Arabic lessons

I asked how to say tomato, and I found myself in a spontaneous vocab lesson. Majd is an unrelenting teacher. After naming just about everything in sight, I tried to write things down in hopes to remember a few. Majd asked to see my notebook, and at each word, she would shake her head, making a tisk tisk sound, and correct my spelling. She's going to whip my Arabic into shape. Her sister teaches me songs and swear words. (When I wrote those down, Majd first protested in indignance, then corrected my spelling on those too.)

Busride contemplations

The trip to Jenin began on the narrow, potholed roads of Ramallah (on which it seems to be no problem to drive 40 miles an hour, dodging other cars as they stop or turn), which blended into narrow potholed streets of several surrounding villages. Then suddenly, we came upon a concrete building surrounded in barbed wire and graffitied with Hebrew words and stars of David. Below, we entered an Israeli flag-lined highway. Most signs were written in Hebrew, Arabic and English, but some destinations were only explained in one or two of the languages. (I'll try to explain more about highways shortly.)

The countryside was beautiful. Small stones form the steep hillsides into terraces, which are lined with olive trees. Boys could be spotted following small groups of sheep. However, certain hills rose into abandoned terraces and were topped instead with pointy-roofed houses (most buildings here have flat roofs which double as porches). Israeli settlements are easily identified this way even when they are not surrounded by tenish-foot-tall cement walls topped with barbed wire. An audience member of a lecture I attended last semester about peaceful resistance defended the violent actions of the Israeli army in Gaza saying, “If Canada launched missiles at Connecticut, of course we would bomb the shit out of them.” But what would we expect them to do if we built houses on their hilltops and walls around their farmland?

so far

My time in Israel began by being detained by Israeli customs. I think it was because I didn't have the address where I would be staying, but who knows--maybe it was because I was going to Palestine (although I can't imagine that other people don't do that), maybe I have a flag on my passport--I would not be at all surprised if I do now. I've traveled quite a bit and have never had trouble entering a country, and I probably didn't take it seriously enough. I didn't have any info printed out. It wasn't bad though. It was only a for a few hours and I just ha to sit outside customs, where there was even (flaky) free wifi. I was mostly amused, though I was a bit worried that I would never get my passport back, or that they would send me home. Luckily, they eventually decided to let me through, and I made it to Ramallah (with the help of several people who lent me their phones) to find a worried office.

I'm super excited about my organization, PSD. They're all about empowering members f the community (especially youth and women) and fund student-designed service-learning initiatives, as well as trainings in things like leadership, life skills and computer skills. They also run vocational training for women and provide microloans for them to start businesses. I'm working in the communications department, and basically, my job is to write and edit whatever needs to be in English. Last week, I spent a lot of time learning about the organization and what's going on right now, as well as editing a grant proposal and an activities report, as well as summarizing it for a newsletter. I also helped translate a lesson plan for an English class. Everyone in the office speaks much better English than I speak Arabic, but I can help make sure everything sounds right. The lesson plan was for 12 year olds, but it was full of chemistry terms that even I had to look up once I was told what they were in my own language.

Right now, I'm staying with Majd, who works for PSD. She's incredibly sweet and calls me her sister; she said, “only more so—since you're not from here, I have to take extra care of you.” She also speaks fluent English and is really helpful for my Arabic too.

This weekend, we went to visit Majd's family in Jenin, a city about an hour and a half north of Ramallah. Her family is wonderful. I should have perfected food pocketing strategies in Morocco. Except I wouldn't really want to pocket it because it is delicious. However, I've been told to kouli pretty much nonstop for a day and a half now and I feel like I'[m going to explode. I don't even know where to start in terms of highlights—there's been fresh pita and hummus, veggies and cheese, stuffed grape leaves, a creamy, lemony both over rice with stuffed zucchini, dates, baby cucumbers...

Exciting news: I can almost communicate in Arabic—well, in standard arabic (I'm still getting used to the dialect, and there are a lot of new words to learn, but everybody's nice about speaking formal arabic with me (and then they laugh at each other for speaking it)) But even so, it's pretty intimidating to be asked to explain what I think of politics or why I'm studying Arabic in Arabic.

I've been having trouble writing about Palestine

I've been having trouble writing about Palestine. It might be jetlag, but I think I'm having trouble reconciling the fact that the world is as it is. It's easy to say that the people I've met are wonderful and generous and welcoming, but it's harder to describe the way that they are so in spite of the fact that they have to travel four hours to Jordan to fly out because they aren't allowed to use the closest airport (to attend a nonviolence workshop, to boot), and aren't bitter about the fact that I can. Over coffee, they were telling me about how I should go to Jerusalem, which is only about 20 minutes away. “You must see it, I'll take you to visit. Oh wait, I can't—I'm a terrorist.”