From the Mid-West to the Mid-East

Seeds Stories Songs and Soup

I find myself with free time at work again. Reem, the woman I assist, says that after the 15th things with the Maine camp should be settled and she'll actually have stuff for me to do. The whole problem is Hamas (I know, I can't blame Hamas for everything, but when it comes to terrorism and my non-existant work-load, I can), since they've taken over the Palestinian government the Palestinian funding and support for Seeds of Peace has been completely cut off. The schools that used to send their best and brightest students are now not allowed to participate and so Seeds has to turn to private schools and others that can't be threatened by the government. This compromises that character of the Palestinian Seed participants, because where there used to be children from many backgrounds, economic and social, there is now a much smaller and more elite pool. There is also, I've heard, the chance that Hamas members will be sending their kids (the program includes a lot of leadership training and rare opportunities for travel outside of the Palestinian Territories), arguably that's the sort of kids that SOP should be reaching, but if they come in as saboteurs or something along those lines it could become very difficult.

Last night was really fantastic, and I really appreciate the opportunities I'm going to have being a part of SOP and living in Jerusalem. First, let me say that I spent the whole day shopping with Emily and I actually found Israeli clothes that fit me and didn't have sparkles/ crocheted flowers/ inappropriate English on them, and all pretty cheap. This alone was miraculous and a near religious experience. At 4:30 Emily and I put on the cutest of our new clothes and headed over to Seeds of Peace to help with last night's program.

The first Sunday of every month SOP hosts a "Seeds Cafe" where they invite adults (educators, parents of Seeds, members of other NGOs) to participate in a program that reflects a theme of coexistence. When we got there we got FREE SOP sweatshirts and bracelets and began welcoming the guests and talk to a few Seeds. I spoke with Meirav, an Israeli girl, and Mohammad, an Arab-Israeli boy. Mohammad (he asked how old I was, when I said I was turning 22 on Saturday he thought I was lying, turns out that he's 18) We then got to sit in on the program, two female storytellers, an Israeli and a Palestinian, talking about the importance of storytelling as well as sharing a few of their favorites. They each did one story in English, then the Palestinian told a story in Arabic and the Israeli told the same story, with variations, in Hebrew. They then asked the audience for stories, and one Muslim women talked about the importance of folk song as a story in Palestinian culture and then began to sing for us. Half the crowd knew the song as were singing along and everyone was clapping. A professor from Hebrew University then talked about his little life philosophy and then a professor from Al-Quds University (Arabic for Jerusalem, located in East Jerusalem) told his. It's exactly what I always wanted for the Muslim-Jewish Dialogue Club at OSU and it was truly thrilling to be a part of.

After we helped clean up, Emily, Daniela (she came with one of the women from her organization, Jerusalem Stories), and I sat and listened to the jazz trio (what is the word for that?) that were playing in the corner. One of the guys, the drummer, had the hair that Daniela loves and eyes that Emily really appreciates, and of course, I just enjoyed the music. So I went up to the bass player and asked where they usually played, he told us Marakia, that they are there all the time and we should drop in tonight. But we had a date with Ami, who was playing at Sugar Hill in the City Center. So off to Sugar Hill we went, the tiniest, teeniest, little bar I've ever seen. The place was packed with Ami's friends (there were about 20 of us, but believe me it was standing room only) and we listened to him play guitar and sing for about two hours. It was just so nice to see Ami doing what he loves to do, with his friends around him. Around 11 I became ravenous and we headed out to find Marakia. It turns out to be another hole-in-the-wall (though slightly bigger) soup and jazz place (soup in Hebrew is marak, so we should have guessed), really excellent. I got mint and pepper soup and we listened to the group from earlier (they all waved when we came in) and just hung out at a very different place.

By far my most complete and favorite night of Jerusalem

posted by A Mus-Ed Blogger @ 1:41 AM