August 2009
7 posts
Time is Not Standing Still
It’s a difficult adjustment being home. I was welcomed with a huge family dinner through which I tried to condense five weeks of confusion into a coherent conversation. My pictures helped, but only so much. After dinner I went out to meet up with my friends. This may have been due to not having slept for 22 hours, but I sat there in a trance watching everything happen around me. This is...
Travel Paranoia
Awaiting a flight out of Tel Aviv is nerve-wracking. On one hand, I was ecstatic to be going home. Despite the amazing time I had during FFIPP, I couldn’t wait to get home and share all my stories and pictures with my family, sleep in my own bed, and calm down a little. However, all that excitement has to be put on hold in order to figure out how to get through Ben Gurion Airport security...
FFIPP comes to an end... kind of
For our final session of meetings as FFIPP interns, we met in the Ibda’a Center in the Deheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. Our first night was a debriefing followed by a dinner and pool party. We were asked by the coordinators to split into groups and discuss what we liked about FFIPP and want to see continued, what we disliked and thought needed to be improved upon, and any ideas for...
Life's a Beach
If I were to choose the polar opposite of Nablus, it would be the Israeli city of Eilat. Located on the Red Sea, this city is like an alternate universe of skimpy clothing, techno/house music, too much shopping, and a fundamental oblivion to the real issues facing the country. Audrey and I found a cheap but nice place to stay and felt bizarre yet again being able to take normal showers and have...
Indiana Jones and the Interns of FFIPP
Mathilde, Audrey, and I took off from Nablus on Thursday afternoon to begin our trip to Petra, Jordan. Never before have the problems of restrictions on freedom of movement been so clear to me. We took a service to Ramallah and then a bus to Jerusalem. At the Qalandia Checkpoint into Jerusalem, you are required to get off the bus and go through security before getting back on. We had to get...