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.