The Third Day in Palestine

(the view from our apartment)

Chris (my classmate from my program) and I have been here almost three days. It’s different than I expected – more dry, arid – like another planet. Arabic is spoken everywhere. Five times a day, we hear a call to prayer from the nearby mosque. It woke us up the first night at 4am.
Yesterday morning we heard what Ahmed and Imad (the directors of the Living Stones center) want us to do. The Living Stones ministry has four components. Two of which, we are called upon to assist. The first involves helping the children in the local schools. This was called a “miracle” by Nash (our contact here, and fellow classmate as well)– that the Palestinian government would allow the Palestinian Bible Society into the schools. Christians consist of only 1% of the population. Chris and I will help motivate students in English skills, as well as assist in applying curriculum that focuses on helping kids deal with and express emotionally some of the trauma they encounter. Ahmed described the trauma like a domino effect. “A child sees his father beaten by a soldier. The child thinks his father is not powerful. The child sees the father beat the mother. The mother beats the child…” Basically, the children in the Palestinian schools need positive reinforcement to complete their studies.
The second dimension of work will be with the university students that come to the Living Stones center in the town of Birzeit, where we live. The University of Birzeit, ranking as the best Palestinian university, has about 7,000 students. The Living Stones center provides a place for students to hang out (Muslim, Christian, or whatever) – with coffee, free internet access, and a TV with a projector. Chris and I will lead workshops on how to write a CV, provide some English training, as well as probably presenting some of our North American culture on “culture nights.” The Bible Society sees this as a great indirect way of sharing the Gospel. Bibles are there for the students. The busiest nights of the week will probably be Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights.

( looking out onto the street from the Living Stones Center)

Tonight, Chris and I met a couple of these students from the university. After our meeting with Ahmed and Imad, we talked to a few students about their perceptions of North American culture. One of the guys, Tony (?) was very reluctant to speak English, although he was very good! Another guy, Samuel, joined right in the discussion, talking about how his perceptions of North American culture changed drastically when he went to the states to study abroad during the summer for peace and conflict resolution program. Because of US’ massive media industry, he thought American culture was highly immoral. However, he saw that many Americans are actually very religious. Conversely, he saw that their (or our) religious views often get in the way of regarding people from a human point of view. American’s Christians’ obsession with Israel, for instance, he saw as a reaction of religion and a complete disregard of humanity. In this way, he said, extremist Christian are like extremist Muslims.
After our discussion, students poured into the room to watch a special one-hour series that shows every night during Ramadan. The series takes place during the second intifada in 2002.
Finally, a couple of friends were gathering together for a surprise birthday party.

(with Aishish, apparently a "new" girl to the center - Ahmed had never met her before)

At the end of the night, Chris and I followed Imad and two other students back to his apartment where they introduced us to the “hubbley-bubbley” and some Arabic coffee. Unfortunately, we knew that coffee would keep us up until the first call to prayer at 4am, so we decided to get our sleep, and save more of that experience for another time.

I am still perhaps in culture shock, taking in one thing at a time, but I am really enjoying my time here. I am also grateful Chris is here – it means a lot to have another North American nearby (even if he is Canadian – jk Chris!).
Thanks for reading :) (as Shannon, our infamous blog-writer from our cohort, would say)