Ramallah

Soon after, I returned to Jerusalem and hopped onto a bus to Ramallah next, the government and administrative hub of the West Bank. There isn't much to see in Ramallah, but if you know someone living there, as I was lucky enough to, it's a great place to experience how Palestinians are living what is probably the closest they can get to normalcy. There's also a big expat community here, and as I got to find out, all expat communities (in the Arab world) are the same.

Sitting with two Canadian girls in a Ramallah café, I listened to them worry over landlord issues because one of them was seen ushering a male friend out the door by her landlord. The only difference between Ramallah and Cairo was how much the conflict was in their faces, and predictably, how much conversation revolved around it. In 4 days I have learnt more about the conflict than anything I've registered over the last 24 years. Being witness to what the israeli's are doing also makes it all the more real. I had heard about jewish settlements…'outposts' they call them that have been built on Palestinian land, you imagine housing as flimsy as camps, but you get here and driving into Bethlehem, you're taxi driver points out that big Jewish settlement on top of the hill in the distance and it hits you that these settlements aren't flimsy outposts. They're entire towns, huge concrete monstrosities, sprawled out with their claws dug into Palestinian land. Convincing them, forcing them to leave this land that they have stolen, gosh, it will spark a Jewish uprising (which by the way has already started).

Apologies because I can't seem to stop going on about things most of you already know about. It's just that this trip has been so much of an intensely personal journey for me. It has been educational, not only on an academic level, but on an intimate level, about myself and discovering what I am capable of. I could probably go on and on, because everything here is so grey, there is no black and white. There is so much to understand, so much to confuse, so much to be troubled by. So I shall shut up and go on with the more superficial aspects of my trip.

My night in Ramallah was spent with a friend of a friend's, Amber, who was kind enough to let me crash at her apartment. (Traveling alone comes with so many perks, I'm amazed I didn't do this sooner. It's so much easier to change plans, to do things spontaneously, and the people you meet along the way are so much more accomodating) Amber was also kind enough to help me experience a lil' bit a-everything in Ramallah: we had coffee (Everything in Ramallah were shut, in protest to the events in Gaza, but some cafes, although pulled down their shutters and appeared closed, were bustling inside), we went to watch a dub-ka (Palestinian traditional dance) performance at the Ramallah Cultural Palace, then we went to a demonstration in Manara Square, and then finally for dinner at her friends place to eat maghlooby, a Palestinian dish!