ALSO, leave comments

Leave comments. Let me know what you think about what I'm saying about the country, about the trip, about everything. I'll be posting pictures on here AND on my website www.emanrimawi.com so stay tuned! :)

Okie :)

Less than a week until I leave

I've been so excited. I am excited. I'm ready to be there. Ready to do all the things I want to do, all the things I plan on doing, all the new things that may happen that I haven't planned. I'm excited.

But also very nervous. Very nervous about so many things.

Its like this hole that been in my heart about who I am and where I come from. In my soul and slowly, it feels like coming home. Palestine feels like home to me. It always has, it's just been out of reach. And now I get to reach it. It's always scary to get what you want. But I'm going head first into my fear and nervousness and going to experience everything that it has to offer.
Another reason I've been nervous is because of the news. Some of the news has been ok. Some of the news hasn't been very good and it makes me wonder how much traveling from town to town I'll be able to do. I check the news, all news sources to get all sides to see whats going on.

I know I'll be ok. I have this strong feeling, deep inside me. Just like the feeling I felt that I knew that NOW was the time for me to go. Just like that feeling, I know I'll be ok. But it still makes me nervous. I don't know what the soldiers will say. I don't know if someone will have had their last straw and board a bus I'm on and take his/her and everyone else life. I don't know. I guess no one knows.
I'm going with very positive energy and a very positive attitude.

But I can, of course only control myself. We'll see what happens. Next week on Thursday, I'll be flying. Thats another nerve-wracking thing. I hate flying. And it's going to be cloudy and possibly rainy. UGH!
It's time for bed. It's time for reading my arabic.

Min fadlek read my blogs as they come along through October. I want to share my experience with everyone. I've noticed I've been getting more traffic on both blogs. I'm really glad. And excited.

Until later.

Here are some articles I found. Good news, Bad news, Scary news. All going on right now.

Jerusalem crash 'not deliberate'

The family claim the 19-year-old driver was murdered by Israelis

Relatives of a Palestinian who was shot dead after his car ploughed into a group of Israelis at a bus stop have denied it was a deliberate attack.

Nineteen people, mostly soldiers, were treated for light or moderate wounds in the incident in central Jerusalem.

Off duty soldiers shot the 19-year-old driver, in what Israeli police have said was an attack.

"My son was murdered, they killed him. He did not carry out a terrorist attack" said the driver's father.

"This was a car accident. The car stopped after hitting a wall. Why did they kill him?" Mahmoud Mughrabi said at his home in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

Israeli police have said they were "100% sure" Qassem Mughrabi intended to carry out a deliberate attack, with one spokesmen saying a failed romance may have been the trigger.

Israeli police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said investigators had found Mr Mughrabi, who had no prior police record, "wanted to marry his cousin but when she refused he apparently decided to carry out the attack".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7631693.stm

A mobile circus to challenge immobility

The beautiful story of the First Palestinian Circus School

The First Palestinian circus school was set up in 2006 when Shadi Zmorrod and Jessika Devlieghere -“father and mother circus”- launched that original project. Based in Ramallah, the school teaches circus arts to children from the West Bank. Bringing much more than circus knowledge to the kids, the school aims to break the barriers– both physical and social- within the Palestinian society, gather people with art, and provide a new way of expression for Palestinian kids. This summer, the Circus school was touring all across the West Bank to present a ‘mobile circus’ filled with Palestinian and Danish performers, joy, motivation and audience’s smile.

It all started in a checkpoint, like many Palestinian stories. At one of the biggest ones in the West Bank -Qalandia- were we met on a Saturday the members of the Palestinian Circus School. It is 3’o clock in the afternoon, and the sun is burning while some 25 teenagers and circus performers are waiting and queuing behind the gates of the checkpoints to leave Ramallah for a day and attend their first performance in Jerusalem.

Sebastian, circus performer from Denmark at Qalandya checkpoint

Pictures: Thomas Freteur

Amongst the teenagers, there’s Mays, Nayef, Marah, Ashtar, Hazar or Fadi … 10 Palestinian circus trainers and students along with Ramit, Mariam, Sebastian, Steffen, ... 7 professional circus performers from Denmark who came to Palestine for cultural cooperation.

The beautiful story of the circus started several years ago when Shadi Zmorrod, a young Palestinian actor discovered randomly circus art in 2000. Two years later, he met Jessika, a Belgian woman who came to Palestine a couple of years ago and fell in love both with the country, the man and the project and decided to stay in the country. Together, they start up a circus project that then became a school. They started out of nothing but now, the determined dreamers have performed with the school in Europe and Palestine, training more than 130 kids in the West Bank.

http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article609

Eid al-Fitr arrives to empty pockets

26.09.08 - 11:32

PNN / Fadi Yacoub - Under the Israeli siege and closure imposed on the Gaza Strip, and with the deteriorating economic situation that has followed, the coming Eid al-Fitr is looking bleak. This year is the worst yet, according to many in the Palestinian street. There is little money, prices are up and the dollar is down so low that the world market is being hit hard. Ghazi says there are many obstacles preventing the Eid celebration. He told PNN that in Gaza there is nowhere to go except to walk on the beach. "There is no money to shop or go to cafes." The Gaza resident continued, “The financial hardship experienced by citizens because of underpayment or nonpayment of salaries is an additional hardship to the other factors which include price increases because of the continued Israeli closure of the Gaza crossings.”

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3624&Itemid=1



Abbas: Israeli, US Leadership Changes Won’t Deter Peace Efforts
AHLC Urges Israel to Relax Restrictions, Pledge $300m to PNA

23/09/2008

Palestine Media Center – PMC

En route to his summit meeting at the White House with U.S. President George W. Bush on September 25, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in Dublin, at a joint press conference with the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Miche?l Martin, that the uncertainty caused by leadership changes in Israel and the United States will not deter efforts to further the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Meanwhile a group of international donors pledged nearly $300 million in new aid to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), according to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, at a meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC), which urged Israel in a statement Monday to curb its settlement activity and relax restrictions on the West Bank and Gaza Strip in order to help revive the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=2024

Settlers raid 'Asira al-Qibliya and attack residents, Sept. '08.

Over the past year, settlers from Yitzhar and the surrounding area have sharply stepped up violent acts in nearby Palestinian villages. The attacks include throwing stones at passing cars, physically attacking farmers, burning down crops, and stealing livestock. On 14 Sept., after a Palestinian stabbed a Jewish boy and burnt down a caravan in the Shalhevet Yam settlement near Yitzhar, dozens of settlers raided the village of ‘Asira al-Qibliya. They threw stones, fired into the air, broke windows, drew Stars of David on walls of homes and widely damaged property. Testimonies given to B’Tselem indicate that soldiers were present at the time, yet did nothing to prevent the settlers' actions, and fired at the Palestinians.

http://www.btselem.org/English/Video/20080913_SB_Settler_riot_in_Asira_al_Qibliya.asp

One week until Palestine

I leave next thursday. It's all I can think about. I know the places I want to go, want to see. As I've written about them here, it's made the desire, the need to be there even greater.
It'll be Eid when I go since now is Ramadan. I did that completely by accident and I'm glad.
I'm also very nervous. To meet the family. To see the soldiers. To experience whats going on in the country.
I'm nervous but also excited and can't wait to be there. I've been waiting a long time for this.
My expectations aren't exactly high, but I'm just so excited. I know I won't be disappointed.
There are also some things I plan on doing that I haven't written about because I don't want to jinx them.
I'll write about everything soon enough.
I'll be writing from THERE soon enough. :)

Finding out everything I can about Palestine

See, of course I know all the things I've been told, but there are also a lot of other bits of information out there about the land, about the history of all the towns, about the spots that are most beautiful (and most heart breaking). I've been looking into them today and I'm preparing to list out all the places I want to try and see next month.

And that is another thing. It's already September 9th. In less than a month, I'll be there. I fly out the evening of Oct 2nd and I come back the evening of Oct 28th. I can't believe I'm actually going.

Here are some of the things I found that I may want to check out. I know of course there will be things I find out about when I get there, BUT I also wanted to see if I could find some things in advance.

So here's what I've got so far. The list will grow of course. I have a month to explore.

http://www.telaviv4fun.com/galilee.html

Although this site is very much from an Israeli perspective, it gives an interesting insight into places to visit. This is just one of the links on the site that talks about Galilee, which looks really beautiful. I know I want to go there, but also on that site, they talk about The Dead SEA, Jerusalem (also because I know people who live there who I'll be seeing as well), Haifa (if I can get there since it's a little ways away from where I'll be spending most of my time), Tel Aviv (even though I know if I come in touch with a fucked up Israeli, I'm not sure I can hold my tongue, which will get me in trouble... but I'd like to visit it too and I'm flying into and out of there, so maybe I can do it on my way out to make it easy...i dunno), Ramallah (of course since I'll be all up in there with the familia, but also, apparentl, there is an amazing "night life" which I'd like to see... because there's isn't too much info and I want to see what folks mean by that) and Beit Rima if I can get to it since I'm a Rimawi from Beit Rima.

These are just some of the places I'd like to explore wholly or as much as possible. This won't be my last trip, so I can see more the next time but I'm not sure when next time will be.

I don't know in what order I'll be doing this and how much time I'll be in each, but yeah, just wanted to share while I looked all over the place at everything there is to see

Leaving October 2nd

I leave for Palestine Oct 2nd. I long flight into the Ukraine first and then over to Tel Aviv. Almos 16 hours of flight to help me find myself. To see where my father was born, where he grew up. To meet his sisters and see one of my uncles again. To meet all the cousins over there that I haven't met yet. To connect for 26 days with that part of me that has seemed to be so cut off for all this time.
Each day (at least that is my hope) I'll be writing about my day, about the things I've seen and about how I'm coming along with the manuscript for the book about Palestinian part of me.
There will be pictures and videos which will be on my site and here and I'll keep folks informed.