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.

FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT

One more major difference between Palestine and living in the UK is that Palestinians are not afforded the freedom of movement that we generally take for granted. While “the screw has been loosened” recently, as one person explained it, Palestinians still regularly have to pass through numerous Israeli army checkpoints to travel anywhere, even without leaving the West Bank, and can at any point not be allowed through or be made to wait for hours.

In addition, Palestinians need written permission to travel outside the country, or even just to Jerusalem, and requests are regularly denied by the Israeli authorities with no explanation given. (Travelling to Gaza, or getting out of Gaza, is pretty much not an option.)

This all may sound like a bit of a nuisance, but it’s a much more serious issue than that. Palestinians often go months or even years without being able to see family members, and they are often not allowed to travel even to get urgent medical treatment. Many Palestinians, including children, with curable conditions have died due to not been able to access healthcare that in Scotland would be available to anyone.

Earlier this week, while I was in Tel Aviv, some of the international volunteers went to Sinai, including some people who are now very close friends to me. I was worried that they might have a problem getting back into Israel and had asked them to let me know when they got past the border okay. I hadn’t heard back from them for a while, and started to panic that they hadn’t been allowed in. As it turns out, they got back into the country without any major hassle, but this anxiety about potentially not being able to see people close to me gave me a slight idea of what Palestinians go through on a regular basis.

For more of an insight into this issue, please watch this video (link attached below).

http://www.facebookvideodown.com/if-london-was-occupied-hq-35366.html

COMPARE AND CONTRAST 2

I’ll list a few more differences I’ve found, cultural or otherwise, between Nablus and back home.

13) Football

Nobody seems to follow the local teams with any real passion over here. Instead, most people support either Barcelona or Real Madrid. When adult men want to engage me in conversation but don’t know a lot of English, they will say, “Barca or Real?” Saying “my favourite team is actually Heart if Midlothian, a football team from Edinburgh” isn’t really the best response to give to this question.

14) Being in jail

Back home, having been in jail carries with it a considerable amount of stigma. Not so in Palestine.

15) Higher Education

I’m told that throughout the Arab world there is a much higher percentage of the population with degrees and in Palestine this percentage is higher still. This is probably no surprise as the chances of getting a good job without a degree are pretty much nil. In fact, the chances of getting a good job, or even any job, with a degree are still limited. People often suggest this is the case in the UK too but, compared to Palestine, UK university graduates have much, much better prospects. (Many people have told me that all the good jobs are in Ramallah.)

16) Health & Safety

This does not exist in Palestine. If somebody introduced health and safety legislation, the whole country would grind to a halt.

NABLUS CUISINE

I haven’t actually said that much about Palestinian food so far. I’m not sure how I’ve neglected this as one of the best things about being in Palestine is the food.

Put simply, food is fresher, tastier and almost always healthier over here. Highlights include falafel (the best in the world, so I’m told, although I can only testify that it’s better than the one I had in Bucharest, the only other time I’ve tried it), “kufta” (although I’ve discovered this can be a little hit or miss), kebab (much better than back home) and “shawarma”.

Shawarma is kind of like the doner kebabs we get in Edinburgh, with the big elephant’s foot slab of meat, only it’s either turkey or chicken meat that’s used. It’s served with salad either in a wrap or as a sandwich in a mini-baguette.

Most often I opt for either falafel or shawarma, which you can get pretty much anywhere. (In Nablus, a falafel with bread and salad costs 3 shekels, which is about 50p. In Tel Aviv, it you'd be lucky to get one for under 20 shekels.)

The main type of bread that’s used is a type of pitta bread, only different to what I’m used to in that it’s a wee bit like Italian focaccia too. Given the fact that Britain doesn’t really do bread very well, it’s no surprise that this is better than back home.

Veg over here is often pickled in such as way as to give it a strange-looking colour. It would not be unusual to see pink cauliflower or fluorescent-orange broccoli. When I asked someone why they do this they said, “It’s what my mother did”. Silly question, really.

In terms of home-cooked food, from what I can remember most dishes begin with an “m” and involve rice in some way. I’ve sampled a few home-cooked meals and have been very impressed so, if you’re ever in Palestine and offered a food beginning with “m”, say “aywa” (yes). Chances are it’ll be decent.

I’ve noticed people don’t really do lunch over here. Instead they’ll have a late breakfast, sometimes well into the afternoon, and a main meal in the evening. I quite like this routine.

One other local delicacy in Nablus I should mention is called “kunafa”. This is a strange combination of white cheese (which I think is goat’s cheese) and a ridiculous amount of sugar. It’s fair to say it’s an acquired taste, although I’ve been warned by Hakim, the Director of Project Hope, not to say “ana bakrah kunafa” (I hate kunafa) for fear of offending the good people of Nablus.

Here, takeaway food does not come swimming in grease.

ART AN' THAT

For the past few weeks I’ve been helping out with some arts classes being run for a children’s centre in the Old City.

The centre works with the most troubled primary school children from all the schools around Nablus. All have emotional or behavioural difficulties and most, if not all, have been affected by having a family member being a “martyr”, usually the father. I’ve been working with children and young people in one way or another for the past eight years and, especially during my time in Northern Ireland, have seen the effects of trauma and family instability on children. Even so, I can’t quite get my head around the amount of emotional suffering children in this situation must be going through.

BOY WITH BIG DRAWING

Before I went along for the first time, perhaps unsurprisingly, the group was described to me as “the kids from hell”. Far from putting me off, this made me all the more keen to come along. Nice, polite kids who do what they’re told kind of freak me out a wee bit. Kids who keep you on your toes are much more what I’m used to.

In truth, though, the behaviour in the classes hasn’t been too bad. The groups have been a manageable size, there have been plenty of volunteers there, we only work with them for an hour at a time and the children have been doing arts activities that are pitched at the right level and that keep them engaged. So, rather than being wee terrors, the kids have been super cute. At every class, I have a new favourite.

GIRL WITH BIG DRAWING

One thing that does trouble me slightly, though, is watching the children play. Toy fighting tends to be a lot more violent over here and a lot of their playing involves pretending to shoot each other. While this is understandable, given the circumstances, I still find this a touch disturbing.

At the classes, I’ve been working with Marjolein and Aurin, two volunteers from the Netherlands. Working with them has been a real joy. They are both excellent practitioners, genuinely good people and I’m lucky enough to be able to call them good friends. (I’ve decided I like Dutch girls.) On top of that, I’ve been working with Muhammad Bustami and Shaker, two local volunteers. Again, they’re good people and now good friends.

I’ve also been very impressed with the teachers at the centre. Marjolein has been doing training for them in working with the effects of trauma on children and I accompanied her for the first couple of sessions. They are mainly young women not long out of teacher training and lacking in any significant teaching experience but, despite this, their instincts seem to be spot on and they show a high level of understanding of the needs of the children.

So, these classes have become something I to look forward to twice a week. It’s been great having the chance to work with children. (All of the other groups I have are with teenagers or adults.) Monday is my favourite day of the week. I have four classes pretty much back to back all in different parts of the city. After two creative writing workshops, I rush down to the Old City for the arts class, spend some time doing arty stuff with some really cute kids, then get a falafel on the way home at the best falafel stand in Nablus.

There are worse ways to spend a Monday.

THE SIGHTS 3

"THE STAIRS OF DEATH"
(This isn't a reference to any conflict. It's
just a bloody steep set of 187 steps.)

CROWDS ON THE WAY TO THE MASS WEDDING
(Making a total racket.)

CLOCK TOWER AT THE CENTRE OF THE OLD CITY
(This photo was taken at about
half past three one afternoon.)

CAN'T REMEMBER WHERE THIS WAS
(But I think it was night time.)

SAFAA AND HANEEN
(Safaa is the Activities Co-ordinator with Project Hope
and Haneen is the English Co-ordinator, so essentially
they're both my bosses. Both of them are legends.)

SOME OF THE LOCAL VOLUNTEERS
(All good lads.)

CEILIDH
(I was roped in to call a ceilidh that we held last week.
It was a really fun night. It was just for internationals
this time round, but the hope is to try one out with
locals sometime soon. Not sure how well this'll
work out, given certain cultural issues, but we'll
see. I think this was a Canadian Barn Dance.)

ROAD SIGN
(That nobody pays any attention to.)

VIEW FROM DOWN THE ROAD
(At dusk.)

RAFIDIA DISTRICT BY NIGHT
(The classy part of town.)

GRAFFITI
(Done by one of the local volunteers.)

THE SIGHTS 2

CUTE KID
(Odai's wee brother. The coolest wee kid. Odai is
one of the local volunteers and his family was one
of the families I helped out with olive picking.)

CUTE BABIES
(One was related to Odai, the other to a family friend.)

LOCAL BARBER
(All the male international volunteers are currently sporting
moustaches, in support of 'Movember', and we've managed
to persuade a couple of the locals to join in too. Elvis has
been helping some of the lads with their grooming.)

CONTEMPORARY DANCE AT DAR AL-FANOON
(Music centre in OId Askar camp.)

MURAL AT DAR AL-FANOON
(Or a wee part of it, anyway.)

MURAL AT DAR AL-FANOON
(Another wee part.)



NABLUS BY NIGHT
(View from Sama Nablus)

SIGN IN THE LOCAL CINEMA
(Don't go and see 'Salt'. It's garbage.)

OLIVE OIL FACTORY
(I got to visit the factory at the end of the last day I went
olive picking. Sadly the olive picking season's over now.)

OLIVE OIL
(Apparently, in Europe they add an extra couple of steps
to the process of extracting the oil. This means they get
more oil out of the olives, but that they lose some of the
taste. Palestine doesn't do that, so the quality of the
olive oil is that bit better. You have no idea how nice
the olive oil tasted when it was straight out of the
machine. Yes, I did stick my finger in.)

One more load of photos to come.

THE SIGHTS 1

Over the last two months, I've built up quite a few photos that haven't fitted in with any one particular post, but still show an important part of my time in Nablus. So, I thought I'd put them all together into two or three posts.

Here they are.

GETTING READY TO CYCLE TO BETLID
(To go olive picking. I took a taxi.)

GIRLS AT ASKAR MIXED SCHOOL
(One Saturday morning, while I was waiting for my English
class to show up, these three kept me entertained by singing
me the Palestinian equivalant of Sunday School songs.)

POSTER IN ASKAR MIXED SCHOOL
(I liked this.)

THE ARAB WORLD
(In Askar Mixed School.)

FAMILIAR FACE FROM BACK HOME
(Sign outside local pool hall.)

UNPICKED OLIVES
(They didn't stay unpicked for long, let me tell ye.)

MY FAVOURITE OLIVE TREE
(I named her Miriam. She was even
more beautiful on the inside.)



DOWN THE ROAD FROM PROJECT HOPE
(A school footbal pitch is the other side of the wall.)



THE SITE OF AN OLD SOAP FACTORY
(In the Old City. Nablus was, and still is, famous
for its soap. This was the site of one of the oldest
factories in the city. Israeli forces destroyed it during
the Second Intifada, apparently killing a number of
Palestinians at the same time.)

SCULPTURE IN A LOCAL PARK
(This photo doesn't do it justice.)

 To be continued....

GENDER POLITICS

Okay. I’m going to take a deep breath before tackling this one.

I have reached the conclusion that the Arab world and the Western world don’t understand each other. This is no more evident than in the treatment of women or, more accurately, how the treatment of women is perceived by other cultures.

To oversimplify a touch, the West believes that Arab and/or Muslim countries oppress women by forcing them to cover themselves up. Meanwhile, the Arab world believes that Western and/or Christian countries oppress women by encouraging or expecting women to dress indecently and present themselves as mere objects for sexual desire.

Now, I’ll tackle the first of these misconceptions first. On the basis of conversations I’ve had with women in Nablus, many of whom I would now consider good friends (in addition, the vast majority of the participants in the classes and workshops I’ve been running have been adult women), it seems that the majority of women choose to wear a hijab as an important part of their identity as Muslim women. A small minority choose not to wear a hijab and, from what I can tell, this isn’t seen as a big deal by most people. An even smaller minority wear a burqa. In addition, women dress much more conservatively than back home (or in Tel Aviv for that matter). Again, this is in keeping with their religion and, while expected by society, is still done through choice.

(I should qualify the above by saying that if a woman did feel uncomfortable wearing a hijab and felt that pressure was put on them by their husband or family, it is unlikely that they would speak to me, as a man, about this.)

Western women, on the other hand, dress mostly in a more liberal manner. In increasingly secular societies, there are few restrictions placed on how women dress by religion. While Western countries are often more permissive, the vast majority of men (although sadly not all) treat women with nothing other than respect. In fact, treating women with respect is something that is hugely important in the majority of Western and Arab cultures.

However, the other day I was sitting in the volunteers’ apartment flicking television channels, and finally settled on the MTV European Music Awards. It would be good to watch the sort of telly I would get back home, I thought to myself. The awards show included Eva Longoria, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and Kelly Brook, among others. Watching this after being in Palestine for two months, it was shocking how these women were presented. Every one of these women was presented as nothing other than a sex object. (At one particularly moment, Katy Perry ripped off some of Eva Longoria’s clothes for no reason at all.) Given film and television is the main way in which Arabs are exposed to Western culture, it wasn’t hard to see where some of their misconceptions come from.

I know women have not yet achieved full equality, either in the West or in the Arab world (both have active feminist movements, although these often have different priorities), but I'm just trying to illustrate the point that it is important not to judge other people’s cultures unless you are willing to take a critical look at your own culture and your own society.

Reading over the above, there are a few generalisations. I am failing to mention Muslim communities in the West and it is important to acknowledge how cultures and gender politics can vary widely between different Western countries and between different Arab countries, but I hope you get the point I’m trying to make.

This has been a long post, but count yourself lucky I haven’t gone on a rant about Sex and the City 2’s depiction of Arab women.

And... breathe.

CREATIVE WRITING AN' THAT

Up until now, I haven’t mentioned how the creative writing workshops have been going. As this was one of the main reasons I came to Palestine, I should give a wee update.

There were some delays in getting groups set up, partly due to issues such as university timetabling, but for the past month or so I’ve had two groups up and running, one with local volunteers at Project Hope and another with English students at An-Najah University. (Hopefully, I will have another group starting after Eid with Al-Quds Open University.)

Both of these groups have been going well. Whenever I’ve done creative writing workshops in the past, I’ve always been worried that someone will be a really bad writer and I’ll end up struggling to say nice things about their work, but thankfully this has not been the case here. Even though everyone has been working in a second language, the quality of the writing has been really high. In addition, I’ve received some good feedback from participants so, all in all, I’m very happy with how things have been going.

Up until now, I have been just encouraging people to write, giving them a starting point or certain topics to write about. After Eid, I intend to look a little more in depth at “What is a poem?” and “What is a story?” (The answer to both questions being: “Whatever you want them to be?”) Part of my methodology is to encourage people to abandon traditional, or taught, notions of what defines poetry or storytelling and in doing so to find their own voice. The English students don’t learn any poetry more recent than T.S. Eliot, so I’ve enjoyed introducing them to contemporary poetry such as some of Edwin Morgan’s more experimental work. You can almost hear them thinking, “but this isn’t a poem”.

The chances are I won’t get enough “finished” work to put together a publication, something I had originally hoped for but always thought might have been a wee bit too ambitious, but there will be work published online at some stage. I will keep you posted.

In my first workshop with the An-Najah English students, I did an exercise where I asked them to chose their favourite words or phrases. Below are their responses.

hero

ambitious

Palestine

Al-Quds (Jerusalem)

freedom fighter

procrastination

sister

mouth

xerox

martyr

success

fabulous

boycott

bullet

 “ahlam” (dreams)

STORIES OF OLIVE TREES

Now it’s time for me to wax lyrical about the joys of olive farming. (No, seriously.)


AN OLIVE TREE

For a few consecutive Fridays, I went olive picking. While it is not formally a part of volunteering with Project Hope, they encourage volunteers to help out with the olive harvest if they wish and make all the necessary arrangements. This is in keeping with the Palestinian Authority encouraging everybody to help out, especially after the high number of attacks on olive farms across the West Bank by Jewish settlers.


OLIVE PICKERS

Seeing as I’ve been running creative writing workshops over here, I might as well share with you a poem I wrote on the subject of olive picking.

BETLID, OCTOBER 2010

I walk away from the tree
and light up a cigarette.
I look out to the hills,
the sun beginning to set.
I think about the day.

I’m not used to hard work.
For over ten years my jobs have involved
doing paperwork, attending meetings, talking to people,
usually indoors, often behind a desk.
And when I agreed to go olive picking
I was just trying to be helpful,
to do something constructive with my time,
not to actually enjoy it.
But I had, every minute.
There was something about being outdoors,
the sun beating down on me,
the wind rolling in off the hills.
There was something about the physical labour
and the tangible end product.
There was something about the company.

And as I stare out at the view,
taking another long drag,
I struggle to keep the tears at bay
as I try to think if I’ve ever had a better day
or seen a sight so beautiful.

THE VIEW

So, it’s fair to say I enjoyed it.

For the first couple of weeks, I was helping out with a family in a wee village in the hills called Betlid, (hence the title of the poem). They were a lovely wee family, very hospitable and very grateful for us internationals coming to help them. The fact that the mother was a great cook and laid on a lovely spread for us each lunchtime was also appreciated.

OLIVES

Over the two weeks, I got to know the main farmer, the father of the family, and enjoyed hearing some of his stories.

One such story involved him talking about when he was a young boy and his grandfather was farming the land. At the time, his grandfather had been having problems with somebody stealing their olive harvest (not a Jewish settler back then, but somebody from the village). He told his grandfather he would camp out under the stars in an attempt to catch the culprit in the act. When he was telling us this, he was saying that he was afraid, but didn’t want his grandfather to know how scared he was because he would be sent home and he genuinely wanted to be a help to his family.

He showed us the olive tree which he had camped under.

Eventually the culprit was apprehended and all was well.

As he told us this story, I looked over and saw his wee granddaughter standing on a stool, picking olives one at a time, doing her small bit to help.

Afterwards, he touched the ground beneath him and said: ‘This is my land.’

A PALESTINIAN JOKE

Even in the face of hardship, you need to be able to have a laugh every now and then. This is certainly true in Palestine and I’ve shared many a laugh and a joke with people in Nablus since I arrived. As ever, this has been an important part of building friendships, and that’s something I feel I’ve done a lot of over the past two months.

It’s fair to say, however, that in telling jokes there can be something lost in the translation sometimes. To illustrate this point, I will relay to you a joke I was told the other week.

I was taken out for breakfast by some of the students in one my classes, an all female group. One of the women told me a joke that went something like this:

A Palestinian man moves to America intending to learn good English. After a while, he has forgotten all the Arabic he ever knew, but hasn’t learnt a word of English. (Cue lots of laughter.)

I didn’t get it.

So the next day I told the joke to some of the staff at Project Hope, all men this time, and asked them to explain why it was funny. They said it was because he was Palestinian.

I still didn’t get it.

A WEE BREAK IN ANOTHER WORLD

I’m in Tel Aviv.

I have a week off due to the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, a festival to mark the end of Al Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca). So, I decided to leave the West Bank for the first time since I arrived and have a wee break. Given that I was choked with the cold before finishing up, the break was definitely needed.

I feel a wee bit guilty for not being in Nablus during Eid but, seeing as it mostly involves people spending time with their families (a bit like Christmas), I’m probably not missing much. Also, it may have had the unwanted effect of making me miss my own family all the more.

To say that Tel Aviv seems like another world from the West Bank would be to completely understate it, but there’ll be more about Tel Aviv later. For now, I’m going to concentrate on updating my blog with all the stuff I haven’t got round to mentioning yet. I’ve given myself the task of being one hundred per cent up-to-date by the end of the week, so there may be quite a few posts over the next few days.

WHY DON'T THEY COME BACK TO YANOON?

YANOON

A few weeks ago, I went to a wee village in the hills called Yanoon. The reason I was there was to do a wee bit of “accompaniment”. In the spirit of teaching English, I will explain this word.

Accompaniment:  1 – noun, something that is served or used with something else (e.g. “the dinner had hummus as an accompaniment”)  2 – noun, musical term for an instrument or orchestra playing alongside a singer or another instrument that is playing the main tune (e.g. “that pianist provided decent accompaniment”)  3 – noun, providing an international presence that may discourage harassment or violence towards Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli army and/or Jewish “settlers” and act as a witness to such acts if necessary (e.g. “let’s go to Yanoon to do a wee bit of accompaniment”)

(To get the full effect of my teaching style, you have to imagine me writing the word squint onto a white/blackboard and getting students to repeat the word in a vaguely Scottish accent.)

In case it wasn’t clear, I was opting for Definition 3.

EAPPI (Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel), which is part of WCC (World Council of Churches, a slight misnomer as they are only a world council of Christian churches), recruit volunteers to be stationed usually in an area that has suffered from harassment from Jewish settlers, such as olive crops being burnt or stolen, guns being fired to scare children and so on. Yanoon is one of many villages that have been suffering from such harassment.

The volunteers they have do three month stints. In Yanoon they had a couple of days between one group of volunteers leaving and the next arriving, so Project Hope had been asked if they had some volunteers who could help out during that time. Three of our volunteers headed there on a Thursday and me and one more joined them the following morning.

As it turns out, I was only there for a couple of hours, as the new group of volunteers arrived sooner than we expected. During this time we went on a walk around the village in the baking heat and said “sabah el-kher” to a few locals. Absolutely nothing of interest happened.

YANOON SCHOOL

It was good, however, to learn about another organisation and to see another example of the good work being done to help the people of Palestine.

THE YANOON LADS

Looking over the above, I worry that it may come across as a flippant account of some important work being done to tackle a very serious issue, but there are so many issues and so much hardship to get your head round in Palestine that I’ve remembered the importance of finding the humour where you can.

I’ve also learnt the importance of enjoying walking around a lovely wee village, taking in the view of the hills in the West Bank and spending time with good friends.

A WEE DANDER