“wow f goes to Palestine..that should be a movie” haha one of my closest friends from college had said that upon hearing about my plans. I guess it’s not a movie but at least I can name my blog that J
The first thing that many people ask, knowing my Bengali ness, my muslim ness, female ness and overall brown ness, is "how the hell did you convince your parents to let you go to Palestine??" And the short answer to the question is that I didn’t. They are still coping and somewhat recovering from the shock. There are very few parents in the brown world that would be gung ho excited about their college grad kid wanting to “explore” and take risks by taking a break from academics. Those are fluffy concepts that only sets you up for failure, and only failure. My dad was outraged, and my mom’s love filled heart was shattered into a million and one pieces. And they were both adamantly playing around with all sorts of blackmailing tactics to dissuade me or threaten me. Like, “what do we tell people when they ask about you?”. Their heads would bow down in shame in front of the community and I would be the sole reason for their disgrace. And I don’t know how many times both of my parents were trying to convince me that I am only taking the easy way out in life. “by moving to Palestine??” I asked. And they both nodded their heads furiously saying ‘YES!”. And when all of that didn’t work, they pulled out random crap about random family drama that happened years ago that had no relevance to the current situation to weave together an intense saga of melodrama.
Anyways. The second most popular question is how did you end up in Palestine?? I’m not so sure myself how everything worked out. Let’s just say that my firm belief in divine intervention is ROCK solid right now. My insanely awesome friends knew how much, how MUCH, I wanted to leave the U.S to work abroad for a period of time. Last birthday, they all pitched in to buy an airplane ticket. I ended up not using the ticket for when I was supposed to. After graduating, I spent 5 months working in retail, to take time to figure out how to land a job abroad, and man o man was it a test of patience. Over the summer, I was in India doing a service project when one of my friends sparked a conversation with her friend on facebook, who had happened to be working in Palestine. I had actually worked with her 3 years ago at a childrens’ museum and had lost touch afterwards. When I had met her I was captivated by her traveling experience, and I remember thinking at that time three years ago “WOW I WISH I COULD DO THAT!” we had known each other for a very very short amount of time . About a month ago she got in touch with me to tell me that there was an opening at the school where she works in Ramallah. A week later, I had quit my job, at which point things really weren’t that final for my teaching position. I was prepping to come to Ramallah, even though I felt like I was walking around with a blindfold on, not sure what to do next. I was mechanically just getting things done, unable to fathom if I’d actually be coming to the Middle East.
I booked my ticket on the 5th, left on the 6th, got to my apartment on the 7th and started teaching on the 9th. And I guess that’s where the story starts.
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DISCLAIMER :
The only purpose for this particular blog is to serve as a personal reflection on my experience here in Ramallah for loved ones to read so that they can get a glimpse of the things that I’m dealing with. I’ve been apprehensive of starting a blog because, as I note many of my sentiments, I hesitate in expressing them thinking that I’m ignorant about many of the complexities surrounding the circumstances of where I am. However I now realize, that documenting my raw thoughts with an experience like this is invaluable. So my only disclaimer is that I am only expressing my own personal opinion which is limited to only my personal experiences. I also am eager to share my feelings to get feedback for constructive discussions.
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