The first few weeks

My first stop in what will hopefully be a year spent in the Middle East, is Nablus, Palestine.  I will stay here for just over two months, teaching a journalism workshop for students at An Najah University.

I live in a beautiful apartment in “majeen,” a neighborhood just outside the center of Nablus.  The complex is university housing and my apartment typically houses international visitors or An Najah professors.  Complete with hot water, cable television, a laundry machine in the kitchen and a tub in the bathroom, I am not living simply by any means!

I found my favorite falafel place – it has a salad bar where you can add your own toppings to your sandwich (pickles, cucumbers, tomatoes and lots of onions!).  Either shwarma or falafel are a once-a-day treat.  A new friend introduced me to freike, a Palestinian soup and my new comfort food.  It is wheat in broth served with a lemon for squeezing to taste.  Today I discovered Kibbeh, fried dough stuffed with meat and onions.  It might be my new favorite thing!  A midday treat is lemon juice with mint – refreshing and cooling on what have been very hot days.  Next, I have to find my favorite place for chai and a nargileh.

I arrived in Nablus on July 16 and was immediately embraced by a group of internationals and locals attending a Leadership Training Institute through the organization I’m volunteering for.  They were already a week into their 2-week delegation.  I arrived just in time to be part of designing a website with partners in a nearby village, Iraq Burin, for the village to use as a way to disseminate information, recent events and stories about their residents (It’s almost done!  Check it out at www.iraqburin.wordpress.com).  The delegation was an amazing way for me to meet locals and be immediately involved in an impactful project.

During the next two weeks, I will finalize a revised syllabus for the workshop I’ll teach, work on connecting with other organizations in the area, learn some Arabic with my new buddy Omar Othman and, hopefully, enjoy some time with new friends in town.