Today is the reason we've come. Past all the context and committees, failed bureaucracy and refugee camps, today we go back to school. Still not used to the puny two hour time difference school starts at 5.30, two hours after the mosque and half an hour since the last mosquito bite. I roll out of bed through the shower to Saladin's mosque where I'm picked up with a fellow teacher to head to our twinned school.
We're greeted by rows and rows of classes stood in excited conversation about the start of the day. A teacher fiddles with a microphone and strides before the pupils as we watch from the ramp leading down to the playground. The counting begins: wahad, tithnain, talat. Wahad, tithnain, talat. Students' arms rise and fall in confused unison and the day's exercises begin. I am reminded of a friend who once told me how it was the small differences in roads that phased them the most about new countries. School is school as pedagogy is what you make of it but a week out of the UK system isn't enough to stop me checking for behaviour strategies, safeguarding issues, and all manner of jargon that's thrown at us in our day jobs. Palestine is more laid back than the UK, there is no data meticulously poured over in staff rooms, no schemes of work to plan from and by the looks of it no marking outside of lessons, though I'm sure this changes the higher the year. Students are not rigorously checked for understanding and scaffolding and differentiation are practiced only by the minority. The result? It's inconclusive. What impression can two days anywhere give you except for fading sketches. But the teachers seem relaxed, smiling, welcoming and keen to show off their students. And from this their students can feed. Like schools the world over there are some classes which cannot sit still or focus fortunately here they are in the minority. The students are engaged and enthusiastic. They brim with inquisitive desire and questions follow us wherever we go.
We observe lessons and practices, inform the students about our pupils in London and they write letters to send back to them. They are thoughtful and focused. A rare charm.
Rolling through the desert we spring out overlooking Jordan and the dead sea. The air threatens to turn pink as the sun prepares to dip down behind the West Bank and tell us our times up. But until then we cover ourselves in mud, laugh and float on with our contraband friends - the sad fact that our Palestinian or hijabi friends would usually be turned away is emphasised by a surprised Israeli couple who ask us how we managed to get in. But we did. After our mud spa we chew up and spit out our sunflower seeds and plans and set a course south for the world's oldest city.
Jericho has been on the lips of a few history teachers since its name was whispered in the queue for the plane. The ants had brought the night with them to the beach so Jericho was just a constellation of lights. We found a veranda from which you could make out the boarders of three countries and mulled over the intricacies of our trip so far, the small tragedies which people from Abu Dis face every day, the harassment because of their race. We've all been shocked about how normalised the residents here have been, many stories of being tortured in Israeli prisons, family assassinated and only slight indicators of pain. For many this is a part of their story and they have come to accept maltreatment as usual. The girls at the UNRWA school don't even mention the wall until asked directly, the decidedly discriminatory barrier between people who once lived side by side, and you can only feel a sadness that these students will grow up feeling separate, different and inferior from people who live 20 minutes walk from their school gate. But this is also a testament to the optimism of many, that things can change and will change and we agree that we must look optimistically on our time here and the future of the colleagues, students and people we've met.
Jericho is now miles behind us, our van rides dusty through the sand-scowered valleys as another Arab power ballad sweeps us past the ghosts of hills and the future is on our lips again. This time: Jerusalem.
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