[the beginning in the end]

Hello friends,

Apologies for the ridiculously long absence from manysunsets. My life has been quite a story since I last wrote -- I had a fantastic senior year at Smith College. I spent Christmas in Strasbourg with my dad and his girlfriend and her family, and then spent my 21st birthday in Seattle with my most wonderful friends.

I have been an alum of Smith College for two weeks now. I am surprised at how much better it feels to be graduated than I anticipated. I feel very free. I feel less guilty about how I spend my time. I permit myself to dream, to read travel blogs, to start my never-ending reading list, to drink iced tea and grilled cheese sandwiches on gluten-free bread all day. And I can now submit applications for jobs and positions for which I was previously ineligible or 'unqualified'.

One of those applications was for a three-month position teaching music with an organization in Nablus (in the West Bank in Palestine -- see map below) called Music Harvest. I was confident that I'd submitted a strong application, and was pretty happy with how my Skype interview went. Lo and behold, last week...

I got an acceptance email!

So. Though I have not officially accepted (I will most likely do so next week), my heart is set on accepting the post. I will be teaching voice and piano to Palestinian students between ages 5 and 15 in the city of Nablus, إن شاء الله.

Nablus is a fairly conservative Islamic city -- not as conservative as Saudi Arabia -- and has been a center of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation. There are several refugee camps in the West Bank, and many landmarks of religious importance to multiple faiths.

Nablus is home to Jacob's Well and is well-known for soap-manufacturing, kanafeh (a sort of pastry), olive oil, furniture, and other handicrafts. It is also home to the Palestine Securities Exchange (the only one in the Palestinian territories).

Wikipedia informs me that one of Nablus's sister cities is Dublin, Ireland -- many folks, including myself, have drawn comparisons between the way that the Ireland/Northern Ireland and the Palestine/Israel conflicts have been framed, both by outsiders and by parties to the conflicts. Obviously, the two conflicts are multifaceted and incomparable on many levels, but the discussions of national identity, occupation, statehood, armed resistance and terrorism, religion, and economic status have sometimes echoed each other. Not only is Dublin a sister city to Nablus, but many Palestinian flags have been flown in republican areas of Ireland in contrast to Israeli flags in the unionist areas of Northern Ireland.

Anyhow, I am now beginning the mental, physical, and material preparations for going to the West Bank in September.

Now, I bet some of you are thinking something along the lines of, "why would a nice, young, blonde girl like yourself want to go live in a war zone?" And indeed, my father's first question was, "is it safe?"

While there are so many politically charged, rambling, ranting answers I could give to the assumptions and power dynamics behind that question... Fair enough. I expect to encounter, directly and indirectly, armed and nonviolent Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation. I also expect to encounter informal and systemic violence against the Palestinian community coming from some of the Israeli community.

I've done quite a bit of traveling -- granted, none of it in a place quite like Palestine -- and I have a great deal of common sense, highly attuned instincts for when to trust someone, when to back away with a smile, and when to throw an upper-cut. From all the research I've done thus far (including blogs, chats with trusted friends/professors, news articles), it seems that violence in Nablus and in the West Bank has been changing its face in the last year or so. Though violence and public opinion are unpredictable (especially because public opinion is not homogenous nor representative of the entire Palestinian community), it also appears that foreigners are generally welcomed and respected, or at least left untouched, particularly if they have connections within the community. I plan on using my identity as a sweet young female self to my advantage while I'm there -- accepting dinner invitations from families of students and asking for help from trusted sources when I need it.

This org will house me with the other volunteers, and I'll pay for my own living expenses (like food and local transportation), which they estimate to be about $50 per week. I'm also hoping to do some traveling when I'm not working. I'm especially looking forward to Lebanon, and hopefully Syria if shit doesn't seriously hit the fan.

Mainly, I want to go because I need to see Palestine with my own two eyes. There is something inside me that feels an affinity with the Arab world: the misinterpretation and subjugation by colonial powers and neo-colonialism; the struggle to define a national identity after a history of occupation; the collective memory of war and peace, family and foreigner, music and art, home and displacement; and the pride, patriotism, pacifism, and perspicacity of the majority of the Arab world.

I also feel an obligation to defend human rights, including basic security of self and property, the right to self-determination, and a genuine voice in the governing political body. Much has been said about Palestine by all kinds of people. I hope to find a balance between the learning I will do with my eyes and heart and ears, and the learning I have already acquired through my coursework, newspaper articles, speakers, and conversations.

I am mostly going to learn -- to hear stories. This is something I learned during my training two weeks ago to be a social justice mediator. The technique I was trained in asks mediators to gather stories from each party, and then to simply transmit the stories to the other parties. No seeking of common ground, no editing, no bargaining chips. I hope to practice this method in Palestine.

I am also going because I love music and I love working with children. I have experienced the transformative power of music, and I know how empowering it can be to acquire proficiency on an instrument and to be able to learn songs that the student is actually interested in, and to have the ability to perform together with my friends or with strangers. I hope to provide a safe, engaging, challenging, creative space for my students in which no questions are off-limits and in which the student is not only a music student but also a human being with a unique story and unique needs and dreams.

End the sappiness.

Here are the practicalities of preparing:

-Applying for a second passport so that my Israeli visa doesn't prohibit regional travel

-Reviewing my Arabic notecards and making specific vocabulary lists for teaching music, daily usage, and Palestinian Arabic in particular

-Finding a language partner (in person or on Skype) to practice speaking Arabic

-Finessing my packing list (including lots of long skirts, ear plugs, gifts)

-Reading (currently on "I Saw Ramallah" and the Holy Qur'an -- yes, it's online, just like the Bible)

-Preparing to teach:

-Reviewing my music theory

-Learning some Smithereens arrangements (Peace Pipes ?!)

-Chatting with mom about teaching techniques and strategies

-Practicing the piano

-Making a list of artists, genres, arrangements, songs that a) I want to introduce to my students, and b) are well-known in the region with which I want to be familiar

-Earning some money to pay for this exciting adventure!

-Planning my summer and the visits I want to make before leaving

-(sounds morbid, but...) Making a plan in case something does happen to me while I'm there.

How would you prepare for a trip like this? Are there any books or websites you'd recommend for me?

Amsterdam #2

So, Amsterdam just blew my mind. Let me start at the beginning.

4:30 pm yesterday, at a pizzeria near the Rijksmuseum. Eating my first real meal of the day. We invite the solo gentleman sitting a few tables down to join us. He is a charmingly funny Irishman named Martin -- and I don't care what your gender or how you identify, I simply love accents. So. After we eat, I head back to the hostel to take a quick nap and get some work done on my Fulbright application, leaving my friend Tina and our new friend Martin alone for a few hours. We meet up later, around 7, and they've already got a few drinks in them and have a few cans of Heineken to offer me. We wait for Martin's friends to show up right by the entrance of Vondelpark, all the while getting sprinkled with the lazy Amsterdam evening rain and enjoying the people watching. Then we're a five-some: I, Tina, Martin, Sean and Mark all head out toward the Red Light District, tramming it to get out of the rain and stopping off at the Euro Bar to have another drink and some fries.

Now, friends, try to picture this. Me with three charming, witty, very very straight Irish men. Drunk. Wandering through the Red Light District, with barely clothed women shimmying and beckoning in red backlit windows right on the street front. Now, I thought that I had made it fairly clear that I prefer WOMEN, but these three took my comments as a way to amuse themselves all night. Let me make myself clear: they were very nice men, and once they realized that I actually do date women, they were adorably curious and sweet. But the running commentary was a tad obnoxious.

So, we enter the Red Light District. And a few drinks down the hatch, we decide that we should go see a sex show. I figure, when in Rome... Before you judge me, you should know that I'm a complete feminist, and that prostitution is legal in Amsterdam, that I was not partaking, and that the situation is compelx, and of course all I'm thinking the entire time is ughh, umm, okay? I needed to see it for myself. It was so funny -- the boys kept turning to me and asking, genuinely, does that turn you on? what do you think about that? is she your type? Meanwhile, I'm sitting toward the back, slightly uncomfortable, mostly bemused, Heineken # something-or-other in hand, looking into all of the performers' faces and trying to understand their stories, get any hint of their emotions, and also monitoring the audience, slightly sickened at the whooping older men, surprised at the number of women in the audience, and the different personalities of the performs. I turn to the poor blokes and explain that I like REAL women. I can tell I'm totally bursting their bubble, but I forge on. These women are most likely straight. And there's no emotion or, well, reality! There is absolutely nothing that turns me on about a performance like that -- it's the lover that gives the pleasure, not the sex, as Marge Piercy says.

Sufficiently non-shocked and non-turned on but still sufficiently floaty, we do a bit more wandering and head to an Irish pub where I'm no longer buying my own drinks. There the conversation splits into two, with Kristine (Tina) and Martin chatting animatedly next to me (he had lots of good tips about which places to visit) while Sean, Mark and I delve into conversation about me, my relationships, my history. It was incredibly cute, and flattering, and unusual for me as a gay girl having these two incredibly hetero guys just genuinly stone-cold fascinating in my life. And no, I wasn't so out of it that I THOUGHT they were genuinely interested. Those of you who know me will know that I don't take any shit or any interest from people I'm not interested in.

Anyhow, then it was time for the night to end. Lots of hugs, invitations to come visit in Dublin, and voila! our exciting, cliche adventure in Amsterdam (sans the hash) is over. Tina and I departed for our respective hostels -- hers was very close to the District but mine was too far -- and I cab it home after three nice Dutch boys on bikes tell me it's too long to walk. I crawl into bed, whip off my jeans and reach up to take out my earrings and -- wait! -- there's only one there! Fucksicle. Oh well. A good night out. I love this city.

Okay, Amsterdam for reals, #1

SO, back to craziness/wonderfulness of my life. I just spent five days in Hawaii visiting two dear friends of mine from Smith, where I enjoyed the beach, muddy hiking, and SCUBA diving (I got certified in Thailand in March). Needless to say, it was epic and fun and lovely and enjoyable (though everything is much more expensive there than on the mainland -- which didn't stop me from indulging in a vegetarian mondo burrito on spinach with sour cream and guacamole from Taco Del Mar). Then, after barely getting on my flight from Honolulu to Seattle (it was literally three minutes before the plane was supposed to take off and the Delta agent hands me a first class boarding pass to replace my seat request card), I spent about 24 hours in Seattle with my mother. I quizzed her on questions for her massage school exams (spinous processes of the last six thoracic vertebrae, the last 3-4 ribs, the thoracolumbar aponeurosis, and the posterior iliac crest!) and we cooked a delicious meal inspired by Cafe Flora's vegetarian menu. Then early the next morning, after a slight scare where my fingers turned blue and was in lots of pain and I thought I had some sort of weird form of decompression sickness, I headed to Salt Lake City to see my dad for 48 hours. And Anna spent the night there with me last night, a weigh station on her drive across the country back to Smith! Side note: I love it when I get to show my home(s) to people who are important to me. It's even nice when people get to see my Utah house now, because even though it's not my home-home (Kirkland is), it's where I go now. If that makes any sense. And Utah is freaking beautiful - mountains, a huge sky, canyons, parks, dogs, outdoor music venues, Saturday markets... And then I hopped on a plane to Minneapolis, and then another to Amsterdam.

So, here I am, sitting in a McDonald's in Amsterdam, by Central Station. Have yet to meet up with my friend, did a bit of wandering earlier this morning, but I'm a little tired and would rather not get stuck in the rain. So I think I'll hang out here and get some writing done until Tina and I rendez-vous. I'm so exhausted! So much travel in the last three weeks. Not that I'm complaining. I should add that I do understanding I am more than incredibly lucky to have a father who is a pilot. I do not take these flight privileges lightly. I know how lucky I am, and I spent years feeling guilty because of it. But I'm going to use them for good and not for evil, and they also won't last forever -- just 1-2 more years (we're not exactly clear on the rules) and then -- POOF! -- gone.

I should also add that I am incredibly broke right now. But it's because I've finally convinced myself that it's okay to spend money on things that I need and want and enjoy. Being a little selfish about some things is okay -- I know that Ayn Rand would probably agree (thanks, Erin M.!). I spent two years in a state of constant penny-pinching, saving for my three-month trip this spring. And I spent nearly all of the money I had saved (I don't regret a thing!). Then I came back and worked in Washington, DC for the summer, but the very small stipend I was offered went right back out the door to pay for rent and food. And here I am now, with friends to see, textbooks to buy, a body to feed, yadda yadda... I am so excited to be earnign money again, and saving and spending it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a financially smart girl. I'm not a math girl, but I understand finances. I intend on saving what I can this year so that I can graduate with a few months' worth of income to start me off wherever I choose to go when I leave Smith (and so that I can start paying off my student loans), but I also intend to spend more. I am sick of feeling miserable and poor when I really do have enough money to maybe go have a chai tea latte once a week, or bring home a bouquet of flowers from the market for my dorm room, or buying a book on a whim. Work hard and play hard, my friends -- that's my motto for this last year of my Smith experience. I will turn in a Fulbright application in September, do some more hardcore traveling in October, perhaps run a marathon around Thanksgivign in November, and turn 21 in December. And I think that Amsterdam is as good a place as any to start the 'playing hard'!

Here goes!