Weekend #3/4: Bethlehem Hospitality and Rachel's Tomb

This, my friends, is going to be one heck of a post: long and probably full of controversy.

Let's do this. Hold onto your hats.

I. Christian Bethlehem: Church of the Nativity and the Milk Grotem
II. History of the Occupation, from the PA's point of view
III. The Shuk and Bethlehem University (BU)
IV. Felafel and Chicken Kabob in Bethlehem = O.M.G. (That's an emphatic oh my gosh for all you oldies out there)
V. The Security Barrier/Wall, the Palestinian Side
VI. The Palestinians We Met
VII. Through the Deserted Bethlehem Checkpoint
VIII. Rachel's Tomb; The Security Barrier/Wall, the Israeli Side; and the Abandoned Mosque

*For photos of Bethlehem/Rachel's tomb, go here*

I. Christian Bethlehem: Church of the Nativity and the Milk Grotem

"To the wall? The wall? Manger Square?"

"Lah, shukran. E7na mnee7." (No, thanks, we're good)

We arrived in Bethlehem at 12 PM via an East Jerusalem Bus on Saturday afternoon (no Israeli buses run in Jerusalem on that day) about to head toward Manger Square. After stepping off the bus, we were straightway flooded by the servees wallahs (the taxi drivers). The above interaction happened about three times with three different folks before they realized that we didn't need them--we were two able bodied males dead set on walking.

David told me about a moment he had in another West Bank village: "They always asked me, 'Why walk when you can take a car?'"

And thus, we headed toward the Manger Square that sits in the center of Bethlehem's Old City. The itinerary: a visit to the Church of Nativity, the Milk Grotem that sits directly next door, the Mosque of Omar directly across, the Bethlehem Shuk a twist and a turn away, and Bethlehem University up the hill.

V'az, anachnu halachnu (and so, we went). Here is one and another snippet of our trip there.

Manger Square sits in a vast open space about two football fields long, and two football fields wide. On one end was the Church of Nativity, our first stop.

Walking into the Church of Nativity, I got more practice telling tour guides in Arabic that David and I were ok to walk in alone. I took two videos of our time there, and a couple photos that you can find here and scroll right to see more of the same.

You can also see a bit of the history listed here as well.

A very spiritual place, despite the constant influx of tourists and tour guides.

Directly next to the Church sat the Milk Grotem, a holy sanctuary for Armenian Christians. We filed into the main hall to a beautiful chant from a male service leader. I sat and listened for a time, feeling the spirit of the experience and taking in the hymn. Later in the evening, I did the same at the Omar Mosque.

Regardless of the language, the religion, the music, the experience held all the same emotions, passion and love as a Kabbalat Shabbat service or a day spent in meditation.

II. History of the Conflict, from the PA/Peace Center's Point of View

As we approached, we found a couple of very interesting landmarks: billboard overviewing the history of the conflict from the PA point of view (as sanctioned by the Peace Center that sat in between the Mosque and the Church of nativity), and this sign as well quite nearby.

History is such that it can be told through many different lenses, and this instance proved no different. In the class I took back at Colby, what I saw on the billboard stood very similarly to the positions I had read about from multiple Palestinian sources, ones that, regardless of rhetoric (or the need to "convince") that comes with any national telling of history (this is also an Israeli tradition, it just so happens), holds truth and a legitimacy in its telling.

I took photos of the billboard, and also the pamphlet that they handed out as well. You can find the first one here, and then scroll right to see the rest.

In my view, this history needs to be heard. Many people will talk about rhetoric and about truth being variable according to whom you ask, but I'm of the viewpoint that in areas of conflict, it is important to tell these stories and to understand the broad range of perspectives of the conflict.

At the same time, I also think this needs to be balanced by other perspectives, and a critical look at what is rhetoric and what is valid, and how validity can be expressed in a way that gets at the essence of this validity. Life here in conflict relies on people telling different origin stories and trying to convince one to the other's version. The answer for me lies in mutual legitimacy, one that all sides I believe need.

But who am I to say and do such things. I am a US citizen with no power to change these opinions for the people who I believe need to change them. Other than through conversation and through building relationships.

III. The Shuk and Bethlehem University

Our intended next stop was the Omar Mosque across Manger Square, but we were too late for the afternoon visiting times, so we moved on past it into one of the two small walking-only alleyways leading west from the square. There we found a bustling shuk, faster, cleaner, and more eclectic than the Jerusalem and Old City Shuks combined. A shwarma vendor sold us sandwiches for 10 shekhels and an unlimited supply of fixin's, and there were Arabic espresso shot vendors on every corner (who wore ornate metal tankards of hot coffee slung around one shoulder, and a stack of plastic cups around the other). See here and here for a video of our walk down the shuk.

After David and I had devoured our sandwiches, we saw signs leading to Bethlehem University campus, where my friend Mariana Handal lives (who I know from co-leading dialogues for Israeli, Palestinian, South African, Irish, and American youth two summers back). I told David I wanted to check it out, so we did. It was a small but nicely kept campus. There were no people around because it was semester break (and also a Saturday), though we did find a women's volleyball team practicing hard in the auditorium.

As in Ramallah, there was a memorial for martyrs, this time for the Bethlehem alumni.

You can find another video of my time here. Here's a video of looking at the same view I saw a day before, from the other side (excuse my French at the end... didn't mean to swear!).

IV. Felafel and Chicken Kabob in Bethlehem = O.M.G.

There's really nothing that I can say to you right now that will convince you that the felafel and chicken kabob I had on this trip changed my life. And my stomach.

Other than the fact that I made this announcement take up an entire section in this blogpost.

Please, if you would join me in a moment of thinking about the most delectably spiced and balanced felafel and chicken kabob you've ever had, and then amplifying it by about 20 times the delicious.







Non-peer pressure suggestion if you're still not convinced: Get. Some. Palestinian. Food. When. You're. Here.

V. The Security Barrier/Wall, The Palestinian Side, Bethlehem

*Here is a video of my time walking along the wall. If you click to the right beyond the first video, you'll find a couple of photos and other videos from the trip.*

"Lama."

We left the confines of Manger Square and walked toward the north side of town toward where the southern portion of the Jerusalem lies.

"Last Christmas my family decided to go to Jerusalem as we got the Christmas holiday permits from Israel. My father was the first to go through. the IDF soldier in charge asked my father 'Ma ha'shem ha'mishpacha shelcha (What is your family's/last name)?'

My father answered, 'Lama.'"

We arrived at around 4:30 as the sun was setting. It wasn't hard to find. Dark cement blocks clash heavily against the Jerusalem rock that characterizes the exterior of almost every house in Israel and the West Bank.

Plus, in case we got lost, everyone in town knew about it.

For those who call this a security fence, this is a moment where you should not call it as such. This, at its most politically correct, was a solid cement barrier.

"The soldier repeated the question and my father gave the same answer, 'Lama.'"

The barrier/wall was covered with murals and spray paint from various artists, revolutionaries, people who wanted to spray something that had been there before. Much of the wall bordered buildings in Bethlehem; there was no land in between to make a 'security barrier.' It wound around a seemingly arbitrary line that was drawn in the dirt of a coffee-stained map somewhere. With the wall wound a road cut in half in the sense that it could only hold one car comfortably.

I wondered as we walked about the process of choosing this line, the process of building the barrier/wall, the process of adapting to its presence, and what was on the other side. I began to feel claustrophobic at my wonderings, especially when a car came by, and more especially when two came by going opposite directions respectively.

This was not a light topic.

"The soldier lost patience and kept asking, repeating the same question."

Upon the wall were also stories from Palestinians in Bethlehem about living with the wall and the presence of the IDF in their daily lives. It was organized by a creative narrative project run by the Arab Educational Initiative called "The Wall Museum." Check out all of the stories here. They're quite interesting and illuminating of the many different narratives and perspectives from beyond the wall.

I read many of them. One of them stuck out to both me and David and we both laughed at it.

Out of the fact that it was quite the perfect misunderstanding, given the current situation.

"The soldier started shouting. People started crying and no one knew what was happening."

As we kept walking through the creative bastion that had become the Palestinian side of the barrier/wall, we continued to find more examples of how Palestinians had adapted to the presence of the barrier/wall. Here was one example, which made both me and David laugh again.

As we continued down a hill, the wall snaked around a single house on the other side of the road following the wall. This was an odd thing to us. But we didn't think much of it.

Turns out later that on the other side of that wall was Rachel’s Tomb, a holy location for Jews and Muslims. Take a look at this map for reference. No Palestinian living in the West Bank can go there because they are fenced off. When we visited a few days later, no Muslim was there because the holy mosque attached to it cannot be accessed by anyone for security reasons.

The Jewish side of the tomb has a holy shrine for women and men. According to its website, it is visited by thousands of Jews every day. The site also welcomes everyone regardless of nationality or religion.

While I was there, however, a soldier came up to me and asked me “What the hell I was doing there” in Hebrew. I told him I was Jewish and from the United States. He walked on.

We decided to turn around, then. It was getting late and we had to move toward Beit Jalah to meet a couple friends of ours.

"The captain of the checkpoint came in quite a hurry to investigate the issue. He questioned my father again, "What is your family's name?" My father answered again in a very polite way, 'Lama.'"

I have to be honest. The intense back and forth feelings I felt toward this barrier brought me a great deal of emotion. The official military order for this section of the wall (parcel 53) was passed in 2003, and the sections of the wall we walked that day were placed in 2004. This project was something made in the name of security as a result of the suicide bombings during the Second Intifada. Many Israelis and Jews all over the globe attribute it as a major factor for the safe conditions in Israel currently. Many Palestinians and some other Israelis will remark that there are gaping holes in the line and that there are many ways to bypass the checkpoints and the barrier in general. "If someone wanted to come into Israel and wreak havoc, they could if they really wanted to." "When I get bored of checkpoints, I just walk through the holes I know and catch a bus into town." Others will point to the fact that the barrier is being constructed in a way that intentionally cuts off communities from each other, or intentionally cuts off a community from their farmlands that they've owned for generations. Others will debunk this theory and say that it's impossible to maintain security without compromising these issues. More others will point to the fact that the majority of Israeli deaths over the past 7 years have come from Israelis, not from Palestinians living the West Bank and Gaza. Others will attribute Abbas and the culture shift of protesting nonviolently when he took leadership over the PA. Others will…

The debate goes on, and this wall still stands. It was a crushing moment for me, who believes in relationships as a way for people to understand each other and work together, to see this reality.

In my opinion, I think everyone who made any claims to either side as a uniform understanding of the truth of this solution, to put it lightly, incredibly naive.

I don’t think it’s possible to say anything with confidence until you go somewhere, see it, feel it, experience it, and talk about it. And then, after this, you can't know that what you experienced was completely true. So how can an Israeli make a decision like this and be correct? How can a Palestinian whose life is affected by this every day be correct about all Israelis needing to leave all of Israel?

What I do know from that time on the wall was that it brought to me all the questions that I know are truly unanswerable as long as people start to think about them according to one viewpoint or another. As I stood there wallowing in the negativity emanating from this place, a clear thought came ringing to the surface: The longer people start to say that a solution without a comprehensive and open outlook toward the real issues on the ground for all people affected in this conflict, the longer a barrier will suffocate, the longer religious sites will be split instead of shared, the longer anger will be thrown through rocks and tear gas, the longer the violence, the longer the dehumanization, the longer people will be killed mercilessly by the ones and by the hundreds, the longer the pain will grow inside of anyone affected by all of this.

A solution of suppression and fear, to me, is built upon the people who feel it, and is resolved between all who do.

It was a clear thought, and with it comes what I see as yet another incomplete answer based on only what I know to be true up until this point. I’ll probably learn many other things that will render this thought more concrete in the future.

Maybe you have one that I'm not seeing.

"After some moments the captain realized what the problem was. The word Lama in Hebrew meant, 'Why.' In fact, a good question at checkpoints."

I'd be interested in your thoughts on why as well.

VI. The Palestinians We Met

"Things are very bad for us Arabs. In Egypt, very bad. In Syria, very bad. In Saudi Arabia, girls are getting suppressed for who they are. Very very bad."

Nadir was speaking to us on a bench looking toward the ornate rugs of the Omar Mosque's prayer room. We asked him about his thoughts toward his life in Palestine.

"You know, I have a business leading people in tours around Manger Square and also a side business selling paper. I make ends meet. My children go to school--one of them is in University now *I couldn't remember what Nadir told us he studied*. I am not rich, but I have enough, insha'allah (as god wills it). Our lives here are hard, but we live."

"Mm. What do you wish for in the Arab people?"

"We need to get better. We need to start to buy into progress together and work together. We are all too divided. We need to work together more."

"And what do you wish for in the future?"

He pauses for a couple of seconds.

"I just want to live my life and provide happiness for my family."

~~~~~

"Hallo do you need a tour here?"

"La7, shukran. E7na mnee7." I turn back to the billboard of the PA's history of the conflict.

"Ok. Min wen inta (where are you from?)?"

"Min America."

"Wallah (Awesome). What do you think of this history that you're reading?"

"Well, I think it's interesting. If you want my honest opinion, I think some of it is good and some of it isn't good. I think all histories are open to interpretation, and also depend on who you talk to."

"Ah. Do you think this one is true?"

"Parts of it, yes. Parts of it, no."

"Why?"

"Well, I know the history of this conflict from many different viewpoints and I also know histories are created in particular ways to prove a point or to prove one side is right and one side is wrong. So I know that some of the claims on here are like that, but not all of them! I still think it's good overall."

"Ah. Well then I guess you can say this is our version of history then."

"Yes, and in that right I think it's good to know. I just won't think it as completely true."

"I (am?) like you. Listen. If you ever want a taxi tour for anywhere in the West Bank, give me a call at this number."

"Thank you. I'll definitely do that. Shoo ismik (what's your name)?"

"Osama."

"Ahlan wa sahlan (great to meet you), ismi Hasan."

~~~~~~

"Have you lived in Al Ayda your entire life?"

"Yes my entire life."

"Tell me a story about your life here."

"A story?" He asked me.

"Yes, any one. Good, bad, hard, easy, funny."

He pauses for a minute taking in a bit of the apple flavored hookah. The loud music in the night club pumped onward around us.

"Well, I work at a restaurant here in Bethlehem. There was an Italian group that came into the restaurant once and told me they were staying here for the next three days. They also asked me to teach them to count to 10 in Arabic. I said it was a deal if I would learn how to count to 10 in Italian. So for the first day we each learned 1 to 3, then 4 to 6, then 7 to 10. So I learned all of the numbers in Italian. The thing is I didn't teach them numbers. I taught them each the worst words to say in Arabic, like f*** and sh** and such."

I laugh.

"So we went on like this for the three days, and at the end we each shook each others' hands and thanked one another. The last person in the group came up to me and shook my hand and said the following: 'I thank you so much for teaching our group the numbers. The trouble is I know how to speak Arabic fluently, so I told them what you were teaching them, and they learned the correct ones from me. But, it was a pretty good laugh for all of us. Thank you for making our stay more fun.'"

"That's hilarious."

"Yeah I didn't expect it."

"So this is the first time I've seen apple flavored argilah (hookah)."

"Yeah? I like it the best."

"I like lemon mint."

"Hah. It's good but it's not as good as this. Lemon mint is for light folks."

"Oh well-- I still like it. Let me try the apple."

I take a breath from the nozzle.

"Dang you're not kidding. I feel like I'm suffocating in there."

We laugh together. Then return to the bump and pop of the dubstep club around us.

~~~~~~

"Afwan, Wen il-bar 'Cheers?'"

"The bar Cheers?"

"Ayweh."

"Ah, hadah *@*)!()! fdapui."

"Sorry I don't understand."

"It's just down the street. In fact, my nephew is about to go down there with a shipment of Taybeh; let me see if he'll take you both there."

"Oh wow. Thank you!"

"My other nephew runs the bar down there."

"That's cool. Have you lived in Bethlehem your entire life?"

"Yes, entire life. From where are you?"

"I'm from the United States, he's from Canada."

"Oh the US. I spent some time in New York."

"Oh yeah? And for what?"

"I went to a conference there in the UN."

"Wow! What was that for?"

"It was the annual conference for indigenous peoples from across the globe."

"Woah, that's quite an honor."

"Yes, it was."

"How did you like New York?"

"I hated it! Too many people, too many buildings, too many noises."

"I agree with you. I lived there for a year."

"A year? I couldn't last for a day!"

We both laugh.

"Is your whole family here?"

"Yes, the whole family."

There's a silence during which he looks distant and I wonder if I should ask him about living on the other side of the wall. But we're interrupted.

"Here he is. Elias, would you mind giving these two guys a ride to Cheers?"

"Sure! Come on in."

~~~~~~~~

"So what do you do Elias?"

"I lead tours in Bethlehem."

"Oh yeah? What's the company?"

"Holy Land Tours."

"I've never heard of it."

"Ah, well we're an organization that shows tourists the main sites in Palestine and try to paint as balanced a picture as we can of the situation over here."

"Cool! How do you do that?"

"Well we don't skirt around the issues here. We realized as we started to show people sites in Palestine that we had to show what's going on in the Palestinian territories up close and center."

"Ah so you're talking about places like Hebron."

"Yes, that and here in Bethlehem too."

"Right."

"We just feel that we must educate what we can while we're here and start to have the tough conversations about life here."

"We're doing something kind of similar."

"Oh yes? Tour guides?"

"No. We're on a program that has us living in West Jerusalem, but we take Hebrew and Arabic classes, learn about the complexities and problems in Jerusalem and also in the West Bank, work with organizations in the area that do peace and social justice work in Jerusalem, and take trips on our own like we're doing now to actually see it in action."

"That's great. What work are you doing?"

"We're both working at a joint Israeli-Palestinian school in the southern part of Jerusalem on the green line that teaches a trilingual and multi-lens version of history. David works at a theater company that gets together Israelis and Palestinians through theater, and I am working at a youth chorus that gets together Israeli and Palestinian youth through vocal music."

"Wallah. This is the type of work we need here."

"We think so too."

"Well this is Cheers."

"Thank you so much for the ride Elias; we really appreciate it."

"No problem. Here's my card. If you want to go on one of our tours contact me. Or next time you're in Bethlehem let's meet up."

"Will do."


VII. Through the Deserted Bethlehem Checkpoint, and A Short Reflection on Security

It had been a day full of experiences, and both of us were well spent. After kicking it with Line, Marie, and Anna (Dutch girls we chilled with in Ramallah), we took the 20 shekhel taxi ride back to the 300 checkpoint. Nothing much to report about Bethlehem nightlife on the street. It was much like a school night in downtown Chapel Hill, with the sparse partiers here or there, and the soft lights from convenient stores splotching the windows as we passed.

After paying the servees driver, we approached the 300 checkpoint. It was in an alleyway without any signs, discernable only by the metal caging that lined the sides of the "entrance" and "exit." Since we didn't know which was which, we guessed that the right-hand one was the entrance.

This was our second official walkthrough, so we felt a little more equipped, but still were expecting it to be just as crazy and perhaps confusing as the first time.

Instead, the caging opened to a courtyard on the other side. To the left a fence. To the right a road leading through the wall and out North towards Jerusalem. In front, another set of New York City-like 7 foot hight metal turnstiles through an outdoor hallway.

We chose the hallway (obviously) which led to a half-lit warehouse of a room. There were three main gates. David and I tried the first one, but it was locked. The second one, locked. The third one, locked.

We had heard that checkpoints sometimes closed without warning. "I'm so tired, man," David said to me after the third gate didn't budge. "At this point I don't care about anything but getting home tonight."  "Yeah. I'm not going to be happy if we have to spend some time figuring out where to stay tonight."

All of that said, we didn't know  This would be interesting.

After a couple of "hello?"s and a stronger retrying of the first and second gate, we approached the third gate and somehow this time it opened to the same airport-security/conveyer belt/metal detector situation as Qalandiya. We put all of our stuff through the conveyor belt, walked through the metal detector and waited for someone to check us, but no one was there. In fact, no one was even checking the computer that read what was inside of our bags.

This was weird.

We collected our stuff, strided past four "interrogation rooms" to our left (a scene made-up by my mind flashed before my eyes of a man being called into one of the rooms and asked what his family name was), and found a lone soldier with a large gun patrolling behind what looked very much like the customs booths at Ben Gurion. This was a funny scene. Would he be taking our passports?

"Eifoh anachnu tzrachim lalechet (Where should we go?)?" I asked him. He responded with a grunt and a point of the gun toward one of the customs booths that housed a recently awakened Israeli woman.

She stretched her arms up to become more awake. "Passport and visa please," which we gave to her in turn. This was a much nicer experience than Qalandiya. There was no line, it was not outside, and the border guards were both quite hospitable. We both passed without a problem, she went back to her dozing, and we went up the road to catch an Egged bus.

The checkpoints continue to be an interesting and varied experience. While in the South Hebron hills, I was pulled aside because I had left my passport at home (but fortunately had my passport number with me). They ran me through a conveyor belt and called the central intelligence ministry to look me up. I passed through in five minutes. Again I was left with the question: what if I had grown up in Pakistan or had lived in Iran for a time and happened to be Jewish? Would it have been a more extensive process?

"This is the reality. People around us are threats. While I'm sorry about your experience coming into the country, we must err on the side of security lest one of these people that we let in be the one that hurts us."

This is the reality I live in, one where people judge first and ask questions later. It is a culture of judgment and then (if they feel like it) genuine questioning.

VIII. Rachel's Tomb

And now, for something completely related.

A week later, after my work at Hand in Hand/The Jerusalem Youth Chorus, after three more Hebrew lessons and an Arabic lesson, after meeting up with Justus Baird a supervisor from my old interfaith camp, after studying the complex contradictions posed by Israel's vague Declaration of Independence (sound familiar USA?), David and I wanted to take a Friday to go to Rachel's Tomb.

For those who don't know, Rachel is a prominent figure in the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran. She is the preferred wife of Jacob (he had two--Rachel and Leah), the mother of Joseph, and the woman who kept Jacob alive by offering him the bucket of water she had just fetched from a nearby well. Her legacy is a strong holy connection for Jews because of her direct lineage, and also because of Judaism's emphasis on connected back to our people's history through faith and intention.

We went back to the bus stop we had taken the weekend before and crossed the street to wait for the 163, the only way to get to Rachel's Tomb other than with your own car. There are no sidewalks that lead to the tomb.

Here's why. Take a look at this map, and this map, of the separation barrier in Bethlehem. Rachel's burial place is actually on the northern side of Bethlehem on Hebron Road that leads from the south of Jerusalem. But, as you can see, this northern side of Bethlehem is not in Bethlehem. Instead, there is a giant divot in the middle of the wall to ensure that Israelis wishing to enter the tomb can with sufficient protection (No Israeli is allowed in Area A, aka Bethlehem. In the Oslo accords, Rachel's Tomb fell into Area C, where Israelis have full jurisdiction).

What is most astounding about this situation is that all of the murals and stories I described above on the claustrophobic road we were on was exactly the divot of Rachel's Tomb. The house that sat in the middle of the wall where I postulated why this occurred was the house pointed out in this map.

The answer to my question of what was on the other side: an Israeli military base.

*Shortpost: Al Aida Camp. On the other side of an Islamic cemetery, Al Aida Refugee camp sits just west of Rachel's Tomb. This is an area that the Israeli military continually patrols because there had been several 'attacks' from the camp during the second intifada (I put attacks in quotations because many times when there are "attacks," there are actually provocations from both sides that lead to escalations... but I"m not in the mood to go way into the semantics and he-said-she-said here... it's too exhausting; suffice it to say this is a vague moment in second intifada history). In fact, this was a significant place for many Palestinian demonstrations in the second intifada, some more violent (rocks) than others.

I have met two Americans working with refugees in the camp at the Lajee cultural center which runs several activities for the members of the refugee camp throughout the year. They both say that the people in the camp often laugh about the presence of the IDF in the camp throughout the day, as if they want to pick a fight. They also report that there is more tension in the camp than they had felt ever before being there, both from the IDF's consistent presence, and also from the Palestinians within the camps' borders.

The IDF has also been documented in ransacking the cultural center several times in order to 'check' for security issues. An ex-soldier reported that sometimes these 'checks' were not checks. They "were explicitly told that they were there just to make their presence as a power known."

The refugee camps are not tents anymore, but a system of very closely stacked and closely situated buildings. It's like the Old City in that the roads only fit one car, and the buildings must build up in order to fit the capacity of the people that live there. The camp now houses over 5,000 people in .71 square kilometers. Proportionally that's around 20,000 people in one square mile, about 7,000 people lower than New York City proper. The goal was to provide short-term housing until the conflict ended/until people could afford better property. So far this hasn't happened.*

Coming into the tomb we were surrounded by cement walls. Here is a video tracking our way out to give you a sense of it.

It being Friday, there were many many Orthodox women and men on the bus chatting actively. After we got off the bus, we walked into the male-only entrance. Males and females pray separately in Jewish tradition, and thus there was a separation up to cater to the most religious. There we found many davening (praying) the afternoon prayer. At the risk of being disrespectful, I took a brief video of the scene inside the tomb. You can see the large structure in the center as where Rachel's remains are lain.

I also davened mincha while I was there and got up close to the giant structure. I touched it and I felt two things: connection and rejection. Connection because this was an ancestor from both my mother's and father's lineage. Rejection because I know Muslims can no longer visit this spot because of the measures taken by the IDF toward the violence that transpired here in the 2000s.

There is also an interesting debate talking about whether or not this area was a mosque back in the day. Here's what Israelis have to say about it ("It is a travesty of UNESCO's goals to rewrite history in the service of those who want to eradicate Jewish culture from the Middle East... and uproot the connection between the nation of Israel and its cultural heritage."). On the other side of the coin, it is well known that Muslims have a connection to Rachel: I was told the exact same story about Rachel learning in a mosque as I was at Hebrew school. It's true, Rachel was not Muslim (yet neither was she 'Jewish' at the time...) but her lineage is also honored and written in Islamic stories/lore.

It is a hard reality to experience for me. Really very hard. I can't say that I don't think Israel did the wrong thing, but I also can't say that it did the right one. This area continues to be separated, and both sides continue to insist they are correct.

Outside, I took a video of the surroundings. The man who approaches me at the end asked me "Ma atah oseh?" (What are you doing). I couldn't understand him so I asked "Ma?" He repeated the question. And I still couldn't understand him. He repeated the question and I told him that I didn't understand in English. He waved me off and walked past me.

I'm unsure if I'm right when I say the following things. But I'm pretty sure he saw me with a camera. And he saw me as an Arab who had come here to video tape. And it was his job to keep this area secure.

I'm tired of arguing about who is more right. And I'm tired of being grouped into identities.

How about we give it to both of them, base this solution on an interfaith conversation, educate people on the ground on both sides that, honestly, you need to get used to people different from you, stop all the god damned violence from the IDF, stop all the victimization and counter-violence by Palestinians, and remember that beyond all of this, this is a beautiful land filled with people from all walks of life and not just those that threaten or those that are part of my group?

In my heart I am hurt. Because I know this question is still a long way away from being even addressed.

Is this demand of my two lineages too Western of me to ask? Is it truly possible?

Regardless. I'm not sorry for thinking it.

Week #3: Old Friends, Getting Lost, Mount Scopus/Hebrew U/Hadassah, and a Further Delving into the Arab-Israeli conflict in Jerusalem

Almost there guys. I'm almost caught up enough to breeze to the present and let you know what I'm up to every couple of days!

So breeze on I will:

I. Old Friends in E. Jerusalem and Labeling
II. Getting Lost Twice but Finding Everything
III. Hebrew University and Hadassah on Mt. Scopus (This one's for the history buffs, and for anyone who went to Hebrew U)
IV. Jerusalem's Complexities Continued: East Jerusalem Tour of Arab Neighborhoods

I. Old Friends in E. Jerusalem and Labeling

One of my goals here is to reconnect with everyone that I can who I know in Israel and Palestine alike.

So, when Sameh Aweadah and Hani Salman agreed to meet with me after my weekend in Ramallah that Saturday night, I was ecstatic. These are two people that I worked with at a peace camp a couple of summers back, and two people that I LOVE with a genuine passion for our short time together there.

Then again, I tend to love a lot of people with a genuine passion when I get to know them.

David and I met Sameh and Hani at a local place in East Jerusalem just North of the Damascus Gate. There we joked about our difficulties speaking Arabic and English respectively, and caught each other up on our current whereabouts.

And, inevitably, every conversation in Jerusalem gets around to a conflict somehow.

The thing I love about Sameh is how honest and strong his opinion is. I know that in any discussion I have with him directly, I will not be able to sway his opinion, but that afterwards he goes home and thinks about what I said and come back either with a change of heart or with a new discussion to spark.

Enter one of these discussions:

"I think you cannot be Muslim or socialist at the same time."

To my American ears, this claim struck a discordant chord. Of course there were socialist undertones in Islam! You could definitely pick and choose from Islam and apply it to your socialist ideology and vice versa.

"What are you talking about Sameh? Of course you can."

"No you can't. If you're a Muslim, you abide by Muslim law which directly contradicts socialist ideologies."

"Maybe," pipes in Hani, "but are you saying you cannot take some elements of Islam and not accept others, and in this you can still be a socialist?"

"Yeah," David and I say.

"I mean you can definitely take the portions of the Qur'an that talk about giving to those who are in need and loving thy neighbor as thyself and apply them to socialist ideology," I continue.

"No you can't."

As I said, a man of his opinion.

"Why do you think that?" David asked.

"Listen, I understand what you are saying, taking small aspects from each or not applying ideology here or there to fit into your own identity. But I don't consider you to be a Muslim by religion if you don't follow the rules and society within Islam. Socialism is a society where everyone is able to take part in the different parts of society. Islam inhibits women from doing this. By definition, a Muslim cannot be a socialist. For example. I am a Muslim because my parents were, and that's it. But I am pretty solely socialist, and my wife does not have to follow the discrepancies in Islam, but more according toward socialist ideals."

"Ah, I see what you mean," Hani answered. "I think I agree with you, though I think you can still identify as a Muslim religiously and take part in particular rights."

We continued to debate on this point for the next 15 minutes, with Hani, myself and David postulating counterpoints to this strong point.

Why do I include this conversation? It's one in a string of many I've had with people here. For people here, religion is something that truly colors identity in a way that Westerners who pick and choose their identities according to an assortment of ideals and practices just do not understand. The fact that I got asked at the border about my Muslim name is somewhat an extension of this, and the confusion about my being Jewish with this name also confirms the confusion that occurs when a "picker and chooser" does not follow what would ordinarily be a straightforward identity path.

I still disagree with Sameh's interpretation of identity, but I respect his opinion. The strength in his assertion is a result of a society here of labeling who you are in relation to them, and the notion of one's identity here as telling to what your actions or beliefs are. Perhaps this is a human thing, to know how one person relates to us, but I'm becoming aware of how quick this process is in Israel, and then how quick a person here in Israel or Palestine chooses to act based on how you answer them or they perceive you to be.

I'll give you a tangible example of the perception: while postering for the Jerusalem Youth Choir (a high school chorus made up of Palestinians and Israelis), I walked into the Dan Panorama, where the security guard started speaking harshly to me in Arabic "lah, lah, lah, shoo inta bidi? (no no no what do you want?)" as if I were not worthy of the Dan Panorama (the irony behind this was that my mother, brother, and I stayed there our first time in Israel--I responded that I was American in fact and spoke Hebrew). I went to the front desk where he spoke to me in English and he set down some posters in the poster section.

I exited and walked up the street, where a woman stopped me and asked me in Hebrew, "S'licha, atah yodeah eifoh hamispar shalosh me'ot v'chamishim barechov hazeh?" (Excuse me, do you know where the number 350 is on this road?)" I answered "Lo, ani lo yodea, slicha ve'mazal tov" (No I don't know sorry. Good luck).

Walking into Primo Kings half a block later, the security guard asked me in Hebrew, "Ma atah oseh?" (what are you doing?) and I responded "Yesh li posterim l'concert b'yom hashishi she'ani rotzeh lateit lachem (I have posters for a concert on Friday that I would like to give to you all). The passing hotel worker made eye contact with me and quipped, "Marhaba, kif ha'alik? Mabsoot?" in Arabic (hey, what's up? You happy?), to which I responded, in my limited Arabic, "Ayweh, mabsoot shukran, oo inta?" (Yes, I'm happy, thank you, and you?) and he responded in turn. The desk worker, who had not heard any of these interactions, asked me after all of this, "Can I help you?"

Needless to say... I am a genuine source of confusion here because of this culture of labeling in combination with this culture of quickness. Most people I've come into contact with are used to making an assumption about one's identity quickly and approaching them in that way; it's a part of the culture here. For my own identity, I do have to do a bit of explaining before they understand why I speak much more Hebrew than Arabic, I am from the US, and I am Jewish.

II. Getting Lost Twice But Finding Much

I love to get lost when I'm in a new place.

But getting lost in Jerusalem is freaking scary, because it can happen so very easily, and there are some vital times you can't find a person who knows where you need to go.

I had taken the Sunday afternoon to go to Teddy Stadium to check out the rock climbing wall there and to the Jerusalem Mall to strike up some old Ramah Seminar memories. At around 3:50 I started to walk back from the mall to my home. This is the route I should have taken.

This is the actual route that I took.

When you look on a map, you think "How could you do that Hasan? How could you mess this up so badly?"

In my mom's case, she'd ask, "Huh, maybe we should start to invest in a different family navigator."

Well, dear readers, this is how: Jerusalem has hills that mask wherever streets are going and causes them to go in completely inane and unpredictable directions, not all streets are marked and I don't have a smart phone.

Thus, I got a nice tour of the Jewish College for Girls and walked straight through the Yeshiva University.

I also took this video to share a nice little viewpoint I found somewhere in all this.

Later in the week I was supposed to take the bus from here to here while postering around town.

Instead, I took the bus from here to here, and walked from here to here.

And, just when I thought I had wasted precious postering time, I found Bob Gutman's home away from home: the Shalom Hartman Institute, whose adjoining schools accepted my posters with open arms!

So the new saying will go now: when lost in Jerusalem trying to do something important, you can find something else important, at the very least.

Or you'll be scared and lost.

III. Hebrew University Campus and Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus

Going back to my first post about the limits in the land, I mentioned briefly Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, and now I want to speak about it more. A lot of people who look at the weird green block in the '67 line around Jerusalem and say "what's that all about?" I had the same question, and over the course of several conversations with people/a small amount of research, I have some very imperfect history in addition to some imperfect observations.

Oh, I mention all this because I went there to poster for this concert and I was really fascinated by what I saw there.

Ok, now for some imperfect history:

The Mt. Scopus area was originally purchased in 1916 from the British owned Gray Hill Estate. The University started from this Estate following its inauguration in 1917. It was an early Zionist vision to establish a Jewish University in the holy city. Designed by Sir Patrick Geddess and Frank Meers, the first three buildings (Wolfson National Library, Mathematics Institute, and the Physics Institute) were erected in 1920.

From the beginning, Hebrew U has brought academics and students from all different backgrounds to its center in the pursuit of higher education. This is and has always been a place where anyone can study, regardless of the headlining name.

I experienced this first hand as I raided the different poster boards in the area. In my time snooping around, I ran into American exchange students joking with Muslim Palestinian women and men at the small coffee shop in the Administration Building/Student Center, watched a Haredi man say excuse me to the group as he hurried to who knows where, and found some Israelis furiously typing on their computers (it was finals week).

Truly a really wonderful place at the outset, but as you know here, what is not said is another degree of the reality (e.g: I didn't see Palestinians and Israelis together on campus, despite they are both a part of the campus life and on campus). I plan to return to when I can to act like a student while I do some covert observing.

As a side note, it's really nice now to be a person that has the 'luxury' to choose when I want to be on an university campus. I live next to the other Hebrew U. Definitely gonna work at their library/run up their stadium stairs just like I did back in UNC (woooo acknowledging and taking advantage of your privilege).

Hadassah has an equally compelling and interesting history. It also has very similar attitude toward diversity/pluralism, and as such, a very similar group of diversity moments. Though created as a Jewish entity in , the fact that its creators are Jewish is its only real tie to the religion. From the Mt. Scopus' campus' inception until 1948 and then again from 1975 until the present (from 1948 to 1967 Jordan declared it a demilitarized enclave and because of political reasons, was rendered unoperable; following '67 when Israel acquired the West Bank from Jordan, it renovated the campus until its eventual re-opening in 1975), the hospital catered to all people of all backgrounds and ages. "Medicine knows no identity," was definitely pertinent to this location.

Fun fact: my great-uncle was there when Hadassah reopened. There's a story somewhere about him cutting a ribbon that opened a building too during the same trip. You go great uncle!

Ok. So why am I mentioning this?

Let's go back to the original question. Look at the little green block here and there. It's square in the middle of East Jerusalem and surrounded by Arab neighborhoods. What is that all about?

So the University and hospital continued to function throughout all of the conflicts in the area. In 1947/48, things got hot and heavy, and both campuses abandoned their actions. After the ceasefire and the eventual negotiation in 1949, Jordan and Israel agreed to allow an access road to the Mount Scopus campus, and Hebrew U continued as it did before the war. Hadassah, as mentioned before, did not return until '67 because it became so inconvenient to continue its operations, and so they moved to this location in Ein Kerem, West Jerusalem.

All right. That's cool. Are you done?

No.

But Hebrew U and Hadassah are in that green block. I get it. Can't we move on?

No. We haven't addressed two things: what is Issawiya doing in there and the relationship between Hebrew U and French Hill.

Issawiya has been there since 1838. It has moved slightly because of development. The neighborhood where Hebrew U bought the land that was on the outskirts of Issawiya, then, and is now directly next to it because of development.

Another notable thing about this area is the French Hill neighborhood. Notice that it seems to connect this green block to West Jerusalem. This was intentional. The Israeli government after '67 decided to utilize the land that they found themselves in control over (annexed, conquered, liberated... whatever your word choice is) in order to start solidifying Israel against future attacks (in addition to other concerns, but this one was at the root). So, the Israeli government decided to reach out to an area they owned during the entire period between '48 and '67 but had difficulty developing to its potential: Mount Scopus. Thus, French Hill was born, and became the first actual township/settlement built and inhabited across the green line.

So, Hebrew U had an indirect hand to the beginning of settlements/townships across the green line so as to provide a safe and secure way for Israelis to access Mount Scopus, an area that was Jewishly owned for the good of the surrounding public. The Mt. Scopus Hadassah area was renovated in the meantime as well because of the results of the '67 war, and became a center for everyone in the Jerusalem area regardless of race.

I haven't touched that though Palestinians on the other side of the wall are welcome to these two places... the nature of checkpoints and the laws in Israel make it very hard to get to these locations. This isn't to say Hebrew U denies Palestinians admission or Hadassah denies Palestinians. I'm talking here about what the wall and the current state of affairs in the West Bank does for people who want to take advantage of these resources, which are, by their charter and creed, open to the public.

That paragraph needs to be longer, cause this is not a simple situation. But in particular contexts, I think I need to say that this moment, to me, emphasizes some of the costs and inevitable contradictions in maintaining the current occupation/state of Israeli military actions in the West Bank,

while at the same time billing oneself as a Jewish state as democratic and seeking to promote the work of organizations that will enact this ideal by serving everyone in the area that it can.

As David Sklar says in his blogpost: How can a country with so many contradictions, so many groups, communities, and people purposely pulling in opposite directions, move forward?

I don't think I have an answer that will address everything. I don't think anyone, truly, does. So the best I can do is give you snippets.

IV. Jerusalem Complexities Continued: East Jerusalem Tour of Arab Neighborhoods

My group and I went on a tour with Ir Amim, an organization whose explicit goal is to educate people on the social and political issues that impact the Jerusalem municipality and thereby the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This was a bus tour of the different areas, starting from Gilo in the south and going to Shu'afat in the north east. Our route went something like this.

I know. Most of you on first glance see Ir Amim as another leftist group that seeks to push an agenda of peace and reconciliation. While this is true, I found the tour brutally honest about many things that a leftist group would probably not admit or do on a tour. Here are a few:

1) The tour guide was Israeli with an incredible American English accent (or maybe she was American and made Aliyah with her family when she was young... I can't remember). Throughout the process, she emphasized how scary it was to live through the Second Intifada. "While I waited for the bus, I wondered if this one would be my last."
2) She said she feels "relieved that the wall is in place, as it keeps my family safe."
3) Whenever she talked about Israel, she said the words "we."
4) She said that she'd feel uncomfortable if the wall were located on the green line. "It wouldn't be safe enough."

This all said, here is another snippet of this tour. It's eight minutes long and shows a little bit of the complexities with the Arab neighborhoods within Jerusalem.

In addition to this snippet, she talked about the same things I had been talking about in the past: East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods have significantly less municipal services in their neighborhoods as compared to Israeli Jewish neighborhoods (an urban planner pointed out water barrels on the top of Arab houses in these houses; a person told me these are for when running water does not come, or when there is dirty/unclean water through the pipes). Trash in these neighborhoods are piled high. Comparatively, Israeli neighborhoods have people who pick up this trash as their job (a high number of which are Palestinian Arabs). The same cannot be said for Arab neighborhoods.

These are all realities, but then she said something that, again, a leftist organization would not say: "The authorities in the Jerusalem municipality are aware of this, and over the past four years they have continually said that it's a problem they need to address. This is significant as this problem had never been acknowledged before. This type of thing takes time, of course, and logistics can sometimes be a burden to enacting this image. Ir Amim just wants you to get a sense of the complexity of this issue by letting you see that it still is a problem to be addressed, regardless of what the municipality is saying."

On education: "Arab schools learn under the Jordanian curriculum because the families didn't want their kids learning at an Israeli school." *note: my placement at Yad B'yad is trying to combat this trend!* "This is all well and good, but there is right now a huge classroom and school shortage in E. Jerusalem, and this has been the case over the past 20 years. Right now there are 40 psychologists on call in W. Jerusalem schools vs. 10 psychologists in the overcrowded E. Jerusalem schools. In that time, the municipality has built several parks and neighborhoods for Jewish people to live over the green line."

Again, take into account the paragraph before.

On the separation wall/security fence (cement boundary... whatever you want to call it). The woman talked about how the boundary definitely helped curb the attacks and violence in Israel proper, but that there were other factors to this trend as well: "There was a complete culture shift in Arab resistance from the West Bank when Arafat died in 2004. Arafat was a proponent of armed resistance whereas Abbas, the current prime minister, supported nonviolent resistance. A lot of Israelis will say that they have violent Palestinians already behind bars. But since Abbas has been Prime Minister, he too has jailed countless Palestinians who have committed significant acts of violence (everything from murder to bombs). This has also been a significant factor in why there was a drop in attacks. Sure now people are throwing rocks, but it is not as significant as it was back during the Second Intifada because of Abbas' crackdown on violence from the Palestinians in the West Bank."

Somehow, Israel and the Palestinian Authority are working together in a way that isn't very readily apparent.

On housing demolitions: "Housing demolitions occur from W. Jerusalem to E. Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, it is illegal to develop without the state's permission, as it is all state-owned land, so if there is any illegal building, then it is destroyed. The reason is both environmental and also because the municipality wants to curb population explosions. This is changing: over the last five years the land is becoming more privatized in a specifically Jewish way.

The after-effect of all of this is the following: E. Jerusalem often needs to develop or to build beyond their communities, but Jerusalem puts a cap on anything above a particular *small* percent of the current buildings in E. Jerusalem. E. Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods have populations that are growing much faster than that of W. Jerusalem, and they have less space for the amount of people living there, so you would think that the municipality would proportionally allow this, but they don't. Thus, more demolitions happen on the E. Jerusalem side for this very reason. 70% more actually. Israelis over the green line get permits to build easier because they do not grow or build at as fast a rate, or because the government had a plan for them."

The tour was definitely enlightening as most of these tours have been thus far... but I left wanting to talk with a person in charge of security, or a person on the development board.

A new quest is born, and with it, a new blog post in the future!

Week #3: Hasan's Volunteer Work

Aha! I have caught up enough to answer the long-held question:

WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU REALLY DOING IN ISRAEL?

Well, here's a snapshot!

I. Hasan Bhatti, Music Advisor/Organizer for the Jerusalem Youth Chorus
II. Hasan Bhatti, English Teacher and Volunteer for Yad B'Yad
III. Hasan Bhatti, One Time Volunteer/Barterer for Al Jebel Afterschool, and The Spoken Word Poem I Wrote About It
IV. Hasan Bhatti, Searching for One More Placement

I. Hasan Bhatti, Volunteer for the Jerusalem Youth Chorus

As part of the program I'm on, each of us has our own individual placements that we work with for two to three days a week. As I had indicated on my fundraising pages, I wanted to utilize ultimate and vocal music as a way to bring youth and Israeli, Palestinian, Israeli-Arab, etc. together.

So fancy that when I found the Jerusalem Youth Chorus run out of the Jerusalem International YMCA (whose plaque indicates its intention quite clearly as peace and reconciliation through communal programming) that brought Israelis, Palestinians, and immigrants together through vocal music.

And fancy that when I, the vocal musician + community organizer + youth educator, decided I'd like this to be one of my placements. Fortunately they had a volunteer spot open, and so I jumped right in.

Micah Hendler, the person who started and now directs the chorus, was a Seeds of Peace camper and counselor. He found his calling in high school and college through vocal music. "It's just the way that I found myself relating to other people in the world." The chorus was a project he did as part of his independent study thesis at Yale and he decided shortly afterward that if he had spent this much time thinking about this idea, he had better put it into action. After a skype call with the International YMCA, the CEO said he loved the idea and thus the Jerusalem Youth Chorus was born.

I went to my first day two Mondays back where I got to know Micah and sat in on the rehearsals from 4:30 to 8.

One might say that this is a very long time to sing even for stimulated high schoolers, but the members don't actually sing the whole time. The group devotes the first 45 minutes to rehearsing followed by a 15 minute break. For the next hour and a half they enter dialogue groups conducted in Hebrew and Arabic covering issues in Jerusalem that affect each side. After another 15 minute break, Micah takes them again for the final 45 minutes of rehearsals.

Three of the guys in the chorus speak only Arabic while everyone else can speak Hebrew and English. Micah speaks Arabic pretty fluently, but this doesn't help much of the other singers. There is little integration between the two just because of the raw language barrier, but when they sing, they smile, laugh and high five one another freely without need to speak.

This is the beauty of music that needs no language to speak but the manipulation of vocal chords.

Micah has also become a kind of mentor-friend as well along the way. After all, he graduated in 2012 and started this chorus literally the week afterwards, so our ages are very . We've drank scotch on his porch while munching on burgers, we discuss the dynamics and difficulties facing the chorus, and we both were directors and arrangers of vocal music during our high school and college career. He's asked me for advice on music matters, arrangements, and community organizing for the chorus.

Given my background and experience, I'm really excited to put these skills to the test with a very passionate and driven individual :-)

Oh, and tomorrow (2/10/14) I'll be going to Tel Aviv with the chorus while they sing with Voices for Peace, another Palestinian/Israeli chorus in Tel Aviv.

.......... I don't know if you can tell or not. But I REALLY like this placement :-).

II. Hasan Bhatti, Volunteer for Yad B'yad

More on this as my duties come into fruition.

But I've spent some time here, and the teachers are of the kindest I've met, the students just as warm as those back in the states (except they speak more esoteric, and in my opinion, beautiful languages interchangeably).

I've worked so far with 2nd graders, 4th graders, and 9th graders. The goal is to start doing poetry/creative performance with them. We'll see if this happens.

III. Hasan Bhatti, One Time Volunteer/Barterer for Al Jebel Afterschool, and The Spoken Word Poem I Wrote About It

Two Wednesdays back, I went with Mischa and David to what we thought was going to be a permanent volunteer placement for us (I'll explain at the end of the post): an afterschool for Bedouin children on the outskirts of Al-Azeriya.

Some background: Al-Azeriya is a Palestinian Arab village outside of Abu Dis on the West Bank side of the security fence/separation barrier (look at this map to see where it is in relation to the wall; notice that it's almost completely surrounded... and in the distant future, per the plans for the wall, it will be almost completely surrounded). Everyone here does not have Jerusalem citizenship, thus they have a very hard time crossing the wall unless they have a really really good excuse go over in order to get a permit from the Israeli government (which itself is a long long process).

The stories about Palestinians being delayed at or inhibited by checkpoints is a fact that these folks have to deal with on a day to day basis.

Al-Azeriya I have no good credible history on, nor have I spoken with anyone there. So I'm sorry to the history buffs; the history will not be shared this time around...

And hooray for everyone else, who are tired of my historical rampages (but, honestly, in order to understand this conflict... you need to at least start to look at history)

Al-Jebel literally means "The Hill" in Arabic. This is an area that is almost fully made up of displaced and relocated Arab Bedouins. These are people who have been kicked out of their ordinary stomping grounds that were located in Area C, which is completely controlled by the Israeli for security and governmental use (where no one but Jewish Israelis are allowed except for that 1% of the land in Area C that Israel has designated to Palestinians. Yes folks. This is a fact on the ground. See here for details).

But more on Area C soon. This is just the story concerning Bedouin Arabs.

You always hear about Bedouins being forced from their land because of governmental or security needs, but you do not hear about where they end up. Al-Jebel is where a portion of them ended up. This place was filled with permanent structures, rocks, excess metal, rusty scissors, random auto parts, toxic waste next to a water jug, llamas, half constructed houses, piles of rubble, rusted nails, limited resources....

and at the same time, they had homes, an endless supply of freshly baked pita, and a community, all against a breathtaking view of the West Bank hills.

See my videos here and here for a little more background on Al-Azariya and the Bedouins that live there.

Our task for the afternoon was to entertain the local boys in Al-Jebel for the afternoon. We had brought with us a soccer ball and a tennis ball as our tribute, and an excitement to work at a place across the wall.

As soon as we got there, we realized this boys' program was a much less structured than we had originally though. The boys were not located at the center; they were all over the place.

When they saw us coming through, this is what occurred: they looked at the two balls, our American bodies, and beckoned us over with excited Arabic phrases. We all interacted with each other quite nicely for a time. We played with them in a secluded courtyard that was all rocks and dirt (but had two soccer goals, so it was enough), we introduced ourselves and talked about what we were doing there, and we handed out sweets we had gotten for them.

And then, things started to get frazzled

Two of them began to claim these balls as their own. And good thing none of us knew enough Arabic to barter.

This was going to be interesting.

And it was very interesting. We all were there with a couple of phrases of each others language. So we communicated in the ways that we could (gestures, communicating as much as we could with our limited knowledge... the random giving of candy) and it seemed to work ok, except the two kids who occupied our tennis ball and soccer ball were not letting up.

So we ignored them, because we were going to be there for another hour. Later on we got them to cooperate and

In that time, we did different odds and ends with them.

#1: we pulled out our technology (ipods/iphones/ipads) and started to show them different applications. They were so intrigued by all of this. This was not something they wanted to steal, but something they wanted to use. I was happy to see that they respected us that much.

#2: Each of the smaller boys wanted us to lift them up and twirl them in the air. So we did.

Except, everyone wanted it... so we both got quite a workout and also got quite a back ache.

#3: They each started to ask us to chase them.

This #3 was probably my favorite.

The game went like this: I ran and ran until I caught them. Many of these kids are not speedy, but they are quick as gazelles, which puts my quickness to absolute shame.

But there was something so beautiful about this game: it came in the context of Al-Azeriya, of Al-Jebel, and of Bedouins, all of which are under a bind in some sort of freedom, yet in those moments of running just to run, we did just that: run.

And that in there was freedom.

I wrote a poem about these moments of feeling free while we ran in a place that is ridden with limits, and performed it at a spoken word evening the next night. Here's the poem in its entirety.

When we came back from our time there, we were exhausted, but in a completely positive way. We were excited to go back...

But unfortunately we will not be going back, at least for the short term. The director has gotten concerns from local families about men they do not know working with their children, which I can definitely understand. It's a culture that does not trust outsiders because of what they have been through, and for me it's

But it still left me sad, because all of us in that moment had a really fun time.

What is most sad about this situation is that we had plans to make a structure and start to teach them English slowly through activity. Perhaps this will change soon. I'm sincerely hoping that it will

so that we can fumble, laugh, and learn from each other like we did that day.

IV. Hasan Bhatti, Searching for One More Placement

Because Al-Jebel hasn't worked out, I'm in the market for another placement. Preferably it'll be an Arabic speaking placement. We shall see. Hopefully it shall work out!