Key-ping the faith

A lot has happened in the last week! Saturday marked the end of our formal in-country orientation and move-in day to our official living arrangements. After a brief home blessing from Gabi, our country coordinator, he left to drop off the other YAGMs and that was it.

I have gotten to know my host family more and more every day and grow fonder and fonder of them with each encounter. I've spent a couple nights talking on the porch with Fadi, my host father, Abeer, my host mother, and Dr. Bob, a professor who is currently staying with the Rishmawis to write a book on Fadi's mother, Emily. Abeer drives me and a German volunteer also living with the Rishmawi's and working at the same school with me, Jeremais, to school every day. I've also briefly met Emily and Lina, two of my host sisters, before they departed for their ten-day vacation in Cyprus. I look forwards to getting to know them and my other two host siblings whom I have not yet met even more throughout the year.

I had all of eleven hours to soak in my new living quarters before embarking on my first journey into Jerusalem sans five other YAGMs beside me (I did have one--Sarah who also lives in Beit Sahour). We made it *only* ten minutes late to our installation service at The Church of the Redeemer in Old City, Jerusalem. Installed, falafel-ed, and reunited with my cohort (even for a short two hours), I was soon back on the bus to Beit Sahour, where just seventeen hours lay between me and my first day in my first site placement, the Evangelical Lutheran School of Beit Sahour. Needless to say, it's been a lot of change for one week.

I've successfully completed two days at my school site placement, and can truthfully say that I probably learned a lot more in those two days than any of my students did. I'm working alongside three different teachers helping in English classes spanning from 6th through 10th grade. Hearing my native language taught in Arabic has inspired a lot of thought about the English language in general and also a lot of respect for the students of ELS--all of which are learning Arabic, English, AND German each day. My only job so far has been introducing myself and writing on the board as the teacher goes through workbook exercises, but eventually I will be helping with lesson planning and teaching my own micro-lessons on things like geography or snippets of American culture. The biggest challenge of this job is summed up best by Ms. Mira, the teacher I'm with most frequently throughout my two days at ELS; "From ages 7th grade to 10th grade you are not teaching humans. You are teaching hormones". My white skin and light-colored hair seem to be a bit of a distraction to students at the moment, most likely remedied by simply getting to know me, which will (hopefully) come with time.

Today I started at my second site placement, the Environmental Education Center, which is located in Beit Jala. Though I will be doing a plethora of jobs within this job throughout the year, today I accompanied my coworker Joan on two school visits to help set up the Environmental Club in each school. In the afternoon we worked together on a grant report to the Church of Sweden, who will hopefully continue to fund the EEC after hearing about their most recent success, a Student Leadership Training Program, which Joan described to me and I then typed.

To get into my flat, the Rishmawis of course gave me a key, with which I must lock the flat every day before I leave to keep everything safe. The door to this flat is pretty old, and for someone who struggles with even brand new keys and locks, unlocking and opening this door has been quite a challenge for me everyday. More often than not, I come back to the flat with either hands full of groceries or hot and dripping in sweat from my walk home from school in slacks and 85 degree heat. The lock has never granted me entry the same way twice; first it was turning the key three times one way and once the other, other times some forceful pushing and pulling of the door is involved, and once I leaned against the door in surrender and the door eased open as if it had not nearly made me cry in the two minutes leading up to that moment.

My first day of work, of course, yielded the most frustrating key-tastrophe. I must have been turning that key right and left for five whole minutes, dripping in sweat, and exhausted from meeting new people, trying to remember as much Arabic as I could, and ignoring the repeated inquiry from middle and high school boys as to whether I had a boyfriend. All I wanted to do was to take off the long pants and shirt I had on and pour myself a big glass of cold water. All of this--my shorts, a breathable t-shirt, water that had spent the whole day in a cold fridge--was behind the door that would. not. open. I looked down at the key in my hand. This was the right key. This key was made for this door and this door only. I shoved the key back in, twisting and turning, thinking about how if my family, my camp, my college had this lock with this key, it would have been replaced years ago. Somehow this seemed like such a different situation than just any key or any door. Turn, push. Turn, pull. This house had been in the family for decades. The door was a part of the house and ultimately demanded respect and acceptance. Click. Just like every other time, the second I had all but given up hope, the door finally opened.

The necessity of perseverance in opening this door never changed the fact that it was still the right key all along.

my key (and door)

marketplace view after church in Old City, Jerusalem