Youth Groups and Camera Parties

Even though I usually tend to update my blog every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, I figured I'd do a Wednesday blog because Thursday through Sunday is about to be very lazy and sun-filled and not particularly internshipy.  Today, however, was VERY internshipy.

Today was an enormous youth group gathering for Sadaka Reut.  Youth groups from all over the country (and I mean ALL OVER the country - more on that later) met in Salon Yafo, which is an art gallery of Palestinian art in Yafo.  There were two workshops, lunch, and then a sort of Yafo-tour treasure hunt.

The gathering of the youth groups...

The first thing I noticed about the groups together was that many different kinds of Israelis and Palestinians were represented.  There were lots of secular and semi-religious Palestinians as well as Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, and Ashkenazi Jews in the mix.  The second thing I noticed is that while the Israelis and Palestinians didn't directly mix and congeal with each other, the atmosphere in the air was very amicable, and communication was going around both in Hebrew between Israelis and Palestinians and wordlessly when language gaps occurred.

A Palestinian student struggles with the wire for his sculpture...

Another thing that struck me (with which I am continuously struck) was how completey useless it is to assume that all Palestinians are darker than Israelis.  It's this stupid misconception that Palestinians are Arabs, therefor they are more Middle Eastern looking than Israelis.  This is ridiculous, because only sixty odd years ago, Jews from Iraq and Iran and Morocco and Egypt were flooding towards Israel, and while they were Jewish, THEY WERE ARAB.  Many times I saw Palestinian students that were as white as me and Israelis that were much darker.

More wire sculpture fun

The youth groups were hurried into the Salon Yafo (pictued above) and then split in half arbitrarily.  One group went to build wire sculptures (also pictured above) and one went to help Sadaka-Reut design this year's t-shirt.  The sculpture group was led by one of the workers at Salon Yafo, and the t-shirt group was led by Natali, Sadaka's youth group coordinator, and Samer, one of the Commune Kids.

Samer and Natali.  I couldn't get a picture of them without Natali moving, so I stopped trying.

Students drew blueprints for their t-shirt designs before painting the designs on cut up pieces of fabric.

Watching the groups was a real treat.  I spent most of the day with Diran, one of the Sadaka volunteers who half helps out with Commune Kids and half helps with other things, but I got to see all of the Commune Kids in action.  Every one of them has a very different style of leadership, which is what their program is focusing on developing (the official title is not Commune Kids as I call them but the Leadership Development Program).  Mahmoud is one hell of a problem solver.  Some of the kids from Natanya were being finnicky, and he very calmly walked up to them and said "How about this" and shuttled them off to a solution.  It's not a "I suggest that you" kind of thing, it's a "Let's do it because I know what I'm doing and you know you're being unreasonable" kind of situation.

Ro'ee doesn't say much, and his style of leadership is very different - he's in the background, quietly helping with questions and cleaning up the workshops - helping moving things and setting up.  You don't really notice he's there until he asks you politely to move so he can bring the t-shirt design group their brushes and smiles warmly at everyone.  Yotam is also less in the spotlight, but he's kind of like the Mama Bear.  He makes sure every student is feeling well.


Samer is something else entirely.  He has this freaking gift - he instantly makes everyone in the room feel ridiculously comfortable, no matter what language you speak, or if he even speaks your language.  He is one of those people that makes you feel very included even if it's just by grinning at you or winking or saying something to you in a language you shouldn't understand but somehow do when he's talking to you.

Diran wouldn't be happy with me if she knew I was putting up this picture, but this is lunch on a HILL by the SEA!

After the workshops were over, the entire group walked from Salon Yafo to a sizeable green park type area near the gallery.  The park was right on the edge of the ocean, and waves were crashing around rocks by the path.  It was the most picturesque spot to eat lunch (your choice of Shnitzel sandwich, shwarma, or falafel), and not to sound too corny or anything, but the sea breeze whipping at your hair is really, REALLY heeling.

Old Yafo in the distance...

OCEAN.

After lunch was over, the group split into five small clusters, each one led by either Samer, Mahmoud, Yotam, Ro'ee, or Diran.  These five groups were going on a scavenger hunt of Yafo, which consisted of a walk of about a mile radius.  I went with Diran's group.  Their clues/missions were things like "find the Physicians for Human Rights Office" or "91.8" or "ask around to people where their favorite place in Yafo is".  (I think 91.8 is the right number - it's supposed to be a big radio station in Israel that has its' office in Yafo, which is something new that I learned, among many things from today.)

They found it.

Diran looks like a proud, frizzy lion (she's the one facing the camera with lots of papers in her hands).

I really liked the idea of a scavenger hunt that spanned around a city.  We should do that, Graham.  The students seemed to have a lot of fun with it too.  It was technically supposed to be a race for which group finished their hunt first, but I think by the end of the day everyone was far too tired to go running around.

Beautiful Yafo.

After the scavenger hunt was completed, everyone met back at that same green park by the sea, where closing remarks were said and popcicles were handed out.  Now Diran and I had the second part of our day to complete.  Diran had asked me (/begged me) to come along with her to the North.  She was responsible for being the chaperone on the bus that dropped off the Palestinians in different Arab villages in the North.  The farthest they were going, she said, was Mousmous, which was about an hour away from Yafo.  I thought, hey, whatever, I'm not doing anything.  When I told Yotam, Ro'ee, Mahmoud, and Samer that I was going with Diran, they all started laughing at me.  Yotam said if I didn't text him next Monday night as per usual about Sadaka's work week, he'd know I was left stranded in Mousmous.  "Great," I said.  "It'll only be a good five days after, you can really start searching for me."  Apparently Mousmous was a bit out of the way.


I think I'm becoming accustomed to Israeli perception, because I did feel like the bus ride was extraordinarily long.  I mean, it was long, but only because we had so many stops (Netanya, Tire, a lot of other Arabic names I can't hope to remember).  Also, we hit the obligatory traffic jam outside Tel Aviv.  It was made worse by the fact that the bus driver was blasting both Arab and Mizrachi techno dance music (best?) and the students were having a dance party at the back of the bus (what a culture jolt).  Between that and the nausea-inducing driving patterns of ALL BUS DRIVERS IN THIS GOD FORSAKEN COUNTRY, by the time it was just me, Diran, and four boys heading towards Mousmous, our last stop, I was exhausted.


Mousmous is one of many villages in what Diran called "Wadi Arab'iah".  It technically means "Arabic Ravine".  It's basically a line of Arab villages, way, way, way north of Tel Aviv.  It took us forty minutes to get from Tire to Mousmous, which gives you an idea of why the Commune Kids were laughing uproariously at my plight.


Instead of going to Mousmous, the driver dropped me and Diran in Em Il Fahem, a neighboring town to Mousmous.  By that time it was already twenty til eight (we left Tel Aviv at five).  Diran and I sat in a cafe and had cappucinos and enormous Belgian Waffle monstrosities (picture two belgian waffles barried under syrup, chocolate drizzle, chopped apples, whipped cream, and ice cream.  OBESITY).  I can't particularly remember (it's 12:43 in the morning right now) everything that we talked about, but one of the things that has struck out to me is when Diran started talking about how Israelis talk to her when they find out she is Palestinian.  They say, "Wait...but you're so light skinned!"  And she says, "Um."  Then they say, "But you're Christian, right?" (She's not.)  And she says, "Well, since you've got me all figured out, I'll be leaving.  Obviously you don't need me for this conversation."  She followed that with, "Look, I can't change people's opinions and neither can they change mine, so we might as well get used to the fact that we're both here and respect each other already."


Diran's really cool and interesting - she grew up in Rehovot, which is an Israeli town with next to no Palestinian population.  She told me she had HUGE problems in high school when she was in history classes and she kept calling the Israeli curriculum out on its' propoganda and lies.  She told me some of her best friends are Israelis and serving in the army, and she doesn't like it, no, but that's the way it is.  She speaks perfect Hebrew and perfect Arabic and near-perfect English.  Making me look bad.


Diran and I caught an express bus from Em Il Fahem to Tel Aviv.  By the time I got off the bus in Tel Aviv, it was 10:30 at night.  I then succesfully took a cab home (I convinced the driver in Hebrew that I was Spanish, my name was Clara, and no-I-did-not-have-any-Russian-heritge [this is a lie, as is the rest], and I'm here to work and travel.  I was pretty much just happy with the fact that I was able to convince him of all this in Hebrew without him suspecting otherwise.  In fact, I threw in a bit of me teaching him some of the curse words I know in Spanish.  Don't feel bad for him, all cab drivers in Tel Aviv are Major Creeps).


It occured to me as Diran and I were taking the bus back to Tel Aviv that I really like what I'm doing, who I am, and who I'm with.  Diran is promising to organize a Commune Kids trip to Nazareth, where her family has a house on the Ravine.  She says it'll be a just Commune Kids (plus her and me) trip.  I'm extremely pumped - I'd love to go to Nazareth and I really like spending time with the Commune Kids - everyone is so, so nice and so, so interesting.  It also occured to me how strangely life brings you full circle - my parents both had these realizations and experiences when they were working in Arab-Jewish relations here in Israel a BILLION years ago (you're welcome) when they were young and restless too.


How strange.