Fear, Anger and an unforgettable day.

I have refused so far to keep track of my days chronologically. Today, however, must be frozen in this page from the beginning to the end because what I experienced thought me more about myself and about others than thousands reflections.

Friday: I spent the night in Jerusalem with my nablussian Roommates. In the morning me and D. left for Bilin with three other friends. Bilin is a small village right at the border of the apharteid Wall that Israel has been building since 2002. The Wall has been built for 'security reasons' and cuts into Palestinian land reducing significantly the already limited freedom of movement in the West Bank. The UN declared the wall illegal in 2004. Israel keeps building.

In Bilin ISM (International Solidarity Movement), is attempting to supervise the many human rights violation committed by the Israeli army. The village organizes a demonstration that is currently taking place once a week, on Friday. And here we go.

The demonstration receives large support from the international community because it is a mean of peaceful Resistance. Internationals are encouraged to goo because their presence, and international pressure, limits the Israeli's response to the protest and gives it an international audience. The Palestinian cannot win the war, but they can win the world supports, testing Israel military and political strength.

Having grown up going to demonstrations, I see them as the expression of a dynamic social dialogue and as an exercise of democracy. Welcome to Israel, many have told me today. Demonstrations here are a type of warfare and they are brutal.

We arrived to Bilin with a taxi and got dropped by a group of about 60 people standing around in a street. The demonstration had not started and we had an introductory chat with a friend of a friend working with ISM. He gave us tips with a calm, expert tone. They sounded like the safety talk given on planes but without the 'in the unlikely even of an emergency landing...'. Basically, we need to have something to cover our nose when (or if, I cannot remember) we get gassed. Keep control, run in the opposite direction of the wind, cover your head and pay attention to the trajectory of the gas bombs.

Still quite confused we begin marching ten minutes later. It is a small group of people and they are mostly international. People similar to us, young and older people from Europe and the US, some press and some Palestinians. I intend to stay at a safe distance and I spot two older ladies with funny hats holding a French flag. I see them as my safe island, I cannot imagine anybody hurting two old French Ladies with funny hats.

We start walking. We are not running, no screaming, we have no weapons, no stones, no nothing. In many we have cameras, a powerful weapon. I have never seen such a peaceful,almost passive, demonstration. We heard a few songs and a couple of people held Palestinian flags. As we were walking down I felt little anger and little adrenaline in the air, it was almost disappointing.

We are walking in a little street, around us an astonishing panorama and the Wall, in front of us, in the distance. We spot the Israeli soldiers that stand with jeeps and military guns behind the fence. Shortly the first gas bomb arrives. The air fills with a dense smoke. It hurts my lungs but it is still bearable. For 15 minutes gas bombs keep coming at a regular interval and they drop in the fields next to us, at a security distance. I think the worst is gone.

It is a matter of seconds. I am walking next to my friend when all the sudden the people in front of me start screaming. I see the sky full of smoke and instinctively I turn around. I am not thinking. What I see in front of me I will never forget: 5 gaz bombs touching the ground in front of my eyes. They are right on the street only few meters away from me and they keep coming down. I am terrified. I cannot breath and keep my kafia on my mouth. The air is just unbreathable and my skin is on fire, I am angry: why the fuck am I here-WHy_
All that comes out of my mouth for the few minutes following this is 'help me'. I look at my roommate and see myself saying 'help me' like an idiot, like a bad actor in a bad american movie. Why am I telling her help me?? Why on earth am I not helping her instead?
She is running next to me, she cannot breath. She looks at me with the most helpless look I have seen from her: I can't help you, she manages to say.

I see an olive tree and I go under it. There a bunch of Palestinian and an international girl I had talked to before the demonstration. I am still saying help me. They give me an onion and tell me to put it on my nose. At this point I lose my roommate and see other Friend. Her knee is bleeding and her eyes are full of tears. We put some water on the cut and I clean it with my kafia.

I stay under the tree watching people come and go screaming, crying. Some are normal and focused. They know what to expect and they know how to act. There are a couple of cars with 'press' written on them. I wonder what the hell they say about what happens: it is so absurd I cannot stop feeling angry, so angry. From the olive tree I can see the Israeli soldiers behind the wall, with military suits and helmet. I wonder what they orders have been. I wonder how they feel about this.

In the mess, children are the only one that really know what's up. They are helplessly trowing stone from the fields around the street. The soldiers' aim at them and they keep covering their mouths but they stay. Back in the mess, which I enter trying to locate my friends, I see a boy, must have been 8 or 9, coming out of the field in a cloud of smoke. He is like a surreal vision, like everything else.

The Israeli soldiers do not give us a fucking break. We got their point I think. They continue trowing gaz without interruption.

After 1 h or so the situations seems having calmed down. People are going back to the city center and I finally find all my friends again. They are fine. But their eyes are so out of it, I imagine my eyes must be too. I am in shock.

We talk with some international that have spent some time in Bilin helping out people. Their stories are dense, but they seem more comfortable with surreal. Seems something people get used to here.

We hop on a service and go back to Ramallah. We go seat in a European looking cafe, get a juice and try to calm down. It takes me an half hour to feel I can do anything at all. We share our prospectives- we would only be able to actually have a rational conversation about what happened 2 days later, in the balcony of our apartment in Nablus.

The day changes completely tone in its end. I went to the dead see and watched an amazingly red sunset why sipping beer with a bunch of people. Everything was calm and beautiful and when the sun went down it let space to a night sky packed with lights. I felt in connection with the people around me and with everything else and felt grateful for the beauty of what was around me...and thankful I surpassed the afternoon...

I could not help feeling guilty through out the day. I never thought I could be so sell-fish in a situation of emergency. I am not sure how high the possibility of getting seriously injured must have been in Bilin. What mattered for me is the fact that I felt I could dye and I have never been so terrified.

We thought a lot about what happened in Bilin. The reaction to the demonstration is without any doubs so extreme. We discussed whether we would go back... it is a form of terrorism at the edge between physical and psychological- actually both. This is exactly what Israel wants, right? They want us to get the point that it is not worthed going back. We thought about how frustrating it must be to feel that there are no options to resist. When Palestinian use violence they are terrorists. If they resort to non violence they are victims of terrorism...fucking security reasons are the secret word to Israeli's terrorism.

In all this mess I learned a lot today. I learned what it means to have fear and what it means to be angry, to the edge. Of course it is nothing compared to how Palestinians experience on a regular basis, but the picture that I took in my head about how I felt during the demonstration will help me understand others better- and this is to me priceless.

Fragments

After some days of silence, I am back on my blogging schedule forced by an overload of observations that are hanging out inside my brain randomly, and making my effort to ‘rationalize’ is almost painful. Experiences are made firstly through our senses and then processed as a mental exercise. It is on these senses, and on my feelings that I would like to start this brainstorming session today. In this blog entry, organization is something you should not expect- just to make things clear-. Instead, I will write a series of mental pictures.

- On Wednesday, as I was walking back from my lesson in the late afternoon I realized that I was simply ‘walking it out’. I was completely by myself walking on a one of the ridiculously steep streets of Nablus, and I was in a state of total euphoria. The sun had just stopped being unbearable, the city had its usual sober vivacity, and I had just finished a long day working in Askar. Yet, nothing in particular had happened and it was one of these average days in which you feel you do have a routine and it makes you feel safe. While I was in the middle of my euphoria, a man starts following me from the back and when I turn he almost screams ‘your cell phone!’. I know I met the guy before, but my head cannot connect. I look at him confused and say ‘what about it?’. Turns out that he works in the cell phone shop where I left, and forgot, my broken phone to see if I could retrieve my numbers. Inside the shop he gives me my old phone and tells me that I should go with a flash drive to pick up my numbers that are on the computers. I thank him and ask how much I own him. Nothing- I own him nothing, he insists, because it did not cost him money to do me the favor. I am back on the street, and walk to another office where I am giving Italian lessons to a colleague’s friend. I enter the office and he offers me tea. We talk about his interest for Italian and have a one hour lesson. He is very focused and eager to learn. After my lesson we have a chat and I leave. Of course, no money involved. Today, I have another lesson with my Italian student. He invites me for a super nice lunch that we eat at his office but that was cooked by his mother.- I never realized how good it feels to exchange things other than money-

- The conversations that I have been having with people about the process of exiting Israel through Tel Aviv make particularly anxious – (to be continued …)I am seriously concerned, and also seriously worried about getting in trouble with Israel for volunteering in the West Bank. At the same time I find my anxiousness pathetic. I have a Western passport and an embassy that would support me. My imagination can hardly hint to comprehend the sense of powerless and restless that Palestinians experience.

- For a nice break from the simplicity of Nablus’s life, the other volunteers and I decided to spend a mundane night in Ramallah. With the check points opened, Ramallah is a scarce hour away from Nablus; however, the difference between the two cities is striking. The awareness of being constantly checked out on the streets fades away and Ramallah feels more metropolitan, hectic and open. Ramallah has been a ‘base' through the past decades for many of the western activists, journalists and politicians working in the West Bank. Ironically, their presence shaped the city so greatly that Ramallah hardly feels like the rest of the West Bank.
We went out to a beer festival, which was basically a party which included beer, disco light, super western music and a bunch of people dancing around.

- On Friday, one of my palestinian colleagues (Y) invited me to take a little tour around Nablus. It was a simple day, which turned out to be one of my favourites. Y. and his cousin came to pick me up and we ended up having a drink on a little natural riot. The owner of a little coffee shop placed some chairs and table on the water and the location became one of the locals' favorites. We spent the afternoon talking about the Islam. Personally, I feel so detached from organized religion in this period of my life that listening to their interpretation and to the strenght of their belief made me feel confused, as if there was something I could not appreciate in the order of things. While we talk about the balance between good and bad actions that will place individuals into heaven, a bee is flothing around my glass of coke and Y's cousin, noticing that I am bothered kills the bee. I make some reference about Karma, and I start getting questions about my beliefs that up to that point I have not discussed. I answer that I simply try to do my best to be respectful to people around me and that I do 'pray to god', but I am not interested in his name. I guess I would not mind calling it Allah, or Dio. They are confused, but they explain to me how Islam respects all religions.

Storie

Questa e' una delle tante storie che mi capita di sentire in questo periodo che sento di dover condividere.

Questa e' una parte della storia che mi ha raccontato il mio studente di italiano, B. (25 anni), durante la nostra lezione. Questo ragazzo insegna ai bambini del circo di Nablus. Durante questa conversazione eravamo solo in due in un ufficio.

B: Crescendo, camminavamo per la strada in 30. Ero circondato da amici. Poi e' iniziata l'intifada. Uno viene ucciso, l'atro va in galera. Mi sono ritrovato un giorno a camminare per la strada, ed ero solo. Ho perso la speranza. Mi chiedo: 'Perche' io sono ancora vivo? Qual'e' il punto?'
Poi tanto, se perdo la speranza io non importa a nessuno.
Poi ho iniziato a lavorare con il circo ed ho trovato il mio modo per combattere l'occupazione. Il sorriso e' un'arma molto forte.

(silenzio per circa un minuto)

Una sera, ho sentito una bomba. Sembrava vicino la casa di mio cugino. Lo chiamo ma non risponde.
Allora chiamo il vicino. Lui risponde. Chiedo: 'Dov'e' M.' Lui mi dice 'hai sentito la bomba? M. e' morto.' ed attacca il telefono. Io rimango cosi'...

(silenzio)

Poi sono andato all'ospedale per vedere il corpo. Era nella cella frigorifera (??) e quando apro lo vedo. Non c'e' piu' la testa. Chiudo subito.
Non perche' ho paura, non perche' mi fa impressione.
Solo perche' voglio ricordare la bella faccia di mio cugino.

(silenzio)

Portavo sempre al collo la sua foto.

(pausa)

Un girno volevo mostrare il villaggio dei samaritani a due amici francesi. Io vivo 5 minuti a piedi dal check point. quando ero piccolo andavo sempre a giocare li, e' un passeggiata brevissima.
Quel giorno arrivo al check point e i soldati mi chiedono i documeti. Io spiego che voglio solo mostrare il villaggio ai miei amici. Lui vede la foto di mio cugino, mi prende e mi tira su e chiede, in ebraico, chi cazzo e' questo. Mio cugino, dico io. E' perche' hai la foto?. perche' e' morto, rispondo. Il soldato chiede: com'e' morto?
Lo avete ucciso voi, dico io.
Era un terrorista, risponde.
No, era mio cugino, dico io.

(Pausa)

il soldato mi dice: non me ne fraga un cazzo, fatti rivedere qui e ti sparo in fronte.
Non sono piu' tornato li'.

New Peace

Article on the resent peace developments from the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/world/middleeast/20israel.html?_r=1&hp

Israel’s Religious Right and the Question of Settlements
Middle East Report N°89
International Crisis Group

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6228&l=1

Much more than the biggest knafeh in the world.

Today is a very special day in Nablus. 'the most amazing day in Nablus in seven years' to say it with the words that many have used to describe the proportion of the event to me.

Officially, today Nablus is celebrating a record for the Guinness Book with the realization of the biggest Knafeh, a very popular local sweet cheese. An association of local bakers produce a batch of 74x1 m Knafeh. (!!!) The celebration, however, had a deeper undertone. At least three people have explained to me, with similar vocab and attitude, that in Nablus, celebrating in the street has not been possible for a long time, basically since the outbreak of the second Intifada which got heated in Nablus in 2000. My most reliable source when trying understand how people see their situation is repetition. A couple of sentences have been told to me almost exactly in the same form by numerous people. Hearing more than a couple of times the same powerful statement hinted to me that a certain view is shared by many. In my top list of common sentences there is 'We can expect the Israeli army to invade at any time', and 'life is not easy here, but we try to live a normal life, we have to live normal lives'.

The contrast between occupation and normal life creates a strange atmosphere. Palestinians in Nablus are extremelly proud of their culture and their city but there is a sense that many things are just not possible. The occupation is felt in crucial aspects of every day life. For example, a friend was explaining to me how his dad works with wood and just purchased a new machine from China. They are terrified that the machine will not be allow passed the check points, resulting in the loss of a very large investment. He added 'if they don't let it in for some reasons, there is nothing much we can do about it'. Before the Intifada, Nablus used to be the economic center of the West Bank and the beauty and potential of the city gives hope that Nablus might strengthen its position in the future.

Today represented pride and hope for Nablus. The city was in spot light in the the international media and to palestinians in Israel, the rest of the West Bank and in Gaza. Most importantly, the celebration was simply for the the citizen of Nablus themselves.
Together with the other volunteers of PH, I saw the eating of the biggest knafeh from a VIP position: the fourth floor of a mall right above the Knafeh's exposition. The city was packed with people, and highly controlled by soldiers that could be seen right and left with huge guns. The big guns, which I always find extremely intimidating, did not disrupt the enthusiasm. After the prime minister Salam Fayyad himself opened the event, hundred of people were eating Knafeh while thousands filled the streets.

What I had initially imagined a simple street festival, in a city where up to two years ago curfew was mandatory and where people still remember very clearly what it is like to leave inside a house for weeks and weeks, became 'the most amazing day in Nablus'. And it was indeed amazing, I must say.

Hebron. The Unending Siege.

06/12/09 7:36 pm Nablus, Palestine

Last weekend Gioel and I, along with a small group of other volunteers here at Project Hope took a day tour to the city of Hebron in southern Palestine with a Palestinian tour guide. The tour was part of the “Breaking the Silence” tours, meant to show the travesties that the Palestinian people face due to the Israeli occupation; a first hand view, the images that they won’t show you on the nightly news. I think that it is the most important thing that we have seen in our time here, yet it has taken me sometime to figure out how to put it into words.

Hebron is a city under siege. The city has always had great significance to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It is called “The City of the Patriarchs,” the place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob. Their cenotaphs are now located inside the Ibrahimi Mosque in the old city center. Problems began here when a group of Jewish residents were massacred in the market in ‘29. After the ’67 war, the Jewish settlers began returning to Hebron, bringing with them an attitude of militant solidarity. One way or another, they would colonize this city. Currently there is a population of about 400 Jewish settlers inhabiting the old city center at the expense of the previous Palestinian residents.

It works like this: the settlers slowly bought out those Palestinians that would sell. Those that wouldn’t they used force and intimidation to force out. They came in the night, moved in and took over. Naturally, the IDF followed to secure the safety of the settlers. As if they are the ones needing protection. The army cut the city in half, closing the main road and therefore markets to allow safe accuse for the settlers to their housing in the city center. The Israelis also took over the mosque, turning half of it into a synagogue. It’s not even that the Israelis want to be there either. They’re supported by the government who provides to most hardcore and fanatical of the settlers with stipends and incentives to live in Hebron in two-year shifts, replacing families leaving with new immigrants in order to maintain the 400 population. It’s like a game to them.

But lets be fair here. The Arab residents haven’t exactly been saints either. There have been attacks from both sides resulting in deaths and injuries of many. That said, the settlers are hardly innocent: heavily armed and filled with a fanatical militarism, they take the law into their own hands. We visited the home of a Palestinian family that is the last hold out on a now Jewish block. The settlers have attacked their family, throwing rocks, abducting children for periods of time, and even firebombing the house. The soldiers use the Palestinian rooftop water tanks in the Old City as target practice, forcing the Palestinian residents to walk across the city to carry their water back. Below the settlers houses the Palestinian market streets still exist. The shop owners had to construct makeshift nets and fencing above the street to protect from garbage, stones, bricks, bombs, even feces thrown down from the settlers above. This improvised ‘ammunition’ piles up on the nets, rotting above the heads of the Palestinians below. The sight and smell almost made me sick.

I understand that I am only seeing one side of the story here. Yes, there have been terrible acts from the Palestinians as well in the struggle, but what I have witnessed here really makes it hard to imagine that the Israelis can come up with a good, logical, ethical reason for their actions. The problem with Hebron is that I really want to stay impartial in this conflict. I really want to feel, to think that there is another side to this. Well, there is another side of course. But a meaningful side. An actual reason for them to do this. Of course I speak of the Israelis when I speak of ‘them.’ I want to know, to maybe understand why they would do something like this, but when you go there, when you see it first hand all you can feel, all you can think, is the pain, the hurt, the suffering… the desperation that the Palestinians feel. It is tangible. You can feel it in the streets, in the air around you. When you walk through a checkpoint in the old city center, just to get to the great Mosque for prayers, you see the hatred, the fear.

Nablus – A City of Action [Some More Thoughts on the City]

06/12/09 2:30 pm Nablus, Palestine

Nablus is the most important city, outside of al-Quds (Jerusalem), in Palestine. The city is a large, vibrant urban spread of dense urban blocks, welcoming green space, and breathtaking hillside panoramas. But most importantly, Nablus is a modern, functioning, living city.

Nablus, a city of about 134,000 inhabitants is a center of Palestinian culture, industry, and identity. An ancient city, also home to the Jewish Samaritans and Christians alike, Nablus was at the center of the second Intifada. As a launch pad for rockets and resistance fighters, Nablus felt the full crackdown from the Israeli Defense Force, cut off by checkpoints, host to a military occupation of the city center and nightly security raids in the refugee camps. Through all this, however, Nablus has survived and carried on. Today, one must almost look for the signs of the previous struggles, as the vibrant pulse of the cities energy is the first thing noticed on the step out of the taxi.

The people are a friendly and hospitable people, always excited to practice their English and invite visitors to sample their exotic flavors or view their beautiful wares. Nablus is known for its olive oil soap industry as well as a special sweet made from cheese call kanafeh. But anything else can be found in the Nablus markets as well: clothes, toys, candy, meat, spices, electronics, and furniture; anything you desire. Walking through the markets is a festival for the senses.

Everywhere, colors, smells, sights, sounds. Some familiar, some shockingly new, some repackaged but you know the game. I found the markets of Nablus strangely representative of Palestine as a whole, a place of extreme constrasts. Oddly new, yet comfortably traditional; at one time frighteningly intimidating yet wonderfully accommodating. A place of beauty and extreme desolation, but always the place of a great People.

Workshops and Random Reflections

The first workshop with the younger group at Askar was very intense and I have to admit that for some moments today I have felt very lost. Our first group was a mixed group of super enthusiastic 9 year olds ...23 of them. Our classroom turned into a battleground for two hours. The energy that these children have is explosive and trying to catalyze it in activities can be tough. They were all very interested in me and Erik as if we were some sort of scientific experiment. We were literally 'under observation' all day.

To begin, we asked all the students to come look inside my bag and describe something good about what they saw. Inside the bag was a mirror, and they ended up telling something good about themselves. This was a good way for them to introduce themselves and for us to understand what they value. The most quoted qualities by far were being 'honest', 'strong' and 'a good friend'. Afterwards we played games in which sentences or words had to be expressed to others using gestures, drawings and miming. Yaz, our local translator did a very wonderful job helping us and at the end we were able to pull off a fun lesson focused on communication while teaching a great deal of vocab and pushing the children to express themselves in English.

Our second group was a group of ten thirteen year old boys. They were very smart and full of energy and working with them was easier because they were and more manageable [ed. note: please consider this the opinion of Gioel, though they were wonderful boys, their managability is debatale, -Erik]. I was amazed by how communicative they were despite the poor use of English and I felt that by the end of the lesson we had established a good bond.

On Wednesdays, the local and international volunteers at Project hope try to get together for a common dinner in the office and some sort of fun activity. Tonight we had a speaker from the local university coming to speak to us about the political situation in the West Bank. The reoccurring theme is the need for patience. The list of issues to be addressed are many and involve most importantly the refugee status and the future of the Israeli settlement. Freedom of movement, is probably the quintessential discussion theme of our days in Nablus. The theme comes up constantly in discussions with the local volunteers.

Palestinians are not allow to be 'tourists' and applying for visas is very hard. The first obstacle is one that we would hardly think of in Europe or in the US: reaching the embassy. In fact, Palestinians in the West Bank have to apply for permits just to go apply to a foreign embassy. Many of the local volunteers we interact with have been in contact with people from all over the world and are very open minded; still they see visiting their friend like as dream. Our Palestinian friend F. just came back from Europe. He was refused a visa many times and had to prove to have 20.000 euro in his bank account, which off course not many people can do. The most frustrating situation is being refused a permit to go to Jerusalem. For example, in order to obtain a Shengen visa, Palestinian need to receive invitation from more than one country and F. in fact obtained one from Germany, one from Italy and one from France.

How to fight the occupation? Tonight we watched the preview of a documentary that portrays a constructive response. The movie dealt with Palestinian Hip Hop as a form of fight and way to get the aggression in artistic form. The documentary followed Palestinian Hip Hop groups in both Gaza, Israel and West Bank highlighting how the artists on the two sides of the Palestinian Territories have trouble contacting each other. In fact, despite the relative small distance, Gaza from the West Bank seems very far away and many people living in Nablus have not seen Jerusalem which is 69 Km away. Check points are an obstacle that is real, concrete and powerful on many levels.

Per I Miei Lettori Italiani ;)

Ciao a tutti,
Come va?

Io qui me la spasso alla grande.

Ho un miglione di cose da dirvi e non so da dove iniziare.

Prima di tutto qua mi sento sicurissima. Vivo in un appartamento proprio davanti all'ufficio di Project Hope e l'istituto di Cultural Francese, pochi minuti a piedi dal centro della citta'. SIamo in tanti in appartamento e sotto di noi c'e' ne' un altro, in tutto saremmo 40 con 3 bagni, ma ce la caviamo. Tutti sono gentili e disponibili e i volontari locali sono sempre pronti a darci una mano e ci accompagnano sempre in giro. Erik riparte martedi' ed ora devo trovare qualcun'altro per aiutarmi a fare il progetto. Questa settimana ho fatto le mie prime lezioni. Ho 3 gruppi di eta' diverse. Lavoro sempre in un campo profughi che si chiama Askar ed e' vicino Nablus. Faccio lezioni d' arabo due volte a settimana e scambio lezioni di italiano per lezioni di arabo con uno studente locale.

La gente e' troppo brava. Ma troppo. C'e' un senzo di comunita' e di collaborazione che invidio molto ai Palestinesi.
Lo scorso weekend sono andata a Ramallah, a Gerusallem e Hebron. Muoversi e' un po' difficile perche' bisogna passare un check point Israliano ad ogni passo. La zona dove sto' e ' una zona importante per la West Bank occupata. Nablus e' una delle citta' piu' conservative della west bank e le volontarie locali sono le UNICHE che non si coprono la testa.

Fa un caldo cane, ma si sopporta bene..sarebbe meglio se potessi andare a maniche corte, ma non si puo'; qua le donne sono tutte coperte e dobbiamo andare pantalonilunghi e maglie a maniche lunghe. I ragazzi possono indossare t-shirt, ma pantaloni lunghi anche loro.
Tornando alla geografia locale. Nablus dista un paio dore massimo da Gerusallemme, pero' e' divisa dal muro e dai check point che rendono il viaggio complicato. Non si puop' fare senza passaporto. Nablus e' una citta' antica e bellissima. E' vicina al monte dove si dice Dio abbia dato i comandamenti. In tutta la citta' non si vende Alcol, e per bersi una birra si va dai samaritani, una piccola minoranza originale nel mezzo di un conflitto assurdo. I samaritani vivono in una montagna che sta' 10 minuti da Nablus e 3 soldati patetici controllano il passaporto anche per andare li.

Cmq la situazione e' migliorata nell'ultimo anno perche' l'initfada e' finita e ci sono meno piu' check point aperti. Per i palestinesi le cose restano molto difficili. Per avere un visto devono fare i salti mortali e dimostrare di avere tantissimi soldi in banca. Siamo ancora in completa occupazione.

Le persone pero' restano cordiali, e dicono sempre 'inshalla' cioe' 'se dio vuole'...lo dicono per tutto. TIpo. 'ci vediamo domani' , ' inshalla'. Le persone che ho conosciuto sono tutte molto pazienti. Cioe' come si fa a vivere in una zona occupata ed essere pazienti non lo so, pero' l'Islam aiuta molto, questo e' poco ma sicuro.

Noi 'occidentali' veniamo trattati benissimo. I bambini ci chiedono ' what's your name' mille volte al giorno. AH, ci sono tantissimi bambini, ogni famiglia ne ho 4 o 5 di media. Forse sono tutti questi bambini a rendere la citta' cosi' vivace e dinamica. Sono molto felice qui. Mi piacerebbe viverci per quento sono felice. C"e' un' aria buona e gli unici a rovianrala sono i soldati israeliani con le loro mitragliatrici enormi.

Beh' le cose non finiscono qui, ma ora iniziano le preghiere che risuonano per tutta la citta' sugli autoparlanti e creano un 'atmosfera magica. Mi sento in colpa stando al computer con questa quindi ora vado al balcone a contemplare il panorama. Per raccontare c'e' tempo, ma questi momenti di preghiera sono speciali.

Days not to be forgotten-

It is quite sad how often we tend to forget the simple but beautiful days of our life. Today was one of those I don't want to forget. Here is my day.
At Project Hope's office I gave an Italian lesson to a local volunteer and afterwards I found myself making soap boxes with other 15 people. The scene was very funny.
Two local volunteers enter the common room with a big box full of little carton boxes to be folded into soap boxes. They sit and while chatting start folding. I was on a couch next to them on my computer. After few minutes every single person who enters the room sits and starts folding boxes. From two the 'folders' become five. The floor is covered in boxes. In ten minutes the room is packed with people...and COVERED in green boxes.

What struck me was this sense of 'automatic participation' like when in a house somebody turns on the tv and sits on a sofa. Than passively somebody else joins in; there is no need for an invitation or comments. Nobody was asked to help today. People were just investing a little of their time in folding boxes while laughting. As the room filled with boxes, the air filled with a sense of light minded gayness and a sense of community that I very much envy about the Palestinian society.

After our boxing session, Erik and I took a cab with one of the local volunteers to Askar. Our first lesson to the Youth Center's staff was quite a success. We had three students: two older men and a 20 year old woman. After a 'placement exam' we had a little chat and our students presented themselves. H. is an accountant and he told us about his 5 children. One of them, 19 years old, was killed by Israeli soldiers in 2003. A. has 4 children and has a past as a soccer player, he is now apparently a referee and proudly showed us his 'FIFA referee ID card'. S . is attending her first year of computer science at the university. Apparently, a very high percentage of young girls finish university before they marry. The youth center, they explained, is operated completely by volunteers who are elected every two years.

When our time ran out at 7, our new students offered to teach us some Arabic while Erik and I tried to copy elegant symbols written from right to left. They offered us some delicious tea with fresh sage and then offered to drive us back home from Askar. In the ride they talked about Palestinians and how important it is for them that people like us (western) really understand that they do just want peace and freedom.

Every time Palestinians talk about their struggle with us, they do it with a sense of mindful calm, adding 'Alhamdulillah' which means something like 'All praise be to Allah'. I feel faith actually must help a lot in their position. I am programed to be rational and to 'pretend' justice and if I step in the Palestinian's shoes for a second, I just feel crazy. What would I do in their position? I don't mean this as a political statement; Objectively, life has been and still is very tuft for the Palestinians.

We arrived home feeling strange. How can these people make me feel so well with myself? They have the magic power to make me appreciate my existence through the pride they take in every day actions, like folding boxes in group, or talking about their life in English while sipping tea with some foreign kids.

Notes on Nablus

06/06/09 1:34 pm Nablus, Palestine

Lets step back for a second and talk about Nablus. We arrived in this amazing city on Wednesday afternoon, after traveling from Tel Aviv through Jerusalem. The first impression was very different from what I had expected. As soon as we got out of the cab, there was so much activity and excitement. I was amazed at how vibrant this city is. From what we read and hear in western news and media, they would give you the impression that this place is a wasteland, a war zone; however, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Whatever tragedies and terrible events have happened here in the past, this city has recovered so well from these events. Still, though, the Israelis continue to hold the city in a noose (albeit, a loose one, for the moment) and are able to shut it off at any moment, on any whim that they might have. Despite this, it seems like the Palestinian people really able to make the most of the situation and live their lives as best they can. There are so many here, of all ages that are eager to help and talk to us foreign volunteers. They are so excited to invite us into their community and offer us all that they have.

The city of Nablus is an amazing place. Our first day here, after checking-in and filling out paper work with Project Hope, we were given a tour of the old city of Nablus by Anas, a local Palestinian volunteer. Anas walked us through the Old City, which was a central point of conflict for Muslim resistance during the second Intifada in 2002. The Old City is so different from anything that I have seen in America or Europe, I am still trying to figure out where to place it, because it is so absolutely foreign. A maze of small streets and side passageways forms the core of the city. Market stalls line the streets, where you can find everything from cheap Chinese toys, to the most exotic spices that you can find. The smells and sounds are intoxicating and constant.

The main industry, and the most well known export of Nablus, is olive oil soap which is well known throughout the Muslim world. Where there used to be about 30 soap factories in the city, there are now only 2 still operating. Anas walked us by a square of rubble in the old city. He explained that this used to be one of the most important soap factories in Nablus, but during the Israeli counterattack, they bombed the foundations, effectively structurally crippling the building. After the Intifada, the local leadership finished the demolition for safety reasons.

After this sobering image, we stopped at a street stall to sample the local delicacy: Kanafeh. Kanafeh is a local sweet that is make from sweetened white cheese covered with a pastry noodle (??,that’s what Wikipedia says) with the top dyed red. It is a very interesting taste, with the flavor of sugary syrup, I guess, and very, very heavy. One piece is plenty.

Everywhere we go we face looks, mainly of curiosity, and rarely of aggression. We did get some bottle caps thrown at us the other day by some young boys. But I think this behavior, which is very rare, is reflective of curiosity and ignorance rather than aggression, at least they were laughing at it. The vast majority of interactions are very positive and enlightening exchanges

**On a side note, as I am typing this, the Israeli air force just decided to make sure we’re all awake and flew an F-16 sortie over the city. You know, coming from Omaha, I’m quite used to hearing military aircraft flying over the city, but it is a very strange feeling when you think that they are coming from the “other side.”

Rock Star and Diplomat-

The amount of inputs I received in the last days is so enormously high that putting it in black and white is an Herculean challenge. In this corner of the world that people in Europe and America connect in their head to words like 'conflict' I just cannot stop smiling. I feel connected to the people around me with an electric cord and the energy I get on the street, at Project Hope and in the apartment is vibrant and positive.

Today we had the first meeting in the Askar Refugee Camp. Erik and I took a cab with the one of the project managers of PH, an amazing and super communicatice Palestinian woman. At our arrival we were served juice by three men head of the Askar Youth Center. We sat around a long table and I was asked to present our project. The PH program director was translating the explanation in Arabic as I explained the aims of our project and gave some examples of the activities we propose. We set up a definite schedule and were asked to give English lessons to the Youth Center's staff. Having somebody translating what I said was quite thrilling...
Afterwards, we went to meet the children. They were doing some activity in the camp's gym and at our arrival they all surrounded us and at least 10 of them offered their hand to shake asking 'How are you?' and 'what is your name?' with big smiles. A group of 9 to 11 years old boys performed for us an energetic group dance. In a day, I felt for the first time like both a diplomat and a rock star and I think we both left the camp excited to go back tomorrow, right Erik?

Cultural Shock

First Day in Nablus and Honeymoon Phase.

If I had enough energy, I would write a book just about today. My head is overloaded of information and my clothing damp with sweat. I will do my best before my first impression gets confused with my second one.

The day started early and the ride was smoother than we expected. We caught a cab to the central station of Tel Aviv and then hoped on a sherut taxi to Jerusalem. We spent little time in Jerusalem and my observations are probably very superficial. I missed the wind that made my hat fly away from my head in Tel Aviv; without it, the sun feels hotter and heavier. Jerusalem is crowded and I lost all my minerals during the little walk we did with our big backpacks from the cab to Damascus Gate. We drove to the Nablus check point with a fun Israeli-Palestinian who sounded very excited about us going to Nablus. In fact, with an Israeli passport he cannot enter the Nablus himself. As we were driving away from Jerusalem, he told us about his family and he explained to us that on the left of the big freeway we were driving on live the Arabs, on the right the Jews. Also children attend different schools, and that is just the way it is.

We had read that we are supposed to walk through the check point by foot and then hop on another cab on the Palestinian side. Surprisingly, our taxi driver just stopped in a parking lot and told us to hop in another cab. While we were nervously waiting for the check point, we arrived to Nablus. The second cab driver spoke no English but had a very communicative use of his ten fingers. We bargain the price and got to the city center. Going from Nablus to Tel Aviv is quite a weird transition. Under this crazy sun, women wear long black dresses and their heads are covered.

Project Hope is like a family, and all the people we met today had a vibrant, positive energy. We dropped our bag at the office, signed some papers and discussed our project in more details with a young woman. They sounded excited about our project and we learned that we will be working with the children and teenagers at the Askar refugee camp. We will have three age groups: 9-11, 12-15 and 16-20. We will go visit the camp on Sunday, after the weekend that here is Friday and Saturday. The actual workshops will start on Monday.

We thought we were done for the day and looked forward to a nice shower… Instead, we got a tour of the city by a local volunteer. He was very friendly and happy to talk about his life. He studies English literature at the local university but he wants to become a professional translator.

Back to the Project Hope office we were given a short lesson on things we need to know about Nablus. The project coordinator explained to us that just a generation ago, women in Nablus ‘would wear short skirts’. He added that ‘The intifada and the latest Israeli invasion left people with nothing left other than religion’. We are also not supposed to talk about it during our workshops, or at least do very subtly.
The rest of the day game me euphoria (I am still trying to come down from this Honeymoon state).

After the meeting we visited our apartment which is a crazy house right in front of project hope’s offices. The evening included a concert with local musician in the French cultural Center, right next to Project Hope’s building. In the evening we met a lot of local volunteers and had chats about little things while we waited for the sun to go down. Nablus is just magical, (I cannot stop saying it) and I spent the evening with a deep state of well being that I had not felt in a while.

The evenings here end at around 11, the city gets too dangerous after this time. I share a dirty room with 3 girls and in the whole apartment there are around 30 people. We have one bathroom for girls, and one for the boys, only. People here come from all over the world and are all ‘special’ in some way. The house is covered with books of all sorts. I will turn around and give you some titles just to give an idea: ‘English-Arabic dictionary’, ‘This Week in Palestine’, Open call of proposal from the Eu ‘the Occupied Palestinian Territory’, ‘Hebron, Restriction of Palestinian Movement’, ‘the World’ s Most Dangerous Places”…and so on. All the volunteers are very friendly, passionate, and ‘into it’, very into it. Most of them know people, or have themselves been harassed by Israeli soldiers and they really feel for the Palestinian people. I arrived in the middle of a conversation about how humiliating, mean and just (quote on quote) ‘fucking inhuman’ the Israeli soldiers can be. I have troubles good and evil analysis… it is just not that easy to me. I was listening quietly for a while about people being stopped and mistreated for hours at the border, about 17 years old Israeli with big guns beating up 60 years old Palestinian man…than I got in the conversation. I was trying to see it from the Israeli’s point of view. However, the odium is so deeply rooted…it escalated with every violent episode. It is hard to be diplomatic here in Palestine. So hard because people feel it on their skin and each person has its own experience and it is through these lenses they perceive reality.

Today, as we were walking to the old city, the local volunteer showed us a destroyed house. It was just in the middle of the city and it was destroyed in 2002, by Israeli bombing. A whole family was killed, 4 children included. In front of the house there is a memorial, translated also into English. In big letters stands the sign ‘Never Forget… Never Forgive…’. In the back of my head my conscious tells me that this is destructive energy, but I cannot talk. I cannot talk because I don’t understand and because my house will probably never be bombed. My opinion stands in a limbo between feeling the Palestinian’s pain and wanting to find a way to think more rationally.

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv is a strange city. There is a little bit of everything: Huge skyscrapers stand in the middle of unfinished ground level houses, large streets like in most American cities and little ‘Europeanish’ roads with Asian and African smells. People are good looking, easy going and a lot of American English is spoken on the streets. All the people we met during the day were extremely cordial. Through Couch Surfing, Meike got in contact with a guy who hosted us for two nights allowing us to be a little more ‘insiders’ and to save the money for a hostel. He is an interesting guy who plays in 3 bands and works in the oldest bar of Tel Aviv which, he tells us, has been in business for 20 years. He has a serious look when he is in standby but his smile is very warm.

The day went by super quickly. We walked to the beach that is only ten minutes away and walked around for the rest of the day. We are catching a shared Taxi to Jerusalem in a few hours and I cannot sleep. I ended my day in the bar next door which reminds me of one of the many coffee shops in New Orleans. I ordered a beer which will probably be the first and last one this month and read the first twenty pages of Thomas Friedman’s ‘From Beirut to Jerusalem’. Reading about the Middle East’s history in Tel Aviv is a whole other story.

Our First Day in Nablus- picture are not beautiful enough to describe how beutuful this town is.

 
 
 
 

Interlude - Tel Aviv

06/30/09 12:21 AM Tel Aviv, Israel

Here we are in Tel Aviv, in a house which is … quite the place. Meeting up with our couch surfing host here in Tel Aviv was surprisingly easy: ran into each other walking down the street in the middle of the night, really. We spent a couple hours at a bar with some friends of his. Great people; very interesting, progressive and forward thinking. None of them were religious. Probably the best comment of the night came from one of the Jewish guys on the topic of baseball in America: “It’s such a strange game, I didn’t’ understand it at all. The highlight of the game was when three wieners ran around the bases.” I then proceeded to try to inform him of the finer points of baseball, of which I believe I failed miserably.

Tel Aviv is such an interesting and different city from anything that I have experienced. Maybe the most similar place would be Barcelona and Spain, but it is still far removed from that. I’m not sure what I thought a Jewish city would be, but I think I felt it would be different from this.

From the areas that I have seen, it seems like a city of almost slums surrounding ‘gems’ of elegant high-rises. It is a very dirty, bustling, vibrant city. I don’t say these things as a bad impression. I am amazingly fascinated by this city, a city where, right next to a brand new, glass window display for a high-class dress boutique, there is a crumbling, gutted, windowless housing block. It is, if anything, a city of extreme contrasts:, reflective, I think, of the whole land itself.

It is hot here. Hot as hell. And it never goes away. It is hot inside. It is hot outside. The heat is stifling in the daytime, and still present at night. You sweat. You sweat bottles. I can’t get used to a place like this. I don’t think I ever could. I’ve always complained about living in cold places, but I guess I’m made for it. I could never live in this place, though it is nice for a visit.

Tomorrow morning we are starting our day early. Have to pack up, (hopefully say goodbye and thank our host, take care of a few items, and find the Sherut Taxi to Jerusalem. From there we take another taxi from the Damascus Gate to Ramallah, West Bank and from there we can grab a taxi to Nablus. God willing, everything goes according to the sheet and goes fine. If not, we’ll have some fun! We are still not 100% about the situation we are going into at Project Hope: how many kids, ages, English level, how long and often we are instructing, but it’s all good, we just take it in stride as it comes. We have some activities ready, and sat down at a café today to get a rough outline planned. The first hurdle is, of course, introductions and beginning to get an understanding of who these kids are and where they come from, life-wise.

While we are instructing a “photography workshop”, a lot of it is going also be basic cultural understanding and exploration. But I’m very interested in the artistic possibilities of these children. If we can get them to open up and really explore themselves and their surroundings, the extreme situation that they have been raised in could really provide some amazing inspiration for them, and me as well.

Tel Aviv - Bar Relations

June 30th 2009, 4.30 am. Tel Aviv, Israel.

The day was exhausting. We are laying in the couches a cute small bedroom appartment and we are both about to pass out.
At the passport check a petit young girls asked as just wnough questions to make us nervous. We were both pretty intimidated. We changed some euro into Shekels and used a paied phone to call Drohr, our couchserfing contact. We got on a trian to the city center and wen to meet him in the bar where he will be working until 6 am. We met some of his coworker and an girl from california. Funny talk about religion that went more or less like that:

Israeli guy: Are you jewish?
Us: nop.
Israeli guy: are you christian?
Us: as chirstian as you can be (ironic)
Israeli guy: Religion is just a waste of time

We talked about our trip to Nablus and drank a beer each. One Palestinian, one Israeli to be fair.
They had a very distinguished taste. We also got in a conversation about laws and the police.
The appartment where we are now is colorful and lived.

Here we come-

Tuesday, June 29th 2009. 20.30, On our way to Tel Aviv.

As I write, we are flying over clouds. Under us lays Berlin. After almost two months of planning, filled with many 'technical' problems, sitting on this plane I am taking a deep breath. Berlin is already far away and as for every departure, I have mixed feelings of nostalgia, fear and excitement.

Traveling is always an adrenaline boost, but this trip is something more important to me. I feel like it represents a smart compromise between my curiosity to understand a little bit more about human beings and the need to invest my time to 'give something back'. As a student, I have been feeling pretty much like a leech. I have been sucking knowledge left and right. I have been traveling, exploring, reading, writing and taking silly tests; it has been all about me. Now, when I say that in this project I want to 'give back' I am aware that what a 22 years old has to give is not too much as I am aware that I will probably end up taking a lot anyways…but it is a fair balance, it is more 'sustainable' learning, and it makes me feel energized.

The idea of going to Palestine has been in the back of my head for a couple of years at least. I have internalized this dream so much, that I can barely remember where it comes from. As I am getting so close to realizing it, I only yesterday started rethinking about what are the reasons that pushed me to spend so much time working on this project. The quick conclusion is that what brings me to Israel and Palestine is a sense of frustration. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict echoes in politics all around the world and understanding it, or trying to, is a must of every international relations student. However, when one tries to figure out the chain of events and the root of the problems it is very easy to crash with a list of biased analysis of history, religion, culture and politics that make it challenging to have a general picture of the story. Every article, discussion and book on this topic left me with a sensation of looking at a half-megapixel picture, of a thousand years old tale. So, after having repeated for a while this exercise of frustration, I decided that trying to understand people without getting to know them is just pointless, and here I am, on this flight to Tel Aviv.

I am definitely here for the stories aware that I will have to process them, put them in prospective and make my own puzzle, which will remain doubtlessly unfinished. I expect to go home in a month with a ‘feel’ (and not an understanding) of what it means to live in the West Bank which will share my suitcase with a lot more frustration and a new list of unanswered questions.

Setting Out

06/29/08 8:34 PM. En route (somewhere over Hungary I think) to Tel Aviv

Hello fellow adventurers (in spirit at least!)! First let me thank all of you for you support and readership. We really hope that this blog will allow you to join us in experiencing this journey that we now depart on.

When Gioel first about a month ago told me about her planned project in Palestine, I thought that it was an absolutely amazing idea. When she called me on Friday afternoon with the offer to join her, I was absolutely speechless. I couldn’t believe what she was telling me: join her in the chance of a lifetime to visit The Holy Land, but not just visit, actually serve, help, and become involved with the people of the West Bank. After giving it a good moment of thought I called her back and told her to put me on the flight; lets do this. I believe that this will be one of the most important decisions that either of has ever made, and I truly think (and hope) that we will emerge from this experience changed in absolutely every way for the better.

I am so excited to be able to work with these children of the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, to expand both their and my horizons in new and unknown ways.

This is such a fascinating and absolutely unknown land for me that I really have absolutely no idea what to expect, but I know that whatever it is, in whatever way it manifests itself it will be great. And of course I will proceed into the unknown with an open mind, and my wits about me.

So we should land in a couple hours in Tel Aviv, staying tonight and tomorrow night there, with a couch surfing contact (another first experience for me!) and that will give us tomorrow to explore Tel Aviv for ourselves before we set out on the journey to Nablus on Wednesday (July 1).

Thank you all again for keeping Gioel and I in your thoughts, and please follow along on this blog, let us know your comments and feedback, and we will both do our best to bring you as close as we can to Palestine.

From Foreign lands, yours truly,

Erik

Hello Everybody

Welcome!

Hello everybody,

This blog is a quick way to follow out project in collaboration with Project Hope Palestine.
In the following weeks we will post out pictures and stories and we invite you to give us feedback and leave comments. This is our way to thank you for all your support.
As a quick update, this program has been organized and developed by Alex, Gioel and Meike. Gioel and Erik are on their way to Tel Aviv and Meike and Alex plan to join in the second part of the month.

Thank you again for reading,
We hope you enjoy.