I'M HOME!

Homeward Bound

I have been trying for about a week now to write a "wrap it all up" post and have been having a pretty pathetic time of it. Which I guess it moderately appropriate because I don't really think that any of this is especially suited to being wrapped up. So I guess I will give it a shot when I get home. Wish me luck getting through the airport. (I just found out that when you go through security in Israel they give you a number from 1-6. 1 is a Jew on birthright 6 is a terrorist. Last time I was a 5. Somehow I still made it in.)

A day in the life

The Palestinian circus at its finest.

Yea you know. I live here.

A blury picture of a super sweet Palestinian rap show we saw: DAM

MY CLASS!!!!! They are so incredibly sweet. 

love!

Write a story about Nablus...

I should write a short story about life in Nablus but I won't because I can't write simple sentences about a complicated and very funny life in Nablus. But I will tell you something about life in Nablus, and its that we love life. I know that lots of people believe that I'm not telling the truth, but for instance, when the Israeli army comes in and destroys a house and goes away, just wait a few hours to see that the owner of what is left from the house and his neighbors start a process of cleaning the area to rebuild the house. I know homes that have been destroyed several times and each time the owner rebuilds it. Eventually the army gives up and leaves him alone. This is our life . The Israelis can come and destroy everything we love in our life. It's ok. We will find a new passion to love life more and more.

You should listen to your elders....

I don't know actually. I think that the elders have more experience and wisdom than the young, but there is no one who is always right. So, in my opinion, we could have used all of that wisdom and knowledge from the elders but we have to try doing things the way we want. It's okay if we were wrong. The important thing is that we learn from our own and also other's mistakes, because if we always listen to our elders, when we grow up we won't have that experience and the wisdom which the elders have. With time, we will start to forget that advice, but no one can forget his own mistakes and what he has learned from them.

We went to a Palestinian hip-hop concert last night (for the fourth of july... don't tell anyone). It was amazing. Everyone was so excited and the performance was awesome. I wish you all could have been there. They are called DAM if you want to look them up on youtube. It's in arabic, but I think there are some english translations. 

I'm home in 9 days, 7 hours and 24 minutes! 

LOVE

Livin' the Dream...

some of the artwork-comics done by the students here- not my students- but they are really amazing!

the street i live on!

Nablus city center at its finest...

I'd like to apologize in advance for any spelling or grammar mistakes. The more I teach English, the more I forget what the language is exactly supposed to sound like. I hear things like "before five years" instead of "five years ago" so often, that I'm starting to lose my ear for which is normal. Its actually pretty disconcerting. And having only a few words of Arabic, some fuzzy Spanish and the now forbidden Hebrew, my fall back options are not looking too promising. oh well... I talk too much anyway.

So what inspired me to write was my lesson today. We were talking about giving your opinion and the phrases that you use to do so. They were all pretty comfortable with the concept, so I read a few controversial statements and asked everyone to either agree or disagree. The results were pretty normal until I read the statement, "Women can do any job that men can." Guess who was on the agree side? All the men. On the disagree side? all the women. "We can't build things. We aren't that strong." "It's too hard." "Our bodies can't do hard things." And the men, "Why do we have to fight for your rights? You don't even want to stand up for yourself!" "There are ways for women to do hard jobs- machines, things like that." On and on. Until I read the statement, "Men can do anything that women can do." All the men disagree. All the women agree. "Men can learn to cook and clean." Men: "I can't be nice. I don't know how to be nice to children." I was beside myself. To imagine this debate happening in the states. And then I tried to explain how things would be exactly opposite in the states, and they thought it was HILARIOUS! Ha.

I also read the statement that "I think all my friends should be from my same background." Everyone agreed except one guy, who said that everyone in America thinks all Muslims are terrorists and it is impossible to be friends with someone like that because they can't understand you. You can be nice to them, and try to show them that that is not true, but you can not be friends because friends are supposed to care about you and support you and he wouldn't be friends with someone who he was scared of. And everyone else got furious. "How will we ever change things if you don't even try!" Wow. I had no idea what I was getting into. 

Finally, they all wrote about Nablus for homework and I got some really amazing and poetic answers. Some quotes:

"Everytime you think or try to see Nablus, you get the strange feeling about it, where it seems like the Old City will talk to you."

"Nablus is the only city in the West Bank which still has its private history within the hands of her sons and they are still holding it. We will still be faithful to it until out last breath. We will not forget out beloved country which is living in our hearts."

"Almost every week, each family in Nablus gets together, laughing, talking, playing and listening to the grandfathers and grandmothers. I think that all of this makes us special. I hope that every nation in the world has the same tenderness and happiness that we have."

It is such a struggle being here. To have every moment of everyday focused on this incredibly painful situation. It's exhausting. But it is also amazingly beautiful. I oscillate between wanting to say forever and wishing I could leave today. Bizarre. Wonderful. Confusing. 

I have also been feeling EXTREMELY guilty about being here. Guilty that I came here after making such wonderful friends in Israel. Guilty that I made such wonderful friends in Israel, now that I am here. Even feeling guilty about being guilty! I don't know how much of this is in my head or how much of it is real. It is definitely hard to live amongst the volunteers. Sometimes I think that the Palestinian people themselves are more understanding than the people who come to help them. This conflict has so many shades of grey, I think the only wrong position is one that is black and white. 

...I hope your coming weeks are full of the same tenderness and happiness that they are so proud of here in Nablus.... 

love!

Homework

One of my classes is an advanced English class for adults. Most of them are in the class because they have gotten their undergraduate degree, and in order to continue their studies need to be able to take courses in English. They are so sweet and really funny. Yesterday, I did a lesson on "This I Believe," which is an NPR segment (www.thisibelieve.org) and is basically just essays from people around the States giving anecdotes about the principles which guide their lives.

Here is an essay from Samed. He has his degree in interior design as well as an awesome nineties spike boy band haircut. Today after class he came and asked how he could work on his listening because "I can understand movies, and I can understand the radio, but I can't understand you." I don't think that's his fault:

Firstly, I believe in myself because I am an optimistic person who can look at things in positive terms. I am an enthusiastic person, but my enthusiasm is reasonable. Therefore, I leave the possibility of a reversal of expectations. Second, I believe in my leadership because I am an artist and I believe that I can see things differently than the perspective of other people. So I can advise people with the right tendency to take it. Third, certainly, I have a good ability in my major, interior design. Therefore, I can make something different in my country through designing many houses and rooms and my evidence of my ability that I had the highest mark in my graduation project so I can make our country splendid by planning to design a lot of projects in the near future.


This is from Edmeh. He is the best student in the class and studies architecture. He is very confident, good looking, well dressed, but when I told the class we were going to watch a little bit of Kung Fu Panda today, he told me it wouldn't be good practice for him because he had memorized all the words. It's his favorite movie. Go figure.

I believe that hope is the key of life. I grew up in an occupied country and through our journey toward freedom a lot of difficulties stand up in front of out dreams. However, we keep faith in the sacrifice of all the things we love: in life, in loyalty and dedication and in the wisdom to accomplish our dreams in our own free country. We became more flexible under any conditions, and now we are confident that our dreams are starting to be more realistic than ever. Without hope we could have given up our dreams years ago. It was hope that kept us on the right track and gave us a dream of an independent country when we had lost everything. Honestly, I'm not that deep of a thinker to see that hope is the key of life. Years ago, a friend on mine made his regular visit to his doctor. He found that he had cancer and the doctor estimated what left for him to live between 2 to 3 years, not more. However, now, after almost six years, he is still standing with a normal life. It was not medication nor the long and painful treatment that kept him alive, it was hope and having all the faith in that hope to life. I still remember his words when i was checking upon him. He said, "Do you know the difference between the cancer and I?" I said, "What?" He continued, "The cancer is like a machine. It doesn't have the faith nor the hope to kill me, but I have know that I am stronger than it. Yes, I understand that all I have right now is just a small hope to be normal again, but I have the biggest faith that this hope will someday become real." Years later, he was right. So in hope, yes I believe, because when we lose hope we lose everything. Name any thing you want and with just a rethinking of that thing you will see hope. Because of that, please don't lose hope.

Another thing I learned today- The call to prayer every morning (at 4 am) starts with (in arabic of course): wake up wake up, its better to pray then to sleep. Then for midmorning it goes: get up get up, it's better to pray than to eat.

Love! I wish you all were here.
p.s. i didn't ask for anyone's permission to share these, so if you know any Palestinians please don't say anything.

Are you a Bedouin?

For reference to the term Bedouin, see the Petra post. The two tiny men smiling... Bedouin. 

I decided to take my nose ring out. This is because I was in one of the camps, and a little boy came up to me and asked, "Where are you from?" "I am from America." "Really?" "Yes." "Where are you ORIGINALLY from?" "What?" "Are you a Bedouin?" Later it was explained to me that he was confused by my nose ring. Then, yesterday, one of the adult students in my english class (maybe 25) asked me about my nose ring. "Why do you have that?" "What?" "In your nose" "Oh. I dont know." "We don't do that here. Its not nice." "Oh." "Do you have others?" "Just in my ears." "Those are ok. Those are beautiful." Also on the first day a bunch of girls in my class were giggling at me. I discovered that was why. Oh those crazy Americans. So I hope none of you are too heart broken. Parents please keep your celebrating to a minimum. 

So I have started my teaching. Yesterday. By myself in a huge class of adults. The first lesson was on personality adjectives which they quickly informed they knew. One man started asking me about the present participle. I thought I was going to be teaching little kids. Ha. But today was a lot better. I was much better prepared. We discussed "small talk". It was pretty funny. Very indicative of the culture here. Every conversation ended with, "sure, I can take you there" or "would you like to come over for tea?" That is not small talk! After class one girl asked me for my phone number to hang out and practice her english. Also after class, I walked outside to see one of the men trying to fix one of the women's shoes. I asked if she was ok and she goes, "It's ok, he is my husband." Not really what I meant, but ok. 

What else? I just got back from eating the most delicious falafel I have ever had. (2 NIS here, instead of 15 NIS in Israel). The guy who sold it to us was about 17 and chubby and maybe would be gay in another time and place. When we ordered he clapped his hands together and turned his head down to his shoulder with this huge smile. It was so cute. Reminded me of what the sultan in Aladdin would have been like in his glory days. After that, we went and got kanafeh which is goats cheese covered in like sweet corn meal and sugar and doused in syrup. Sounds disgusting. Tastes amazing. Unless you eat more than three bites and then you slowly slip into a diabetic coma. But it's native to nablus, so what are you going to do? Eat it every day. I wish i was kidding.

I also discovered a library here. I haven't been yet, but it seems promising. This weekend, I am hanging around and trying to figure out what to do for my art project. 

Oh! I also had my first arabic lesson this morning! I'm so excited. Ana min America. Isme Rachel. And they have sun and moon words. How beautiful is that? I wish I could describe to you all the generous, ernest, smart, sweet people I have met in these first few days. Its amazing how two such beautiful peoples can be so at odds. I wasn't really prepared for how hard it was going to be to switch sides so quickly. I was talking to one of the volunteers today about being caught between israel and palestine and she said "You don't have to pick. Your job isn't to pick. Your job is to help those suffering." But it isn't just the people in Palestine who are suffering. 

ANYWAY...Off my soapbox. I miss everyone and can't wait to come home! What I wouldn't do for a slice of boriello brother's. love.

i totally forgot to mention that i went and saw the opera in nablus. probably because i still haven't been able to fit this little gem into any sort of believable reality that i could exist in. it was pretty cool... all in italian with arabic narration. they had local little kids in one scene and they were all wearing hijabs. so cute. la boheme the way it was meant to be.

my apartment.I live on the other side of the white stairs, but there is a common room thing upstairs that you can go sit in and go out on the balcony.

my bed! known fondly by the entire flat as "the squeaky bed". not very creative, but you get the idea. Taking me back to my plywood bed at home.

view off the balcony into Nablus.

LOVE!

Nablus

Hey everyone- 

Sorry it has taken me so long to write. Things have been pretty crazy since I have arrived here. I am still having trouble wrapping my head around it. I got here on Monday after having my wonderful friend Jess escort me to Nablus. We didn't have any trouble, as Hawara checkpoint is out of commission for people coming into Nablus. Going out, however, is a different story. Anyway, once I got here I was immediately shown around the old city. Its really beautiful, with huge old walls and mosques and little shops and really cute kids running around all over the place. Apparently 70% of the population of Nablus is youth. This means that most of the people here were raised on the second intifada. All over the street there are these posters of young men. They are martyrs. There are also many plaques and photos commemorating places where people were killed by the Israeli army. I haven't seen any Israeli soldiers since I have been here, though. This is because they only come out at night and it is too dangerous for us, especially as women, to be out after dark. This makes for some pretty long nights. Last night though, we went to the Hamam. It was the one night a week where women are allowed to go. We went in and some of the people went to the spa, while others just sat around and talked, smoked hookah, and got henna done. All the arab women took off their hijabs and wore shoulder-less tank-tops and short shorts. It was so bizarre. And they were all dancing this crazy bellydance dance to crazy music. It was pretty fun. The first time I have felt glad to be a woman since I got here. Also, it is so hot here! And I have to wear full pants and long sleeves at all times. Sometimes you can get away with tshirts but only if you aren't going to any of the camps. This brings me to what I have done so far. Yesterday I got to go help paint a mural with the cutest little kids of all time. They live in al-asqar refugee camp and are unbearably cute.  They all got to make their hand-prints on the mural, so I basically spent my day painting little kids hands and lifting them up so they could make hand prints. I also went yesterday to sit in on an English class. Which seems really cool, but also really hard. Which is why I am terrified for today. I have my first class all by myself. I have a lesson plan, but I have no idea what level my class is at or what age they are. This makes it awfully hard to be prepared. I am pretty nervous. But I have four classes today so hopefully that will get me into the swing of things. After that, I think I am going to be teaching some art classes. If anyone has any ideas for 12-14 year olds for about 6 lessons, let me know. I also might be teaching a creative writing class if I can get people to go for it. We will see. 

I miss you all so much, hope all is well.

love.

The Golan

The past few days we spent in a yert stuffing our faces with freshly picked cherries and visiting cows on kibutzes. Doesn't get much better than that.

The lady on the far right is Anat. She has been my Hebrew teacher the whole time I have been here and also happens to be the most adorable woman on the planet. And she also lives on a kibbutz.

Outside the Yert. The lady who owned this hostel basically had a midlife crisis which resulted in her forcing her family to build five yerts outside of their cow shed. 

inside the yert. air conditioned.

on the way to cherry picking.

cherry "picking"

ALSO- give it a try...

http://www.sporcle.com/games/world_results.php

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

The official at the Jordan-Israel border laughed at my passport picture. He actually laughed.

 "Rachel?"

"Yes?"

laughter

"This does not look like you"

more laughter

For all of you out there who have ever complained about a bad passport picture.... i win. Unless you have been laughed at to your face by a beautiful thirty year old Jordanian. And even if you have, you have probably never had a picture of you with your eyes closed in the yearbook. Ahhh the sweet taste of victory... 

ANYWAY

Jordan was awesome. Especially because ELLEN is here. She got into Tel Aviv the morning of my last final and managed to navigate her way to my house. We did a little exploring of Jerusalem and the off to Jordan. So without further adu, Ellen Jennings herself:

Shalom. Damn I am good. My Hebrew has really been picking up out here but I have to give credit where credit is due. The 1st grader block letter alphabet and my 10 word, religiously themed vocabulary has not been helpful in the least bit. Good thing Rachel and Jenny are pros at pretending to know what people are saying when they are yelling at us in Hebrew.

We have spent the last four days making our way around Israel and Jordan, swooning over the beautiful men and trying our luck at speaking the native languages.  My D+ in my Arabic class has been seemingly more legitimate after trying to communicate with Bedouin boys and Jordanian taxi drivers

.  

Everyone in Jordan was exceedingly nice, perhaps because Rachel and Jenny are both total babes, but I could be wrong.  We recieved a special tour of Petra which included every last inch of land that we could possibly explore.

 

Needless to say, i probably exerted more energy in the last 3 days then I have since playing every game on Plamer Varsity.

 

Snorkeling in the Red Sea was incredible. I had never been but I am guessing the 100 degree day and the nice cold water had something to do with it. The fishies looked so tasty... I mean beautiful. It was nice to have a day at the beach after so much hiking.

Getting back to Jerusalem was, cheap and, um safe? Don't worry parents, people here and more then happy to pick up hitchhikers so at no point were we stuck in the desert.

Next on the adventure list, North to the Golans. Can't wait to see what else Israel has to offer.

Hope you are all safe and well back home. Wish you all could be here. Love. rach and ellen

Sorry I haven't written in so long. It's starting to get hot, school is almost over. Being here is getting less and less bizarre. Which is kinda bizarre in and of itself. I found out today that you can get culture shock coming home. Which makes sense. I'm not sure I'm ready for Big Macs (so not kosher) or being able to understand everything everyone is saying (its surprisingly nice to only get a limited amount of extraneous information everyday). In fact, there is quite a bit that you can do in Israel that wouldn't really fly in America. Like make huge bonfires in the middle of a city park. This is a pretty typical Israeli holdiay (Log B'Omer or somthing like that. ) Its when all the cute little religious boys get their hair cut for the first time and move from the care of their mother to that of their father. It is also when everyone builds giant bonfires pretty much wherever they feel like it. Doesn't get much more Israeli than that.

You can also pretty much just camp wherever you want. Even if it is on a beach where you are "not allowed to camp". I guess they have more important things to worry about than a few misplaced tents.

Get free grapefruits. We went to Haifa this weekend to go camping. We wanted some grapefruits for breakfast. So we sent Jenny to go ask one of the juice squeezer men we saw if we could buy a grapefruit from him. And he just gave it to us. fo free. So we decided to try it again on the next juice squeezer guy. Again. For free. Oh the beauty of traveling in a group of four American girls. 

Chill with the pope. He pretty much just caused a lot of trouble. The helicopter he was in landed at my school because apparently we have the most secure helicopter pad. We got a day off from school and a lot of traffic headaches.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do without popes and free grapefruits and spontaneous bonfires when I come home. Drown my sorrows in a Big Mac I guess... love you all.

Bethlehem

CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY (where Jesus was born)

HEROIAN- King Herod's tomb and favorite weekend getaway.

this used to be a swimming pool... 2000 years ago... in the middle of the desert. 

Bethlehem: The Dividing Wall

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1221/p07s02-wome.html

Just some of my favorites... 

Camping at the Sea of Galilee

We had a really great trip, only slightly tarnished by that fact that no one managed to walk on water (but not for a lack of trying).

Jess (she's Australian)

Our tent pitched, we discovered in the morning, in a swamp 

Helping? start the fire

Beautiful huh?

Jess and Misha enjoying the watermelon that Jenny carried all day. Worth it. For us at least.

De-nile...

So we went on a boat ride on the Nile.... and this is it. Yea.

A little more Egypt

a mosque in downtown cairo

jenny and mischa infront of our hostel

the taxi ride from Taba to Cairo

eating something fried in a pita.

turns out fitting five people into a cab isn't as hard as you might think.

one more pyramid picture

the appropriate dress we were given to enter the mosque