My super sweet 16

I was at school the other day and Eddie, one of the kids I tutor, didn't come to school, so I spent that period in the computer room doing some research. I got hungry so I went to the little store close to school and bought myself a snack.

It was sunny out, so I decided to sit on the bench in the park nearby and eat my snack. A student from the school asked to sit next to me. I can't really remember which class she's in, but she was out there hanging out because her class went on a field trip. I asked her what she was doing at school if she had decided not to go on the field trip and she said she went to school because she loves the school.

We started talking trying to get to know one another, and she was asking me questions about myself and America. She wanted to know if I liked the US, or, like she put it "do you love America?" I told her I do. She then said, you know, I don't like America. I asked her why and she responded with another question "do you know MTV?" I responded affirmatively. She told me about the show called "my super sweet 16" and that she just doesn't understand why people would spend their money like that. She said there's so many people she could think of helping instead of having a party like that...and that's why she doesn't like America.

Conflict Resolution Day 1

Thursday was the first day of the Conflict Resolution training course for the 10th graders. I have been preparing for this course since I got the green light to work on it. I thought I was prepared walking into class this morning, but I definitely did not anticipate what was coming.

We started doing all the planned activities in class, and the kids were participating and they seemed to be engaged. I was trying to keep control of the class, so I didn't notice that one of the kids was being bothered by the kids around him. All of a sudden, he stood up and stormed out of the class. I asked Dorit- the educational counselor who's been working with him and his personal problems- to step out and make sure he was alright. When they both left, the class started to talk amongst themselves and instead of continuing on with the activity, I asked them to talk about what happened.

The students said they were wondering why he left the class, and I asked them to tell me why they thought he left (I hadn't seen anything happen among the kids, so I wasn't sure). One of the students said she thought maybe someone had said something that made him upset. Then, the guys sitting in close proximity to the kid that left almost started talking when Dorit came back into the class. As soon as she stepped in, the student who was going to say something stopped himself and someone else, trying to cover for him, started talking about the bomb the day before.

I took what started as a cover-up response, and started a conversation about the bomb, and we started relating the concepts that we had been talking about before to the real life situation. An Arab student said he was scared because he said that if he sits on a public bus, for example, and some Jews hear him speaking Arabic, they might hit him or insult him. I took that story and brought it back to stereotyping (a concept we were learning about) and its role in conflict. Someone else talked about how life is conflict...pretty intense stuff!

I was surprised that these ideas were brought up in class on the first day, but I'm really excited it happened. I see a great opportunity here to- if nothing else- create a safe environment so they can talk about how they see themselves in this conflict. I've somewhat discarded by first plan about these five weeks and I'm now adapting it to something that I think will be more relevant and suitable for these kids.

It is definitely different teaching about conflict resolution to kids that live in a conflict zone. I'm so excited about this new challenge and I hope I can make this a worthwhile learning experience for the kids.

What now?

Yesterday, a bomb exploded near the Jerusalem central bus station. It killed one person and injured 39 people. The result of such a bomb, however, goes well beyond the people that were physically affected by it. This is the first attack after seven years of relative peace in Jerusalem, and a lot of people were reminded yesterday of the violence of the second intifada. The Israeli PM declared after the attacks that there will be a response.

These declarations came the same day the Knesset passed two controversial laws about the Arab minority in the country. The first law relates to the day known as "nakba"(or the day of the catastrophe), which is celebrated the same day as Israel's independence. This day commemorates the people that died and the over 700,000 displaced people that resulted from the end of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948-49. The new law will impose fines on towns and organizations that commemorate this day.

The second law approved the use of a sort of admission's committee for people that want to live in small "Jewish" towns in the Negev and Galilee. These committees will have to option of rejecting prospective residents, if they are found to not be suitable for the town. The law has been criticized as giving people the right to discriminate against the minorities in the country, mainly Arabs, but also secular families, Christians, gays or single women.

So what happens now? Two days ago, six Palestinians died in Gaza. Yesterday, a bomb went off in Jerusalem and these two controversial laws were passed. What will happen today?

Makes me wonder, in this climate of unrest and retaliation, how can we expect to negotiate a solution anytime soon?

Insert Clever Title.

Dear Miriam's Blog,

This is a celebrity shot. No, not Michael Boublu here; only the next best thing. Megan "Miriam's 100% American friend (boring!)" Larcom here. Ha, jokes. But really.

As a refugee-of-sorts (yes, as in a temporary migrated person, NOT a refugee-of-the-Palestinain-sort, i.e. a permanent migrated person) from the Pharoah's land, I've joined Miriam in the lovely contested lands of Palestine, Jerusalem, West Bank, Occupied Terrorities, etc. We've been having quite the week.

First, we met Gaddafi.

Then, we watched a live performance by Lady GaGa.

Oh, we also played pin-the-eyeball-on-the-clown with some 7-year-olds.

A few days, some hours of commuting and one very large concrete wall later, we arrived to Ramallah in the West Bank, to meet William, a baller Boren Fellow. After exploring the West Bank town-- casually passing the grave of Yasser Arafat and marveling at the originality of the town's central cafe, "Stars & Bucks"-- we proceeded to cook a feast from a collection of fresh, uber-cheap vegetables. Good thing an eclectic group of William's Palestinian friends showed up for dinner, because we prepared an eclectic meal. Nothing says "we da best chefs in town" like undercooked stuffed vegetables, some unsalted Egyptian stew, and unperfectly paired Indian carrot sweets with oddly flavored ice cream. Epic fail.

Leaving our culinary skills in Ramallah, we traveled to Bethlehem to visit a friend-of-Miriam's-friend (and the birthplace of Jesus, of course).

We painted some murals on The Wall. 

We serenaded each other with our miniature guitars in a bedouin tent.

Next up this week: scaling the Western Wall, building a clay model of the Dome of the Rock, and break-dancing outside of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Perhaps teaching some children in Hebrew and Arabic, finishing her master's research design, and leading a conflict resolution course, but only after writing the Egyptian constitution and dealing with the civil war in Libya.

Until we have more interesting stories, peace out,

Megan

(p.s. Miriam doesn't know the contents of this blog post yet but I'm 37% confident she will agree with the contents. regardless, I assure you she sends her greetings)

The talk of the village

After the wedding, everyone went back home to Arara, and I spent the weekend at Maram's again. It's awesome because I feel like her parents love me like they're own kid. I heart Mustapha and Nazek, I even call them mom and dad like Maram does (it started as a joke)- yaamaaah, yaabaah! But really, I feel like I'm a part of the family.

Just like the last time I was there, Maram and I did the rounds and visited her relatives. Of course, the talk of the village was the wedding. They talked about everything from the bride's dress, hair and makeup, to the guests, to the cost of it all (yes, everyone knew how much everything cost!). Also, Maram's brother was visiting from Italy, so he came to the wedding and we danced together. Some of the people who didn't know me thought I was Maram's brother's Italian fiancee- go figure. Anyways, everyone was talking about everyone else and their dresses, make up and dance moves. Yes, including people who didn't go- they also asked for all the scandalous details! (but there were none, at least, that I know of)

Oh! Gotta love small towns!

Wedding Traditions

This weekend I was fortunate enough to have been invited to a wedding. Actually, both Maram and Mai invited me because they are related (not sure I mentioned this before), so they are both relatives of the bride and the groom. Usually, the only people that go to these weddings are close relatives, no friends of friends, but I was an exception because I'm "ajnabiye" (foreigner)- it's funny how depending on the situation I'm considered Arab or foreigner- The wedding, they said, wasn't very traditional, but I think they were referring to the celebration part of the wedding because there were still many events that day that most certainly followed tradition.

On Thursday after school, Maram, Mai and I drove up to Arara in Mai's car. Just as we arrived, we went straight to the bride's family's house to partake in the first part of the tradition: the bride leaving her parent's house, or, as they say, her father's house. The bride's closest family gathered in the bride's father's house and, of course, there was food, coffee, tea, sweets, and all sorts of snacks involved. Although it wasn't a full on meal, everyone that came to the house was offered something to eat (it would be rude otherwise). When everyone was arriving at the bride's family's house, the bride and the groom were taking their wedding pictures in a scenic part of the country. They chose Ceasaria, and they were very lucky because it was a gorgeous day. From what I've been told, tradition varies, and sometimes the photo shoot happens after the bride officially leaves her father's house.

At 3pm- they said, but turned out to be more like 3.45pm- the bride arrived at the house and the women started singing traditional songs. I'm not sure if this is how it always happens, but the women and the men were in two different rooms. There was a cameraman and a photographer taking pictures and recording of this whole event. The bride then waited for the groom and his family to come over and take her to her new house.

Finally the groom and his family showed up with drums singing songs, and then everyone was united in the singing (bride and groom's family). The groom, then, talked to the bride's father to ask (once again) if he could take his daughter. Then the groom's parents welcomed the bride into the family and they took her. As she was leaving her house, the bride cried- when Maram was explaining this tradition to me she literally said "the bride must cry". I asked her if she had to and Maram said it wasn't mandatory, but it always just happens like that. I wonder if there's ever been a bride that didn't cry and if anything happened to her...Anyways, our bride did cry, but not a ton. Maram's comment was that she was trying not to, but she couldn't hold her tears back, so only a couple of tears were shed.

After they take the bride to her new family's home, there is a ritual with henna, but I'm not really sure of what it is; they put it on a leaf or something- I can't really remember because I didn't see that part of it.

After all the singing and clapping and pictures and tears, everyone in the family goes home and gets ready for the celebration. In this case, the celebration took place in Nazareth, so we all drove up there at night. At the celebration, there was tons of dancing and food and yet another tradition: dancing with the candles. The bride held two candles and danced with them lit, then gave one to the groom and they danced and took pictures. When this was happening they first had a guy with a saxophone playing- ps. took me the longest time to figure out what people were trying to tell me when they were talking about the saxophone, because the way they pronounce it sounds like "sexy phone" so I really had no idea of what to expect...-The saxophone part was not traditional, but then they sang the typical song for the candle dance. At this wedding, they also dimmed the lights, had fake snow, smoke on the ground and fire stands all around the bride- quite the show!

The dancing and eating continued for a bit and then we all went home. It was super fun :)

What does it mean to be Palestinian?

Maram, Mai and I were talking last night after dinner. They were asking me about my experience with people here; if people were nice to me etc. I said, so far, everyone's been really nice to me, especially Arabs when they find out that I'm half Palestinian. Mai then asked me what I felt, in terms of my identity. As she was asking me if I felt Palestinian, or Arab, or American, or Spanish, she stopped for a second to reflect on the question she was asking me. She turned to Maram and asked "what does being Palestinian mean exactly?". 

Maram responded Palestinians are the Arabs who were born in the country. Mai then asked, "what country? there is no country! The only country that really exists is Israel. We are Israeli, then, right?". They both have Israeli citizenship, but say they're not treated like their Jewish counterparts, so they both agreed they wouldn't identify as Israeli- at least not without characterizing what type of Israeli citizens they are: Arab-Israeli.

Then the discussion went back to analyzing what the term Palestinian means. Mai was saying she didn't really understand what it means to be Palestinian, since it seems to be a term that defines nationality. She was struggling trying to figure out if there's ever really been a Palestinian nation. She said, maybe just the people born before 48, or the people born in the West Bank and Gaza are Palestinians. Maram quickly responded, "we are all Palestinians, Mai!". Maram added "If a state was created tomorrow, wouldn't you feel that you should be a part of it?" Mai responded affirmatively, but the conversation still carried on with no real resolution.

It's very interesting that this topic came up last night, because when talking to people in Arabic, sometimes they refer to themselves as Palestinian sometimes as Arab; sometimes they talk about Israel, sometimes they talk about Palestine. The nature of identity is so complicated...what are we, really? who are we?