My Favorite Things

When the dog bites

When the bee stings

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don't feel so bad

~Sound of Music

Here is the deal. I love Sound of Music.  It is probably one of my favorite movies of all times.  It the movie I watch when I am bored, need some cheering up or just need some general background noise.  One of the things I love about the movie is the music and one of my favorite songs is “Favorite Things.”

Now, so far there have been no dog bites or bee stings, but there have definitely been some challenging moments of being a YAGM.  I have shared some of those challenges, and some of them I am still working on processing.  Sometimes it all seems incredibly overwhelming.

As cliché as it may seem, in those moments, sometimes it really does help to take some time to reflect on the things that I love about being here.   While Maria’s favorite things maybe raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, are a good place to start, there are a lot more things that I love about being a YAGM, specifically a YAGM in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Here are a few of my favorite things:

Seeing rainbows every time it rains    

Sitting on these stairs in the sun with my Nook and reading

Watching shepherd’s herd sheep on the streets of town

The things that I have gotten to do and see this year that I never ever dreamed I would do-
like snorkeling in the Red Sea

The adorable kindergartners who I get to hang out with everyday

Three words: Exploding birthday candles

The amazing food and learning how to cook some of it with cooking lessons from our host mom  

The joy and laughter that fill the teacher’s lounger every morning and through out the day. 

Getting to celebrate Christmas in the place where Christmas started

Saying that I live halfway between “Away in the Manager”...    

...and “Shepherd’s quaking at the sight”

Getting to call a place home that most people will only visit for a day or two. 

Having created a family here and
having several people who have adopted me as a sister or daughter.      

Walking passed this donkey grazing in the field every day on my way home from school    

Being a part of a community that includes both
YAGM alums and current YAGMs and soon will include the new YAGMs

Sights that despite continuing to amaze me,
are a “normal” part of my “normal” life here    

Having an olive tree, lemon tree...

...almond tree in my backyard.
(by the way did you know that almonds are green and fuzzy…)    

In the rocky and hard places there is a beautiful growth    

All I can say is "Thank you"

At the core of who we are is the roots of those that have influenced our lives 

the most and the impact of what they have exposed us to is always there

 and when the foundation is laid with love and commitment, 

our lives at some point will reflect that of which we have been taught.

~Aja Graydon

This quote, one of the many from my “quote box” that was a gift from a dear friend, got me thinking a lot about the people in my life who have helped lay the foundation of who I am. This year has been a year full of reflecting on what my live reflects, and whose influence you can see in my life.

Today is International Women’s Day, which in Palestine warrants a day off of school, which got my thinking about all of the amazing women who have given me the gift of their time, wisdom, mentorship and friendship.   So while there have been many amazing men in my life, I want to take the time to acknowledge some of the many women who have influenced my life and laid the foundation of who I am with love in commitment. I am grateful for each of these women, for their presence in my life, whether they where there for a couple of weeks or several years, whether we are still in close contact or have drifted a part.  I know that I am who I am today because I was blessed with their presence in my life. 

So I leave you with the words of StoryPeople, because as so often true, they have said so perfectly the words I am struggling to find:

Don't you hear it? she asked 

& I shook my head no & then she started to dance & 

suddenly there was music everywhere & it went on for a very long time & 

when I finally found words 

all I could say was thank you.

Weekend Adventures

It is probably the most terrified I have been since being here.  As I watched the group of young men coming down the street towards me, all I could think to do was run, hoping I wouldn’t become there next target.   After all, they greatly outnumbered me. Plus, they were better armed, with more ammunition surrounding us just waiting to be gathered up.  I had already been hit several times, and camera in hand I was in no position to properly defend myself, so I turned and ran.

Some how I had found myself in the midst of the first snowball fight that the area had seen in a number of years.   (Oh, did you think I was in actual danger? Sorry about that, totally safe here!)

The snowball army!

Let me backtrack a bit here.  Wednesday night school was cancelled for Thursday because all the rain was flooding streets and making it challenging/unsafe to get places. So we all were pretty excited to have a snow, I mean rain, day.   We (Megan, LW and myself) woke up on Thursday morning to discover that because of all of the rain, the wells beneath our house were overflowing into LW’s bedroom.  So that got cleaned up but it was still raining and flooding into LW’s room and all we could do was try to manage it.  A couple of hours later, we lost electricity and with that we made the decision to go to our coordinators house and stay for the night. 

When we got up on Friday, we discovered that during the night the temperature had dropped and the rain from the previous night had turned into snow.  Now, not only was snow falling from the sky, but it was also sticking to the ground, blanketing everything in white. 

Looking out the kitchen window,
to see the first snow here in at least 4 years

It was pretty exciting for
everybody. 

Unfortunately, the snow that made everything so pretty was also making it near impossible for cars to get up the hill outside the house.  In traditional Palestinian fashion, rather than getting frustrated or angry, they people in the car made the best of the situation.  They parked their cars, the occupants got out, somebody turned on some music, and chaos broke out in the field next to the house as everybody began to pelt each other with snowballs.  Soon the neighborhood kids were outside.  Not wanting to miss out on any of the excitement, Megan, LW and I donned our shoes and jackets (mind you we had not come prepared for snow) and headed out to join in the fun.

Cars parked, snow balls flying

Growing up in Iowa, snow and snowball fights were a part of my childhood, but I must say, this was one of the most epic snowball fights I have ever participated in.  There was also the least amount of snowball etiquette, your face was fair game, but I suppose that is what happens when you don’t have snow often.   Laughter and dancing filled the air, and despite the fact that I was soaking wet and could not feel my fingers, I was having the time of my life.

Everybody was fair game. In all fairness she
she got them back pretty good.

At one point, we looked down the street to see the above “army” of young men coming towards us, stopping to throw snow at anybody who looked like a good target, or made the mistake of launching a snowball in their direction. 

Soon everybody was cold and tired, so the crowd dispersed back to their homes and cars.  It was a fantastic morning, and in some ways helped ease the pain of thinking that the next day we would be returning to a flooded home.  Yet, we returned home on Saturday afternoon to discover that our host mom and brother had been amazing and pumped the water out of the house and cleaned up our floor.  

Over the course of the weekend we heard from a variety of people how rare this is, not only the snow but also the amount of rain that we have had this year.  As frustrating as the rain can be, it is a huge blessing.  It a blessing that means full wells and water tanks, well watered fields which will hopefully mean good crops and harvest as well as well fed animals.  Plus this weekend, it also meant the great blessing of play and fun for those of us lucky enough to have snow!

ATTACK!!!!!

Story Worthy Week

I like to write about the stuff going on in my life as long as it's interesting, but otherwise, I'd rather just read.

~StoryPeople

It’s true.  I do like to write and sometimes I like to share what I write on my blog.  Writing is a great way for me to reflect on my experiences and many times to gain a better understanding of the things I am witnessing.  As I was talking to one of my dear friends who is now teaching English in Indonesia and also attempting to keep a blog, she said that the one thing she like about keeping a blog was that it was “like a public, well-edited journal.”  It provides a way for me to chronicle what is happening in my life so I can go back and remember it later. Because my blog is public, it has the added benefit of allowing me to also share these experiences and reflections.

Yet, all of this only seems relevant when my life is “exciting” and “interesting.”  While I am spending the year living in a foreign country,  life has become “normal” here.  I go to work, I buy groceries, I do my laundry.  It is all the same stuff I did while I was living in the States, except now I am doing it in Palestine and sometimes in Arabic rather than English.   When life no longer seems “interesting,”  I would rather just read about the interesting things happening in other people’s lives. 

While I was living in New Jersey one of my roommates introduced me to “The MOTH” podcasts.   Each week, they release a podcast of one of the participants from one of “The MOTH” story slams, telling a story from the life based on the events theme. At the end of each podcast the host closes with the same tagline:

“Thanks to all of you for listening, and we hope you have a story-worthy week”

And every week, I listen and I think “I hope something exciting happens this week so I can have a story-worthy week.”  Then one week as I was listening to the podcast, I realized that these stories are sometimes about exciting and grand adventures, but usually they are people telling stories about their every day lives from raising children to taking an art class to falling in love to failing relationships.  These people are generally average people who simply believe that they have a story worth sharing and then get up and share it.

As I thought about this, I realized that each week is a story worthy week, in fact if I am willing to keep my eyes open and look for the story each day is a story worthy day.   Whether the story be about some exciting adventure or about something cute one of my kids did or overcoming a particular challenge.  

May you each have a story-worthy week and may you have somebody or someway to share that story, because it is worth sharing.