September 24, 2010
In the last 20 days or so, I went to pray at the Dome of the Rock for the last Jummah in Ramadan, lost my passport, saw an outrageous festive Ramallah and East Jerusalem on the last nights of the Holy Month, had delicious iftaars with students’ families, prayed Lailat-al-Qadr prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque, moved out of my lovely stone housed apartment (yes the infamous Georgette’s apartment), moved into a new contemporary middle class residential area, spent a maddening amount of time running back and forth from the Cairo/Amman bank to the Ramallah Police Station (about five or six times at least) after discovering that my entire bank account with all of my accumulated earned teaching money from June was wiped out ( i had lost my wallet with my American passport, my bank card, and money), spent Eid ul Fitr in Jerusalem after praying Eid Prayer at 7am at the Dome of the Rock, met the kind hospitality inside the home of a lovely family from Halhul, a village outside of Hebron, and had a mind twisting day in Tel Aviv with a French Algerian friend, a friend from Nablus who was being toyed with by the Tel Aviv University and a new friend from San Francisco, who happens to be an American Jew, a fresh graduate from Law School currently staying in Ramallah. I’ve also been teaching, of course, and have picked up 3 or 4 families to tutor, ranging from age 7 to 16, doing hourly lessons on intensive writing for some, creative writing for others, conversation, reading and grammar for the rest. Private arabic lessons that I started taking should hopefully drill my brain with enough Palestinian colloquial arabic to reach conversational level soon. I also discovered a fabulous chicken/kebab restaurant place where all the meat is skewed outside of course, the smoke bellowing a burnt smell of authentic street food goodness seasoned with perfection, selling mouth watering sandiwches for only 5 shekels (roughly $1.35).
Did I mention I lost my passport?
Life has been moving lightning speed, and when I'm not writing, it often means that I'm not giving myself a chance to reflect or swallow the things that are happening to or around me. Time permitting, more to come soon.
In the last 20 days or so, I went to pray at the Dome of the Rock for the last Jummah in Ramadan, lost my passport, saw an outrageous festive Ramallah and East Jerusalem on the last nights of the Holy Month, had delicious iftaars with students’ families, prayed Lailat-al-Qadr prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque, moved out of my lovely stone housed apartment (yes the infamous Georgette’s apartment), moved into a new contemporary middle class residential area, spent a maddening amount of time running back and forth from the Cairo/Amman bank to the Ramallah Police Station (about five or six times at least) after discovering that my entire bank account with all of my accumulated earned teaching money from June was wiped out ( i had lost my wallet with my American passport, my bank card, and money), spent Eid ul Fitr in Jerusalem after praying Eid Prayer at 7am at the Dome of the Rock, met the kind hospitality inside the home of a lovely family from Halhul, a village outside of Hebron, and had a mind twisting day in Tel Aviv with a French Algerian friend, a friend from Nablus who was being toyed with by the Tel Aviv University and a new friend from San Francisco, who happens to be an American Jew, a fresh graduate from Law School currently staying in Ramallah. I’ve also been teaching, of course, and have picked up 3 or 4 families to tutor, ranging from age 7 to 16, doing hourly lessons on intensive writing for some, creative writing for others, conversation, reading and grammar for the rest. Private arabic lessons that I started taking should hopefully drill my brain with enough Palestinian colloquial arabic to reach conversational level soon. I also discovered a fabulous chicken/kebab restaurant place where all the meat is skewed outside of course, the smoke bellowing a burnt smell of authentic street food goodness seasoned with perfection, selling mouth watering sandiwches for only 5 shekels (roughly $1.35).
Did I mention I lost my passport?
Life has been moving lightning speed, and when I'm not writing, it often means that I'm not giving myself a chance to reflect or swallow the things that are happening to or around me. Time permitting, more to come soon.
