Waiting Room

This is Margaret writing. I'm just posting an update to let everyone know we are still here. We don't have a computer, so we are at the mercy of the office computers at Project Hope. There are rumored to be internet cafes in town, hopefully we will find one eventually.

I'm the one waiting, Dave is a busy man. I don't have any classes set up, so I'm just waiting to see if one is scheduled for me. There are a lot of English teachers volunteering, and classes have just resumed for the Palestinians after Ramadan so it has been slow going. Dave is one of two Drama teachers, and he has four classes scheduled at two different refugee camps, plus he will be helping teach at the circus, and helping a guy with his play, AND going to the drama club at a university maybe? He can explain it all in greater detail. I'm just going with him to his classes to help out, as I have nothing else to do. I feel like there should be something more to do, that the fault is with me, I guess I'll just do my best to help wherever I can.

There is so much more I want to write about being here, as well as our earlier travels, but I'm not in the right frame of mind right now.

Tomorrow we are going to Yanoon to watch the olives be harvested. This is supposed to be a contentious area, as the Israeli settlers clash with the Palestinians trying to collect the olives. I'm not sure what will happen. Not much was explained to us, just that we are there as observers.

I'm going to let Dave get on the computer before class. More later.

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And now it's later! It's funny how things can turn around very quickly here. I was just talking with Maarouf, the Volunteer Coordinator, and I might be able to do an Art class with the kids in the refugee camps, which would be great. I want to give them a chance to do something fun and express themselves. Hs wife is a psychotherapist focusing on children's reactions to violence and war. I'm interested in this area, so I can't wait to talk to her more about it.

The taxi driver that just dropped us off was asking Maarouf about what we do here at Project Hope, and he said to say thank you to us for leaving our "clean" countries and coming here. Life is a balancing act of men like that versus men ogling us on the street, kids throwing rocks at us and kids giving us flowers.

I'll write a more interesting post later.