Daily life

Over the past few weeks people have been asking me how my life is going in Nablus. I try to explain them in the best way I can what my daily life here is all about. Not an easy task I have to say. I'm uploading as many pictures as I can onto facebook to give people an impression, hoping vigorously that the core identity of Palestine can be transferred upon to people by images. At least images speak louder than words, but then there's the smell of life here, the noise... the chaos, the contact with people: friends, or random encounters in the street.
Not to forget about the essential question: do I even have a daily life here in Palestine?? And for the more philosophical minds among us: Is a daily life in Palestine possible?
Letting the past few weeks run through my head, my days don't seem to have much in common. Of course there are the common components that fill up most people's lifes, such as eating, sleeping, working... but the way that these are done and the way that leads up to them vary on a daily basis.

A lot has to do with living as a volunteer in a different country, without your daily rituals, friends and family. But a lot has to do with Palestine as well. The economic and political situation in this country teaches people not to predict and not to expect. This attitude runs through every layer of the society and it's quite bizarre how quickly you pick up on that as an international living here.
Palestine is a system of unpredictability (even though the word system might be entirely misfit, because it implies a level of organisation). Instead of trying to beat it by an overdosis of planning, it's much wiser to accept it as a reality and take life as it comes to you...
This weekend I was in the Palestinian village of Beita, staying with a family I know. I was in the car with them when the man slowly drove into another (parked) car because his brakes were not working correctly. The owners from the other car came immediately to see what had occurred. All the men talked to each other for a few minutes... all I could understand was a frequent use of the sentence 'mish mushkileh' = no problem. After that we just left as no-one really seemed to bother about what had just happened.

But anyhow let me at least try to give an impression of everything that daily life can entail here:

Yesterday I woke up, fed the baby cat we have recently adopted because it got run over by a car, went to my Arabic lessons across the street. Walked down town to get a service (shared taxi) to the new campus of the university... after this crazy taxi ride (although this seems to be a quite common experience) where the driver saw the road obstacles put up by the PA as a racing circuit, I found out that my class was cancelled because of strikes at the university.

After that I went to my class in Al Ein refugee camp where I teach 13 year old girls. Walking down to the school I experienced the occasional Fuck-you's and Hello-what's-your-name's, that are part of being an international in Nablus, from boys that had just finished school.

When I arrived at the school I found out that my local translator had been replaced. She had to resign from working for Project Hope because of problems in her home village. The class was very nice. The girls listened quite well today and were not as enthusiastic/crazy as they sometimes get. Too bad the headmistress had to come in and declare that she thought her students sucked at English and made many mistakes.

After leaving the class and the regular compliments of my students about how much they like my hair or dress, and after the 'I love you's' I went home today with one of the girls that had invited me to have lunch at her house. She insisted that I came, telling me her mother wanted to meet me and make me a special lunch.

All the other girls found out and I had to promise them to come visit their families as well. I'm completely being drowned with dinner invitations. The day before I had dinner with three students of my university class and the day before that day I took a ride from the checkpoint to the city in a car with a very nice couple. They drove me all the way home and asked me to come pay them a visit soon... which means: come eat, drink and enjoy!

Before we went to the house of the girl we paid a quick visit to the shop in her street, because she needed to buy me some candy... She informed me that she had told the shopkeeper about me and about the fact that I was coming today. When I entered the shop I was introduced and greeted as a father greets the friends of his daughter.

At the house of the girl I had an amazing lunch where the mother had prepared me a special traditional dish that they normally don't make unless it's ramadan. After the extensive lunch I stayed for tea, coffee, cookies, sweets and a very nice conversation. The mother of the girl spoke excellent English and had very openminded, liberal and intellectual political and religious views.

After several promises to come back and taking a box full of home-made cookies I went home, where I fed the cat again and played a little with it.. she's adorable. Then we all went to the office where we had dinner with all the international and local volunteers.. at least they had dinner, I just came there to hang around. That lunch had hit me hard that afternoon! The dinner was nice... we had a few laughs and after that I went home, fed the cat one more time, checked my email and went to bed.

This is just any particular day, randomly chosen and it doesn't represent experiences in any other days of the week. Any commonalities between them are just merely coincidental.
More daily life stories soon to follow!