Today I want to talk to you about sunday.I didn't have a blog last sunday but now that i do and i make the laws here.I shall do what i think is right.That is talk about sunday.
I was invited to an 11am open day in a school in tel aviv that i had just applied to. it is an international boarding school and is using the IB system which isn't remote from the IGCSE that I'm doing.
After an hour and a half trying to explain to the app 'ways' where we are going and getting lost and paying for roads we are not even supposed to be on. We arrived.
The place does not look much like a school. It has an easy aura to it and doesn't have many classrooms. After seeing the other parents we were ushered to a room where we sat like students on chairs with our parents by our sides where three teachers stood in front of us.
First a tall gray haired man came forward and introduced himself in hebrew i couldn't catch his name but was able to translate what he said in my mind very slowly.
He said as we only invited Israelis today we will be speaking hebrew. Does any body have a problem with that ?
My cheeks went red i raised my hand and said that i can only understand english. He raised his eyebrows at me and studied me.
"well, then lets talk in english". He said unenthusiastically with a heavy accent. Now i know why he wanted to speak in hebrew i thought.
I think i had a bad first impression on him. Something that i didn't really care about but should have. Considering that i was supposed to impress them.
You see there are many mistakes in his sentence :
First, clearly you didn't just invite Israelis as a proof I'm here.
Second, even if you have invited "just" Israelis this is an international school.You shouldn't teach them to speak hebrew between themselves otherwise the others will feel left out.
As he continued talking i could listen to him no more. In the background i think i heard the words peace and Canada but i was shocked that they invited me as Palestinian but then chose to speak hebrew.Shouldn't they have prepared for this ?
When a new student entered the room the teacher told her to sit down but not forgetting to say: I'm sorry but we will be speaking english as a girl here doesnt know hebrew. Pointing at me.
I felt embarrassed but why should i ? Should i be embarrassed because i want to understand ? I'm considered here as an ignorant for not knowing hebrew ?Isn't this an international school in english ?
I despised him.He was bringing us here to humiliate us. To get more sponsors by saying see we are bringing the Palestinians in our classrooms now give us your money.
While walking i heard an Israeli girl asking her mother why did they bring us together ?
You know what ? Yes ,why did you bring the filthy palestine with the perfect amazing Israelis ?
Look at the hierarchy. Palestinians are at the bottom .In fact why should you offer them food on the table ? Throw it to them thats better.
Then when asked why did you come to this school ? The same girl raised her hand and said in a squeaky i know it all. I'm going to get into this school cos i know what you want to hear : well ... the media doesn't offer a whole picture of what is really happening and i dont get to meet the other side (they never say Palestinians ) so i thought i should get to know them better.
Of course not put in this way she couldn't put two words together minding the correct grammar but really get to know the animals better ? No darling you don't need to change your whole entire life and get into a boarding school just to get to know "them" better. Was it a required characteristic to be a hypocrite there?
The whole day my mom ignored the subject of the school knowing that when mentioned i'll lose it.
Are all programs like that ? Do they really use us as a propaganda to get money ? Why don't we have our own Palestinian programs where we do the same thing to Israelis ? But then they will be closed because the media will only show the terrorists traumatizing the poor Israelis.
I'm in many peace programs. I'm proud of it sometimes i enter to know what Israelis think and believe others to learn and most for my college CV but I'm hated for this. My classmates say that people like me are trying to show that there is no conflict but there is. I'm just trying to do something with my time and be productive otherwise i'll turn out like most jerusalemites judging people because i have nothing to do but gossip.
Simply put we have no non-formal educational programs for only Palestinians.
After i went back home i packed my stuff and went to the west ymca ( the Israeli one) to meet with my arts group.It's composed of many teenagers with many different personalities which makes it interesting all the time the special thing here is that we both speak our languages all the time and we have translators to understand each other. It does show the culture but sometimes you feel like some people are gossiping behind your back in the other language. The funny thing is that i have a rusty hebrew where i can understand everybody but nobody can understand me. So i understand when they say here comes the Palestinian with her knives or ohh your acting like a Palestinian you are gross.
When talking to our instructors about our show we told them that we feel like nothing is ours we are only bodies that are being used to say what they want to say which is "we want peace and love and marshmallows on top" we tried to tell them that we don't want to say what they got to say we don't want our words with their agendas stamped on them. Again here i felt like I'm a body only used to deliver others ideas. Like I'm an animal with no mind or feelings.
Going back home i walked 5 stations from ymca to my moms work because there is a "suspected object" somewhere i bought an expensive ticket for nothing. Had to walk in the wind while thinking of how unproductive but eye opening today was.
Maybe the action that is always happening in jerusalem keeps it interesting but i need to clean up my bedroom because my friend is coming over tomorrow i might also catch up on some reading.
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