I know I said I meant to write every day but when there is no significant progress or anything important to tell you other than my usual routine, it makes me feel like this whole blog/journal thing is becoming too mundane, as if I'm just writing for the sake of writing. And that's not the case. Anyway, from my 23rd day until today, I spent most of my time at school, working on bunch of things, including reports, the FGHA's website, looking for some job openings in the States, reading my book about the U.S. Middle East Policy...
Yesterday though, I had a wonderful training session. My core is still so sore, including my butts. I like it when the butts feel sore. It was after everybody left, the outside was dark and kind of chilly, I finally found a nice pair of speakers. Then I started training.
How nice! Mestre Barrao's singing Preto Velho. How much I missed hearing the berimbau on the speakers, laud and clear. I put the volume to the highest, worked on my kicks, and especially the RDA, Mestre Chuvisco's voice in my ear continuously saying "Higher kick, Cigarra!" I miss my group. And it felt so wonderful, my walk back home under the stars in this beautiful peninsula.
Too poetic? WELL, I FELT POETIC THAT NIGHT, ALL RIGHT?!
Moving on to today. We had very cool guests from a Dutch NGO that operates in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. They're also doing encounter workshops with Israeli and Palestinian youth. This is not so different than our programs here. But apparently their workshops are at least for 10 days where the youth get to enjoy sports (mostly team sports) activities together during free time. Like sailing... (How about some capoeira for the minds and the souls, right? Yeah, I'll talk to them.)
I'm becoming more and more curious about the quantity and the quality of these encounter workshops, ngos on almost every street corner in Israel and Palestinian cities (I don't know about Gaza.) Is there any progress? What do they do? How do they do it? If there isn't any significant progress, why is that? Roughly.
We talked about several different issues, on being a foreigner and being involved in these youth encounters? What is the initial reaction or during the workshops, of the people to the fact that they are foreigners, with no considerable link to the land, nor any of the people? Apparently they haven't had any serious issues pertaining to their identity. Some groups may actually find it relieving. I think one of the biggest challenges that they might be facing is the language barrier. All participants are supposed to express themselves in English. So recruitment is another issue, related to that. Halim said, being able to speak English is not the indicator of having something valuable to add or having the will to contribute to a social change. Sofi, one of the Dutch people, said that in the past they had participants from Holland, Belgium as well, among their Israeli-Palestinian bunch. Also an Ethiopian Jew, and a Dutch Eritrean. I would like to talk to them about these interesting additions and how they affect the whole concept and the outcomes of the workshops.
We also talked about concepts like oppressor, oppressed (passive) as opposed to obedient (active) who can become disobedient. And the responsibility of the oppressed to free the oppressor as well. I need to read more on this one.
Also talked about the Jewish identity an the Palestinian identity and how these may clash in almost all the workshops. The stages of an encounter study. Again roughly it seems to follow a route where first both sides "attack" each other with several accusations. Both groups feel like their identity is falling apart. Then comes the demoralization, thinking how impossible it is to understand each other and solve this problem. Than in most cases, out of hopelessness comes hope, dialogue, cooperation, empathy, will to do something together to change the current situation. Israeli group deals with the fact of being oppressors and how they take responsibility for that while Palestinians challenge themselves with the brutal facts about the suicide attacks, violence and how they should take responsibility for that as well. Tough.
I have so many examples I can share here and I have a feeling that what I have said above is not representative enough of the issues we touched upon. But one of the things that actually me and Halim had discussed at the meeting will be a serious topic for me. Although I won't be talking about it here now. Not now. Because I need to talk to him about it first. I need to make sure I understood him correctly and if so or if not I'm going to need him to explain it to me again. So that we can continue the discussion and I can share it with you here. Otherwise, I wouldn't want to say anything that he actually didn't mean. I think it's a delicate subject. Curious? HAH!
We had a fun grocery shopping tonight. ILOVEDRIVINGINISRAEL! That looks like a fine sticker to me. It's me and Timo and his friend from Germany, Svivo, I think? I'm very very bad with names. He's a nice guy though, working with children with mental disability in Cologne. He makes good food (vegetarian) and he cleans the kitchen thoroughly each time he cooks. He even takes care of the leftovers, puts them back in the fridge, all finely covered and whatnot! Very rare in my experience. Anyway, I made some pasta for all of us, now I'm in my room, getting ready to sleep.
Another good news is that I set up an appointment with Gidon Bromberg of the Friends of the Earth Middle East, thanks to my professor back in Miami. I have to be fully ready for this interview. Also I will be visiting this Dutch group in their offices and it'd be great if I can film the interview. Oh yes.
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