Revisiting Beit Sahour

I'm home safely from my trip to the Middle East. Want to present a few stories that were meaningful. So here's a little bit from my time in Beit Sahour, following up to my first post about it 10 days ago.

Getting into Bethlehem/Beit Sahour I immediately sought out a taxi :-) Fortunately we overcame the tension of haggling pretty quickly... I need help to get to the Siraj Center, the group I'd organized my home stay with. After a few minutes driving, we found the center. Closed. A staff person at the Rapproachment Center next door was leaving for the day...but in typical Arab fashion, invited us in, offered us strong coffee, and put me on the computer so I could get in touch with the right people.

A few minutes later I was standing outside a random building waiting for the host family. A few kids approached me casually and we started joking...the two kids I'd talked to first absolutely loved when I joined in the laughter at the size of their third friend's head. Hopefully that was innocent enough humor. Soon enough my host mother arrived with Fernando, the little one, and her older daughter. She made me feel very welcome when we got back to the house. Here is a little writing I did in the room my second night there: 

I'm leaning up against the bedroom wall with a couple pillows underneath my neck. The mattress is comfortable and dusty. The blanket is lightweight. Its the extra one that Iman set aside for me in case the standard blanket became too hot. The blanket has a thick black border with red flowers patterned inside it. Blue string comes out in different places, also part of the pattern. 

Spent part of last night here at the house doing these things: searching for soccer on tv, hearing Sami's story of visiting Georgia (and landing himself in prison for two weeks), playing soccer with Fernando, riding to Downtown (the name of a shop) to peruse and buy ice cream, eating dinner without the women at the table, being tested on my translation skills, being laughed at for my classical Arabic, looking back ten years at the older daughter's grades.

That's a little walk down memory lane via YMCA street (aka the major street name in Beit Sahour). Here's another pic of Fernando, this time as I'm trying to leave and he's occupying my luggage.