A Change in Me

I realized now that it has been over 3 months since I last posted and I am terribly sorry about that. When I last left you I was about to embark on the adventure of my life during the holiday season here in Nepal (which occurred in October). I decided to do the most classic trek in Nepal, the Annapurna Circuit. Although it feels like so long ago since I left the impression the trip has made on me is astounding. For more information and photos about my trip in the mountains please check out the youtube site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa_5k90Zuj8

Everyone will tell you the mountains are beautiful, breathtaking, miraculous, but after coming bacl from this trip I didn't predict the change I would feel in myself. I guess I feel...older maybe more confident, more independent more ready to embrace reality. I don't quite know how to describe it. Returning to Kathmandu, I now see the city with new eyes. It has made me really question my future. What do I really want to do for my vision of change the status of public health and how am I going to do it? Could I live the life of an Expat in Nepal? I need mountains and cities and excitement which Nepal has but is it the right place? COuld I really live her working for a big NGO with my healthy paycheck surrounded by abject poverty? Can I deal with the lack of time and quality that is put into work here?...Yes I am working to change these things but is it too late for me having grown up in western society to be able to relate to the Nepali people in order to bring about effective sustainable change?

To run or to strike?

Rounding the corner of the ring road a huge billowing truck narrowly darts inches from my face puffing a huge black cloud into my lungs. A few seconds later a motor bike nearly cuts me off but I can just see the person in yellow in the distance with his white flag waving me in the right direction. SO I discovered that running a half marathon after not running in the last 2 weeks let alone training is very difficult. I probably picked the worst place to run my first half marathon as Katmandu is one of the most polluted places I have ever experienced.  I did it in 2 hours 24 minutes and thought I was going to die at about oh kilometer 15. But I did it!....and I am still recovering. I also joined in a basketball tournament that has been pretty fun. I never make plans here but I always seem to be busy busy (as Enu Ama, the woman I am living with always says). I feel like the connections I am making here are just unending. There are so many opportunities and I am meeting so many people doing such amazing things with their lives.

 

You may ask how I have so much time at the moment? Yes…well among the many things I am still adjusting to are the strikes. I have a specific course load I need to get through and it is often complicated by the multitude of school holidays and closures. Although there is school on Sundays there are over 55 national holidays which the school take off for and they don’t seem to be listed anywhere. The director will generally tell me a few days before that “oh hey school is closed for 3 days this week”….ok cool. But then there are the strikes that randomly occur at any moment for example. On Friday I was told hey so the Maosts called a strike so it will be difficult for the students to get home this afternoon so your classes are cancelled (however it was only my class that was cancelled everyone else seemed to be studying). Then for the afternoon class one of the teachers in the school (without notifying me) told half of my afternoon class that I said there was no class this afternoon so half of my students went home. Then a little later my director told me that the strike was going to be for 4 days so he was canceling school for the next week. So I am on vacation a little early. I now have the next 6 weeks off…and I need a break so I am taking off for the mountains.

 

I think the monsoon clouds might break for me I hope I hope. The air is getting dryer and hotter and the kites are soaring from every roof top and the moths are out which are all good signs that the monsoon is over.

 

In other good news my research is finally coming along. I had my first site vist yesterday, which was surprisingly exhausting. The road to get to where I am working is pretty rough but I learned so much from just a 1 day. The organization I will be working with Medicine du Monde is a pretty cool organization though it seems they are donating most of the time/ effort/ and supplies and while it seems like it is making a huge difference I wonder what will happen when they complete the project. I am learning about how a project is run for a major organization and the tiers of management in place to cover an area servicing 5,000 women. It seems to be very well managed and their isn’t much room for corruption to leak through which is good. They are trying to set the project up to be sustainable when they leave by creating these groups and using microfinance to generate funds from productive loans locally to pay back social/health or non productive loans. In doing so they also create these groups of women that come together from different areas of the region to be apart of something greater. The most amazing part of this so far is seeing the look on these women (volunteers) faces when they feel they really have a huge role in the communication and delivery of their healthcare.

 

I remember having a conversation with the head of the health program at the world bank and he told me that they had these health volunteers but had a very difficult time retaining them but couldn’t figure out why. In talking to these women who used to volunteer for the public program they said they weren’t committed to it because they felt the program was ah hem….bull shit. The meetings weren’t regular but absoutley random so they didn’t know when to show up and they didn’t feel like they were learning anything. I mean would you want to volunteer your limited time for an organization that didn’t have their act together? Of course not. This program with MDM is highly organized and the women feel like they have an extremely important role (which they do) and in 1.5 years have not missed a meeting. I would say that’s a pretty big difference. So anyway I am super excited to do this assessment I think I am going to learn soooo much and it will be fun. Ok for now I am headed off to the mountains for an adventure of a life time. Stay tuned for some crazy pictures and stories.

The Bad the Ugly and… the Good

The road to Talupani where the hot springs await

This is the wonderful woman, Enu and her dog that I live with

BAD:

I am not sure you can imagine 24 hours of hell but I can tell you about it. Imagine you decide that some students come up to you and tell you they want to go bungy jumping…..I said sure lets do it limit it to 15 people. Well overnight (the day before we left) 15 people turned into 50 and the 3 staff members I was supposed to have come with me turned into zero and I was stuck in the middle of the mountains with a monsoon soaked list of 

names I couldn’t pronounce and 2 bus loads of 15/16 year old students I could not control. There was definitely drinking and I spent the entire 24 hours yelling at people. I quickly realized that making students of a higher cast do dishes for punishment is a culturally inappropriate thing to do (they looked at me with utter shock that I would ask them to do this). I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the overnight and experiencing bad dehydration and stomach problems on top of it all (but when you are the only staff member you don’t have a choice you can not be sick).

 

UGLY:

So has hellish has this trip was on my mental and physical state, I did finally get to experience my first out of Katmandu trip, which I am sad to say was not a good first trip. When people say the roads are BAD BAD BAD they are way under exaggerating just how bad the roads are. So I had to quickly get over the fact that when the buses are too crowded people sit on top of them which doesn’t seem that safe….but on consultation of 

the guide book it recommended to take your pick as when the bus rolls off of the cliff you can jump off the top and survive. There are car accidents everyday here not from fast driving but from such bad roads. I mean driving on these roads (the kids must have thought I was crazy) but I really thought I was going to die. We were cruising on the windiest roads you can imagine….but wait hold that thought….you have the windy roads now had a ton of huge trucks and buses carrying people and supplies to and from the border to China….and oh wait did I mention its monsoon season and this “highway” is made of two feet of deep mud, is a single lane, and has a 800 ft drop inches from the car tire as the trucks blast their horn around every curve. I am not sure my photos do it justice.. Anyway thought I did make it home safe despite walking one section of the road. I guess I better get used to this though I will probably need to do it again soon.

 

The Good:

On a high note I think class went well today. We started our second unit of Poverty this week and I think this is going to be really interesting for the students. I did something I needed to do for a while which was split the students up into assigned seating which cut some of the chatter and the gender divide but we will see if it lasts. I realized that while these kids clearly know what poverty is and how to define it I am not sure if they see it in the lives of the people around them. I think this will finally be my time to get them to think. I think they no what poverty is but not what it is like to feel poverty. We talked a bit about the Caste system today and how they expect to “improve” the poverty situation if people live by 

the caste system. They need to be the generation to overcome this if they want to cause change. Anyway, it was the first time in the A class I got a variety of people talking and some really good conversation. Gave me some hope J

I am not sari?

Yes where should I start its been a little too long since I last wrote sorry it is difficult to keep up with these things. So I moved to my final home here in Nepal. I now live in an area called Pulchuck with the sweetest woman, Enu, and her dog who just had puppies. I am putting a photo of them both up here. When I first moved in I had some reservations and I thought Enu didn’t like me. What the people who dropped me off failed to tell me was that she had just lost her husband a few weeks before I moved in and now that understanding more I think its good that I am living here and it gives me a chance to learn some Nepali and really get a feel for the culture. One of the first days that I moved in it was the Taij, one of the over 60 festival here. I decided to partake and dressed in red and migrated with the thousands of women to Pasupati temple for singing and dancing. I can’t believe women can comfortably wear saris around everywhere to do daily chores. To me it felt like wearing a ball gown. I guess it just takes some getting used to.

 The purpose of the festival is to fast for the long life of your husband and it is the only women’s festival. This should paint an image of the gender disparity that they are trying to change here. That’s right 1 woman’s holiday… to pray for a long life for the husband.

 Classes are going ok. Up days and down days. Sometimes I think they understand other days not so much. The motivation factor is really difficult for me. So far 30% of the class does the work I assign and more than half the class is failing but based on what they tell me in class an what they make me believe that some of what I say is getting through. I am trying to remember that this is new for them too and while I am still adjusting to the culture they are adjusting to my style of teaching to. Most teachers here teach from the book so they can pass their exams and the kids write it down, memorize it, and forget it. While I like to think that I am trying to get them to think and act outside the box its going to be much more challenging than I initially thought. I have huge problems with plagiarism in the class and pretty much 80% of the class when asked to write a paper will look something up and copy and paste from Wikapedia something that wasn’t even close to the assignment. I think I need to set more realistic goals for my class or take more time to explain things better.

The Good and the Bad

So I believe I am starting to settle in at this point. I have had good days and bad days and draw backs and giant steps.

Bad day: yes so I am still trying to figure out my living situation so as I move my bags all over the place it also means that I need to figure out the public transportation system from that location to school. The other day I jumped on a tempo (these little 3 wheelers) and was sent in the opposite direction of my school to land at the tempo hub where I was supposed to get on another tempo to school. This is when I realized that somewhere in the move I forgot by wallet map and cell phone and now had no idea where I was. I asked around the tempo stand for about 30 minutes before jumping on one that landed me somewhere on the ring road (the highway) . The driver was nice enough to forgo my fee and after about an hour of walking around aimlessly getting sent in multiple wrong directions I found the school though I was 2 hours late.  I also found out that only about 50% of the students in my class want to learn while the others ruin it for everyone else so I am trying to find a way to deal with this.

Ok enough of the bad.....

Good Day: Yesterday I figured out what I want to do for a research situation and every thing sounds perfect. I will be working with the organization Center for Microfinance and help them do an assessment of the health education program they have been piloting now for 2 years. While I am really excited I realized I have never done a program assessment before so this may end up being more difficult then I first imagined. I am trying now to get in touch with as many professionals as possible to try and give me some advice. So if you have any advice.....let me know. Also I am going to start coaching the girls basketball team tomorrow at 7 am in the mornings so I am super excited about hopefully getting some b-ball going. I have also been thinking of some fun things to do for the students. While this school advertises a lot of activities there aren't that many programs in reality. If I can get a number of programs started here before I leave then I think I can be successful. The students are super bright and some of them are really motivated they just need the guidance....which I decided I will be able to provide. Lets see how it goes....

Second Impressions: Traffic, Hashing, and Julia Roberts

My first week here in Katmandu has been an adjustment process. I have already visited the hospital....apparently I am more allergic to cockroaches than I thought and my room is crawling with them.  So I had a huge reaction one day and I was absolutely covered with hives and went to the hospital. I was surprised I was in and out in less than 5 minutes. They didn't take my patient history. They asked me what was wrong I told them I thought I had an allergic reaction. Then without gloves they gave me a shot swabbed the wound with alcohol (they had no receptacle for the bloody swab so I through it in a card board box) and sent me on my way. I then got some medication from the pharmacy next door. The whole thing pills and all cost around $.75....not so bad.

I can't find a way to describe the traffic situation so I am adding this video aid (hopefully it works). One of the many things I am trying to adjust to here. I walk to get everywhere but its difficult to see the world around you when you are constantly dodging cars, cows and people on motor bikes. The pollution is horrible horrible and when you see photos of people wearing a mask....now I understand why. This will be my next purchase.

Classes started last week and so far are going well. Only about half the kids did their homework so I am trying to figure out an incentive system. I really like teaching though. As long as I have enough games to play and I did enough preparing for the class it goes well. I am not sure how many of the students can understand me since only 3/4 of the class completed their in-class quiz. Its a slow process but its coming along.

During the times I am not teaching it is quite lonely. I just spend my time walking around. I visited the Boudatha stupa about 45 minutes from where I am staying. Its amazing. You cross the gates and the bustling polluted streets fade away as this temple surrounded by an old tibetan village fills you with a sense of calm. Monks circling the stupa spinning the prayer wheels and singing in the monasteries. The videos again do it more justice than the photos.

I told Sagun (the head of the household of the family I am staying with) that I was interested in running which is when he told me about Hashing. Ray you would be so proud of me. This is one of the most dynamic trail running tracks I have ever done in my life. Around 2 o'clock I was picked up by a man driving a 69' beetle and headed into the mountains just about 45 minutes outside of the city to find about 30 people (a mix of brits and Nepalis) waiting in this tiny village. So the purpose of this hashing is someone has laid out this trail marked by tiny pieces of paper but you have to try and find the trail. At every junction the person puts in false trails so you could be going the wrong direction for a while until you come to a piece of paper marked in an x. So its this crazy 3 hour long scavenger hunt of a trail with people yelling "on on" every few minutes as it winds its way through rice patties and over mountains and through temples. I absolutely collapsed with exhaustion afterward, but it was so good to get out of the polluted Katmandu valley.

All in all its been an interesting week. I am really liking the family I am staying with. Maluna the wife of Sagun took me to the beauty parlor across the street where I got a facial, my eyebrows done, and dyed my hair with henna all for a mere $6. I returned and she said wow has anyone ever told you that you look like Julia Roberts (which people tell me all of the time). So here we have it no matter what country I am in I will forever look like Julia Roberts. I hope you enjoy the photos and video and more to come soon.

Nepal: First Impressions

let me break this down from that good to the bad:

The people: are so amazingly kind. This is such a contrast from some of the other places I have travelled and I feel so comfortable here. I have been here just two days and I have made so many friends already. The tourists areas are very distinct as there are no westerners anywhere and then in this one section in the center of town where everything is dolled up and there is only foreigners, nice cafes and a plethora of outdoor gear and trekking stores.

The food: I don't know why people said was bland. I love it so far. Other than cheese (so sad) you can find just about anything here and although I was going to be conservative in the last two days I have eaten everything from chicken to shrimp to pork to Tofu....anyway I am sure it is not representative of how the rest of the country eats...if they eat I have just been treated really well so far.

The roads: SO I was thinking before I came here I was going to get a bike to travel around.....hell no. I have never been so scared ever in a car. It takes 40 minutes to go 4 miles with no traffic on a good day. With traffic maybe four hours. To go the distance to the mountains of about Colorado Springs to Boulder (a friend was telling me) takes about 5 hours. 

The Government: Well as always with politics I have only heard complaints. It sounds really bad. I mean really bad. People tell me taxes go only to pay the salaries of the government officials. Roads are horrendous and everything else that comes standard in the 3rd world.

Healthcare: I have to say this has to be the worst situation that I have ever heard. So here is the deal there is no private health insurance AND no public health insurance. Even at the government hospitals you pay before you play. This means if you come to the hospital writhing in agony with a severed limb you are promptly sent to bills and if you can not prepay you are not see. AT ALL. oh my god. Kenya or Uganda wasn't even this bad.

We will see I have a lot to learn yet and I will let you know how the first day of class goes. Oh and the cockroaches...not so fun.

A New Chapter: Leaving Colorado

Wow, so BAM I think it finally hit me that I am leaving the country. As I sit here in the Hong Kong airport surrounded by foreign sounds, smells, views and languages I am finally realizing that I am not in Colorado anymore. It was difficult for me to leave the mountainous region I have called my home for the last 6 years. It was a place I really felt comfortable. Although what can I say, I left it for quite the adventure. 

3 days after my return from Uganda I packed up my car, shipped a few boxes and my mom flew out to Denver. We packed in and drove across the northern part of the United States. It was my first time discovering the land that lay between  the two homes that I have known and really interesting to see how the country functions while our cities sleep. Some may argue that our cities are the hubs for industry, human capital, and trade and while they may offer that connection between America and the rest of the world, middle america contains the arteries and veins that keep our country alive. SO much corn...I mean so much corn. While I heard stories it is nothing until you drive through corn for 2 days straight that you realize just how much corn. The highways are lined with trucks that drive through the night making life possible in even the most remote regions of the country. So much happens while I sleep. So much I never really took the time to think about before. 

This trip was really good for me it put many of the cities in perspective where I couldn't really think about it before. Anyway, after arriving in Boston I barely had enough time to catch up with my family and pack my bags to set off on the next adventure and here I am now in the Hong Kong airport trying to process the last few weeks. 2 weeks ago I was in Uganda (feeling kinda guilty about my massive carbon footprint). Wow.  When I am catching up on sleep in a few years I will look back on this time period as a crazy action packed adventure and it is only yet to begin.

Women, Hope, and Microfinance in Northern Uganda

I think I can say that Gulu, Uganda was one of the poorest areas of the world I have ever visited. Recovering from a 20 year war, northern Uganda is a mess of displaced people, large and small NGOs, and rampant poverty. During my visit there I was working for a non-profit organization, The Women's Global Empowerment Fund that works to bring microfinance opportunities to women in Gulu. I have to say that during my time with this organization I was extremely impressed with the work that they were doing on this micro level. When it comes down to the individual, meeting and interview and following these women around I was awestruck with how much this tiny amount of money that they were borrowing had changed their entire world.  I highly recommend the book The Challenge for Africa by Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, which I read while traveling. It addresses some of these questions.

Working with WGEFund really made me look around at all of the big NGO's in the area bouncing around in their SUV's. With so much bureaucracy do you have this same micro effect of creating change on the individual level? Do people feel like have a hand in the reformation of their country or does it feel like someone borrows their way in and takes control? How do you measure change on an individual level if you are only looking at broad statistics? 
I had a difficult time here trying to deal with the role of the international community in creating change. One thing I really liked about WGEF was that except for the Executive director in Denver every other staff person was from Gulu on the ground working. I learned about how important it is to build relationship with the local community and how finding trust worthy people to manage tasks is more important than the task its self.
This job also reaffirmed my belief in microfinance as a means for change. In interviewing these women I learned that there are certainly some models that work better than others. The idea of having a for profit institution that does microfinance is blasphemous. Some of the WGEFund clients were telling me that before they had heard of WGEFund they had tried going  other microfinance organizations but they had  many fees or they wouldn't give them a loan without their husband's permission or the loan rates were really high. WGEFund gave them a loan that same day that they walked in and after 2 years of work WGEFund has served over 900 women and have a 100% loan repayment rate.

Basically I was very impressed with this line of work. As you can see I have spread the photos throughout the site here and I also have the final promotional video for the organization which can be viewed here to see more you can check out my website www.jessicaalderman.com and there should be some more posted soon!

Final Products

Its been two months since I have returned from Israel and Palestine and life has been quite the whirlwind for me. In the past month and a half I have been crisscrossing around the country meeting friends in Portland and family in Boston and saying goodbye to the desserts I love so much in Utah and the mountains I love so much in Colorado. I  am happy to say, though that amidst all of the plane travel I was able to finish editing the first two videos from the project and I have included them here bellow. The first video looks at the core of the Coexistence Project and demonstrates why the project is such a challenge and the political, cultural, and professional barriers that have to be crossed to attain peace among midwives in the region.

To see this movie click here: Midwifery in Peace

The second film is a short 5 minute movie about a side project that the group is working on in Israel for the Sudanese refugees in Arad which I talked about earlier in my blog. 

To see this film please click here: Arad Project

I am still working on trying to get the book ready for publishing so you will soon see more information on that. I am starting to get ready for my next projects. I will be leaving in 2 weeks for Gulu, Uganda to make another film about the work of an organization The Global Women's Empowerment Fund which works to bring micro finance to women in the refugee camp of Northern Uganda. When I return from this job I will be traveling to Nepal to live in Katmandu for 6 months to teach a class on Global Leadership and conduct my own research project looking at combining public health education and micro finance. More to come on this.

Crossing the Border- Leaving Sudan is just the Beginning

After getting back from Jordan I jumped right in on the action again and then it is back to a bus to a bus to a bus to a bus for a few hours of shooting here and there. I have spent the better part of my time this past week taking photos in two different refugee camps. One in the South in Arad and one in the North in Caramel aka Haifa. There is just so much going on in this country. Although both of these camps have the same idea, they are very different.

So let me back up. As you all know, because it is a very prominent news topic, the Sudanese in Darfur have been and are currently facing a hellish time with the current war. People who can are fleeing the country anyway that they can. In Arad there are over 800 refugees living in in these temporary homes that the government set up. The government doesn't really know what to do with them...why...well because they are not Jewish so this is a difficult problem. They have to continually renew paper work to exist here and they are only allowed to work for 2 months at a time in specific hotels in the Dead Sea. What a contrast you just escaped war and now you are serving cocktails to stuffy Americans what a life. These people in the South are luckier because it is families living together meaning they all made it out together, however life here is only a little better. They are not allowed to work so they are starving. When I went with COHI to do pre and post natal exams I was horrified to find out that these people are not eating. One of the woman was complaining that her baby was small and when one of the midwives I was with, Hillary, asked what she was eating the woman had to think for a while....really nothing... they can't afford food let alone medication and they are living here in Israel.

Hiliary follwing up with a baby she helped birth last month

In the North the situation is very different and even more difficult to handle. The shelter in Haifa is a battered woman's shelter and started out as a clinic for local woman seeking refuge. Then one day in 2006 a border police contacted the shelter and were like... look we have this Sudanese woman and her daughter and if you don't take them we are sending them to prison. This was the first of the flood of immigrants that pour across the border into 2007.

Ok back up...Then you ask wait how did all of these people get to Israel. That's right they WALKED! Maybe one of the most difficult journeys you could ever imagine. After everything they experienced in the genocide of Sudan they cross the border into Egypt where.....they are shot at, imprisoned, beaten, abused, further raped and it is another run for their lives. So where do they run if they are lucky they run to the Israeli border. This border crossing is even more difficult. Let me quote this feature article from a Israeli paper called Haaretz "Last weekend Egyptian soldiers fatally shot a 7 year old girl and a man in his thirties, both of who were trying to cross into Israel. Since the start of the year 16 African refugees were killed trying to cross the border" (to read the rest of this article click here- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/997693.html). It is horrific.

Of the 15 women who currently live at the shelter, many of the woman are pregnant or have children (mostly the results of being raped). All of whom their husbands are either dead, missing, or in prison in Egypt. COHI was there to help provide health services for them- post natal and breastfeeding classes. Medicines are expensive and while it was really difficult to see these women suffer (most of whom wouldn't talk about their experience or were brought to tears recalling some of the events), I was happy to see that these woman had a place where they were finally treated as people and provided food and refuge while they waited to hear from their husbands. The clinic gets absolutely no funding from the government and is entirely run on donations. While this was a very intense and difficult experience it was heartening to see that someone is taking the steps to directly help these people. My only worry is that the shelter could handle 15 women what happens when it is 100? or 500? These people need help.

Traveling Alone as a Women in the Middle East

Riding in a cab from Amman to Petra

So as I thought about writing this I was awestruck in the culture shock between two worlds. Hours ago I was on the beach in the sleepy town of Aquaba, Jordan feeling uncomfortably under dressed in a long sleeve shirt and knee length skirt as most of the women on the beach were covered. After crossing the border into Eliat just a few miles away I felt awkwardly overdressed in techno music blaring, jam packed, Miami spring break-esk, beaches of Israel. It is difficult to believe that one border crossing can be so drastic and really gives a good context for the cultural differences between Israel and the lands they are enclosed by and why this conflict is absolutely crazy from a cultural perspective.

These are some young orthodox boys praying in the morning for the sun festival which occurs once every 28 years when the sun is in the same alignment that it was during creation.

So how did I get here? Last week I went to the north to Tsavt, a mountain town that houses the largest following of Kaballah (they actually rejected Madonna from buying a house in this community) to experience an Orthodox Seder....that's right Orthodox Seder. Like Shabbat rules, lots of hand washing and praying, 6 hours in length. We started the service at 8:30 at night (must be well after sundown) and at 1:30 I gave up and went to bed but the ceremony continued until 3 in the morning. I was feeling super sick at the time and was glad I could rest in such a peaceful place. It was a pretty intense experience for me and while I am glad I could get a glimpse of the Orthodox lifestyle I am glad I don't have to follow these rules in my everyday life. It made me think a lot about religion, what it is, and what it means if it is only something you visit from time to time and respect but don't strictly follow.

Then Mindy called saying that one of her women went into labor so I rushed over on the bus an hour away only to find that it was a false alarm and that her contractions which were at once every 4 minutes had completely dissipated (as I write this a week later she still has not given birth yet). Then being so close to the Northern border I changed my plans drastically. I was going to go to Egypt and sit on the beach for a few days but instead I hopped across the border to Jordan with my friend Isabel. As we are driving towards the border surrounded by lush green wheat fields and ponds I joked with Isabel "watch we are going to cross the border and be in a desert surrounded by camels". However this was not far from the truth. I wasn't sure if it was the result of ecology, economics, or policy (maybe water rights issues?) or all of the above, but we crossed the border into a vastly different countryside that was dry, poor, and yes lots of camels. Really it was shocking.

The busy center of Amman

Jordan is a very interesting and often skipped place in the middle east. In 67' when the Palestinians "fled" everyone remembers that no one would take the refugees. Well 65% of Jordan's population is actually Palestinian the rest are Bedouins, and Jordanians that all come together in a balancing act of cultures. The country looks large on the map but is mostly made of desert so most of the people live along the eastern coast. Together, Isabel and I traveled to the capital of Amman where we had an amazing meal of foual in a bustling little tavern with live sitar music and men and women of all ages smoking however you want to call it gila, shisha or at home we call it hooka. The next day Isabel left to go back home and I headed down for Petra.

Petra
Petra was a most difficult place to travel as a woman. I was consistently hustled. I couldn't take more then 3 steps outside of my door without someone approaching me asking me if I needed help. The questions were as follows:
1: Where are you from?
2: Are you married?
3: Where are you going? I will take you
4: Come have a drink with me?
Petra
On a good day its not an issue. I can fend them off or I just stick with the first person who comes up to me in a given time and they fend off the rest. It becomes laughable at a certain point. The positive side is that they refuse to take any money from me so I ended up getting all of my meals, groceries, and one hotel completely paid for because they refuse to accept my money. Petra

The downside is nothing is for nothing and it freaked me out that they wouldn't accept my money and I wasn't about to give them anything else. So Petra was a bad day. The site its self was truly remarkable. Really its like going to remote parts of the canyon lands in Utah and then BAM! multiple tthousands year old structures in your face. I woke up at 6 in the morning and got there before the crowds so I got some good photos without the anthill of people that followed later in the afternoon. I spent 8 hours walking up canyons and monuments all the while being hastled by people. At this point I was hot, tired, dehydrated, and was slightly freaking out about the hotel manager who was busy transferring my things to a private room just for me. When a tour guide who was leading a group of 50 older folks left his group to tail me for 45 minutes to escort me I pretty mush lost it, ran back up to my hotel, chugged 3 liters of water, packed up my things, and when the manager left for a few minutes to get something I ran out of the place to the bus station. It was hilarious, I was so disengaged that I get to the bus station and the people were like "where are you going" and I was like "I don't know I have no idea I haven't really thought about it yet." This is one of the men who showed me around Aqaba

At this point I really just wanted to talk to a woman. I swear ever since I left Isabel I hadn't even seen a woman. The cabs, the buses, the streets were filled completely with men. Finally I negotiated with a cab to take me to Aquaba along the coast. There I treated myself to a Turkish bath (also run completely by men) where I sat in a steam room and refreshed myself and finally had a chance to relax. I walked around the town, and made friends with a man who was selling spices and had like 15 cups of tea and Turkish coffee and he set me up with his friend who took me in his glass bottom boat and I got to go snorkeling all the next day for free.

finally relaxing on the Red Sea

As I am sitting here in the bus headed back to Jerusalem among a crowd of Young partiers I can only look back and think about these past few days as a pretty big accomplishment for me. While it was difficult to travel alone and constantly be questioned, it was all for the most part out of curiosity, kindness, and concern. All of this disappeared as I crossed the border. I got stuck in the back of the bus and a 15 year old boy has fallen asleep on my lap while his friend behind me refuses to take his feet from my face, and his other friend in front trying to wake up the boy on my lap is bombarding me with pillows and condom balloons while all 9 of them blast different music from the cell phones. All I can do is laugh.

Bonus Shot: This is Mustafa, Aisha's son who I think is quite possibly the most adorable child in the world

The West Bank: Not What You Need to Know - What You Should Know

I arrived in the West Bank the other day. What I am about to write is not meant to be political. I am merely writing what I observed for my friends at home who are dying to know. I want people to know why this project is so immensely difficult to accomplish.The Palestinian side of this conflict is grossly under reported in the US and this will be very difficult for me to describe because you really have to be here and walk the land and feel the dirt and see the pain for it to bring you to tears. I am writing to you from Aisha's house. She is the coordinator for COHI on the Palestinian side and so desperately want to see this coexistance project work.

This is Aisha asisting with a birth at the clinic we visited up in the north. I love this shot becuase it looks like the baby is glowing. You work with the light you have...this happened to be perfect!

This is one of the four midwifes who works a 16 hour shift at the only birth center in all of the west bank. They see about 40 women a month and are severly underpaid. I got to see two women in labor while vising for less than 3 hours.

Where do I start, this war has such a history. Maybe I will start with misconceptions. It has been wonderful staying here in East Jerusalem. Everywhere I go around Israel and I told people I was going to the West Bank they said "but why it is so dangerous?". I will be staying in East Jerusalem... what?!?!!? I will be going to a Party in Ramalla...what?!?!? I will be traveling to Jenin...what?!!?! I am going to Bethlehem for the day...What?!?!? I will be going to Hebron....what?!?!?! Well this is my challenge: Why are these places so dangerous? Have you been there? Has something happened to you while you were there?

The streets of Bethlahem in the morning before all of the shops are open

The countryside of the West Bank on the road to Jenin

Dance party in Ramalla

Answers: No. Israeli's are not legally allowed to be in the West Bank. The reality is that I feel safer in the West Bank than I do in Israel. I feel totally comfortable walking around at night by myself in East Jerusalem. I had the most fun in my life dancing at a house party in Ramalla last weekend. There are so many amazing historical sites in Bethlehem it would be a shame to come here and miss this city. The only time I felt in danger was at the check points. The 18-20 year old Israeli soldiers boasting semi automatics and giving me a hard time about my passport. This is the only time I felt scared. People know here that I am Jewish and I have been welcomed by the people with open arms and endless cups of Turkish coffee. The dangerous part for Israelis?: The check points. If you come to the West Bank the only danger you have is getting arrested by the soldiers at the check points. My passport wasn't good enough. They needed to see my entrance visa (which they had a hard time reading through the glass walls).

Ok this is a place in Hebron no one on either side is happy about. This is the only place where a settlement is literally built on top of a Palistinian town. Bellow are the arabs and above are the Israelis. This is the town where they most conflict occurs. As you can see a fense had to be built above the arab village becuase the Isreali children throw rocks and trash down on the arabs as they walk through the streets.

This fear is based on the fact that people have not had the ability to come to this beautiful amazing part of the country to see, feel, and taste the culture. I know everyone feels like they have a right to this land but I feel like what is currently happening is modern day colonialism. I mean if the British didn't kill most of the Native Americans we would be in the same predicament today. I know the Palestinians have resorted to violence and have been bombing and shooting and this is what we hear about in the news and I agree it is wrong. However, in America this is the only thing we hear about in the news but you have to ask yourself why? Why would an otherwise absolutely peaceful culture resort to violence?

Crowded winding streets of the UN refugee camp

The refugee camp was full of children like this playing and running around the streets darting in and out of cars

Ok some history from this side of things. In 1948 when a flood of people started coming into this country they had to go somewhere. Hordes of Palestinians were removed, kick off, or had to flee there land but where did they go? I saw the refugee camps that were "temporarily" set up in 1948 in Beit Jala to house all of these people. Today what I saw wanted to make me cry. 60 years later and these neighborhoods are still completely funded by the UN, completely overrun, dirty, over crowded, and ridden with poverty. It is like this because all of these people are waiting to go back. For 60 years. They want to go back to there old homes. However, with the restrictions they have they are not allowed to leave the West Bank so I am not sure if they will have the opportunity to go to their old homes and villages. If they did they would find that there old homes no longer exist. I am fortunate being an American or a foreigner because I have more mobility than anyone who lives in these two countries and I have the ability to be open minded and educate myself on the situation. I really feel like if Israelis could come here and see this with there own "open" eyes this conflict would be different. These people are suffering so much. But this is not possible. In 2003 a giant wall was built to completely enclose Palestine. To the Israelis this greatly increased security. There have been zero suicide bombings since the wall has been built so this is a testament that the wall is working. But at what expense?

What was once the city center of Hebron now a deserted zone of conflict in the West Bank
This is a Palistinian boy looking into the gate of a street that is illigaly closed to him in Hebron. On the otherside (what you can't see in this picuture) are armed vehicles and soliders

Let me give you a feel for what the wall is doing for my life as a foreigner traveling here and then times it by 10 for these people living here. Aisha, the woman I am staying with has a house in Ramalla. Before the wall was built it took exactly 4 minutes to drive to her house from here where I am currently staying. So yesterday without any lines or stopping our vehicle it took us exactly 45 minutes to get there. The other day we went to Jenin to visit a birth center which is about an hour and a half....if it was a straight shot...but it took us 3 hours and we could not drive there with Aisha's car because it had an Israeli licence plate so we had to take a car, to a bus, to a taxi stop half way get off at a check point, walk across (which means going through metal detectors and showing our ID, get in another taxi and repeat to go home again. It was absolutely exhausting and expensive. And we were super lucky because we weren't going through rush hour so the lines were short. So people wait in lines at the check points for up to 4 hours. Holy crap! This may be a burden when you are trying to get to work on time....but if there is an emergency, if you are rushing to the hospital to have C-section because you have an at risk pregnancy this is downright dangerous and deadly. People have died at the wall waiting. None of these deaths are reported in the American news papers.

If you are interested in learning more about how the wall affects the Palestinian communities visit this site: http://stopthewall.org/FAQs/33.shtml. In 2007, 5 women gave birth at check points because the soldiers would not let them pass. If you want more information about this visit this site: http://www.btselem.org/english/Medical_Treatment/Index.asp.

There is so much to say but this is just a taste. Again, I want to reiterate this is not written to favor any sides. I am simply telling the story of what I have observed in being here for a few days and relaying my shock of what has been hidden from me in the American mainstream media. More to come soon.