انجنَت في فلسطين! A week hath passed since my arrival at the phoenix centre - time to spill the fuul. Well, a little bit about the phoenix centre. It was founded burnt down and re-built three times since its establishment in 2000, hence its name, al-feniq in Arabic. It is run completely by volunteers for the community of the Dheishe camp where it is situated and beyond. The camp was formed by the arrival of thousands of villagers from around Jerus...

So, a week hath passed it has since I arrived here. My time has been spent on a myriad of different things, from visiting a vast and swanky shopping centre in the centre of Jerusalem that was built on the ruins of a destroyed Arab village (they kindly named the centre after it), visiting people and places and finding somewhere to volunteer for the next month and a half. Well, I have been staying in Ramallah with Lazar, the one whom we all met up the mountain in ...

This is a brief one just to say that I am alive and kicking more or less in Ramallah. I arrived in Amman around 9.30pm on the 25th, met some koreans and japanese (as one is want to do) and then headed across the king hussein bridge. Taxi there was 20JD (5 each) and then we had to pay the extortionate fee of 4.25 for the JETT bus to take us across the border. Then a 40 NIS ride into Jerusalem. Pricey...though it was strange to see Jerusalem again after almost thre...

So a hectic past few weeks fraught with tension came to a dramatic and slightly absurd end with the exam today. But what have we been doing for the two interceding weeks? Upon our triumphant return from Iraq we submitted ourselves to the pain and suffering that is the Arabic bahth. No, that is not a typo. The bahth was the essay that we were supposed to be working on in excessive detail and care, for which I spent countless horrendous hours painstakingly writing...

So a hectic past few weeks fraught with tension came to a dramatic and slightly absurd end with the exam today. But what have we been doing for the two interceding weeks? Upon our triumphant return from Iraq we submitted ourselves to the pain and suffering that is the Arabic bahth. No, that is not a typo. The bahth was the essay that we were supposed to be working on in excessive detail and care, for which I spent countless horrendous hours painstakingly writing...