A walk in the park

As much as at home as in Palsetine, I often find myself participating in things that I have no idea about. Despite the fact that I am unaware of where I am going or what I am doing, I generally find a way to go along with it for a good time. This happened this morning.

I was told that there was a trip. I was originally told that the trip was on the 27th, then on Sunday, then Saturday. On Friday afternoon I got a call from Saleba, that I did not understand at all. After asking him to repeat himself four times, I just decided to say thank you and pretend I understood what he was saying. Luckily, he also called some other people and everything worked out fine. Because of this though, when we met for the bus in the morning, I had no idea where we were going or doing. Originally I thought we were going to Jericho, then Ramallah.

The bus showed up with a lot of kids on it. 40-50 of them, all between the ages of 7 and 15. It turns out that we were joining the Scouts on a trip. Myself, the Americans and a few of our Palestinian friends quickly formed the Blue Monkeys troop and stepped onto the bus. On the way there I tried some of my limited Arabic with the children and we told riddles. I pulled out my favourite one: a dead man in the desert beside a rock. Luckily my Palestinian friend knew it already so he could field the questions. I actually understood some of their questions. I now know enough Arabic to confuse young children.

We eventually got to our destination, where we were dropped off by the bus before it immediately drove away. We were in the middle of the desert. But it turned out okay. After a short walk down a hill we arrived to a natural river. It was really cool because we were surrounded by barren landscape expect for this strip of rich vegetation:

The view from where we were dropped off

Lagging behind with Jad and other friends

Noticing a signed that said "Do not drink" I asked my friend
if it was serious. He said no. He also told me he was joking after
I finished. Looking forward to Palestinian Beaver Fever. 

I tried to catch some of these fish but they were too quick for me

One really cool thing that I learned during this trip: during certain times of year, water will actually flow out of many points of the mountain. Apparently it looks like the rocks are actually seeping water. When I thought of the Moses story, I always thought of a medium rock - something comfortable to sit on - not a mountain. Now, after seeing these mountains and this stream that seems to come from no where, it makes the miracle much more believable without reducing the wonder.

Another interesting part of the trip was that even though this area was in the West Bank, there were a number of Israelis. I made a point of trying to say hi to all of them (even the naked guy in the pool) and most of them said hi back to me, but I didn't have any chance for conversation. It is interesting that these people seemingly do not conform to the amount of fear they are supposed to have from their Arab neighbours. It is also interesting that this is a place where Palestinian and Israeli citizens could officially or unofficially meet each other. I did not think that there was such a place outside of the peace process or civil society.