Blogs from Israel, Middle East - page 138

Greetings from Jerusalem, the Holy Land. Israel is an amazing country so far and the journey across the Jordon/Israel border was interesting to say the least. It was here that we met some great people, who became our border crossing buddies - Erin and Jason from San Francisco. Our journey began early, catching a taxi to just before the King Hussein Bridge. From there we caught another taxi to the Bridge where we were sent to numerous different offices for processing by the Jordanian passport control and customs. We then boarded another bus to take us across no man's land to be processed by Israel. This is where the fun really began. We were greeted by teenagers holding machine guns, ordering us to leave our packs and passports. They processed something, put stickers on our bags ... read more

So we headed off to Haifa and Tel Aviv for our final interviews. We had 2 sessons in Haifa and one interview in Tel Aviv. Haifa is beautiful. It's built on a hill overlooking the Mediterranian. The interviews went well, and again, just adding more to the hard decisions we need to make. After the interviews, we checked into our hotel and went for dinner in the German quater. Absolutely gorgeous area at the foot of the Bahai gardens. We ened up at a wine tasting party at one of the restaurants. It felt extremely strange as the crowd was a mix of Israeli's and Israeli Arabs. We couldn't tell who was who and who spoke hebrew or arabic. After being in such segregated areas that are striking different, it was amazing to be in a ... read more

Ok, so the rumour is true. Nablus DOES have the best Kanafeh in the world and it's totally worth the effort of getting into this fortified city. To get to our next interviews, we had to leave our car and the checkpoint and walk across. No cars are allowed to drive in. We found a great cab driver to take us to the meeting and pick up up after. On our way to the interview meeting place, he pointed out a local resuarant that , the previous day, had just been burned down by the IDF. We stopped to take pictures and and some video footage. (by the way, we have been shooting a behind the scenes documentary of this years program). A group of neighbors had come out to support the owner by cleaning and ... read more

I got my kibbutz placement. I will be going to Kibbutz Baram on Monday. I should have been tipped off to the somewhat bum operation when I walked into the building where the kibbutz volunteer office is located. I walked up to the receptionist, conveniently located behind bullet proof glass, and asked brightly where I might find the volunteer office. Based upon her reaction one may have thought I was asking where I could find the slaughtered pig and milk factory. I received a terse, "Not here" and a backward flick of her head towards what I could only assume was the kibbutz volunteer office. Located on the lower level, the windowless office is staffed by two women, one morbidly obese and the other rail thin. There was one additional room with "Manager" written across the ... read more

This is going to be so hard. 70 interviews to do... and only picking 8-10 to come to Canada. We had 2 rounds of interviews yesteday and there were so many great kids to choose from. AND we've only just started! We did the first 2 round in the Jerusalem Intercultural Centre near the Zion gate of the Old City. What a perfect location over looking the hills of Jerusalem. Later that night, exhausted and inviforated at the same time, we went to the Jeruslaem hotel for Taybeh beer, mezze, and some loacl music. Taybeh is a Palestinian beer from a village called, you guessed it, Taybeh. The village is one village over from Khirbit Abu Fallah where Adri's family live. Next stop - Ramallah for some more interviews. ... read more