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?