Back from Hebron

Saturday, March 18, 2017
We got back from Hebron yesterday afternoon.  I will have a lot to write about Hebron, but I will need some time to process it all.  I do have to say, coming back to Nablus felt like coming home.  (I've been here two weeks.)  We were VERY cold in Hebron.  We walked around all day.  I wished I had warmer clothes on.  We spent the night in the home of a Palestinian family:  three women and one guy in a house in the old area.  Ed slept with the boys in the family on the second floor.  We women slept in the living room.  It was very comfortable and fairly comfortable.

Here is Nablus, interactions with people are very easy.  Everyone here is Palestinian.  There's a place on the road coming here that says that it is illegal for Israeli citizens to enter this area.  The Palestinians all have had interactions with Israeli soldiers, but it seems that things are calmer here, now.

In Hebron, there are Israeli settlers in the streets with the Palestinians.  It's very tense with checkpoints everywhere.  I'll write more about all that later.

On the lighter side, if you like Nutella, there's whole store for Nutella crepes.

More later.

A trip out of town

Wednesday, March 15, 2017
This is just a short post to say that I may be out of communication for the next 2 days.  A group of PH volunteers is going to Hebron for the weekend.  We are leaving at 7:30 tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow night, we will stay with local Palestinian families, so there is likely to be no wifi.  I will be back in Nablus Friday evening.  

My Arabic class

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

I love my Arabic teacher and we have class in a beautiful place.  Normally, classes are in the Project Hope Training Center or in the PH Office, but both are full at the time of my class, so we have class in the cultural center.  It's beautiful.  Here is the plaque that says the name of the center:

Here is the room where I take my class:

And here are some photos of other rooms in the center:

Every day, halfway through the class, we walk across the street to the cafe to have a coffee.  We often see another volunteer there and stop to talk to him for a while.  In the cafe, there is a sheesha pipe always burning.  (Usually, in a cafe, you order sheesha for your table.)  The owner always offers some.  Jameel takes some, but I don't.  Usually sheesha is flavored tobacco, but Jameel says this pipe is not flavored and it's very strong.  Here's a photo of Jameel with the sheesha and his coffee.

Today, after Arabic class, I went to the PH office to meet Heide and the local volunteer who would accompany us to the school to teach.  For this class, each time we have had a different volunteer, so I had no idea who it would be.  When I got to the office, I asked Noura who the volunteer would be, and she said it was Jameel!!!  I was very happy.  Neither of us had any idea we would be going together.  And Jameel is also friends with Heide. So, it was nice to go the three of us together.  And, since he's my Arabic teacher, he encouraged me to talk to the taxi driver in Arabic!  It was great.

After the class, I came home for lunch.  I had just finished eating my lunch, when the landlady knocked on the door and handed me a big plate of food!!!  It will have to wait for dinner time when the five of us can share it.  No microwave! :( 

The Episcopal Church

Tuesday, March 14, 2017
I found the Episcopal church.  It's right down the street from my house, but the gate is always closed. It might be open on Sundays, but I have Arabic class and teach four classes on Sundays (one of my busiest days).

Here's the sign for the church 

Here's the plaque with the bells:

The first bell says it's the priest's house.  The second says it's Zarafely house (?) and the third bell is the school.
I have to walk past the church when I go to the market, so I pass it almost every day.  One day as I was walking past, the gate to the church courtyard was open.  I decided to walk in and see if I could find anyone.  I went in, but all I saw was closed doors.  As I was walking around, the gate closed electronically!  I was afraid I was locked in!  But it turned out that I could just open it from inside to leave.
Finally, I sent an email to the priest.  He answered that I am welcome and that services are every Sunday at 10:00.  That's not a good time for me, but I can leave Arabic class early and also leave church early to go teach my class.  I can at least try that this Sunday.

Learning my way around and knafeh (the most important thing in Nablus)

Monday, March 13, 2017

Yesterday (Sunday) was a really busy day.  I had my first Arabic class - two and a half hours - one on one.  Jameel, my teacher, is really nice, so the time passes quickly.
Then, I walked to the Project Hope office to prepare some papers for my classes that day.  I have three 30 minute classes at the public school.  The English teacher stays in the room with me.  When I ask kids a question, she often tells them the answer.  I was thinking of asking the principal if I could be left by myself with the kids, but when it was time to leave, she told me she wanted me to model good teaching practices for the teacher because she isn't very good.  I think she just gives them worksheets.  After that we took another taxi to the refugee camp for the after-school kids.  We worked on alphabet with them.  It definitely helped that I spent last weekend walking around the city to learn my way.  Jafar (my local volunteer who accompanies me to class on Sundays and Tuesdays) was supposed to meet me at the PH office, but he called and asked if I could meet him by the ATM's right upstairs from the taxi depot.  I said yes.  Noura asked me twice if I knew where it was, but I definitely did.  Then, on the way home, it was raining and the taxi was passing near Jafar's house, so he wanted to get out and asked if I could find my way home.  I said as long as the driver takes me to center city, I'm fine.  Last week, I asked Jafar to walk me all the way back to the PH office because I was afraid I would get lost.
I was really tired after all that, but Heide and I still went to the market to buy some food and to get some knafeh.  It's a sweet that Nablus is famous for.  It's actually cheese with lots of sugar.  We took photos of the guys making it.

The market is a very interesting place.  They sell everything there:  fresh vegetables, meat, fish, shoes, clothing, etc.
Here's Heide buying some things.

The eggs are sold right next to their moms!

Moroccans don't keep pets, so any animals in the market are for food.

Two volunteers had their birthdays yesterday, so all the volunteers went out to a very nice restaurant.  We were a huge number, but it was nice.  My dinner was fabulous:  bread with chicken, onions and almonds on it.

Mondays and Wednesdays are much easier days.  I have the Arabic class in the morning and then I have one class that I share with Heide.  This time they sent us with Hani.  He was at the dinner last night with us, so Heide knew him, but I was at the other end of the table.  When we got to the school, the director was very angry and said we were late.  He said we were supposed to get there at 11:00.  But when we went last Monday, we thought class was at 10:30. He told us that wouldn't work because the kids have breakfast at 11:00 and we needed to come at 11:30.  That's what we did this time.  I have no idea what happened.  We still taught the kids and they were great.

Our first dinner together and a free day

Saturday, March 11, 2017
Last night, I was expecting everyone to get back late, but everyone but Lena was back in time for dinner.  I had bought a manoush - kind of like an individual size pizza, but a little bigger and some peppers, tomatoes and avocados.  I was planning to eat a salad and half the manoush.  Then, Heide came home, so I asked if she wanted to share with me.  Then, a little later Reema came home and said she was starving.  She had looked for food in town, but everything was closed.  We decided we needed pasta or rice to stretch our meal.  Heide and I went out to go to a small store while Reema cut up the veggies.  When we got to the store, we decided to get eggs and just make a big omelet.  I asked the man for oil and he showed me sunflower and corn oil.  I asked if he had olive oil, but he didn't.  Then he offered to go to his house to get some!!! (We refused.)  When we got back, we cooked up the food and Silvia arrived.  So, we ended up being four for dinner.  It was fun to cobble something together from what we had and all share dinner.

Today
I'm not supposed to have any classes on Saturdays - Thank goodness!  This morning, I went to the Project Office to ask about help with ATMs.  Taufiq said he could go with me to another ATM and I might have better luck.  After that, I was planning to print out some things for my classes tomorrow and make copies.  As Taufiq and I were about to leave, Noura came and said "Kathy, I need you to go to the training center and teach a class."  Right that minute!  No preparation!  Students I've never met before!  I said I would go, but she knew I was angry.  I first went back to the house to at least get colored pencils so I could talk about colors.  Then, I went to the training center.  They were high school students - about 15 of them.  They were very nice kids.  I think they just offer enrichment at the training center and see who shows up.  It went fine, but I only have one lesson to pull out of my head on the drop of a hat.  After the lesson, I was talking to Deema about my ATM problems.  (She's the person I need to pay for my Arabic class tomorrow.)  Someone at the training center said to go to the ATM in front of An Najah University.  I walked past the university yesterday.  It's on my street.  So, I walked there.  It was again Bank of Jordan (dinars only) and Arab Bank.  I tried Arab Bank.  After taking all my info - including how much money do i want, it said "This machine does not dispense cash"!!!  I started walking home and, in front of the hospital, I noticed that there is another ATM - Bank of Palestine.  It had a MasterCard sign on the awning.  The screen showed only Visa, but I tried anyway.  And I got money!!! Hooray!  The only problem is that it only gives 300 shekels at a time ($80).  I needed about $2000 shekels.  I need 950 for Deema for the Arabic class.  So, I took money out 4 times.  It charges 6 shekels each time, but at least I have money now.
So, now that I have money, I tried to buy some things we needed.  I got toilet paper.  Heide got some dish towels.  And I also stocked up on veggies.  When I was buying my vegetables, the man said, "That's all?  Nothing else?"  I said I'll come back tomorrow.  He said "Inshallah"
Tonight Ahmed showed us a Palestinian movie in the Project Hope office.  He really organizes a lot of activities.  He made popcorn and tea for everyone to have as we watched the movie.  These activities help a lot because we all get to know each other more and more.

Nablus on a Friday

Friday, March 10
Things are very quiet on Fridays here.  I had heard from others that you need to get food in the morning because there will be nothing available in the afternoon.  That was partially true.  I went to my little pizza stand (he has other things) to get something to save for dinner.  It was there in the morning, but gone in the afternoon.  I also walked in the market and bought peppers, tomatoes and avocados.  The man asked where I was from.  I said America.  He said, "welcome."  This is a common occurrence here.  I'm not sure how much English they have.  I asked how much in Arabic and he told me the price in English.  Again, all the vegetable sellers were gone in the afternoon.
The market yesterday afternoon:

The same place today:

It was kind of good to have the city so deserted.  (It's not completely deserted.  There were always a few people.  I walked down that path above and there were always others walking, too.)  It gave me more of a chance to take photos and do other things.  Yesterday, I tried to go to the ATM.  There are a bunch of them in that modern shopping mall.  They all had lines waiting to use them.  I tried a few, but was unsuccessful.  Most want a Visa card and mine is MasterCard.  Bank of Jordan takes MasterCard, but it gives the money in Jordanian dinars.  I went back to the ATMs again today.  There were no lines, so I could take my time trying different ones.  Unfortunately, I got the same result.  I could take the money out in dinars and convert it.  Or, perhaps, go inside a bank to get the money.  I'll ask for help at Project Hope tomorrow.
Nablus is full of stairs.  My tracker is set for a goal of 10 floors per day.  At home, some days I don't make it.  Here, I have 10 floors before noon.  Some days I have had 35 floors!  These are all stairs that I go up at least once a day - usually more!

There are posters all over the city of "martyrs" - boys in hoodies killed by the Israeli Defense Forces.

The one above looks like he couldn't have been more than five years old.