RAIN and a Camera Party

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Rain does not equate total debilitating fear.  It's surprising that more Israelis will freak out over rain than they will about a bomb going off in Jerusalem for the first time in seven years.

Yesterday I went to Bat Yam again with Ro'ee and Yotam, except this time I sat in on Yotam's workshop.  The only problem was that none of the students could come to the first half of the workshop, so we ended up sitting and talking for a half hour before he met with three students.  His workshop is more about critical thinking through writing, and so what he did was assisted the students in picking out an article from a newspaper and then each student would write about what happened from a different perspective.  After the workshop was over, Yotam told me that the student's were insanely scattered and it was a really bad class.

I went to the offices after we were finished in Bat Yam.  I was there to interview one of the commune facilitators, Ibsitam, for my collection of interviews.  While she was finishing up work, I walked down the street from the office to a small market.  I bought several freshly baked borekas, which are basically puffy pasteries filled with either potatoes or cheese.  They were so incredible.  So incredible that I needed to mention them in a blogpost.

When I returned to the office, Ibsitam was ready to be interviewed.  I didn't even get to ask the majority of my questions with her - she talked steadily for about an hour, and touched on many things.  I'm glad that her interview was like that.  I think I prefer when the subject just talks and so they end up talking about the things THEY think are relevant, instead of what I may think is relevant.  One of the things she pointed out that I had never even thought of was the way the landscape of the land of Israel has changed once it became a state.  The European Jews brought over tons of different kinds of trees that were foreign to Middle Eastern soil, and many Palestinian villages were destroyed, and so even the architecture is different.  She said it looked much less Middle Eastern.

I was really kind of depressed when I got home last night, after having interviewed Ibsitam.  I was very confused as to how I was feeling.  Most of me was angry, and then I felt guilty at being angry.

This morning, I woke up late, stalked the Bennington College website for a good hour, and then left to go to the Sadaka-Reut office to meet Samer there.  Samer, myself, and another woman named Mariam walked to an Arab school.  The first thing I noticed when we reached the school was that it was A) a lot bigger and B) a lot prettier than the school in Bat Yam.  When we got to the classroom, all of the students, having been told by Samer that I don't speak Arabic and only a little Hebrew, started yammering and crowding around me, speaking in either Hebrew or broken English.  Everyone, and I mean everyone, introduced themselves, once, twice, three times and wanted to know about me.

In general, the feeling I got from the students at this school was that they were just plain friendlier to me than the Israelis in Bat Yam.  I don't know what this is attributed to, but I also noticed that they took the workshop a bit more seriously than the Israelis had for Yotam and Ro'ee.  Samer is making a documentary with the students about Women's Rights, and today he had the students interviewing each other and filming each other about their opinions of Women's Rights in the Palestinian community.  Everyone was interviewed and everyone took it seriously enough to give a long, quality response.  I was really impressed.

I walked around Yafo for a bit when Samer and I got back from the workshop.  As we were walking to the offices, Samer said there would be a possibility of me and the commune boys going to Nazareth for a day or something.  I had told him I was originally born in Nazareth and he suggested the idea.  I would LOVE to go to Nazareth - not necessarily because it's where I was born (I have Pardes Hana to haunt me for days about the idea of 'home'), but because it's an Arab city, and I really want to go.

When I was introducing myself (in Hebrew) to the students in the class, I said I was born in Nazareth.  I used the Hebrew word "Naz-rat", and then immediately several students in the classroom corrected me.  "Naz-eret," they said.  This is the Arabic word for it.  One of the girls also taught me how to write my name in Arabic.  I practiced it when I got home.

The doorway to Sadaka-Reut.  Sadaka is the Arabic word for friendship, Reut the Hebrew.

One of the boys of the class is being interviewed on his opinion of women's rights in the Palestinian community.

One of the girls, Ronda, is being filmed.

Samer (left) and one of the boys from the class.

Rim.  She was very nervous.

Antonelli.  She was much less nervous.

One of the main streets in Yafo.