(dis)Orientation

I chose to do YAGM because I have no idea what the next step of my life looks like. I am passionate about many things (children, nature, environmental justice, music, etc.), but I also hold an involuntarily deep commitment to being non-committal. My brief exposure to some Aboriginal cultural aspects during my time in Australia sparked an interest in spending more time with people deeply connected to land. Going into YAGM, I was set on going to the Tanzania/Rwanda area purely because of two conversations which led me to believe spending time in these places would speak to this passion for the connections between humans and land.

I sat down in the Jerusalem/West Bank presentation during the early stages of placement discernment, and was immediately confronted with perhaps one of the most complicated, passionate, and prominent connection to land today; the Israel/Palestine conflict, in brief, shown through surface-level powerpoint slides before my eyes.

So while I am not at all surprised nor upset that this is my placement, I did not spend the last couple years of my life fantasizing about going here, learning different things about culture or language here, or perhaps most importantly, researching the conflict. In one week I have heard the tale of a man who may lose access to his favorite hiking trail in coming months, of a woman who's husband wakes up at 3:30am and goes to sleep at 11pm to keep the family on its feet, and was slapped in the face with the privilege my blue passport and skin color grants me on a bus heading out of the West Bank into Jerusalem. My learning slate was very clean five days ago when I arrived, and holds so much room for experiencing the people, community, language, politics, land, and culture of this place I for which I already hold so much wonder.