ANOTHER POEM

This’ll be my last post before flying home.

SHARI’A NAJAH AL-QADIM, DECEMBER 2010

It had rained.

I heard the gentle splash

of water under my feet.

I felt the moisture still lingering in the air.

I was glad for Palestine.

It had not rained in so long

and now there was water

and the water would give life to the land.

I was glad for me.

With water comes growth

and with growth comes rebirth

and with rebirth comes new beginnings.

I was glad,

for Palestine and for myself,

and prayed that the rain

would wash away the feelings

of hurt and of loss and of anger

                   and allow hope to grow

                                               and to live.

THE LONG GOODBYE

So, I’ve been neglecting my blog again.

There have been lots of things over the last few weeks I’ve wanted to write about, including the refugee camps, a trip to Jenin and graffitiing a security wall, but I have to be honest with myself and admit that I’ve run out of time in writing all this up before I go home. (I am heading home on Tuesday.)

In some ways, this is maybe no bad thing. I’ve also intended, as I said before, to write about my take on Islam and my opinions on the political situation over here, but I don’t really know where to start with either of these things. (It’s fair to say there’s been a lot I haven’t said so far.) Maybe the opportunity to return home and reflect on what I’ve learnt might make the words come a wee bit easier.

But, for now, my focus is on leaving.

I’m sorry to be leaving, upset that an experience that has meant so much to me is coming to an end, sad to be leaving Palestine and its people behind, dreading saying goodbye to so many friends.

Other than that, it’s hard to sum up all that I’m feeling right now, so I’ll just end this post with a poem I wrote a few weeks ago.

NABLUS, NOVEMBER 2010

I don’t want to go home. Not yet. But I must.

I have people to see, hugs to give, stories to tell.

But I love it here, and I know that when I leave

it will feel like leaving a part of myself behind,

like saying goodbye to a loved one I know I

may never see again.

And what will home be like? Will it have changed

as much as I have changed? Will my new perspective

show me ugly truths where once there was just the

comfort of my everyday landscape? And will I still

have as much love to give the people back home,

or will I have invested too much affection in

this land, these people?

TEL AVIV AND JAFFA

So, that’s me back from Tel Aviv.

As I said in a previous post, Tel Aviv is a totally different world from the West Bank. It felt to me exactly like any American city, with lots of skyscrapers and neon, everybody seeming to be in a hurry and a heightened level of security.

TEL AVIV

It took be a while to feel comfortable there. To start with it felt like I was in some way consorting with the enemy, but knew I had to remind myself that not all Israelis are bad people.

I was staying with a friend of a friend, although it turns out I’d met him before while working for the Corrymeela Community in Northern Ireland. I had first met him at a conference entitled Youth Work in Contested Spaces, where delegates came from areas of conflict all over the world (including Palestine and Israel, the Balkans, South Africa and Northern Ireland itself) to share good youth work practice. This was a fantastic event which taught me a lot. It was also the first time I had met Palestinians and Israelis and, to a certain extent, led to my decision six years later to come to the West Bank.

On one of the days in Tel Aviv, my host allowed me to spend the working day with him and to find out about the different youth projects he has been involved with. I was very impressed with him and the projects themselves. As a youth worker, it’s always good to find out about examples of good practice, no matter where and in what context, so it was a day well spent. I also took the opportunity to get an Israeli perspective, or more specifically a liberal/leftist Israeli perspective, on the conflict and prospects for a peace deal. (Unfortunately, I'm told the prospects don't look all that good.)

JAFFA

I spent another one of days taking a wee dander to Jaffa. I walked the whole way there along gorgeous beaches with the sun shining and the waves lapping at my feet. I hadn’t realised I’d missed being by the sea so much. As I got nearer Jaffa, the people on the beaches seemed to change. To start with, everyone was dressed as you’d expect Westerners to dress on a sunny day on the beach. After a while, there were a few more people in Arabic dress. By the time I was almost at Jaffa, it was all people in Arabic dress. It was curious that I felt more and more comfortable as I neared Jaffa.

TOWER OF THE MARITIME MOSQUE IN OLD JAFFA

Jaffa itself is a lovely wee town. It’s old, and therefore is more beautiful and has much more character than Tel Aviv, and there was an interesting mix of people. This was reflected in the mix of places of worship, including mosques and Christian churches of every major denomination. There was even a Church of Scotland church. (This was initially hard to spot as it was by far the least ostentatious place of worship I saw .)

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND CHURCH

It was good to have a break for a couple of days, get a wee bit of head space and recover from the cold I’d been suffering from.

When I got back to Nablus, I felt rested, re-energised and, most importantly, glad to be home.

CONVERSATION

My English classes have continued to go well. With many of my classes, I’ve been able to make a shift over the last couple of weeks from teaching boring grammar stuff, that even I struggle to understand, to working more on conversational skills. In practice, this involves going over a piece of reading, usually a news article, and then having a conversation about the topic. Themes covered have included the rescue of the Chilean miners (a topic which I think every international volunteer has based a class around at some stage), issues with multi-culturalism in Germany, shootings in Brazil, women and sport, plans to send people to Mars and one particularly interesting class on Scottish culture.

One of my classes finished up just before Eid. The students asked if they could have “an exam” on the last class, so I put together a wee test for them. I ended up considering this as more of a test of myself in seeing how much of what I had covered had actually sunk in. While I was generally pleased with how they got on, there are maybe a couple of areas where I could improve my teaching. Overall, though, I’ve been receiving some good feedback so am still generally happy with how classes have been going.

I was sad to see this class ending. I’d grown to really like the participants over the six weeks I’d worked with them.