Palestine Superlatives (so far).

Favorite food: Hummus! For breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No joke. Although I have been warned not to overdose too much on the hummus in the beginning for risk of getting tired of this delicious, all-purpose food. So we've also added in a variety of shawarma and falafel sandwiches (my roommate and I are still deliberating to determine our go-to spot).

Most pleasantly surprising incident: Yesterday I accidently left my phone in a taxi... I realized it right away, but figured it was a lost cause. To my surprise, the taxi driver actually used it to call my friend (who I was with), and we set up a time later in the afternoon to stage a retrieval. This resulted in me standing by the side of the road trying to get a good look at each of the taxi drivers who drove by without unintentionally hailing a ride in the process. Easier said than done. The taxi driver and I had several more phone conversations which usually consisted of me attempting to explain my whereabouts in Arabic and him saying he would be there in 5 minutes. Meanwhile, I made friends with the corn and coffee merchants also hanging out by the side of the road, who appeared to be a mixture of confused and concerned about what in the world I was doing. Eventually, the right taxi driver did show up and was exceptionally kind about the whole ordeal.

[A few things I learned from this experience: one, Palestinians are generally warm people who go out of their way to help; two, 5 minutes in Arab time does not actually mean 5 minutes; and three, check for all of your belongings before exiting a taxi.]

Proudest moment: Earlier this week, I successfully figured out how to get from school to meet my friend in Jerusalem all by myself. These locations are actually very close, but traveling between them can take up to an hour due to the presence of the separation wall and checkpoints. On the bus, I sat next to this sweet Palestinian woman and we had a conversation in Arabic the entire time! We talked about seeking peace through understanding one another and how media biases can mess with our perceptions. She told me that her religion (Islam) demands that she love all people--Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike--and that she is trying her best to do this. It was a beautiful encounter.

Clearest evidence of constantly being stared at: One day, I was at a large restaurant by myself (as the only foreigner), trying out an aforementioned shawarma sandwich. It was very messy, so I was eating it by tearing off smaller pieces, which was working quite fine. However, mid-way through my lunch, someone from all the way across the room got up, walked over, and handed me a fork. 

Funniest translation error: This one is a toss-up between the "Saloon" across the street and the side options at the restaurant around the corner. A lot of the signs here are transliterations of English words in Arabic letters, so the "Saloon" is actually a salon/barber shop--not a Old Western style bar that evokes images of gun-toting cowboys. As for the side options, apparently the plural word for salad in Arabic google translates to "authorities." So the English menu reads "Rice and Chicken and Authorities" :) 

[Side note: I am not meaning to make fun of anyone's English-speaking abilities here. I am SURE that I make even more outrageous mistakes in Arabic just about every day!]

Most enlightening conversation: On the way to school one day, I was talking to a fellow classmate (from Palestine) about the time he visited America. He explained that he spent a couple months traversing across the country from cities like New York and Boston all the way to Phoenix and San Diego. I asked him what stood out the most and he said it was the ability to travel all that way without being stopped at a border or inhibited from going any farther due to the type of passport or identity card he held. This, he said, was something most Palestinians could not even fathom. I told him that I had never really even thought about this, and felt bad for not recognizing it as a privilege. He responded that I should not feel bad, for the right of mobility within one's own country is one of the most basic human rights that should be allotted to all, but is denied to Palestinians. [Residents of the West Bank, for example, are not allowed to travel to the Arab part of Jerusalem unless they get special permission--and from what I have heard, even visiting family members is not considered a justifiable reason.]

This got me thinking about the nature of human rights: who defines them and where do they originate? who should have the power to violate them, and for what reasons? how does politics influence human rights and vice versa? Hopefully some of these questions will be answered in the three human rights courses I am taking this semester.