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..
