizing because I too have made mother’s day cards only to find out later I had students who didn’t have mothers, or multiple mothers) Safwan was totally confused about who to give the card to. The first person he saw was Sister Maria who really has been his mother figure for the past three years. He immediately whipped out the card and gave it to her with hugs and kisses and told her she was the best mother ever. After the whole ceremony of it she told him he should give the card to the house keeper, Suehad, who has taken care of him since he was born. He quickly agreed this was a good idea so he called for her to come down. The whole ceremony was repeated again and she had tears in her eyes she was so touched. She took the card and her things and went home. Then the other sisters came out to see him and he suddenly realized he didn’t have a Mother’s day card to give them. He had really enjoyed the whole thing and wanted to repeat it with each of the other sisters but now he was short a card to official give. So I decided it was time to play ball in the garden with him. What is a little orphan with 8 or 9 mother figures to do?
After a few more hours of playing with Safwan in the garden and chatting with the sisters and meeting the new sisters, we decided that I better get out of Nablus before anything more happened.
When I got to the bus station I was mad because I got there right as a bus filled up and left. This meant that I would have to wait for the next bus to fill up, it could take minutes or hours. Luckily I had a book with me to help distract while waiting. The last person to get in the bus and to sit next to me turned out to be a good friend/co-worker/parent of a student, Ida. I had forgotten that Ida’s family was from the Askar refugee camp right next to the bus station. She had gone to Nablus to spend the day with her sister. It was the one year anniversary of the death of her nephew. Exactly a year before her 15 year old soldiers had also killed nephew. They had spent the day in mourning and remembrance.
The first checkpoint that we went through was no problem at all. There was a long line of cars but the bus drove on the shoulder of the road and cut right to the front of the line. The soldiers didn’t even look inside the bus….
The next checkpoint we got to was Zatar Circle in arabic (or Tappah Junction in Hebrew). At this checkpoint the soldiers looked inside the bus and saw that I was there and asked for my passport only at first. They had me open the little window next to my seat and questioned me about why I was in Nablus, “to see the sisters at the catholic church”. What was I doing in palestine, “just praying and seeing the churches”. Where do I live, “Los Angeles”. where am I going, “back to Jerusalem”. And then over and over again they asked if I was okay??? I know they are just scared and concerned for me. That they could never imagine riding in an arab bus or going into Nablus without a armored convoy. But for me an American it is safe or at least safe enough.
Then they turned to my friend Ida and asked her how she was doing and she said, “not well, that it had been a bad day”. That was enough to get us pulled over and bomb checked. They took everyone else’s ID’s and had the bus pull over in to the special parking lot. We were all asked to get out of the bus. The soldiers had me go and stand in an area by myself guarded by them. They told me to “hide behind them” They brought out the mirrors and ripped the bus apart searching. They questioned everyone and ran their IDs. By this time it was past 8pm and I was COLD. Nothing was found and no one over reacted so eventually we were free to go. Again the whole time I was standing there the soldiers kept asking me if I was okay. I am sure I had the look of horror on my face. I wanted to (but didn’t) tell them it wasn’t the arabs that scared me but the dozen of M-16’s with in a meter of me that freak me out. Honestly I try and try not to look at the guns but I just can’t help myself. Plus I was cold.. it is hard to look happy and relaxed when cold and around all those guns.
We eventually made it home and pretty much fell fast asleep minutes after I got home.
It is pretty much how it is every night… I am asleep by 9 or 9:30 at the latest…
I get home from tutoring, read for a few minutes and crash out happily.
Monday was a bit of a hellish day.
My day ended with teaching the sixth grade…
Let’s just say I have never been treated that way before.. by the time class was over I had decided that maybe I needed to leave the whole teaching profession or at least Palestine. I marched down to the principal’s office and she swore she would take care of it and not to worry. I swore I would never step foot in their classroom again.
I was still in a foul mood by the time I left school. My after school students that I tutor didn’t show up and was ready to go home and hide from the world. On the way home I got a phone call from my grandparents’ friends who were finishing up their pilgrimage in Jerusalem and was invited to come to the farewell dinner. I had to run home and find something nice to wear that was appropriate for getting through checkpoints. The only nice dress I brought with me is knee length. It is perfectly appropriate for Jerusalem but not for the buses of Ramallah.
Once I found my nice black slacks I was off and running. I had no idea what the checkpoints would look like and it could take 45 minutes to hours to get the 10 miles to their hotel.
Magically I got there in exactly one hour. Every bus I needed was full and each only needed one more person, ME, to leave. (buses here don’t leave until they are full so depending on the day it can take seconds for it to leave after you arrive or hours)
The checkpoints were open and relatively peaceful. It can be disconcerting here how violent things can get in a matter of moments and then a few hours later everything is fine again.
I got to the hotel and was able to spend a few minutes catching Sister Mary Jean up on my year since she had seen me last year when we were on the pilgrimage together.
I went to the farewell dinner with the group at one of the nicer and more delicious dinners in Jerusalem. I was so good to spend the evening with people I knew, and people who knew where I came from. They were so kind and I really needed time with my roots. It sometimes is hard always go and making new friends and having only friendships based on what I am doing right now. This current segment of my life is so different and alien from my California life and family. There are people here like the sisters who really understand that. But most of my friends, co-workers and students just don’t know the full picture of who I am. It is good sometimes to get grounded and spending just the few evenings with the pilgrimage group from Los Angeles really was able to do that for me.
The rest of the week was rather uneventful…. Wednesday night I sat down with Gabriella to figure out what we wanted to see and do on our Egypt trip next week. We started off both wanting to go to Luxor but were just struggling with not enough time there and the ferries not going on the right days. As we sat there pondering what to do about it Gabriella noticed on the map the Monasteries of St. Anthony and St. Paul and said she had always dreamed of going there since she had written so many academic journal articles on them and their rare manuscripts. I remarked that I really wanted to go there also but never thought I would find someone who felt the same way, so we scrapped the Luxor plan and are now going to try and figure out how to go to the monasteries instead.
The last few days my nerves are raw and I am getting irritated at everything and everyone and I really need a vacation. I am getting enough sleep but I am not feeling so hot.
So now it isFriday morning and I need to go to Nablus today. I just noticed on my computer that I think time changed this morning and it isn’t 9am but 10am. This means I am really late.
Yesterday I came down with a sinus infection and right now my lungs are not feeling so hot. But I really need to go since I won’t get another chance to see Safwan before I leave for Egypt. AND his birthday is while I am gone AND one of the former teachers from his school wants to throw him a birthday and we need to sit and plan it. (I am so sad I won’t be there for it)
I haven’t written about year 2 week 2 because it was an emotionally crazy week and I still haven’t put any of it into perspective enough to write about it.
We had to deal with Fadi’s death, the anniversary of Dan’s death, a mini war broke out and we were trying to figure out if it was going to lead to a big intifada, I got caught in demonstrations in Jerusalem, said goodbye to sr. Jian who left for Gaza, house guests from Germany who didn’t know anything about what was going on here, just drama drama drama that really wore me down.
I need to have a moment of peace and quiet to reflect on it and I am not sure when I am going to get that.
March 20th to 26th……
Ever since I came back from my Christmas vacation I been working with the first graders and fifth graders on preparing songs for the mothers day party. As the week before the mother’s day party came the teachers fought like crazy for time with their classes on the stage to practice. The actual day had arrived for the presentation and I was sure that my students would nail it.. well almost sure…
Seven years ago, I hadn’t been so lucky…. I was in korea and my students had prepared a musical for the summer camp show, about half way through the show the kids got into a huge fight on the stage and knocked down all the sets and well it was one of those “Charlie brown school play” moments where all you can do it roll your eyes.
So as confidant as I felt about the students ability to sing and do the dance moves, I didn’t know if I could trust them not to find another way to make a disaster of it all.
One of the things that I really do hate about teaching the most and I think if I were a mother i would also hate about that job is going to school performances. Two to three hours of your life that you can’t get back that are spent sitting there with no way to escape. At least at this performance no one was singing a Celine Dion song (can you tell I am still scared by living in China and Taiwan during the Titanic years?) and I was given the job of being the school photographer. Which gave me something to do and distracted me from the pain of listening to group after group of children got up and screamed out the songs their teachers had been practicing for so long.
There was a huge part of me that felt very sorry for the mom’s that they had to be honored this way.
The my song with the first grade had gotten left off the schedule which broke my heart. So as the even went on we were added in half heartedly… They were okay but not great.
Finally my pride and joys came on… they were the last event of the day… and they ROCKED!!!
They sang their own version of “Wind beneath my wings”… and they nailed it!!!
I couldn’t have been prouder…
I guess in the end that is why we do these shows, because in the end you feel so much pride for the little monsters.
After school I crashed out and spent the afternoon relaxing. The week before had been so stressful that I needed time to gain some perspective.
That evening Fahmida and I met our good friend Gabriella at a local restaurant called Stones. Gabriella had a friend visiting from England that we were able to meet and spend the evening chatting away with.
Ramallah might be the first place that I have lived overseas where we are able to have so many visitors. Every where else has been so isolated and not exactly on the top of the list of places to visit. The holy land is a different thing completely. In addition now that we have joined the Hospitality Club and Couch Surfers, I fell like we are in for a many more visitors, which for a social butterfly like me, just makes me so happy.
On Sunday I needed to go to Nablus. I hadn’t been in two weeks because the week before my passport was at the Egyptian embassy. Nablus is not the type of place you can go with out your passport. The city is surrounded by checkpoints and it used to be that you might be able to get in or out with out it since they weren’t overly concerned with the internationals coming in and out but the last six months have brought a big change to that.
Now the internationals seem to be the bigger focus at the checkpoints. There is a group called ISM (international solidarity movement) that fights for the human rights of Palestinians. Some of the members of ISM take great pride in referring to themselves as “human shields”. I understand what they are doing but it isn’t what I do at all. I really feel like education is a better means to the same ends or at least a better use of my talents. The Israeli government takes great insult to this group and has made many night raids in to Palestine to find and deport international members of this group.
Because of them, internationals are singled out at checkpoints and grilled over what we are doing here.
I absolutely doing not explain what I am doing here at all… instead I am a Christian pilgrim. Not that what I really do is too offensive, but it is more that then I would get pulled into extra questioning and taken in to detention every time I answered. It just isn’t worth it. And since my personal reason to be here is a pilgrimage it isn’t too much of a lie.
After mass I met Gabriella and her friend at the bus station in Ramallah and we took off for the one-hour journey. You never know if things are going to be bad along this journey. The week before both Israeli Settlers and Palestinian farmers along that road had been attacking cars and busses with Rocks and other things they could find to throw. We were hoping that the roads would be safe and checkpoints open. It turned out to be an uneventful and quick trip, which I greatly appreciated.
Once we got to Nablus we had a little less than two hours before Safwan would be finished with school. I wanted to take him out to lunch to surprise him. First I needed to call the sisters to ask their permission.
Recently the sisters had a change in positions at their house. Sister Jian used to be the superior but she was just moved to the house in Gaza so now Sister Karisma is the head. She usual says yes when I call her with crazy requests for Safwan. Sister Jian was a bit more reserved about his hanging out on the town with us crazy internationals.
My next call after I got her approval was to Lana, my old boss and director of the school. I needed her to call the taxi driver who usually takes Safwan home and have him bring the little tiger to the restaurant. She didn’t answer my call.
So I called the taxi driver directly and had Gabriella (who speaks amazing Arabic) talk to Nazi the driver. He had no problem agreeing to bring Safwan to see me. At times like this I love how trusting Palestine is. Once the house keeping had been done we were able to go off and explore the city.
It is going to sound horrible but this was the first time that I had a couple of people to walk around with, and time, that it wasn’t a Friday when everything is deserted, and that it wasn’t too hot to really explore. I had of course walked around the old city many times. When I first lived in Nablus I had to walk to through the old city to get home everyday. But I had been warned and had then gone on to warn all the other teachers to only walk on the main roads of the old city in Nablus.
Nablus is extremely famous for being the city of resistance to the occupation. Every suicide bomber was from Nablus. Most all of the major fractions of resistance are based in the old city of Nablus. As long as you stick to the main roads you are safe but it is in the little nooks and crannies in the old city that you find these groups and people.
I don’t know what quite possessed us to go and really explore. Maybe it was the fact that I had seen so much the week before in Jerusalem that gave me the guts to do this, maybe stupidity, maybe all the death around me this past year that finally had gotten to me. What ever it was, I had an amazing time exploring all the alleyways and tunnels. We had a magical hour and a bit wondering trying to get lost. The old city of Nablus is a huge web of an ancient city. It is strange to think that Jesus himself walked through parts of it. They still have old roman ruins amongst the ottoman buildings. We finally ended the fun with a quick visit to the world famous Kanafa stand next to the mosque and then made our way to the restaurant just before my little Safwan got there.
A few weeks ago Safwan told me that he much prefers me to surprise him then for him to sit and wait for me. The poor boy naturally gets up at 5 am and on a good day I might get up at 8 am much less on my one day off a week. And because Nablus is a good hour away by bus I don’t usually get there until 10am. This means that he has been waiting five hours for me by the time I see him. And he is always happy to see me but usually a bit frustrated with my crazy desire to sleep in till 8 on a Friday. And with all of the political problems going on these past few months there has been more than one time that I have had to call and cancel on him because it just isn’t safe for me to go there.
Nazi the taxi driver liked the idea of surprising Safwan and told him he had to stop on the way home to run an errand. Then he ran into the restaurant and got me and even the coldest stone heart would have melted to see the astonishment and joy on his face when he realized I was here to surprise him.
It was beautiful. He was so happy…
Apparently I had chosen the right restaurant. The housekeeper who has taken care of him since he was born has 8 children. They have all treated Safwan like a little brother. I didn’t realize that the oldest soon worked at this restaurant and that Safwan had been dreaming of going to eat there for two years. It is by far the nicest place in Nablus, and I wouldn’t have usually chosen to go there except that we were bringing Gabriella’s friend. For a first visit to Nablus that is the best place to go!
About half way through lunch the loud speakers around Nablus started ringing out with the sounds of he Iman’s voice. Something was going on… This wasn’t the call to prayer. I know this type of call… this was a call to indignation. Because there wasn’t much we could do, we finished lunch and the girls left to go and see “Jacob’s Well”. Safwan requested that we stay and continue people watching at the restaurant. Eventually we called Waleed (the greatest taxi driver in the world) and he took us back to the convent. On the way, he told us soldiers had killed two more boys. This meant that in just a mere 24 hours the Israeli soldiers in Nablus had killed 4 teens. This was not a good time to be there. I asked Waleed to call me if he heard anything more. Because these killing had happened next to the checkpoint I didn’t know if the checkpoints would be open or safe to go through. I also was planning to walk to the bus station but I didn’t want to do that if demonstrations started up. Walking around the old city with two others was one thing in the middle of the day but demonstrations in Nablus were another thing.
It was Palestinian mother’s day and Safwan had made a mother’s day card at school. It is rather bazzar to send the orphan home with a mother’s day card… and only one card. (I am not criticizing because I too have made mother’s day cards only to find out later I had students who didn’t have mothers, or multiple mothers) Safwan was totally confused about who to give the card to. The first person he saw was Sister Maria who really has been his mother figure for the past three years. He immediately whipped out the card and gave it to her with hugs and kisses and told her she was the best mother ever. After the whole ceremony of it she told him he should give the card to the house keeper, Suehad, who has taken care of him since he was born. He quickly agreed this was a good idea so he called for her to come down. The whole ceremony was repeated again and she had tears in her eyes she was so touched. She took the card and her things and went home. Then the other sisters came out to see him and he suddenly realized he didn’t have a Mother’s day card to give them. He had really enjoyed the whole thing and wanted to repeat it with each of the other sisters but now he was short a card to official give. So I decided it was time to play ball in the garden with him. What is a little orphan with 8 or 9 mother figures to do?
After a few more hours of playing with Safwan in the garden and chatting with the sisters and meeting the new sisters, we decided that I better get out of Nablus before anything more happened.
When I got to the bus station I was mad because I got there right as a bus filled up and left. This meant that I would have to wait for the next bus to fill up, it could take minutes or hours. Luckily I had a book with me to help distract while waiting. The last person to get in the bus and to sit next to me turned out to be a good friend/co-worker/parent of a student, Ida. I had forgotten that Ida’s family was from the Askar refugee camp right next to the bus station. She had gone to Nablus to spend the day with her sister. It was the one year anniversary of the death of her nephew. Exactly a year before her 15 year old soldiers had also killed nephew. They had spent the day in mourning and remembrance.
The first checkpoint that we went through was no problem at all. There was a long line of cars but the bus drove on the shoulder of the road and cut right to the front of the line. The soldiers didn’t even look inside the bus….
The next checkpoint we got to was Zatar Circle in arabic (or Tappah Junction in Hebrew). At this checkpoint the soldiers looked inside the bus and saw that I was there and asked for my passport only at first. They had me open the little window next to my seat and questioned me about why I was in Nablus, “to see the sisters at the catholic church”. What was I doing in palestine, “just praying and seeing the churches”. Where do I live, “Los Angeles”. where am I going, “back to Jerusalem”. And then over and over again they asked if I was okay??? I know they are just scared and concerned for me. That they could never imagine riding in an arab bus or going into Nablus without a armored convoy. But for me an American it is safe or at least safe enough.
Then they turned to my friend Ida and asked her how she was doing and she said, “not well, that it had been a bad day”. That was enough to get us pulled over and bomb checked. They took everyone else’s ID’s and had the bus pull over in to the special parking lot. We were all asked to get out of the bus. The soldiers had me go and stand in an area by myself guarded by them. They told me to “hide behind them” They brought out the mirrors and ripped the bus apart searching. They questioned everyone and ran their IDs. By this time it was past 8pm and I was COLD. Nothing was found and no one over reacted so eventually we were free to go. Again the whole time I was standing there the soldiers kept asking me if I was okay. I am sure I had the look of horror on my face. I wanted to (but didn’t) tell them it wasn’t the arabs that scared me but the dozen of M-16’s with in a meter of me that freak me out. Honestly I try and try not to look at the guns but I just can’t help myself. Plus I was cold.. it is hard to look happy and relaxed when cold and around all those guns.
We eventually made it home and pretty much fell fast asleep minutes after I got home.
It is pretty much how it is every night… I am asleep by 9 or 9:30 at the latest…
I get home from tutoring, read for a few minutes and crash out happily.
Monday was a bit of a hellish day.
My day ended with teaching the sixth grade…
Let’s just say I have never been treated that way before.. by the time class was over I had decided that maybe I needed to leave the whole teaching profession or at least Palestine. I marched down to the principal’s office and she swore she would take care of it and not to worry. I swore I would never step foot in their classroom again.
I was still in a foul mood by the time I left school. My after school students that I tutor didn’t show up and was ready to go home and hide from the world. On the way home I got a phone call from my grandparents’ friends who were finishing up their pilgrimage in Jerusalem and was invited to come to the farewell dinner. I had to run home and find something nice to wear that was appropriate for getting through checkpoints. The only nice dress I brought with me is knee length. It is perfectly appropriate for Jerusalem but not for the buses of Ramallah.
Once I found my nice black slacks I was off and running. I had no idea what the checkpoints would look like and it could take 45 minutes to hours to get the 10 miles to their hotel.
Magically I got there in exactly one hour. Every bus I needed was full and each only needed one more person, ME, to leave. (buses here don’t leave until they are full so depending on the day it can take seconds for it to leave after you arrive or hours)
The checkpoints were open and relatively peaceful. It can be disconcerting here how violent things can get in a matter of moments and then a few hours later everything is fine again.
I got to the hotel and was able to spend a few minutes catching Sister Mary Jean up on my year since she had seen me last year when we were on the pilgrimage together.
I went to the farewell dinner with the group at one of the nicer and more delicious dinners in Jerusalem. I was so good to spend the evening with people I knew, and people who knew where I came from. They were so kind and I really needed time with my roots. It sometimes is hard always go and making new friends and having only friendships based on what I am doing right now. This current segment of my life is so different and alien from my California life and family. There are people here like the sisters who really understand that. But most of my friends, co-workers and students just don’t know the full picture of who I am. It is good sometimes to get grounded and spending just the few evenings with the pilgrimage group from Los Angeles really was able to do that for me.
The rest of the week was rather uneventful…. Wednesday night I sat down with Gabriella to figure out what we wanted to see and do on our Egypt trip next week. We started off both wanting to go to Luxor but were just struggling with not enough time there and the ferries not going on the right days. As we sat there pondering what to do about it Gabriella noticed on the map the Monasteries of St. Anthony and St. Paul and said she had always dreamed of going there since she had written so many academic journal articles on them and their rare manuscripts. I remarked that I really wanted to go there also but never thought I would find someone who felt the same way, so we scrapped the Luxor plan and are now going to try and figure out how to go to the monasteries instead.
The last few days my nerves are raw and I am getting irritated at everything and everyone and I really need a vacation. I am getting enough sleep but I am not feeling so hot.
So now it isFriday morning and I need to go to Nablus today. I just noticed on my computer that I think time changed this morning and it isn’t 9am but 10am. This means I am really late.
Yesterday I came down with a sinus infection and right now my lungs are not feeling so hot. But I really need to go since I won’t get another chance to see Safwan before I leave for Egypt. AND his birthday is while I am gone AND one of the former teachers from his school wants to throw him a birthday and we need to sit and plan it. (I am so sad I won’t be there for it)
I haven’t written about year 2 week 2 because it was an emotionally crazy week and I still haven’t put any of it into perspective enough to write about it.
We had to deal with Fadi’s death, the anniversary of Dan’s death, a mini war broke out and we were trying to figure out if it was going to lead to a big intifada, I got caught in demonstrations in Jerusalem, said goodbye to sr. Jian who left for Gaza, house guests from Germany who didn’t know anything about what was going on here, just drama drama drama that really wore me down.
I need to have a moment of peace and quiet to reflect on it and I am not sure when I am going to get that.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
year 2 week 1
Year 2 week 1
About six months ago I stumbled upon a blog that I have really enjoyed reading. I was realizing that my book supply was running low and I decided to explore the world of blogs. I saw that the peace corps had a website listing all the blogs their volunteers were keeping. One of them caught my interest. Not because it was the best written blog out there but because he was able to keep it up week after week. I had been (and still am suffering from a serious case of writers block) not because I don’t have a lot to say or even because my life is lacking in events. I think my writers block is more out of a fear of being judged.
Living in Palestine is already such a political statement. I actually have to admit that I don’t think I quite knew the extent of the statement I was making when I came. I had grown up standing up for what I believed in. I believed in making America better and I saw that one way to do that was to follow my heart. Whether it was going to protests, writing letters, praying, speaking out, boycotting things made in china, work in a fair trade store, going to city council meetings, school board meetings, or political gatherings: these were all just perfectly acceptable ways to try and make my world a better place. I never thought that they labeled me as a radical or fundamentalist. I thought it just meant that I had principles that I needed to live by.
But the middle east is different. It is a whole new can of worms. I didn’t realize how my mere presents here would offend people at the level that it has. I mistakenly thought that by teaching children English, children who otherwise would be getting a second rate education, and exposing them to the western world that I would be somehow bringing peace to the middle east. That these children, once exposed to a world outside their own would dream about things bigger than throwing rocks, would find themselves wanting something different or would learn how to deal with others in a different way. Obviously the current thought process is working. How native I was.
Everything I thought or wrote about was spun and turned on me. Not only by my former coworkers or the people around me here but by those out in the big big world.
I don’t like being called anti-Semitic.
I am not!
Living and working in Palestine and loving the Palestinian people does not make me anti-Semitic.
Questioning how Israel interacts with these people doesn’t make me anti-Semitic either.
I also love Israel and the people there.
But on the other hand I also feel like if I start questioning anything that I see or experience here in Palestine makes me just as anti-arab as I have been accused of being anti-Semitic.
How can I write about what is going on around me with out offending everyone around me. Unless I only write about the good but even that is offensive to someone.
So hence my writers block…..
So for now until I finally have the confidence I need to feel comfortable enough to write freely, I am going to format my blog like the guy in the peace corps did. He writes his weekly events that happen in his life.
Knowing myself, and my inability to stop myself once I get started I am rather sure that once I get going I may never stop.
Saturday:
I really don’t like going to school on Saturdays. This split weekend thing is for the birds. Fahmida (my roommate and co-worker) and I had decided that if we were going to get to the Egyptian Embassy by 10 am Sunday morning then we needed to either sleep in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv the night before. Gabriel whom I actually haven’t written about in the blog before (but whom dozens of posts are deserved) had offered to let me stay at his new place. I hadn’t seen him in months, not for a lack of trying but we had constantly missed each other for the last six months and I really needed to catch up with him. This seemed like a great plan to see him and be in Jerusalem at dawn.
The question was when to leave. Fahmida had tutoring sessions all Saturday afternoon and I really wanted to go to Mass in English at Notre Dame Hotel in Jerusalem at 6:30. Finally it was decided that Marie (the French teacher) at my school and I would go to mass together and then Fahmida would call me and we would meet up at the Damascus Gate after she finished tutoring which would hopefully be around the time I finished mass.
On the way to Jerusalem you have to pass through a crazy checkpoint called Kolandia. I had hear through my Italian friend Gabriella that there were new mini vans that waited out in front of Kolandia to take internationals and Israeli citizens around a different way into Jerusalem so that we didn’t have to wait inside at kolandia. Kolandia is one of the only legal ways Palestinians can pass from Palestine into Israel. The lines are long and the conditions are inhumane.
I morally go back and forth about whether or not I should stand in solidarity in the lines at Kolandia or if my standing there just means a long line for the people behind me. On this day we were late for Mass and the line was long and it seemed like a much better idea to hop into the mini van.
The mini van was amazing we were in down town Jerusalem so quickly. It is a great new trick.
I was really excited about mass in English it had been a while since I had been to an English mass. (it is almost always in Arabic) but much to my sadness it was in English but the priest could hardly speak English and I just couldn’t understand his accent. And then he did the whole second half of the Mass in Latin. I am not complaining but……
By the time we got to Gabriel’s house he was annoyed because he was itching to go out but since it was the first time for me to come to his place he had to wait for us. It turned out that his place is the perfect size for one person but a bit small for three so he decided to go and stay at a friends house giving us his entire place to ourselves. Which was beyond kind but exactly who Gabriel is.
We went out to explore the neighborhood since I had never been in that part of Jerusalem before. It is a rather orthodox area and I always feel like a wolf in sheep’s clothing when I am there, like an imposture. When we got back we weren’t able to get the door to open. I called Gabriel who tried to talk us through the finer points on how to open his door but still no success. Finally I asked a stranger on the street to come and help us and he wanted to know who we were. I explained and he explained that he is Gabriel’s landlord (whom I immediately knew was he human rights Rabbi that has been helping Gabriel become legal). He quickly was able to open the door for us and I felt so uncomfortable because I knew he was an American who had decided to go and live in Israel but what I didn’t know at the time was that he also supports Palestine and wouldn’t have hated me for what I do. I guess sometimes I also make judgments about others, go figure.
Gabriel came home the next morning around 6 am and we were able to talk for about an hour. It was the first time Fahmida had met him, although she had heard a lot about him.
He is such an amazing person and I love hearing what his perspective on life is everytime I see him, cuz it is always changing.
We were off to Tel Aviv to go to the Egyptian Embassy to get visas so that we could go to Egypt for our Easter Vacation.
Sometimes I am amused and surprised that I understand how to get across Israel so well (and sometimes I am sadly disappointed too).
From Gabriel’s we took a bus to the hip part of town. Where we got off and walked a block to the Sherut (Israeli private bus system) station to go to Tel Aviv. In tel aviv we got off at the central bus station and took bus # 89 across town to the corner next to the Embassy. The whole thing took more than 2 hours because of traffic and time spent waiting for connection busses.
We applied for our visas only to find out that they were no longer issuing them in one day like they were in the fall AND that the prices listed on the window and on their web site were wrong and now they wanted 100 shekels in stead of the 65 they used to take. We had no choice but to leave them with our passports and to wait until the following week to collect them. This left us a bit stranded since to get back to the embassy we would need our passports to get through the checkpoints.
I figured this was one of those times where you just trust in God and hope that everything will work out.
We left the embassy and headed out to explore the city of Tel Aviv. I have been to tel aviv a couple dozen times but never had I ever had an entire free day with not a single agenda. Tel Aviv is a great café town. Really the only thing to do besides go to the beach is to go to cute little out door café’s and enjoy the warm sunny day.
We found a cute one tucked away in a neighborhood so that it wasn’t out on a busy street. It was at that point I realized the last time I had really explored Tel Aviv at all was a year before exactly when I first arrived. The first thing I ordered my first day was Sharshuka, an Israeli egg and tomato dish that I loved, so I decided to have it again. I can’t believe that I had been here for a whole year and not had it again, but then again I haven’t gone out for breakfast in an Israeli area since the year before. We sat there for a couple of hours and just enjoyed the life before spending the day wondering about, window shopping, going out to the beach, just exploring. After a while my stomach started to ache and I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom in the worse way. We found another café and ran for the WC and felt much better but not wonderful so we spend anther few hours there drinking diet cokes relaxing and reading. While we were sitting there we noticed that across the street there was a sushi restaurant. Sushi is the one food that I really miss here. Most everything else I can find in Palestine but Sushi is not on the list of foods I can make well. So…. Left the little café and walked across the street to the sushi restaurant and indulged. This was my celebratory feast…
Let me tell you, this has been one of the hardest years of my life. I always tell people who are about to set off on a year teaching abroad that every bit of their past will come back to haunt them while they are there. Every phobia, struggle, drama of their life will play out in front of them while they are overseas so be forewarned. You have to be strong!
Oh my goodness, this past year has followed that rule to the worst degree.
I felt like survivor for getting through it all.
Sushi was in order and special Green tea!!!
From the sushi place we took a bus down to Jaffa . Jaffa is the is amazing fort that the crusaders built hundreds and hundreds of years ago. And yet still it has modern convinces. We explored and shopped and took photos before trying to figure out how to get home.
More than a hour later of walking we finally found a bus that would take us back to the main station. And then a bus from there that took us to down town Jerusalem. A 30 minute walk from there took us to the arab station where we were able to catch number 18 bus back to Ramallah. I usually walk the last 20 minutes home but I was soooo tired at that point that we finally took a taxi and I fell fast asleep minutes after getting home.
And before I knew it the alarm was ringing and it was time to start my work week again.
Mondays and Saturdays are my hardest days of the week. I have seven out of the eight classes. I just thought I was going to die for most of them, at one point my feet hurt from walking so much the day before that I couldn’t actually get up from the desk that I was sitting on to do the dance actions to go along with the song we were singing. Several advil later I was feeling much better.
That evening I was tutoring a student at his home whose parents both work high up in the government. I had told them before about Safwan and I finally was able to work it into the conversation to ask them for their help to get him out of the country and into Spain. The father knew exactly what we needed to do. He explained the whole complicated process to me but said that the first step is to get Safwan a passport. Unfortinatly only Safwan’s father (who rejected and abandoned him in the hospital when he was born) can apply for the passport. But this father of my student said that if we can get the father to apply for the passport he can intercept the application once it has been filed and get the passport made himself and then give it directly to me, which would save us many steps in getting it from the father. It was the first time anyone had given me good news and direct steps on what to do next. Until now I had been praying for a miracle and guidance (which I had been absolutely given). As soon as I got home I called Ola (the principal at my old school where Safwan currently goes to school) and asked her to call the father. She might be the only woman the father seems to respect. He seems to do what she tells him to. She had many questions about who we were going to give Safwan to and their religion and family back ground. I haven’t contacted her since to find out if she did call him in but I guess I need to soon.
On Tuesday after school I went to the center of town to meet two “couch surfers”. Couch surfing is a program that I belong to via on line. The theory is that we offer travelers couches to sleep on and then when my time comes to travel I can contact all the people in the towns that I am going to and stay with them. William and Jacob, two brothers, were our first surfers. They are both graduate students in England and were coming here to Palestine for a few months to intern at an NGO. They stayed with us for the first few nights while they looked for a place to stay. I really enjoyed having them here. It was nice to meet new people and hear what their impressions of everything is and it is great to get new people to talk with.
On Wednesday after school I went back to tutor the boy whose parents work in the government. The father usually picks me up and drops me off. On the way we have really interesting conversations about current events here in Palestine or his impressions of what is going on. On the way home after tutoring he told me that Vice President Biden had sat in his office for three hours today. He explained to me the details of the Obama Peace plan that Biden came to offer.
Basically they gave the Isrealis and the Palestinians a list of chores they had to do in the next two years. The first group to get theirs down would be the winners and as a punishment to the losers the Obama administration would tell the world that the “losing team” are the ones who don’t want peace. And will from then on be treated this way. For the Palestinians they already are labeled as the hold up to peace but what is motivating them is that this is their chance to show the world that it is Israel who is causing all the problems. He said that this was the first time he felt like there was a chance….
I giggled to myself because that was the exact strategy that I use at school to get the students to do things. Not that I am proud of it but when I need to actually get something done and am worried about getting it done verses the way it is done I totally do an “Obama”. And the kids do it!
When I got home that night the toilet wouldn’t flush and we seemed to be out of cold water and only had boiling hot water.
Hmmmmm
Thursday SUCKED!!!
It started off with me in a bad mood. I didn’t want to go to school. And during the 3rd period a student STABBED me in the leg with a pencil. It didn’t break the skin, I had on jeans, but it left quite a bruise. He wasn’t actually aiming at me, but I didn’t care. Kids should not stab others with pencils!!
I was suppose to go to Nablus afterschool but as I was walking home I realized I didn’t have my passport, it was at the embassy in Tel aviv and I would for sure need one if I were to try and go through all the check points on the way there.
I also decided to cancel on tutoring because I was in such a bad mood. I didn’t want to have to kill anyone because I was just in one of those moods.
While I was sitting at home fuming, I thought I would take a shower to feel better. I was so angry that my skin was starting to itch… but that is when we ran out of water completely. The hot water was had gone the way of the cold water and now there was nothing. I had to call Hanni the greatest land lord ever to come and fix it.
When he came he showed me that someone had turned of the water from the street and for several months now we had just been living off of the tanks from the roof. Several hours later we had water. It was magic and I could flush the toilet and take a shower. The one thing that was a bit weird was that the toilet sounded like it was constantly running and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it and how to make that sound stop.
By 8pm I decided that it was better to put this whole day behind me and I went to sleep and slept until 6am the next morning.
Fridays are wonderfully quiet in Palestine. I was sad that I wasn’t in Nablus with Safwan but as I watched the news all day I saw that violence was breaking out all around Nablus and the checkpoints were mostly closed to get into the city. Even if I had my passport it would have been difficult to get in much less with out it. I was also in a bad mood because I had realized that this weekend marked one year since Dan had died. I was missing him more than ever. I had seen so many things this year that I wanted to call and tell him about.
While I was sitting outside stealing my neighbors internet my roommate discovered that not only did we have water again but now the bathroom was flooding. A pipe leading to the toilet was leaking and we were mopping up the bathroom every five minutes to keep it from flooding the whole house.
I had to call Hanni again to come and fix it. He thought he turned off the water to the bathroom and said he would let it dry for a few hours before coming back with a substance to seal it off.
But for the five hours he was gone we literally sat at the edge of the bathroom with the huge squeegees in hand mopping of the water as soon as it got close to the door jam.
About an hour before Hanni returned the water just stopped dripping. It was like magic.
When Hanni returned we showed him and he decided that the toilet must have fix itself.
Go figure……
Wben I wasn’t guarding the bathroom I spend most of the day in my room reading and towards the late afternoon I got a phone call from our principle to tell me that one of the students at school died.
His name was Fadi and he had a rare illness that caused him to age prematurely. He was a 13 year old boy trapped in a 70 years olds body. I new he had gone into a coma earlier in the week but everyone seemed to think he would come out of it and have a few more years. I wasn’t at all prepared to deal with his death. I was already a bit sad and emotionally worked up over loosing Dan which made me think about the other two friends I had lost this year too. I was really missing my friend Brian whom I was really close to when I lived in Korea. I couldn’t believe that I was now loosing students. I thought my year of death was over… but it was only the 12th of March and God had to get one more death in there before the 13th marking the end of the year.
It is beyond safe to say that my first year in Palestine was distinctively marked by death and grief. Not only had I now lost four people that I cared about but my coworkers/ roommates around me seemed to be loosing people too left and right.
Not only of course did I know Fadi but his brother Jack was also a student of mine. His mother was a coworker who had really taken me under her wing and helped me with the children. I also knew Fadi’s uncle and aunt whom I used to go to church with in Nablus and his cousins.
I just broke down crying at the news and it took a few hours before I was able to stop.
We were told that there had been a service that morning but that until 9pm the family would be at the church in the hall waiting to be greeted, So Fahmida and I piled on our jackets and walked up to the church to pay our respects.
When I saw Noura, his mom, I just broke down again in tears. She was in so much pain. Pain I was so familiar with, pain I wouldn’t want anyone to ever have to experience.
We talked for a few minutes and I think she ended up comforting me more than I her. I felt horrible about that.
On the way out we ran into her brother whom I also know. He wanted to talk about theology for a few minutes, which I humored. But quickly his conversation turned into Muslim bashing. Fahmida who happens to be Muslim was standing right there and went after her about her faith. I was in total shock and couldn’t figure out how to stop him and his brother. Finally we said enough… that we were here to honor Fadi not talk about such things and then fled.
What a week……
Oddly every week is crazy like this..
About six months ago I stumbled upon a blog that I have really enjoyed reading. I was realizing that my book supply was running low and I decided to explore the world of blogs. I saw that the peace corps had a website listing all the blogs their volunteers were keeping. One of them caught my interest. Not because it was the best written blog out there but because he was able to keep it up week after week. I had been (and still am suffering from a serious case of writers block) not because I don’t have a lot to say or even because my life is lacking in events. I think my writers block is more out of a fear of being judged.
Living in Palestine is already such a political statement. I actually have to admit that I don’t think I quite knew the extent of the statement I was making when I came. I had grown up standing up for what I believed in. I believed in making America better and I saw that one way to do that was to follow my heart. Whether it was going to protests, writing letters, praying, speaking out, boycotting things made in china, work in a fair trade store, going to city council meetings, school board meetings, or political gatherings: these were all just perfectly acceptable ways to try and make my world a better place. I never thought that they labeled me as a radical or fundamentalist. I thought it just meant that I had principles that I needed to live by.
But the middle east is different. It is a whole new can of worms. I didn’t realize how my mere presents here would offend people at the level that it has. I mistakenly thought that by teaching children English, children who otherwise would be getting a second rate education, and exposing them to the western world that I would be somehow bringing peace to the middle east. That these children, once exposed to a world outside their own would dream about things bigger than throwing rocks, would find themselves wanting something different or would learn how to deal with others in a different way. Obviously the current thought process is working. How native I was.
Everything I thought or wrote about was spun and turned on me. Not only by my former coworkers or the people around me here but by those out in the big big world.
I don’t like being called anti-Semitic.
I am not!
Living and working in Palestine and loving the Palestinian people does not make me anti-Semitic.
Questioning how Israel interacts with these people doesn’t make me anti-Semitic either.
I also love Israel and the people there.
But on the other hand I also feel like if I start questioning anything that I see or experience here in Palestine makes me just as anti-arab as I have been accused of being anti-Semitic.
How can I write about what is going on around me with out offending everyone around me. Unless I only write about the good but even that is offensive to someone.
So hence my writers block…..
So for now until I finally have the confidence I need to feel comfortable enough to write freely, I am going to format my blog like the guy in the peace corps did. He writes his weekly events that happen in his life.
Knowing myself, and my inability to stop myself once I get started I am rather sure that once I get going I may never stop.
Saturday:
I really don’t like going to school on Saturdays. This split weekend thing is for the birds. Fahmida (my roommate and co-worker) and I had decided that if we were going to get to the Egyptian Embassy by 10 am Sunday morning then we needed to either sleep in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv the night before. Gabriel whom I actually haven’t written about in the blog before (but whom dozens of posts are deserved) had offered to let me stay at his new place. I hadn’t seen him in months, not for a lack of trying but we had constantly missed each other for the last six months and I really needed to catch up with him. This seemed like a great plan to see him and be in Jerusalem at dawn.
The question was when to leave. Fahmida had tutoring sessions all Saturday afternoon and I really wanted to go to Mass in English at Notre Dame Hotel in Jerusalem at 6:30. Finally it was decided that Marie (the French teacher) at my school and I would go to mass together and then Fahmida would call me and we would meet up at the Damascus Gate after she finished tutoring which would hopefully be around the time I finished mass.
On the way to Jerusalem you have to pass through a crazy checkpoint called Kolandia. I had hear through my Italian friend Gabriella that there were new mini vans that waited out in front of Kolandia to take internationals and Israeli citizens around a different way into Jerusalem so that we didn’t have to wait inside at kolandia. Kolandia is one of the only legal ways Palestinians can pass from Palestine into Israel. The lines are long and the conditions are inhumane.
I morally go back and forth about whether or not I should stand in solidarity in the lines at Kolandia or if my standing there just means a long line for the people behind me. On this day we were late for Mass and the line was long and it seemed like a much better idea to hop into the mini van.
The mini van was amazing we were in down town Jerusalem so quickly. It is a great new trick.
I was really excited about mass in English it had been a while since I had been to an English mass. (it is almost always in Arabic) but much to my sadness it was in English but the priest could hardly speak English and I just couldn’t understand his accent. And then he did the whole second half of the Mass in Latin. I am not complaining but……
By the time we got to Gabriel’s house he was annoyed because he was itching to go out but since it was the first time for me to come to his place he had to wait for us. It turned out that his place is the perfect size for one person but a bit small for three so he decided to go and stay at a friends house giving us his entire place to ourselves. Which was beyond kind but exactly who Gabriel is.
We went out to explore the neighborhood since I had never been in that part of Jerusalem before. It is a rather orthodox area and I always feel like a wolf in sheep’s clothing when I am there, like an imposture. When we got back we weren’t able to get the door to open. I called Gabriel who tried to talk us through the finer points on how to open his door but still no success. Finally I asked a stranger on the street to come and help us and he wanted to know who we were. I explained and he explained that he is Gabriel’s landlord (whom I immediately knew was he human rights Rabbi that has been helping Gabriel become legal). He quickly was able to open the door for us and I felt so uncomfortable because I knew he was an American who had decided to go and live in Israel but what I didn’t know at the time was that he also supports Palestine and wouldn’t have hated me for what I do. I guess sometimes I also make judgments about others, go figure.
Gabriel came home the next morning around 6 am and we were able to talk for about an hour. It was the first time Fahmida had met him, although she had heard a lot about him.
He is such an amazing person and I love hearing what his perspective on life is everytime I see him, cuz it is always changing.
We were off to Tel Aviv to go to the Egyptian Embassy to get visas so that we could go to Egypt for our Easter Vacation.
Sometimes I am amused and surprised that I understand how to get across Israel so well (and sometimes I am sadly disappointed too).
From Gabriel’s we took a bus to the hip part of town. Where we got off and walked a block to the Sherut (Israeli private bus system) station to go to Tel Aviv. In tel aviv we got off at the central bus station and took bus # 89 across town to the corner next to the Embassy. The whole thing took more than 2 hours because of traffic and time spent waiting for connection busses.
We applied for our visas only to find out that they were no longer issuing them in one day like they were in the fall AND that the prices listed on the window and on their web site were wrong and now they wanted 100 shekels in stead of the 65 they used to take. We had no choice but to leave them with our passports and to wait until the following week to collect them. This left us a bit stranded since to get back to the embassy we would need our passports to get through the checkpoints.
I figured this was one of those times where you just trust in God and hope that everything will work out.
We left the embassy and headed out to explore the city of Tel Aviv. I have been to tel aviv a couple dozen times but never had I ever had an entire free day with not a single agenda. Tel Aviv is a great café town. Really the only thing to do besides go to the beach is to go to cute little out door café’s and enjoy the warm sunny day.
We found a cute one tucked away in a neighborhood so that it wasn’t out on a busy street. It was at that point I realized the last time I had really explored Tel Aviv at all was a year before exactly when I first arrived. The first thing I ordered my first day was Sharshuka, an Israeli egg and tomato dish that I loved, so I decided to have it again. I can’t believe that I had been here for a whole year and not had it again, but then again I haven’t gone out for breakfast in an Israeli area since the year before. We sat there for a couple of hours and just enjoyed the life before spending the day wondering about, window shopping, going out to the beach, just exploring. After a while my stomach started to ache and I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom in the worse way. We found another café and ran for the WC and felt much better but not wonderful so we spend anther few hours there drinking diet cokes relaxing and reading. While we were sitting there we noticed that across the street there was a sushi restaurant. Sushi is the one food that I really miss here. Most everything else I can find in Palestine but Sushi is not on the list of foods I can make well. So…. Left the little café and walked across the street to the sushi restaurant and indulged. This was my celebratory feast…
Let me tell you, this has been one of the hardest years of my life. I always tell people who are about to set off on a year teaching abroad that every bit of their past will come back to haunt them while they are there. Every phobia, struggle, drama of their life will play out in front of them while they are overseas so be forewarned. You have to be strong!
Oh my goodness, this past year has followed that rule to the worst degree.
I felt like survivor for getting through it all.
Sushi was in order and special Green tea!!!
From the sushi place we took a bus down to Jaffa . Jaffa is the is amazing fort that the crusaders built hundreds and hundreds of years ago. And yet still it has modern convinces. We explored and shopped and took photos before trying to figure out how to get home.
More than a hour later of walking we finally found a bus that would take us back to the main station. And then a bus from there that took us to down town Jerusalem. A 30 minute walk from there took us to the arab station where we were able to catch number 18 bus back to Ramallah. I usually walk the last 20 minutes home but I was soooo tired at that point that we finally took a taxi and I fell fast asleep minutes after getting home.
And before I knew it the alarm was ringing and it was time to start my work week again.
Mondays and Saturdays are my hardest days of the week. I have seven out of the eight classes. I just thought I was going to die for most of them, at one point my feet hurt from walking so much the day before that I couldn’t actually get up from the desk that I was sitting on to do the dance actions to go along with the song we were singing. Several advil later I was feeling much better.
That evening I was tutoring a student at his home whose parents both work high up in the government. I had told them before about Safwan and I finally was able to work it into the conversation to ask them for their help to get him out of the country and into Spain. The father knew exactly what we needed to do. He explained the whole complicated process to me but said that the first step is to get Safwan a passport. Unfortinatly only Safwan’s father (who rejected and abandoned him in the hospital when he was born) can apply for the passport. But this father of my student said that if we can get the father to apply for the passport he can intercept the application once it has been filed and get the passport made himself and then give it directly to me, which would save us many steps in getting it from the father. It was the first time anyone had given me good news and direct steps on what to do next. Until now I had been praying for a miracle and guidance (which I had been absolutely given). As soon as I got home I called Ola (the principal at my old school where Safwan currently goes to school) and asked her to call the father. She might be the only woman the father seems to respect. He seems to do what she tells him to. She had many questions about who we were going to give Safwan to and their religion and family back ground. I haven’t contacted her since to find out if she did call him in but I guess I need to soon.
On Tuesday after school I went to the center of town to meet two “couch surfers”. Couch surfing is a program that I belong to via on line. The theory is that we offer travelers couches to sleep on and then when my time comes to travel I can contact all the people in the towns that I am going to and stay with them. William and Jacob, two brothers, were our first surfers. They are both graduate students in England and were coming here to Palestine for a few months to intern at an NGO. They stayed with us for the first few nights while they looked for a place to stay. I really enjoyed having them here. It was nice to meet new people and hear what their impressions of everything is and it is great to get new people to talk with.
On Wednesday after school I went back to tutor the boy whose parents work in the government. The father usually picks me up and drops me off. On the way we have really interesting conversations about current events here in Palestine or his impressions of what is going on. On the way home after tutoring he told me that Vice President Biden had sat in his office for three hours today. He explained to me the details of the Obama Peace plan that Biden came to offer.
Basically they gave the Isrealis and the Palestinians a list of chores they had to do in the next two years. The first group to get theirs down would be the winners and as a punishment to the losers the Obama administration would tell the world that the “losing team” are the ones who don’t want peace. And will from then on be treated this way. For the Palestinians they already are labeled as the hold up to peace but what is motivating them is that this is their chance to show the world that it is Israel who is causing all the problems. He said that this was the first time he felt like there was a chance….
I giggled to myself because that was the exact strategy that I use at school to get the students to do things. Not that I am proud of it but when I need to actually get something done and am worried about getting it done verses the way it is done I totally do an “Obama”. And the kids do it!
When I got home that night the toilet wouldn’t flush and we seemed to be out of cold water and only had boiling hot water.
Hmmmmm
Thursday SUCKED!!!
It started off with me in a bad mood. I didn’t want to go to school. And during the 3rd period a student STABBED me in the leg with a pencil. It didn’t break the skin, I had on jeans, but it left quite a bruise. He wasn’t actually aiming at me, but I didn’t care. Kids should not stab others with pencils!!
I was suppose to go to Nablus afterschool but as I was walking home I realized I didn’t have my passport, it was at the embassy in Tel aviv and I would for sure need one if I were to try and go through all the check points on the way there.
I also decided to cancel on tutoring because I was in such a bad mood. I didn’t want to have to kill anyone because I was just in one of those moods.
While I was sitting at home fuming, I thought I would take a shower to feel better. I was so angry that my skin was starting to itch… but that is when we ran out of water completely. The hot water was had gone the way of the cold water and now there was nothing. I had to call Hanni the greatest land lord ever to come and fix it.
When he came he showed me that someone had turned of the water from the street and for several months now we had just been living off of the tanks from the roof. Several hours later we had water. It was magic and I could flush the toilet and take a shower. The one thing that was a bit weird was that the toilet sounded like it was constantly running and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it and how to make that sound stop.
By 8pm I decided that it was better to put this whole day behind me and I went to sleep and slept until 6am the next morning.
Fridays are wonderfully quiet in Palestine. I was sad that I wasn’t in Nablus with Safwan but as I watched the news all day I saw that violence was breaking out all around Nablus and the checkpoints were mostly closed to get into the city. Even if I had my passport it would have been difficult to get in much less with out it. I was also in a bad mood because I had realized that this weekend marked one year since Dan had died. I was missing him more than ever. I had seen so many things this year that I wanted to call and tell him about.
While I was sitting outside stealing my neighbors internet my roommate discovered that not only did we have water again but now the bathroom was flooding. A pipe leading to the toilet was leaking and we were mopping up the bathroom every five minutes to keep it from flooding the whole house.
I had to call Hanni again to come and fix it. He thought he turned off the water to the bathroom and said he would let it dry for a few hours before coming back with a substance to seal it off.
But for the five hours he was gone we literally sat at the edge of the bathroom with the huge squeegees in hand mopping of the water as soon as it got close to the door jam.
About an hour before Hanni returned the water just stopped dripping. It was like magic.
When Hanni returned we showed him and he decided that the toilet must have fix itself.
Go figure……
Wben I wasn’t guarding the bathroom I spend most of the day in my room reading and towards the late afternoon I got a phone call from our principle to tell me that one of the students at school died.
His name was Fadi and he had a rare illness that caused him to age prematurely. He was a 13 year old boy trapped in a 70 years olds body. I new he had gone into a coma earlier in the week but everyone seemed to think he would come out of it and have a few more years. I wasn’t at all prepared to deal with his death. I was already a bit sad and emotionally worked up over loosing Dan which made me think about the other two friends I had lost this year too. I was really missing my friend Brian whom I was really close to when I lived in Korea. I couldn’t believe that I was now loosing students. I thought my year of death was over… but it was only the 12th of March and God had to get one more death in there before the 13th marking the end of the year.
It is beyond safe to say that my first year in Palestine was distinctively marked by death and grief. Not only had I now lost four people that I cared about but my coworkers/ roommates around me seemed to be loosing people too left and right.
Not only of course did I know Fadi but his brother Jack was also a student of mine. His mother was a coworker who had really taken me under her wing and helped me with the children. I also knew Fadi’s uncle and aunt whom I used to go to church with in Nablus and his cousins.
I just broke down crying at the news and it took a few hours before I was able to stop.
We were told that there had been a service that morning but that until 9pm the family would be at the church in the hall waiting to be greeted, So Fahmida and I piled on our jackets and walked up to the church to pay our respects.
When I saw Noura, his mom, I just broke down again in tears. She was in so much pain. Pain I was so familiar with, pain I wouldn’t want anyone to ever have to experience.
We talked for a few minutes and I think she ended up comforting me more than I her. I felt horrible about that.
On the way out we ran into her brother whom I also know. He wanted to talk about theology for a few minutes, which I humored. But quickly his conversation turned into Muslim bashing. Fahmida who happens to be Muslim was standing right there and went after her about her faith. I was in total shock and couldn’t figure out how to stop him and his brother. Finally we said enough… that we were here to honor Fadi not talk about such things and then fled.
What a week……
Oddly every week is crazy like this..
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
the current drama
I have a lot to say, but with everything going on right now here... it just doesn't seem relevant.
I have talked to my fellow expats who also live in the West Bank and we just don't know what to make of every thing going on.
In the past year there have been several events that have made us wonder if we should prepare for another intifada. But after a few days everything always calms down.
There was the annexing of the mosque in Hebron,
The assignation of a Palestinian in Nablus by the IDF,
A couple of stabbings and murders of IDF by Palestinians,
small fights about the Dome of the Rock,
the threat of elections,
and the list continues.
Each time we went through this whole saga of how to react. The Palestinian people around us carry on as if nothing is happening, which is my way to gauge how serious this is.
How ever, this is the first time the people around me, my fellow teachers, have started to seem worried.
A problem I have always had is knowing when to say enough. Many many years ago in China when we were put under house arrest for the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade I figured you just get through it. I didn't find out until about six months later that internationals left China in grooves during and following that incident. I went to Pakistan during a military cue and it was shockingly peaceful. (except in Kashmir, where they were fighting a civil war and where my mom told me not to go, and i didn't listen. She is still made at me to this day for going there! and she would tell you it is "with good reason")
I even was in Indonesia when the riots broke out all over the country there and was trapped in my hotel (i was the only guest left) for a few days until i was able to get a flight out.
I also went to Bosnia at the tail end of the war there back in the mid-90's.
I am not a stranger to conflict but what i never know is where to draw the line.
When do you pack up and leave?
When do you start stockpiling supplies?
When do you get worried?
I am leaving for a week long vacation in Egypt at the end of the month. Is it wrong for me to hope that if anything happens it happens when I am out of the country? Is that selfish?
I hate thinking that, especially since it will be Easter time and Passover. These are amazing times to be in the old city of Jerusalem.. a very crowded time and any violence would result in horrible blood shed.
so i guess i don't wish that!
So for my friends and family who are ready for me to leave RIGHT NOW...
I AM monitoring the situation and trying to figure out what I should do.
But most of all I am praying for peace!
And for both sides to take lots of deep breaths and to practice some anger management.
I have talked to my fellow expats who also live in the West Bank and we just don't know what to make of every thing going on.
In the past year there have been several events that have made us wonder if we should prepare for another intifada. But after a few days everything always calms down.
There was the annexing of the mosque in Hebron,
The assignation of a Palestinian in Nablus by the IDF,
A couple of stabbings and murders of IDF by Palestinians,
small fights about the Dome of the Rock,
the threat of elections,
and the list continues.
Each time we went through this whole saga of how to react. The Palestinian people around us carry on as if nothing is happening, which is my way to gauge how serious this is.
How ever, this is the first time the people around me, my fellow teachers, have started to seem worried.
A problem I have always had is knowing when to say enough. Many many years ago in China when we were put under house arrest for the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade I figured you just get through it. I didn't find out until about six months later that internationals left China in grooves during and following that incident. I went to Pakistan during a military cue and it was shockingly peaceful. (except in Kashmir, where they were fighting a civil war and where my mom told me not to go, and i didn't listen. She is still made at me to this day for going there! and she would tell you it is "with good reason")
I even was in Indonesia when the riots broke out all over the country there and was trapped in my hotel (i was the only guest left) for a few days until i was able to get a flight out.
I also went to Bosnia at the tail end of the war there back in the mid-90's.
I am not a stranger to conflict but what i never know is where to draw the line.
When do you pack up and leave?
When do you start stockpiling supplies?
When do you get worried?
I am leaving for a week long vacation in Egypt at the end of the month. Is it wrong for me to hope that if anything happens it happens when I am out of the country? Is that selfish?
I hate thinking that, especially since it will be Easter time and Passover. These are amazing times to be in the old city of Jerusalem.. a very crowded time and any violence would result in horrible blood shed.
so i guess i don't wish that!
So for my friends and family who are ready for me to leave RIGHT NOW...
I AM monitoring the situation and trying to figure out what I should do.
But most of all I am praying for peace!
And for both sides to take lots of deep breaths and to practice some anger management.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
i suck at this blog writing thing
I freely admit that I am just not very good at this blog writing thing...
HOWEVER my roommate/co-worker is...
for a more updated and better written story of my life, go to her blog
http://fahmidagoestopalestine.blogspot.com/
HOWEVER my roommate/co-worker is...
for a more updated and better written story of my life, go to her blog
http://fahmidagoestopalestine.blogspot.com/
Thursday, March 4, 2010
thank you USAID
Dear USAID,
Thank you so much for repaving the roads around Beirzeit. I used to get carsick every time I went through that town. I noticed that you haven’t yet put the hundreds and hundreds of speed bumps back in. They were the number one reason I had to think twice about taking a bus to Nablus. Now I don’t have an excuse.
However I have one more request. Could you please please extend the job to repave the road all the way to Ramallah???
Yesterday afternoon when I was coming back from Nablus there were torrential downpours and hail mixed with zero visibility fog. The driver seemed to think it would be “fun” to drive even faster along this part of the road. If the road was redone this might have been a bit safer. But between the speed bumps, the holes in the road, the parts of the road missing, and the on coming traffic, I thought for sure my life was coming to an end.
I can’t wait to see what project you work on next,
A teacher in Ramallah!!!
Thank you so much for repaving the roads around Beirzeit. I used to get carsick every time I went through that town. I noticed that you haven’t yet put the hundreds and hundreds of speed bumps back in. They were the number one reason I had to think twice about taking a bus to Nablus. Now I don’t have an excuse.
However I have one more request. Could you please please extend the job to repave the road all the way to Ramallah???
Yesterday afternoon when I was coming back from Nablus there were torrential downpours and hail mixed with zero visibility fog. The driver seemed to think it would be “fun” to drive even faster along this part of the road. If the road was redone this might have been a bit safer. But between the speed bumps, the holes in the road, the parts of the road missing, and the on coming traffic, I thought for sure my life was coming to an end.
I can’t wait to see what project you work on next,
A teacher in Ramallah!!!
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