Well, it's my last day in Nablus before I head to Jerusalem, and I have had kind of an emotional last week becuase I have had to say goodbye to all my students. They all ask me when I am coming back, and ask me not to forget them. Some even offered for me to move in with their parents so that I could stay! ha ha. Yesterday I went to a protest in Bi'lin that I had been hoping to attend for a while. The protest is in solidarity with Palestinian farmers whose ...

I spent the weekend in a village called Yanoon, as I explained in my last entry, this village requires the constant presence of international volunteers to protect the villagersfrom settler harrassment. To get to Yanoon we had to cross one of the many checkpoints that exist in the West Bank. Crossing the checkpoint is unsettling the first time you do it, and for a number of reasons.One of the first things that struck me was that I, as an international volunteer...

Yesterday I spent the day picking olives from an olive grove right near Nablus. One of the local volunteers, Akil, had invited all the international volunteers to come to his olive grove to harvest his olives. The trees that we helped him to pick were over 200 years old. It was really nice to spend a day outdoors, although I definitely got a bit sunburned! Akil gave us a tub of the olives that we had helped him pick to bring back to our flat, and today he cam...

Tonight the Israeli military fighter jets are doing practice flights over Nablus, it is quite a sight to see and hear, they fly so low and manouver so fast over the city and around again. I have spent the past few days getting accustomed to the city and meeting many wonderful people. Yesterday two of the Palestinian volunteers we work with here in Nablus, Heba and Ashraf, took a few of us international volunteers through the old city of Nablus, as many of us ha...

Well, Today I arrived in Nablus, a town in the West Bank, where I will be living for the next month. I am living in an apartment with 10 other volunteers who are all working for the organization "Project Hope." Our apartment is pretty amazing, a huge spacious old building with a terrace overlooking the rolling hills and the town of Nablus. The apartment we have now is the old office for Doctors without Borders, and it is great. I am sitting here listen...