We have come to Week 7
of our placement here at Birzeit University and it definitely feels like the
end is coming too soon!
The last few weeks have
been very up and down for our group. Our project went through a quiet patch for
a week or so, where the attendance at our workshops dropped. There were many
reasons for this, the main being that the election week preceded these
workshops. During election week we had no workshops due to the importance of
the elections to the students and their desire to attend election-related
events. Previous to this we had good attendance, but the loss of momentum in
our classes left people with less awareness of our project! This led to a small
crisis moment and doubts that we were not doing a good job. However, this made
us decide to focus on advertising and raising awareness of the existence of our
workshops. At one point we even went out onto campus with food and tried to
bribe people to join us! All of this worked and I'm happy to say we have had
great attendance since.
On Saturday we went to
the Jordan valley and it was definitely very informative, although it was a
little bit disappointing that we were not able to speak to any of the families.
The tour guides told us about the different illegal settlements that are built
there and how Palestinians are not allowed to access water or electricity. We
were also informed that the boycott of the settlements products has decreased
the exploitation of land by 14% and it definitely gave us something to think
about. Some of the UK volunteers have been discussing the idea of writing to
shop owners back in the UK to raise awareness.
This Monday we had
International Day at the university. This involved the students setting up
stalls celebrating the cultures and customs of different countries. This was a
very big deal for the students due to the difficulty Palestinians have leaving
the country. So the students re-created cultures from across the world and
celebrated them for themselves!
There were many
different stalls, all set up inside a fake castle wall. The variety and fun
that the students had, and the amount of work that went into it, really makes
you think about how so many people lack the right to movement and the ability
to go abroad to actually see the places they were representing.
Later on in the day
people began to pack up the stalls and move to the stage, where there were many
cultural performances and dances for people to see. The best by far was the
dabkah dance (which our fabulous in country volunteer Jumanna was involved
in!). The ability to remember the entire dance and the energy to keep it going
for so long in the intense heat was very impressive!
It was such a pleasure
to be a part of such a fun day and was definitely one of the best days we’ve
had at Birzeit University. Even though we faced a lot of difficulties in the
last two weeks, we managed to keep it going and we didn’t lose our enthusiasm. We
hope the upcoming two weeks will be filled with much more positive energy and
adventures!
Ma'Salaama.
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