Letter from Palestine, 1. A beautiful land.
3rd September 2004
Dear family and friends!
It is my fifth day in Palestine, and time for the first letter. I have found out that I should write a little about my background for being here, some of you know a lot, but others don’t know what I am doing here.
I am on an exchange through YWCA-YMCA Global (former Delta Internasjonalt YWCA-YMCA). The programme is called GoCY intern and is a part of Fredskorpset Youth. We are four from Norway, Sigrid with Africa Alliance of YMCAs in Kenya, Anne with YWCA of Bangladesh, and Einar and I with YWCA of Palestine. Linda and Juliet from Bangladesh and Mayadah from Palestine are with YWCA-YMCA Global in Norway. Before we travelled, we had trainings with Fredskorpset and YWCA-YMCA. The departure day for us Norwegians was Sunday, and early Monday morning I landed in Tel Aviv.
I have planned to send weekly updates with pictures through these letters. Some has asked for a post address. I can receive post here:
YWCA of Palestine
P.O.Box 20044
Jerusalem
Israel
I have decided to call this first letter “A beautiful land”. The subject of the letters will probably change a lot, according to mood and experiences. I expect to experience much difficult and frustrating, at the same time I have already seen much nice here. The pictures should illustrate some of it.
Beautiful 1: The flowers are beautiful! Wednesday we attended a meeting at YMCA in Beit Sahour. Beit Sahour is in the Bethlehem area. On the property of YMCA you find the grotto, which after the protestant tradition, is where the shepherds were when they received the message about the birth of Jesus from the angels. On the path from the office to the grotto there are trees and flowers, good motives when Hanne is to test her new digital camera!
Beautiful 2: The people are beautiful! Already the first day we took a trip from YWCA Hotel, where I live, to the Old City of Jerusalem, it is about one kilometre to walk. On our way we met a volunteer from England working at Sabeel (Ecumenical centre for Palestinian liberation theology), and we had ice and fruit at Jerusalem Hotel. We were also invited to Sandrine in YWCA and experienced the Arabic hospitality with tea, cake and fruit (and TV show with the Arabic Idol where the childish boy from Libya won over the serious, great Palestinian representative, just because Libya had a free phone line for voting…) Wednesday we had a good bye party for Arne Morten who has worked in YMCA in Beit Sahour for one year. It became a welcoming party for us at the same time, with lots of good food and nice people. We met Rania, who has worked in Norway for one year.
Beautiful 3: Jerusalem is beautiful! The Old City is an exciting system of buildings, streets and markets, and a great number of churches. At least it feels like that before you know the city. But tomorrow we will have sightseeing with Arian (who was GoCY intern in Norway last year). The YWCA building is big and nice, and central. In the ground floor there is the reception, in the lobby there is cafeteria, in the first floor (third according to Norwegian standard) the vocational training centre, in the second the advocacy office, in the third my room and in the fourth a new sports centre. I have a short way to everything, and when I am tired of what is not how it should be, I can go to do sports to get out the frustration, it worked very well yesterday evening (and I who had thought I would never feel comfortable with such machines)!
Beautiful 4: The humour is beautiful! I don’t know if beautiful is the right word here. But it is at least impressing. The Palestinians have a special perseverance when it comes to keep the good mood even in the worst situations. Then it is good to have black humour. I found a website with “The Palestinian Daily Olympics”: http://www.fashcool.com/Cartoon/viewgallery.php?cid=6
Greetings from Hanne.
Dear family and friends!
It is my fifth day in Palestine, and time for the first letter. I have found out that I should write a little about my background for being here, some of you know a lot, but others don’t know what I am doing here.
I am on an exchange through YWCA-YMCA Global (former Delta Internasjonalt YWCA-YMCA). The programme is called GoCY intern and is a part of Fredskorpset Youth. We are four from Norway, Sigrid with Africa Alliance of YMCAs in Kenya, Anne with YWCA of Bangladesh, and Einar and I with YWCA of Palestine. Linda and Juliet from Bangladesh and Mayadah from Palestine are with YWCA-YMCA Global in Norway. Before we travelled, we had trainings with Fredskorpset and YWCA-YMCA. The departure day for us Norwegians was Sunday, and early Monday morning I landed in Tel Aviv.
I have planned to send weekly updates with pictures through these letters. Some has asked for a post address. I can receive post here:
YWCA of Palestine
P.O.Box 20044
Jerusalem
Israel
I have decided to call this first letter “A beautiful land”. The subject of the letters will probably change a lot, according to mood and experiences. I expect to experience much difficult and frustrating, at the same time I have already seen much nice here. The pictures should illustrate some of it.
Beautiful 1: The flowers are beautiful! Wednesday we attended a meeting at YMCA in Beit Sahour. Beit Sahour is in the Bethlehem area. On the property of YMCA you find the grotto, which after the protestant tradition, is where the shepherds were when they received the message about the birth of Jesus from the angels. On the path from the office to the grotto there are trees and flowers, good motives when Hanne is to test her new digital camera!
Beautiful 2: The people are beautiful! Already the first day we took a trip from YWCA Hotel, where I live, to the Old City of Jerusalem, it is about one kilometre to walk. On our way we met a volunteer from England working at Sabeel (Ecumenical centre for Palestinian liberation theology), and we had ice and fruit at Jerusalem Hotel. We were also invited to Sandrine in YWCA and experienced the Arabic hospitality with tea, cake and fruit (and TV show with the Arabic Idol where the childish boy from Libya won over the serious, great Palestinian representative, just because Libya had a free phone line for voting…) Wednesday we had a good bye party for Arne Morten who has worked in YMCA in Beit Sahour for one year. It became a welcoming party for us at the same time, with lots of good food and nice people. We met Rania, who has worked in Norway for one year.
Beautiful 3: Jerusalem is beautiful! The Old City is an exciting system of buildings, streets and markets, and a great number of churches. At least it feels like that before you know the city. But tomorrow we will have sightseeing with Arian (who was GoCY intern in Norway last year). The YWCA building is big and nice, and central. In the ground floor there is the reception, in the lobby there is cafeteria, in the first floor (third according to Norwegian standard) the vocational training centre, in the second the advocacy office, in the third my room and in the fourth a new sports centre. I have a short way to everything, and when I am tired of what is not how it should be, I can go to do sports to get out the frustration, it worked very well yesterday evening (and I who had thought I would never feel comfortable with such machines)!
Beautiful 4: The humour is beautiful! I don’t know if beautiful is the right word here. But it is at least impressing. The Palestinians have a special perseverance when it comes to keep the good mood even in the worst situations. Then it is good to have black humour. I found a website with “The Palestinian Daily Olympics”: http://www.fashcool.com/Cartoon/viewgallery.php?cid=6
Greetings from Hanne.
posted by Hanne at 6:13 AM
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