I'm writing this to you from a bent road in the back of a van taking us to Nablis. The man in the front is our leader and self proclaimed captain of Palestinian Football - but we're still to get to the bottom of that one and I'm sure my pigeon Arabic is to blame.
It's been a long 48 hours. Buses, taxis, planes and shoes. (oh and detention benches but more on that later). Turbulence turns to motorway to unmanaged road, road which reinvigorated a bug inside one if us who is still investigating the intricacies of British mandate plumbing. (or maybe Israeli - we haven't been given the full history of our current residence). As we wind through the shaky hills out of Far'a green and yellow number plates flash past, some with kids hanging out of the windows, staring out of thick glasses, others dodging curbside smokers outside glowing minarets. Despite the long start to our trip the car is buzzing. There is a definite relief in the air. Fourteen teachers, blowing out the double ended candles of a long half term and setting off to the occupied territories of Palestine, intent on exchanging experiences and resources, remembering their initial meeting at the airport, green and clueless as to what the following days would have in store.
It sounds foolish, but like many of my generation I'm ignorant when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Apart from an old professor with a map showing the transition from the region in 1917 to 1993 my knowledge has been through reports and sporadic bouts with Wikipedia. And what does that really bring anyway. Facts can often be so dehumanising, reducing human loss to statistics, which we initially gasp at but quickly forget. No, today we had the hard hitting, knife turning reality of life as a teacher in Palestine. In the UK we talk so much about the safety and welfare of students. We talk about how traumatic home lives can hinder a student's education. How would we act if our students were imprisoned for three months? Or had to miss school because they'd been shot in the legs for approaching a wall built through the middle of their town?
The stories become more and more traumatic as the day continues and the three hours spent held in a detention room whilst some of our group's passports were taken started to make more sense. We were here by the authority of the British council but today that means very little. Our leader can be aggressively harassed and our Muslim colleagues can be intimidated and interrogated whilst other people all around us because of their ethnic or cultural backgrounds are deported through fear. Fear of a variety of things, but fear none the less. It is so sad to see. Even more so because as soon as we enter Tel Asia airport a kindly enployee comes to help us find our bags. Probably unaware of our detention and uncaring about out race, nationality or intentions but a true ray of hope.
Below us Nablis spreads out, fairylit in orange and blue. Tobacco smoke flows back and the night loses the formality of the day.
Tomorrow we will present our schools, exchanging ideas about pedagogy, behaviour and special needs teaching as well as being shown around our accommodation, a former detention centre used by British and then Israeli troops for interrogation and torture.
But tonight we exchange stories about families, students and practise our various languages with a cup or shai or an ice cream cocktail as the fairy lights below us glow.
