Back In Nablus

Not much has happened in the two weeks we've been back in Nablus. Due to the week's worth of celebrations that followed Ramadan, ProjectHOPE was able to do very little coordinating with the local refugee camps and youth centers, as they were all on holiday, leaving Gabriella and I with a fair amount of downtime before classes were scheduled. We both started finally teaching in earnest today, Gabriella with an English class for housewives, me with a continuation of one of my teenage English classes. I have several new students in this class, most of whom I had the pleasure of meeting last week. One of them has already sent me a 'hello' email, demonstrating her complete fluency in cyber abbreviations ("im ur new student," "c u monday," etc.). At least Americans aren't the only ones learning chat-talk and emoticons before English.

I am also teaching a mini-percussion class this time around, my very own five-person MARCHING BAND! Those of you who know me well, particularly the high school me, know how exciting this is. We had our first class today at Al Askar refugee camp, and true to form, I walked into the class to find 25 kids, six pairs of sticks, and three drums. Great. Turns out the camp coordinators thought the drama and art classes were supposed to start today as well, and when they found out this wasn't the case, they just stuck me with the extra 20 kids instead, aged about 10-13. You can probably imagine how that went. We made the most of it as usual, though, and come next class we should hopefully be back down to the more manageable four or five kids who are actually supposed to be enrolled.

Note to self: screaming "Khalas! Khalas! ("Enough! Enough!") in order to quiet two dozen pre-teens banging on snare drums is -- surprise surprise -- not effective.

In other news, the ProjectHOPE flat is packed to the brim once again with a fresh crop of international volunteers. Aside from Gabriella and I, three remain from the August group, and eleven newbies are just starting up, hailing from Scotland, Canada, America, Belgium, France, Iceland, etc. It's already very clearly an awesome bunch. All but one or two are staying for six-month stretches, one American for nine months. Among them are teachers of volley ball, drama therapy, art, improv comedy, and of course English and French. Gabriella and I are sad to have so little time with them.

The new volunteers have been sparking many a conversation with the Palestinian staff at ProjectHOPE about what it's really like to live under occupation. Tamer, a familiar Palestinian face around the apartment, spent much of the evening a few nights ago explaining to the internationals (some to their surprise) that he and virtually all of his countrymen are prohibited from visiting Jerusalem, which Israel annexed outright following the Six-Day War of 1967, and that Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of the holiest places in Islam and the most important national monument for Palestinians, is completely open to everyone BUT the Palestinians. Some are granted permission once they hit their 50s, but that's generally it.

Tamer described being blacklisted from most travel after the Israelis found out he was a paramedic during the Intifada. He talked of his brief stint as a clown, and how the children simply were unable to laugh. He talked of his friend in France who's offered to help get him set up there, or his brother in Saudi Arabia who keeps pushing him to finally just leave Palestine. "So why don't you?" the volunteers asked. "Because if I leave, and she leaves and he leaves and he leaves....who will be left? This is my home."

The other night the IDF showed up outside Tamer's house and started shooting stray cats.

All the volunteers went olive picking on Friday, which was exhausting. Gabriella and I are still sore and nursing our many scrapes and scratches. Last week started the month-long olive picking season, during which groves are desperate for international volunteers to help deter Israeli settlers from attacking the Palestinian farmers as they harvest, stealing their olives and then burning down their trees. Here's an article describing just a few of many attacks that occur every year this season: http://www.imemc.org/article/57224. We didn't run into any trouble at the grove where we were working, as it was inside Nablus city limits.

Other than that Gabriella and I have been spending much of the last two weeks discussing the future of the project, of other Poliglot projects as well. Be on the lookout for a website update in November announcing plans for new Poliglot works to premiere next spring/summer.

Much love,
John