Letter from Palestine, 21. New energy.
21st January 2005
Dear friends!
It has been a week with lots of new programme. It is good that it can be like that when I have been here almost five months. It is a good sign for the next weeks, with a busier programme than what I have been used to.
Monday I travelled to Ramallah. I was not going to start working yet, but at least I got an idea about the work I will do at the secretarial training at YWCA, where I will be two days a week with spoken English and English typing. After having been so much in Jerusalem I had almost forgotten how it is to travel on the West Bank. It was not too hard. What is difficult for me is that I get a reminder about the oppression at once I am out of the city. I face the wall and get a bad feeling hit my stomach.
Tuesday I went to Ramallah again, this time to go to Jalazone, a refugee camp outside the city. It is the first time I am up before it is light outside. It doesn’t only tell about my daily schedule, but also that I am farther south than Norway (it is light at 6:30 AM). In Jalazone YWCA has a centre where they run a kindergarten, a sewing programme and child identity programme.
The English teacher in the kindergarten had her last day on Tuesday before she would have her maternity leave. I joined her in two classes to see how she taught, so that I can do her work while she is away for ten weeks. When they understood that my Arabic was still not too good, they decided that another teacher will also be in the class, at least in the beginning, so that I can communicate with the children. Anyway, I experienced that easy expressions in Arabic and some hand movements worked, and when they have learnt a few more English words, we will probably work well together. They are learning the alphabet, and have come to the letter J. Next week is the week of K, so I have prepared papers with a key to be coloured and Ks to be written.
When the kindergarten was finished, more than twenty girls of 11-12 years of age came to join the identity programme. It is much like a recreation club. The aim is to make the children confident and aware of their identity. I was met by curious and eager girls and joined their games and colouring of large drawings. They did not speak much English. But they had a better understanding than the children in the kindergarten that I did not understand much Arabic. So they spoke slowly and clearly and pointed and gesticulated to make the understanding better. I was impressed how well we communicated. It was really nice to be with these girls who appreciated my presence so much. The funniest was when I was to learn debke, Palestinian folk dance. I have wished to learn it earlier, but I have thought it would be too difficult, and I didn’t know where to learn it. It was not as difficult as I had thought, though I had some problems remembering the different figures. The teacher was good, and showed me the steps carefully. They might not have found me as clever as I did myself, but it seemed that they found it fun that I at least tried.
After a long day in Jalazone, Katy, who is responsible for the centre, took me home to Ramallah for a meal. She is a refugee herself, from the Old City of Jerusalem, but has been lucky to live in Ramallah city. She has anyway devoted her life to other refugees, and is a great hero among the 11.000 inhabitants of Jalazone, where she has worked for 36 years. Katy makes me feel needed and appreciated. She wants me to come to Jalazone twice a week. It was originally planned that I would be there once a week. It is a long way to travel, but it is a place where I really enjoy, so I look forward to work there.
In addition to the new work in Ramallah and Jalazone, I have finally started an Arabic course. I was recommended to start at the British Council, and I am happy about that. My teacher is a humourous figure laughing a lot, having a good self-irony, doing everything to influence us to the same. It is mostly basic greetings so far, but we have also learnt other important words, like ‘no brains’ – very good to use about myself when I dance debke and don’t remember how the steps are…
I have also had a trip to West Jerusalem this week. It is not far physically, but mentally it is quite far for me. When I attended a peace seminar with YMCA in Spain last winter, I met Robert who works at the Jerusalem International YMCA (JIY), a branch of the YMCA of USA. YWCA and YMCA in East Jerusalem don’t have any cooperation with them, and I have therefore found it a bit difficult to contact him. But now I decided to try, to see if their work really was so wrong… They clearly have another focus than in East. They do not work with the occupation, but are concerned about having a neutral position. As I have mentioned before, I think neutrality in this conflict is to take side with the strong; this is also how I understand YWCA and YMCA in East.
Dialogue and coexistence are in the centre of the work of JIY. They run a kindergarten where there are equal numbers of Jews and Arabs in each class, and one Hebrew speaking and one Arabic speaking teacher. They have youth activities where there is also the same number from each people, and they organise trips abroad with the same focus. If I think such an “equality” is not right now, because the peoples in fact don’t have the same rights or are equal in the society today, I see that JIY can be a fantastic resource and an example to follow if there will ever be a just peace in the area.
Robert, who has the responsibility for the youth activities in the JIY, works on another project besides. He has a long time wished to do something for the Christians in the Holy Land. But as everything in the JIY is about coexistence between Jews and Arabs, with representatives from all three religions, he has not found the chance there. I promised to spread the information about the website of his project, where you can read about famous places in the land and donate money to churches and projects involved. They are still in the starting phase, but they hope this will grow and be important for the local Christian community. You can visit the website here: http://www.holychurches.com/
I have finally translated my first letters to English, number 1 to 12, you find them in the archives on my blog: http://banglahanne.blogspot.com/
Greetings from Hanne.
Dear friends!
It has been a week with lots of new programme. It is good that it can be like that when I have been here almost five months. It is a good sign for the next weeks, with a busier programme than what I have been used to.
Monday I travelled to Ramallah. I was not going to start working yet, but at least I got an idea about the work I will do at the secretarial training at YWCA, where I will be two days a week with spoken English and English typing. After having been so much in Jerusalem I had almost forgotten how it is to travel on the West Bank. It was not too hard. What is difficult for me is that I get a reminder about the oppression at once I am out of the city. I face the wall and get a bad feeling hit my stomach.
Tuesday I went to Ramallah again, this time to go to Jalazone, a refugee camp outside the city. It is the first time I am up before it is light outside. It doesn’t only tell about my daily schedule, but also that I am farther south than Norway (it is light at 6:30 AM). In Jalazone YWCA has a centre where they run a kindergarten, a sewing programme and child identity programme.
The English teacher in the kindergarten had her last day on Tuesday before she would have her maternity leave. I joined her in two classes to see how she taught, so that I can do her work while she is away for ten weeks. When they understood that my Arabic was still not too good, they decided that another teacher will also be in the class, at least in the beginning, so that I can communicate with the children. Anyway, I experienced that easy expressions in Arabic and some hand movements worked, and when they have learnt a few more English words, we will probably work well together. They are learning the alphabet, and have come to the letter J. Next week is the week of K, so I have prepared papers with a key to be coloured and Ks to be written.
When the kindergarten was finished, more than twenty girls of 11-12 years of age came to join the identity programme. It is much like a recreation club. The aim is to make the children confident and aware of their identity. I was met by curious and eager girls and joined their games and colouring of large drawings. They did not speak much English. But they had a better understanding than the children in the kindergarten that I did not understand much Arabic. So they spoke slowly and clearly and pointed and gesticulated to make the understanding better. I was impressed how well we communicated. It was really nice to be with these girls who appreciated my presence so much. The funniest was when I was to learn debke, Palestinian folk dance. I have wished to learn it earlier, but I have thought it would be too difficult, and I didn’t know where to learn it. It was not as difficult as I had thought, though I had some problems remembering the different figures. The teacher was good, and showed me the steps carefully. They might not have found me as clever as I did myself, but it seemed that they found it fun that I at least tried.
After a long day in Jalazone, Katy, who is responsible for the centre, took me home to Ramallah for a meal. She is a refugee herself, from the Old City of Jerusalem, but has been lucky to live in Ramallah city. She has anyway devoted her life to other refugees, and is a great hero among the 11.000 inhabitants of Jalazone, where she has worked for 36 years. Katy makes me feel needed and appreciated. She wants me to come to Jalazone twice a week. It was originally planned that I would be there once a week. It is a long way to travel, but it is a place where I really enjoy, so I look forward to work there.
In addition to the new work in Ramallah and Jalazone, I have finally started an Arabic course. I was recommended to start at the British Council, and I am happy about that. My teacher is a humourous figure laughing a lot, having a good self-irony, doing everything to influence us to the same. It is mostly basic greetings so far, but we have also learnt other important words, like ‘no brains’ – very good to use about myself when I dance debke and don’t remember how the steps are…
I have also had a trip to West Jerusalem this week. It is not far physically, but mentally it is quite far for me. When I attended a peace seminar with YMCA in Spain last winter, I met Robert who works at the Jerusalem International YMCA (JIY), a branch of the YMCA of USA. YWCA and YMCA in East Jerusalem don’t have any cooperation with them, and I have therefore found it a bit difficult to contact him. But now I decided to try, to see if their work really was so wrong… They clearly have another focus than in East. They do not work with the occupation, but are concerned about having a neutral position. As I have mentioned before, I think neutrality in this conflict is to take side with the strong; this is also how I understand YWCA and YMCA in East.
Dialogue and coexistence are in the centre of the work of JIY. They run a kindergarten where there are equal numbers of Jews and Arabs in each class, and one Hebrew speaking and one Arabic speaking teacher. They have youth activities where there is also the same number from each people, and they organise trips abroad with the same focus. If I think such an “equality” is not right now, because the peoples in fact don’t have the same rights or are equal in the society today, I see that JIY can be a fantastic resource and an example to follow if there will ever be a just peace in the area.
Robert, who has the responsibility for the youth activities in the JIY, works on another project besides. He has a long time wished to do something for the Christians in the Holy Land. But as everything in the JIY is about coexistence between Jews and Arabs, with representatives from all three religions, he has not found the chance there. I promised to spread the information about the website of his project, where you can read about famous places in the land and donate money to churches and projects involved. They are still in the starting phase, but they hope this will grow and be important for the local Christian community. You can visit the website here: http://www.holychurches.com/
I have finally translated my first letters to English, number 1 to 12, you find them in the archives on my blog: http://banglahanne.blogspot.com/
Greetings from Hanne.
posted by Hanne at 8:08 AM
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