Back from Yemin Orde

What a nice time I had. All of the coordinators hadn't managed to be there but it was a small, intimate group. The place itself had names for all of its buildings ranging from biblical names to Martin Luther King House and Magna Carta House. The view was magnificant - from one side you could see the Mediterranean and on the other the Carmel mountain range, looking very lush and rugged. We had a nice big contingent from the Galilee, and a few that came separately from Jerusalem. Four of us took a car service from Jerusalem. There was Rose, a quiet grandmother who is a Christian Arab from East Jerusalem. She and I took a walk in the late evening, and she and I instinctively would smell all the flowers we saw and comment to each other whether it had a scent or not. Then she would tell me the names of them in Arabic. Bouganvillea is Majnuneh and I forgot the name of honeysuckle. But our favorite is Jasmine. She recommended since I live not far from Jericho that I should notice a flower from that area called "footneh". Haven't a clue what it is, but will find out. Then there was Aida and her 3 year old daughter. She is of Bedouin heritage, a very in-your-face-proud-to-be-Palestinian. She reminds me alot of the African-Americans I knew in the 1970s, who were into the "black pride" thing. She and I disagreed about practically everything from the onset. When we got into our taxi van - she preferred a small car. I was thrilled with the van as I feel less claustrophobic. Aida likes the thrill of breaking the sound barrier. After 40 minutes she told me with a small car you can drive faster and asked the driver if he could speed up. He said he really didn't want to go over 110 KPH. She said she usually does 130-140 Kilometers an hour. I told her I'd never travel in her car to go anywhere because I'm really not into the "faster than the speed of light" thing. During the sessions she called me a settler because I live outside the green line. I brought it up afterwards - we all brought our stuff out on the table, which was very healthy. Palestinians generally do get angry because I'm an immigrant, and because of where I live. This is something that has to be discussed before we can go further in our work. There is anger on both sides which has to be acknowledged and discussed. But by the end of the retreat, Karmela and I discussed our vision of making our group more visible by adding an additional item on our agenda, which are monthly trips to somewhere cultural but in a public place. Everyone loved that idea and in the end they wanted to join us in our monthly outings and hand out brochures to those that were curious about our group. Lunchtime brought another idea to the forefront. We were told that some of the kids from the Youth Village asked what were Arabs doing together with Jews. Someone working there told the kids - but I said why don't we talk to these kids and have a workshop with them? This is what we are trying to do, isn't it? Everyone was enthusiastic about that idea as well and we will have to plan for a December workshop. We spoke about having all the coordinators corresponding in a Yahoo-group-type e-mail forum, where we could brainstorm, socialize, etc., and which would strengthen us in our work - so that's being established tomorrow!!! We left as one big really happy family, with a lot of hard but satisfying work to be done in the future