In between adventures

I am currently in between adventures so in the meantine i am working on a jewelry line inspired by my world travels, please check it out and reccomend it to your friends. i appreciate your support :-)

The Shop:

ZahiraBazaar.etsy.com

or find Zahira on Facebook

Home, and all the things that means

The first 2 weeks i was home, i wasnt able to sleep more than a couple of hours a night at most, and i had no appetite. Im not sure why this was, jet lag usually takes the form for me of just sleeping for days. In this extra awake time, i was trying to make myself productive. My roommate and i went to target to get some things for the apartment, which is strange to do when youve become unaccustomed to american consumerism (which is actually nowhere near as bad as china) but i was doing alright until i went to check out. At the check out line i was thirsty, and i went to grab a coke which actually turned out to be written in hebrew and said something along the lines of 'israel, our partner'. In this moment the culture shock really began to hit me, i had no idea what this was or how to handle it and i was really upset. I chose to buy pepsi that day and on my drive home i was just confused. Were america, we invented coke, why would we put it in hebrew? Since then i have realized that they have these in many languages in celebration for the olympics in beijing, but at the time it had just seemed like some sort of cruel joke.

There are two things i think i am struggling with most here in america. The first is trying to talk about the things i did and saw there in a way that gets the message heard, and trying to relate to people here who have not seen and do not understand it. It is the american christian zionist and jewish lobby here that controls the media, that controls the history that many of us have recieved in a biased manner, and as i have said earlier it is those americans that become the most radical in israel, they are building the settlements, they are funding the military. There are few people here that have actually been exposed to any kind of real education on the topic, and the cause is not nearly as trendy as darfur so it just doesnt get much attention. Ive been feeling all of a sudden like i have to watch my words if i want any kind of useful career, like this blog itself could be detrimental to me in the future and having to weigh out all these things against my desire to help and it has made me feel fearful and strange. Even talking to close friends or family members i have encountered the idea that the things i am saying cannot be true because they conflict with the things they have been taught. It is hard, because all of this has become so important to me.

The second thing that may perhaps be the hardest is Palestine itself. I miss everyone and everything there so much, but at the same time i am forced to realize that those memories can never be replicated. by the time i go back, even if it is just next summer everything is going to be differant. The place ive been dying to go back to will not be there, but will instead be replaced by something else, something sadder, and it will be like this every time. To make this clearer i will just give a few examples, obviously the west bank will change a great deal, but i will just talk about where i lived for now. Oush Grab, the place where we had the bingo protest for the settlers so jokingly will be an actual settlement. Even though it is illegal in that zone, they have somehow gotten the man power behind it and are going to begin its real creation soon. This will of course change beit sahour a great deal because now, instead of on the next hill, it will literally be a short walk down the street from where i lived to the nearest settlement which will of course cause tension and conflict in the area due to harrassment from then on the palestinian residents. The wall will be much larger, it will probably have already surrounded bethlehem on all four sides, creating a sort of isolated ghetto with almost no mobility, choking the economy there. Many more homes will be demolished and not rebuilt. The morale will probably be much lower and more desperate, and many of those die hard palestinians i had known will probably have given up and moved out. Many of the roads through the west bank are israeli only, and so the palestinians have been forced to tunnel underneath or attain some sort of rare and special permit. Now they are going to divide it entirely so many roads will be double decker, and segregated. These new aparthied roads im sure will create some sort of a stir as it is blatent, obvious racial segregation rather than security. The whole place will be something else, the whole feeling will be differant, and i am sad just thinking that in just one year the situation will become that much worse, that it does every year and still noone here is doing anything.

Still i believe now that it will be worth it to endure these things to return and to help, i have no choice in life but to follow my heart

"Be the change you want to see in the world"

Mahatma Gandhi

Getting Home

After my flight from tel aviv i had plans to travel to china with one of my friends from home. we met up in LA for our flight, which was somewhat tiring having already come from the east, and then flying around the world west without any real chance to take a break or go home anywhere. My trip to china was sponsored and subsidized by the chinese government, which made the trip cheap and therefore appealing to me. Unfortunately after my time in palestine i was having a bit of a struggle with this concept. China is a country that is occupying Tibet, which wants to be free. They are able to do this because they are more powerful, more violent, and because the rest of the world wants to keep good enough relations with them not to interfere much. It is of course not entirely the same, but im sure you can see how the situation looks familiar. The israeli government also subsidizes trips to their land and i remembered it being something that really bothered me, and now i was a part of it.

Israel is very good at what they do. I dont support it, but i certinaly can respect how genious much of it is. The whole area is just tiny even in comparison to my home state of texas. Its just a little country and everything is right there, and yet all these people come through and see nothing. Even tourists to bethlehem come on israeli tours and stay in israeli hotels in jerusalem instead. They bring them through and they show them only what they want them to see and then they go home and say 'ive been there, and israel was great and i didnt see any of that 'opression' stuff you were talking about' and spread these kinds of ideas to the public making the things im saying look like some kind of leftist exaggeration of the truth, when in reality they didnt see anything.

This is now what i felt i was a part of in china. We took strange routes to places, which i believed had a purpose in trying to go around poverty and other things that may make the government look bad. We stayed in hotels on the outskirts of town so that it was difficult to access the city and the people. We saw only what they wanted us to see, we did only what they wanted us to do. When we went to tianemen square for example, they didnt mention anything about the massacre that happened when students tried to hold a non violent protest there, this event is known to many americans as 'the day democracy died' in china, and it is the most well known thing about it. It was all reminicent of my time in Israel, the rewriting of history and events. Most maps in israel carefully leave off big cities in the west bank, bethlehem is nearly never featured, though there is nothing else really to call it this area is usually either called 'greater jerusalem' or left completley blank. This propeganda machine was really getting under my skin and while i was in china i had to keep reminding myself that there is more to it than what i had been allowed to see, and as long as i kept that in mind then i was doing alright. I had seen only one clip from the news while i was there, i suppose an israeli soldier shot himself in front of the french president as he was leaving tel aviv. I thought maybe this was going to be some sort of statement, but its all just been written off as insanity. All things considered, it was a good trip through china, we saw alot of things but i just had some trouble really being moved by things that are just things because nobody was telling me the politics of any of it, their real signifigance to the people, and without the human element for me it was just alot of pretty things. After that week and a half in china i returned home. The whole journey was exhausting and i was having some trouble reconciling everything that had happened with the resuming of my old life before i had known any of it. I was tired, upset, and feeling isolated.

Leaving Palestine

for one of my last nights my host family decided to make a nice dinner for me and julia. Being christians, my family is allowed to eat pork, and for some reason they decided that massive amounts of pork would be the perfect goodbye bbq. It was delicious, but several pork chops, pieces of bacon, and countless sausages later i was stuffed! It was really nice to have a nice goodbye dinner with them, they set up a whole, almost romantic, dining area outside and we smoked argilah and drank arak and had a really nice time. It was unfortunately cut somewhat short because i had decided i wanted to go see the only club nearby in beit jallah called cosmos, which was incredibly lame, and not at all worthwhile as it was an off night. I didnt have much left to do besides pack which i put off until the absolute last possible time. My host mom made me my favourite beef stroganof-ish lasagna and i was debating the whole day what to do with all my political souveniers like free palestine shirts. I was joking that i would just wear them all under another shirt because if i was going to get strip searched at the airport i was already in hot water and it might make for a nice laugh later. I wore it the whole day and joked with everyone that i was going to just walk through ben gurion airport that way. I went to the bible college where my group was having its weekly meeting to say goodbye to everyone which was really hard and sad. Everybody gave me huge genuine hugs and promised to keep in touch, and i could see my sadness reflected in some peoples eyes. I tried to keep a smiling face because there was no point in anyone getting too upset over something like that when they were going to continue to live under occupation for a while longer. My roommate caught me when we were leaving shedding a few tears, and that was alright with me, i just didnt want to make some kind of scene. We went home and i said goodbye to my family and i just wanted to stay more than anything else. They kept telling me that i could but we all knew that was unreasonable. They made me promise to come back, which wasnt an empty promise at all. I knew i hadnt stayed for long enough to see and do all the things i wanted and that i was going to come back and do what i could to help or at least shed some light on their cause.

Ultimately i just packed all my political wear inside of other clothes and was on my way. A driver came to pick me up, he had residency in jerusalem and was therefore able to drive me all the way through. We actually had a pretty fun ride joking in arabic, though he told me his family spoke aramaic which i thought was fascinating because i had always assumed that language was dead. Aramaic is the language that jesus spoke, it is very old and rare to encounter. We made jokes about the occupation the whole way, which was really nice because i was honestly pretty scared about going through security, especially after hearing about all the other people that got strip searched and had their computers taken and everything. I didnt do anything that was illegal while i was living in the west bank. I was volunteering and helping people and there wasnt anything wrong with it, but the israelis really want to discourage this kind of thing so they like to make it difficult for you. Its very different that security in america where really they just want your sharp objects and liquids as opposed to going through your books for political things. My driver just told me to keep smiling and that everything would be fine, when we drove up to the airport they put a sticker on my passport, which he peeled off despite my objection saying 'they do this to everybody it is just to say you have an arab driver so they can search you' so i suppose that was for the best even though i was feeling pretty strange about all of it. It didnt matter because they searched everything i owned anyway and took my computer to a special room. Luckily i had prepared myself for this beforehand, but it was still a hassle.

On the flight back i was sitting next to an christian american couple. they said they had been to israel a few times. i asked them what the most powerful thing they had seen while they were there was, and they replied 'the wall'. I was really excited thinking i had found someone who understood some of the things i had seen while i was there but it turned out to be a huge miscommunication because they meant the wailing wall. i was so confused i was asking 'you mean you didnt see THE WALL, its twice the size of the berlin wall!' but they hadnt. on the israel side it is often buried and painted like the landskape around it and sometimes it actually looks pretty nice, especially in comparison the the concrete barbed wire atrocity we were forced to look at every day. They were christians, but they decided to skip the bethlehem part of the pilgrimage since in israel it is portrayed to be a hotbed of terrorism and violence and completely unsafe for anyone. they went on to explain to me how happy they were to be in israel because it is more free to speak because apparently 'america is so anti israeli, you cant say anything'. I decided i wasnt really in a good place to talk to them much more. First of all israel gets millions and millions of dollars from america to do things like build that wall. Those are our tax dollars, and if that isnt blind support i dont know what is. They may as well have checked up on their investment. Second i dont think it was very fair for them to have such a strong opinion on the situation without seeing what was really happening any closer. If they were in jerusalem it was just 20 minuites to where i was staying if there wasnt any checkpoint hassle. Before they decide that the international community is 'too hard on israel' they should probably see what israel is really doing and then they are entitled to whatever opinion theyd like. The situation has been likened the most to what happened to the native americans in pioneer times, and to the south africans with their aparthied wall and white government. One would be able to see these comparisins with ease if they put forth any effort at all to see what was going on with human rights there.

Last Trip in the West Bank

I went to my last protest to the wall building in the south. The soldiers had set up a road block, knowing that we were coming, so we had to kind of off road to get to where we were going. Eventually we made it, i have found that with the determination of the palestinians that go tot this protest, there is absolutely no point in making road blocks. This is their land, they know the ins and outs, and nothing is going to stop them from being there. when we got there the people had gotten the biggest palestinian flag i have ever seen and they walked right up to the barbed wire fence and just held it there. This was one of those things that instills hope. Such a big symbol of freedom is really powerful. I really enjoyed this protest, everyone came out and it was just nice to see all of your friends each holding a piece of the same flag. Each taking a part in the same solidarity. I tell you that these protests are fun, and in a way it is because you get to socialize with all the palestinians and really show your dedication to the cause with your friends. Its also fun in the sense that it gives you a nice warm feeling of internationals and palestinians getting together and organizing to do something instead of just complaining. It gives a hopeful feeling that although this will not probably impact anything of the building of the wall there, the people are learning non violent resistance to the occupation and applying it. If they have enough hope to go though all of that, its a reason to have hope yourself. On the other hand i am not going to lie to you. When we first get out of that car and start walking towards those soldiers, my heart is beating out of my chest. Everyone feels this way, its not anyone in particular, i think thats why it becomes such a bonding thing. Nothing will bring people closer than knowing they are both on the other side of the fence from the people with guns haha. Solidarity.

The last weekend trip took us up north all they way to cessaria, nazareth, the sea of galilee, and haifa. Truthfully we did so much and i was so exhausted i dont know if i can remember everything but it was still an interesting trip. The beaches were beautiful, especially cessaria-i think i am forced to take back what i said about tel aviv as it turned out to be even more beautiful. This trip, like the one before to jericho and the dead sea, was more sight seeing and religious pilgrimage oriented. I suppose after the first hebron trip, that was just what they had decided for us. I was glad to see the sited, but it wasnt the reason i had come to live in the west bank. I was sad that we didnt meat with any groups like we had met with icahd in jerusalem or anything. This was a tour i could have gotten by anyone. I think i am just getting frustrated because i have to leave so soon, and i just wanted to get in every possible thing i could and understand the most in the time i was here, and so despite the historical significance and beauty of these places i was somewhat disappointed. I could have gone to these places on my own at some distant time in the future on some tour, i didnt need to be with a political group to do something that had no politics in it. Again i am reminded by everyone that to fully understand the politics, you must understand the religions and the history. Still i stray from this viewpoint. As ive probably said earlier, i think this whole palestinian question needs to get as far from religious philosophical debates as possible and right down to human rights. Still i know that even if its just an excuse, these things are the things that drive everything here.

Some things i found really interesting on this trip. Nazareth is a part of israel, and the people there are 'israeli' but they are all palestinians. Its not under occupation, they, unlike even jerusalemites, get citizenship and have their own palestinian governor. That was very strange because, for some reason, i thought all the palestinians had been pushed out and that in israel you wouldnt find these all arabic speaking places like this. it was just strange because it was another imaginary border separating a bunch of things that are all the same from one another. I guess in a best case scenario, this is what the one state solution would look like, which up until now seemed completley impossible just because of all the racism. The israelis have their own problems between arab 'mizrahi' jews and european jews. I figured if they could not even tolerate other jews with darker skin, how could they ever tolerate palestinians, but here they seemed to be living in relaive peace in nazareth, though i should mention that they are looked down upon by other palestinians because many of them serve in the military, and are often harder on people than the jews to earn their status in israel. they are a special group, and they exchange the peace they enjoy for the peace of other palestinians, which causes some peolpe to see them as sell outs. nonetheless it was interesting to see some palestinians enjoying almost all the rights of the jews in israel. i went to the most well preserved crusader castle, where jesus walked on water, where he turned the bread and fish into enough to feed everyone, where he turned water into wine, and where mary was told she would conceive. This last one had to be the coolest church i have ever been to. They had pictures of mary and jesus sent from every country in the world, and it was just so interesting how the picture changes to fit the culture. for example the chinese mary looked completley chinese, the mexican mary was mexican and so on. It was really cool to see all these countries adaptations of the same image to reflect their own cultures and i liked it alot because when you put them all together like that, it dosent seem like were all so differant after all.

one of the most interesting things i saw there was actually a television program about reporters in gaza. Reporters are pretty much the only people allowed in and out of gaza nowadays and the program was showing how the israeli soldiers were sending a pretty clear message that although they have to allow the press in, it would come at a price. there was tons of footage of press waving white flags and just getting shot right in the face by soldiers for no reason but to send this message. i wished more people could see programs like this here because i think people feel like the international community is invincible, and particularly because many of these people come from countries that have very good relationships with israel. its of course powerful to see what is happening to the palestinians, but i know much of the international community has already decided that theyre all terrorists and somehow deserve those atrocities. Perhaps it would be more resonating to see some people from their own countries with helmets and jackets with 'press' spelled out as big as it could waving white flags, obviously innocent, and realize that we are all the victims in this struggle.

return to hebron, the orphanage

i suppose after the first big incident in hebron, it was important to me to go back. it wasnt quite somuch a face your fear kind of thing as much as i felt like the first time we just got out of there as fast as we could, and i would have liked to see more. In addition to this desire to go back, we had all been hearing about these orphanages there that are set now for demolition. CPT has been calling for other internationals to please come down and spend a night in the orphanages to try and deter soldiers from doing raids and destroying things, or at least slow down the demolition process. four of us set out to go and stay a night in one of these orphanages.

We got a cab, went through all the checkpoints, and arrived finally in hebron. Hebron is a much more conservative muslim city than bethlehem, and so the girls were all wearing long sleeves and pants. It was pretty clear as we were waiting for the CPT representative to come meet us that they dont get tourists very often. I remembered from the first trip how sad the old city is. Its a complex beautiful old medina, like fes or any other big city in the middle east. I had remembered placed like this in morocco and how full of life and buisiness they were. thousands of little shops, fresh food cooking and just full of people. The old city in hebron, because of the harrassment of settlers is just completley deserted. most of the shops are closed, and it is just weird to see something like that. it would be like entering a super mall in america but without any of the merchandice, just a few things to remind you that it was once there.

We did a Breif tour of the city and the orphanages with CPT. I dont know that they are my favourite group to work with. They are very passionate about what they do, and the truth is that between the extreemes in hebron (the settlers and the conservative hebronites) the peacemakers there need to be just as hardcore, but it just isnt quite my style. From what ive seen so far in the wet bank, if you just wait long enough trouble will come to you, there is no need to go looking for, or fabricate it. The things that you can see there are powerful enough. Im sure what im saying isnt making much sense so ill give you an example. As a part of the tour we went to go see a bakery that was making all the bread for the orphanages, the israelis had raided it, and destroyed everything inside. There was still bread scattered across the floor and everything was just completley trashed. I asked them when this had happened because it looked really rescent, and they said it had been a couple of months. I think after a couple of months it would be alright to just throw away the rotting bread, i know it was left there to give everything the impression that it could have been only yesterday that it happened, but to me these things just dont seem nessicary. The israelis raided a bakery, the scene was powerful enough on its own without the whole song and dance. The cpt lady also said she had been there for 5 years, but she didnt speak a work of arabic; what she meant by 5 years was a few weeks in the summer here and there, i just was turned off by all the exaggerations. Anyway, as i feel this method would not work in bethlehem, i respect that these are the kinds of people needed in hebron, because everyone there is fanatical, it would take fanatics to understand and to save them. they are VERY well respected in the area, and they do ALOT of good work, i ont want it to seem like im saying they dont. They walk all the children to school so they dont get beat up and really do their best to protect people there.none the less for the time being i dont want to be used as "cannon fodder" for them to make a point, and i think that is fair too.

The orphanages were much much larger than i had expected. To destroy them would be quite a feat. For some reason when i heard about it i just didnt realize quite what was entailed in all of it, but seeing it their desruction would displace hundreds and hundreds of kids who obviously have nowhere else to go, simply because they are funded by the Islamic Charitable Society, and anything having to do with islam must, accordint to the israeli government, be breeding little suicide bombers instead of doing any actual good. There is obviously no proof of this, you can find all their records, its pretty transparent that it really is a charity, but the israelis want to discourage tying islam to anything that could be successful there. When we got to the orphanage, there were also alot of places that had been raided. They had taken all the sewing machines, which produced much of the income and training for the girls. They showed us pictures people had managed to take during the raids, and told us what to do if soldiers were to come. They werent expecting anything to happen that night, and nothing did happen, but they were expecting in the next few weeks for the soldiers to come back for either more raids or with papers for demolition. It really is a sad situation for those kids.

We had a fun night despite the situation. We ate tons of hummus, got massages from some random guy, and Adam and i stayed up for most of the night speaking in arabic and smoking argilah with the guard and his buddies. The next day we went to the glass factory that hebron is famous for and bought some random stuff. The people were really nice and didnt make us barter for a good price or anything. Margie even got to paint and keep her own ceramic bowl. We made it out without any settler incidents, job well done!

dead sea

its really hard only being here for a month. i love everyone in our group, i am really close with my roommate and host family, and i am genuinely happy here. since the very beginning ive sort of been counting the days because it all seemed like it would be so soon already that i would have to leave. I know how programs like this work, i remember morocco. After the first month the group of people who were there longer shrinks and so everyone is able to get alot closer. Its really hard when i cant get in touch with anyone at home, and im gone long enough that it creates a distance with them, but at the same time i am not here long enough to really get close to everyone the way i would like to. The potential is here for some lifelong friendships, i just hope everyone doesn't forget about me as soon as i leave. Ive just been in a weird mood for the past few days, this will all pass.



this past weekend we went to the dead sea. We got to see Jericho, and an 8000 year wall that is the oldest city in existence. it is a very strange feeling, knowing youre next to something so old that it is the oldest something there is. this is the cradle of civilization. We also got to see the judean wilderness, which i really like especially because its called wilderness. we had to bargain our way into the dead sea because tey tried to turn our bus back for having a palestinian driver. when i say israelis have rights to 99% of the water, i sure mean it. This includes the dead sea which is probably the least potable thing in the world. We talked our way in and it was really nice and beautiful. You just run in and cover yourself with mud and float around. It can be tons of fun, unless you get any water in your eyes or mouth. Some off duty IDF soldiers swam over and were hitting on us, much like the ones in tel aviv. Again bragging about their missions, telling us that pretty soon they were going to gaza to kill all the terrorists. Julia got a kick out of it when i played my stupid american card and asked them what gaza was. I was laying on my back and i ended up with water all over my eyes, but my eyes were closed so i just couldnt open them until i had fresh water to rinse them out with. So she and the IDF soldiers lead me back up to an outdoor shower. Im sure it must have been hilarious to my host family that was there, me being lead around by couple soldiers, we had walked right passed them, and as i was later informed, a couple of topless women. I wouldnt have known though because i was blind. It was great i wandered back over to the group and smoked some argilah on the beach, there is nothing better.