Day Two - still a little lost

Second day of work done!  Our class at an-Najah National University was really interesting.  It’s taught by two teachers, one Iraqi-American who teaches in English and one Palestinian who teaches in Arabic.  We all rely on the translator.  It’s a small class, so five students speak in English and three speak in Arabic.  I’ve never had to deal with that factor before, so it’s definitely a challenge.  I found myself losing my thoughts with the undercurrent of Arabic from the translator.  At the same time, our professor stressed how an important aspect of international law is dealing with language differences.  The introduction to the class reviewed a lot of material from my International Relations class from Georgetown, but I expect that we’ll soon begin discussing the history of international law and progress from there.

From an-Najah I met my local volunteer, Ola, to get to my English class for university students.  We pushed our way through the rush hour downtown to get to the center on time.  I found teaching university students easier than teaching children, but that may have been simply because I was more prepared.  I arrived with a list of vocabulary words that English speakers often confuse (such as accept/except, affect/effect, they’re/their/there…).  This took up a good amount of time and it seemed that it was a good challenge for them without being overwhelming.  However, I was frustrated that side conversations in Arabic continued…reminding me how far I have to go in my attempts to learn Arabic.  I was so grateful for Ola, who managed all the translations and helped me keep control of the class.  Apparently the students wanted to know why I hadn’t spoken to their previous teacher to gauge their level, but that teacher had already left, so Ola prevented them from being too harsh with me.  

After a while of using the vocabulary words in sentences, one student spoke up to say that they would rather practice speaking.  I split them into groups to create skits, and they acted them out in front of the class.  For the last ten minutes they wanted to learn American slang, so I imitated a wicked Boston accent for them and then a surfer brah one…hopefully they thought I was funny instead of crazy.  

Then Audrey and I met up to go shopping and get dinner.  I ended up falling asleep for two hours immediately upon returning to our flat - even though I only had two classes today, it’s exhausting.  We have to be up at 7am for our first Arabic class, and then I have my class at an-Najah followed by teaching an English class and a dance class.  It’s hard to sleep through the night, especially with the call to prayer, so we’re all looking forward to our trip to Israel proper this weekend and to sleep in.  

I feel like I have a better grasp on my role here in Nablus.  It’s hard to really help people that much in one month, but it is important that people here see what Westerners and Americans are really like.