“Normal” is a subjective word; one person’s normal may look different than another’s. In Palestine, “normal” looks a lot different than it does in the States. Normal often means suffering; to suffer is normal.

I was inspired to write this post after a discussion I had with my friends (internationals and Palestinians) a few nights ago. My friends and I talked about something we called the “normalization of suffering” in Palestine. This refers to the day-to-day relations on the ground here that cause suffering, from restrictions to movement and water to poverty and unemployment, and the way these things have become the status quo in Palestine.

It is obviously wrong that Palestinians have fewer rights and opportunities than Israelis. But we contemplated whether or not normalizing this suffering has a bright side to it. We agreed that people must forge some kind of life; being used to human rights violations and living in spite of them is a mechanism for coping and thriving in the face of suffering. However, normalization breeds complacency. If people believe that the current state of affairs are “just the way things are,” they will never have the capacity to imagine that life is any different or that they deserve more than this. Because suffering is ubiquitous here, it becomes the norm, and this normalization maintains the status quo.

Restrictions on travel are one example of the normalization of suffering.

After years of appeals to the Israeli government, one of my friends just received his permit to travel outside of the country. He is 23 years old, and before now, he was barred from ever leaving Israel and the West Bank (not because of something he did, but because he has a Palestinian ID*). Between the six members of his immediate family, they have four different classifications of permits, each with varying degrees of restriction of movement within and outside of Israel. Due to this, all of the members of his family cannot go on a vacation outside of Israel together.

I asked him where he planned to go now that he can leave. He immediately launched into a description of Japan, the major cities there, the food, the culture, and so on. From the way his face lit up as he spoke, I could tell he has been dreaming about going to Japan for years now.

Another one of my friends has complete restriction on exiting the West Bank. A group of us are planning on going to the beach again in Yaffa, Tel Aviv in a week, and I asked him if he wanted to come. He told me he couldn’t and proceeded to explain his permit situation. His explanation was short; with an accepting, wide smile, he told me that it is “okay,” that he will “keep trying” and applying for a travel permit.

To give these stories more perspective, Israel is only a few square miles larger than New Jersey. The West Bank is even smaller, maybe the size of Nashville and its surrounding neighborhoods combined (Brentwood, Bellevue, etc).** I challenge you all to think about what it would be like if you had never left an area the size of New Jersey for your entire life. Now, shrink that area and think about never leaving Nashville for your entire life. Imagine that you wanted to leave, but you were not allowed to leave. This is suffering, and this suffering is normal for many Palestinians.

I will never forget my friend’s smile and the way my other friend talked about Japan. Being kept from traveling is normal here. Like many other Palestinians, my friends have normalized their suffering as a method for coping with it. There is not much else my friends can do about this suffering. But what they can do, what I can do, what we all can do, is talk about it. To never have seen the ocean or to never get to visit a country you’ve longed to see, because of your nationality and a conflict in your country, is a form of suffering that should not be hidden by smiles or complacency. This suffering needs acknowledgement, it needs to be shared with the world. Suffering is not only physical pain or poverty, it is a lack of opportunity and a denial of basic human rights to travel. When we can all recognize this as suffering, point it out and discuss it, change can take place.

Taking all of this into consideration, I’ve settled on the conclusion that the normalization of suffering, while an effective coping mechanism, is ultimately deleterious.

*Note: Citizenship is tricky here, many people born in the West Bank or from Palestinian descendance have Palestinian citizenship without Israeli citizenship, even though “Palestine”/the West Bank are not countries. Check out this NY Times article for more on this topic: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/opinion/not-all-israeli-citizens-are-equal.html?_r=0. The UN has given Palestine “non-member, observer state” status, however. See this article:  http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2013/01/2013186722389860.html

**Check out this link: http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/PS.

Last Wednesday, I celebrated my twenty-second birthday here in Honduras with the sweetest second family. Birthdays have always been moments of pause for me, where you think about everything that has happened in the last year, and you dream about what the next year holds. I get that I am still young, and there’s a lot left on this road for me, but the past five years have brought a lot of change that I didn’t anticipate and wouldn’t trade.

We ate pupusas and played Pictionary Spanish style and after cleaning up, I cut an extra slice of brownie pie to take up to Panchito. I walked up the ranch and was struck by the size of the sky. Here, I swear there are more stars than anywhere else. There is less man-made light to compete and the sky is littered with five thousand sparkles, each twisting to shine in their own way. It catches your breath, and you get a little disoriented, standing up straight, head dropped back looking at the painted sky.

Two years ago, on that same day, I sat in a gabezo on the Belmont lawn and listened to a song  about stars. It was a birthday gift, from Kyle and his residents. I remember looking up at the sky that night to see just a few stars, wet hair on my back. I was wearing a navy and black dress, still damp from my baptism that night at church where I committed to live a life by Christ. And since that moment, that song, the stars, this day, it all became a little more special than before.

Looking up at the sky last Wednesday felt like a sure whisper to my heart, I am still after you. It was a birthday gift, this time from our Good Lord. “The stars remind us that we’re not alone. The stars remind us we’re not in control.” I’ve heard these lyrics and sang them so many times, but the truth of them remains. Looking up at the sky can make you feel so small, but in our smallness we are reminded how great our God is. That he would seek you out, speak life into your heart, have a plan for you that matters in the grand scheme of His Kingdom, that He invites, He is calling you. You are small, but you are mighty because the God who goes before and behind you is mighty. The stars remind us that in a vastness of this place, that God reigns, coordinating every moment so that at the end of the day, I would be standing before Him, staring up at the night sky, renewed by His pursuit of me.

When you live anywhere in the world, there are great things about your country, but there are also some not-so-great things. I’ve found many things to love about Palestinian culture in my month here. Between the hospitality, the food, the architecture, the history, and so many of the people I’ve met, I’ve been able to experience many of Palestine’s “perks.” But, as I said, there are some things I don’t love about living here, and the patriarchy is one of them.

From the time I step outside of the door from my host family’s compound in the morning, I feel eyes on me. Most of the time, stares from men (and women) in the streets are of the curious variety; seeing a blonde woman in Bethlehem is a rarity, so I cannot blame those first glances. It’s those lingering stares from men, the snide remarks to friend groups, and the outright cat calling and kissing noises, that really get under my skin. Although the former, curious stare happens more than the latter variety, the latter happens often enough to leave me feeling angry after I get done walking anywhere in public.

I have dealt with cat calling before in America, but not to the degree I face here. When I voiced my frustrations to one of my host brothers, he explained it to me this way: Based on Western media representations, some men believe that foreign women are “loose,” so it’s somewhat acceptable to catcall a foreign woman as opposed to a local woman. I’ve also found that most of the men who harass me are in groups when they do so. In this sense, men catcall as a show of masculinity and as a way to amuse themselves and their friend group. (I’ve had boys, probably no older than eleven or twelve years old, make kissing noises at me! Like, what?!) Another reason they feel entitled to stare or catcall me is that because I am foreign, they assume I have no male relatives here to “defend” my honor (ie. I could tell them I’m being harassed, and they would go to the catcalling man’s family and have a discussion with them/seek reparations and make the catcalling stop). This last assumption is only partially true. My host brothers and some of their friends have all jumped to my defense when I’ve walked with them, scolding men who stare at or harass me. While I’m grateful for their protectiveness, I don’t really enjoy being “defended” in this way either. When you break down the dynamic, it goes a little something like this: I am a woman and as a woman, I am subject to catcalling/staring. (While I base my generalization on a small, non-representative sample, all of the women I talk to, both local and foreign, tell me they have experienced catcalling at some point while in this country.) When I am harassed, my male friends/relatives are the only one’s who can really “set my harassers straight” and make it stop. The whole situation places me, and my fellow local and foreign women, in positions of passivity for our own safety and personhoods.

I’ve found that the best way I can reclaim power in this harassment/defense cycle is to call harassers out myself. My host sister was the first to tell me to do so. She explained that shame is powerful in this culture. The best thing to do, she told me, is to shame men publically by calling them out for what they’re doing, loudly enough for all to hear. Working past my gender socialization in order to be aggressive and call men out in the streets for harassment has been a slow process, but I’ve learned some essential phrases for doing so. Shouting, “Ayb alayk,” or “Shame on you,” seems to work well. Arabic is always more powerful than English, but I find they respond to English if my tone is harsh enough. They also respond to nonverbal gestures; usually, scowling with a raised fist or swinging my hand in their direction in a slapping motion works. Responses vary. Some men just laugh at me or shrug and talk to their friends with a “what did I do?” posture. But the best response is when you see the look of “Oh crap, I shouldn’t have messed with her,” in their eyes and they look away. Even better is when they actually leave, when they are afraid of you.

The biggest thing I want you all to take away from this blog post is that women’s harassment and oppression happens everywhere. Women around the world have to contend with stares, jeers, and harassment from men when they step outside of their doors to go to work, shop, travel, or visit friends and family. For local and foreign women in Palestine, harassment takes on the form of what I just described. There are other forms of oppression that only local women in Palestine face: education and employment discrimination, paternalism in many areas of life, transfer of land ownership to the husband’s family upon marriage, and others. As a foreign woman, I do not face those forms of oppression to the extent that they do. So even though I experience harassment on a daily basis for my gender, I am still in a position of privilege in Palestinian culture.

On Sunday, my friends and I went to Yaffa beach, near Tel Aviv. While my friend and I were in the ocean, a French man approached us and began to ask us where we were from, teasing us about our American accents. That interaction was maybe a little “creepy” but okay. The problem started when he kept coming back to us, even though we clearly had no interest in speaking with him. He asked us more questions about America, referencing “the women there.” Our consensus this time, definitely creepy. We replied in short sentences, and eventually swam away from him. Later, my friend was back on shore and I was in the ocean alone. I was floating on my back with my eyes closed. When I stood up, the man was standing right next to me, staring at me. I tell this story because I want to make this point clear: in every culture, there are men who treat women like objects. The patriarchy just works in different ways in different countries.

On that note, here’s a couple pictures of the beach so you can breathe in good air. Look at that water!

I’ve had the pleasure to meet a lot of different types of people this summer, as groups traveled down to Honduras to serve with Mission Lazarus in a variety of fashions. Some were here for the first time, their first mission trip or first time leaving the country; others were seasoned, well experienced, here for the 12^th year, eager to share stories from their trips to Africa and Haiti and other rural, “worse” places. Regardless of their experience, the feeling you get when you’re looking at a problem and you don’t have the resources to solve it is a common thread; “it’s like trying to empty the ocean with an eye dropper in the pouring down rain.”

The first time I heard this phrase, the visual really hit me. Yes, that is how some days feel here. And then I heard it again, and again, and again. I thought, how can there be so much need in some places that its overwhelming? Our God did not create his children and this world and forget to create enough resources to shelter, feed and clothe them all. He is a wise, all-knowing God. That’s not on Him, that’s on us.

This phrase isn’t limited to the scope of international missions; it applies to all of us, everywhere, day to day. When you’ve worked nonstop all day and the job isn’t even halfway done, when you’ve shuffled money around in as many ways as possible and you still come up short at the end of the month, when you are giving your all and yet nothing has changed, your efforts feel dry, without impact. These are God-sized problems.

So frequently, we don’t have to worry about where the next meal comes from, if we will be able to cover all our bills this month. We manage all of this on our own, we almost don’t need God. And we can get so wrapped up in our abilities and our strength that we think its up to us to do everything. So when there is a problem, our natural reaction is the same, to take care of it ourselves. We forget these problems, all problems, all things are only solvable by His provision. Two things for thought.

One, You can only do as much as you can do. God did NOT put you in front of the ocean and say, empty this by sundown. If He brought you to the ocean to work, He expects you to work at it with all your heart to your best ability, but does not expect you fix everything on your own. Know what your responsibility is to the situation. Don’t hold yourself to an expectation that God does not even hold you to. You are a human, it is not your job to fix everything and make it perfect. It that were true, we wouldn’t be so desperate for Jesus.

Two, Once you’ve done all you can do, give it to God. Use what you can to do all you can, and trust that He will come through for the rest in His timing. This is my grand lesson of last week. I am here in Honduras to work with a vocational program from young boys in leather, and last week, we found out that finances for the ministry are simply too tight to continue providing the lunch meal and weekly stipend to the boys who attend our program. With 55 boys in the program at $1.15 for each, we just didn’t have the resources to continue, so the program would continue, but the meals and stipends would be suspended.

I was devastated- crying in my room, couldn’t sleep, sick to my stomach. I mean, I know these boys by name, I understand the economic situation of their families, the impact that stipend has on their ability to receive education and vocational training, to provide food for their families. See, without a program like this that pays them a stipend for attending, they wouldn’t be able to attend. They would have to find a job to earn this money from somewhere else so that their family can eat. Which means they won’t receive education past 6^th grade, they won’t receive a hot meal, a daily devotional, a connective network of trusted mentors and friends, a skill they can master and later use to support themselves. My heart sank, knowing that without a stipend to give to our students, many would have no other option but to leave the program to find work elsewhere. It’s not that they wouldn’t want to stay, but that they simply couldn’t.

I looked at the situation and felt so small. What can I do to help them? I could afford to sponsor 1 or 2 kids, maybe the whole program for a week. But what about the rest of the weeks this year? What about the following two years of the program? How can we get them to graduation in 2018 if we can’t get food in their bellies today?

God sized problem.

God did not ask me to fund their program costs for the next two years. He asked me to do as much as I can in the best ways that I can in the time that I am here. And that looks like developing a strong system for production, so that our graduates have consistent work orders to fulfill and can earn more. It looks like seeking out and developing relationships to sell old product, money that’s been tied up in inventory. It looks like planning for the future, identifying what the market at home looks like and serving to connect these ideas to our product makers here, providing them access to a market who can pay them fairly for their craft. It looks like creating strategies for current sustainability and future scalability for the program. These are my responsibilities.

So when faced with this seemingly insurmountable struggle of finances, my dear friends MZ and Kirk took initiative. We may not have the ability to fund this program, but we do have friends who care as much for these students as we do. We can do our part to spread the word that we need help and support and leave the rest at the feet of The Lord. These boys matter so much to us, imagine how much they matter to Our Father. In just one week of social media campaign regarding the program’s lacking of funding, we received enough funding to last through the rest of 2016!

God sized solution.

It is not our job to figure out how to fill a grand need, or how to fix a large problem. It’s our job to do our best with what we have and trust the rest to God. It’s not your job to change the world, but to be at work in the world daily. It’s the buildup of small contributions, tiny victories, that creates a lasting and impactful change. Whatever is in front of you, no matter how big or seemingly insurmountable, it’s not up to you. You are asked to work diligently and daily towards your goal with all you have, and leave the gaps to God, trusting Him to be sufficient. Let go of your hold on life and watch how His will covers.

In an effort to convey the reality of international travel, its ups and downs, and specifically the ups and downs of my experience in Bethlehem, I’m going to talk about the main difficulty I’ve had since moving to Bethlehem, and that is, I don’t know how to speak Arabic. Although I’ve picked up a few phrases over the past month, for the most part, I’m still oblivious to most of the speech I hear around me on a daily basis.

I’ve always thought Arabic was a beautiful language, and I have an even deeper appreciation for it now. I find myself mesmerized by the voices of the staff, my host family, and friends when they speak Arabic around me. The language is especially beautiful in songs, which one hears a lot of in Bethlehem. Usually, my daily dose of Arabic language-music sources from a neighbor’s stereo system or the taxi drivers blaring it in their cabs. My friends have also introduced me to a lot of good music. (Listen to this: Mike Massy مايك ماسي – Ghayyer Lawn Ouyounak. I guarantee it’ll make you cry.)

I’m most fascinated by the vocalization and pattern of speech the language requires. For example, while in the Roman alphabet, we have only one “H,” there are two different “H” sounds in Arabic. One is more of a “ha” sound, light and high in the throat, like your panting, and the other is more of a gargling “hkh” sound. There are also two “T” sounds, and like the H’s, one is sharper and the other, softer. Based on the way you say these letters, the entire meaning of the word changes. (There are, interestingly, no equivalents to “V” or “P” in the Arabic alphabet.)

I will repeat what I’m sure many other international, English-only travelers have said before me: the language barrier is very real, and it is painful. Many people here speak some English, but I always feel like I’m imposing when they have to speak to me. If they know English well, they see the blonde hair, and they speak to me in English from the start. When they don’t know English, a lot of tense silence and nonverbal gesturing occurs between the two of us. When I’m with others, they will defer to one of my Arabic speaking friends and completely ignore me. Basically, not knowing Arabic in an Arabic-speaking country turns you into a child. You don’t speak, you’re not spoken to, people talk about you in their native tongue like you’re not there, and when you are spoken to, it’s usually in slow, simple words – even when it’s English.

You take for granted the entire concept of language when you can speak the main language of the country you are in. Growing up in an English speaking country, I’ve never had to contend with a language barrier. This past month has taught me that language is the key to almost every activity of daily life; in order to be friendly, make apologies, ask questions, tell someone how you feel or what you want them to do, you have to speak their language. The inability to do these things when you have always been able to do them in the past is sometimes really rough, psychologically and emotionally. I often feel isolated, rude, and dumb when I am in public in Bethlehem and I cannot respond to someone in his or her native tongue.

Some days, the language barrier hits me harder than others. For example, last week I confronted one of the kids at Wi’am to pick up his trash that he’d thrown on the floor of the computer room. Because I knew he spoke English, I told him, in English, to pick up his trash. I saw the wheels turning in his head as he looked up at me, pausing, he was thinking, “This woman doesn’t know Arabic. I can talk back to her and she won’t know what I said.” And he did just that, he responded to me in Arabic and made no movement to pick up the trash. In an attempt to regain control, I told him, “I understand what you just said to me, I’m going to tell (staff member), and you won’t be able to play in here next week.” I left, but I was so upset that I didn’t tell the staff member. In that moment, I felt so powerless. I thought, how could anyone respect me, kids, shop owners, the staff, when I can’t speak the language?

That day, I was hard on myself for not knowing Arabic. I’ve talked to my friends about it, and they’ve made me feel a little better about not knowing Arabic yet. Even though I don’t know Arabic, the staff and my friends respect me and help me when I need it. I’m lucky to have a supportive group of people around me. There are people in countries all around the world who don’t speak the native language who are not so lucky.

To round out the post with a happy ending, I am starting a Spoken Arabic class at Bethlehem University on September 5^th. (The campus rivals Belmont’s in architecture and flowers!) My class start date can’t get here fast enough. Although it has been good to contend with my English-only privilege and recognize how important language truly is, I’m ready to learn some Arabic so I can expand a conversation beyond, “Sabah al Khair, Keef Haluk(ik)? (Good morning, how are you(“-uk” for a guy,” -ik” for a girl)?).

Wish me luck, you guys. Arabic is hard. And I thought I was done with school! 🙂

Here’s some more songs if you’re interested in Arabic music:

Mustafa Amar – El Leila Doub – Bonus: This video is hilarious. This is a funny party song now.

Mohammed Assaf – Ya Halali Ya Mali – This guy won Arab Idol and is now a national sensation in Palestine.

This is Dabke – Dabke is a traditional Palestinian dance tradition that involves a lot of footwork. It’s really cool to watch. This type of song is played a lot at weddings and other celebrations.

I had enough. It started my third week of being here, that stomach thing: sick by day with diarrhea, awake by night throwing up. Some days were better than others, but after three weeks, my condition worsened. I went back to the states for a week and couldn’t be out of sight from a toilet for more than 3 hours. I couldn’t keep any food in my belly, and over the counter medicine wasn’t working.

Part of me felt miserable, as I was constantly hungry and thirsty, because my body craved energy in any form. But any time I ate or drank, it rushed through my system and I was sick in 30 minutes.

The other part of me thought that it was just something I had to deal with. It was my burden to bear, to suffer for The Kingdom. This is the name of the game when living on someone else’s turf, eating from someone else’s kitchen, in a foreign country working with ministry. If I am sick, my body will eventually right itself and I will get better.

So I dealt with it. I worked in my cabin so I could be comfortable in my weakness. I didn’t tell my family I was sick because I didn’t want them to be upset that I was sick overseas. I didn’t tell the staff here I was sick because I didn’t want to be THAT American who couldn’t suck it up and live like they do. I didn’t want to be a burden. And every day that passed, I got weaker and weaker.

I had diarrhea or threw up every single day for 6 weeks. I rarely slept through the night, so my rest was broken. Many days my stomach was wound so tightly in knots. I was frustrated with myself, feeling like I couldn’t do all the work I wanted to in a day because I just felt weak, off my game, out of it.

Then I hit my bottom. One night, like clockwork at 4:30am, I woke up to throw up cause my body couldn’t process the meal I had eaten 8 hours before. 8 hours no lie. And I felt desperate, crying alone, sinus cavity filled with the tortilla bits from dinner- this was my low. For a moment, I thought to cry out for the guard Panchito who I knew was on duty. And no doubt, he would come running and hold my hair and get water, but I couldn’t be vulnerable like that and I couldn’t be a burden. So I didn’t call for him, and I suffered alone. And when I laid back down in bed, I begged God to take it from me, this cumbersome selfishness that isolates me and dictates how I handle suffering.

When I had to energy to get up and go to the office the next morning, I couldn’t stop crying. It was God breaking down the walls I had built, and out flooded every emotion I had. He provided opportunity to safely share this physical illness I was experiencing, and the fear and desperation that stemmed from it in my heart. And there was immediate response, a medication to take away the nausea, a tea to settle my stomach and appointment made with a gastroenterologist for the following day. And they asked, why didn’t you tell us sooner? And I didn’t have a good answer.

Why do we let ourselves hit the bottom before we ask for help? Why don’t we ask for help when we are slipping down, in prevention, for support? Help is available at every rung on the way to our lowest lows. But we don’t always let ourselves believe that. How many times have I been that friend on the other side asking, why didn’t you tell me sooner? I wish we could have done something to keep you from so much pain for so long. When will I take the words I say to others and start applying them in my own life?

We are all guilty of this, waiting to say something until it’s too late, or until we simply can’t take it any longer. But friend, the road to recovery from the bottom is a LOT longer than from that point in the road where you start seeing warning signs. Ask any person who has struggled with depression, eating disorders, self-esteem, you name it. If you don’t struggle with one of these issues, ask they next person you see. The struggle is embedded in our everyday lives, but if it’s so common, why is there such shame in it? What keeps us from being vulnerable and honest with others about things that weight heavy on us? I bet we don’t have a good answer.

What if we all thought this way instead: You’ve been sick every day for six weeks, that’s six weeks of suffering we could have avoided. That’s six weeks where your healthy spirit could have been working at full capacity, enjoying the mission you are tasked to. Plus, there’s just something not right about your stomach not processing a meal for 8 hours. You shouldn’t be throwing up your 6pm dinner at 4:30am. You were designed by a God who made you for a purpose, to daily reach your full potential in Him for his Kingdom, and you can’t do that when you are suffering. So let’s address it and get you straight, free of judgement or condemnation in your lows, overwhelmed with a loving response toward your health.

How radical would that be?

When the test results came back, it was a parasite and a bacterial infection. It was something my body couldn’t process on its own. It was a problem that could only be fixed with proper treatment, with help. And I’m telling you, after 4 days of medication and full nights of sleep, I felt stronger, strong enough to lace up sneakers and go for a run. Now, it’s been almost 4 full weeks since I’ve thrown up and I finally feel like I have rehydrated, like I am 100%, all in, every day.

This is how we are made to be. If you’re feeling less than your full self, reach to a trusted friend who responds with love, to help you get your heart aligned with Christ, to guide you back to Your Maker, to help. There is no shame in saying something, anything. You might start something new, give courage to someone else in a similar situation. You are worth the help.

I want to focus on three things that made this past week great.

Festival:

Bethlahem Live Street Festival (Yallah Makloobah) happened this past Thursday through Sunday. This festival occurs annually and features art, workshops, live music, and local vendors in Bethlehem. It’s held on Star Street, which is about two blocks from my apartment; I walk on it every day to get to Wi’am. This street is one of Bethlehem’s oldest streets and it connects one end of the Old City to the other. It used to be a bustling shopping district, but as tourism has taken a dip in recent years, most of the shops have closed down. Today, it is mostly barren; I would estimate I pass only around 10 open shops. But for one weekend a year, the street comes alive again with vendors, local artisans, and musicians. Food, coffee and juice shops,  booksellers, hookah, carpenters and embroiderers, and other businesses lined the sidewalks. It was incredible to see the street’s narrow walls packed with people.

I went to the festival three nights out of the four. The music was my favorite part. I listened to local bands from Bethlehem, but there were others from Ramallah, Japan, and Scotland. Some played traditional Arabic music, but others played folk, R&B and rap, and alternative music.

On Saturday, I was pleasantly surprised (and a little confused) to bare witness to two members from Mumford & Sons play a DJ set! Mumford & Sons has been one of my favorite bands since I was in 10^th grade, so when I found out two of the members were going to be in Bethlehem, I was ecstatic. But then, my second and third thoughts were a) Why are they in Bethlehem? and b) Why are they DJ’ing? After listening to their set, my hope is that they stick to actually making music rather than playing it (At one point, they played “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”… Really, M&S?). Regardless, my friends and I danced to it; it may have been the worst DJ set we had ever witnessed, but when Mumford & Sons comes to Bethlehem and plays music for you, you dance to it. The rest of the crowd did not share our views; from the looks on their faces, they were as confused as we were but on top of that, they didn’t know who these guys were. I think M&S could tell that we were some of the few in the audience who were having fun, because at one point, one of them came down to my friend and I and pulled us up on stage! For thirty-odd seconds, I stood onstage, in Bethlehem, next to Mumford & Sons and my friend, and stared out at a crowd of 1,000+ people. (Unfortunately, security made us get down and I have no photographic proof of being onstage. Drat.)

Strange things happen in this city. Sometimes, those things include having your favorite band play a terrible DJ set and pulling you up on stage in the middle of it.

Food:

Bethlehem has some AMAZING food. I’m not just talking falafel here, either – although if you ever do come to Bethlehem, skip Afteem and instead go to this place on the Main Street called “Falafel Hummus.” Their falafel is fresh.

First, Bethlehem has amazing pizza. One good place is Mundo. They have gigantic pizzas with cheese stuffed crusts (aka “Mundo Stuffed Crust”) that rivals any stuffed-crust in the States. Plus, if you dine in, it boasts one of the greatest views of Beit Sahour. Casa Nova wins second place for pizza. Order the Calamari Pizza (it also has clams!). Remember to get some gelato for dessert.

You Burger is my favorite burger place. The “She Burger,” with garlic aeoli and a fried egg, is my burger of choice, but order the “Us Burger” if you’re extra hungry. It comes with two large beef patties, three slices of cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and a “special sauce.” The best part: they deliver until 1 AM, so this is the number one choice for when you are craving fattening food but have reached your limit for walking that day. Best part #2: Onion rings come with the burger!

Now on to more traditional foods:

The best drink here is something called “lemon mint” in English. It is just what it sounds like; you squeeze a bunch of lemons, add a little bit of sugar, and muddle in a handful of fresh mint. What you get is a minty, extremely tart version of lemonade. This is the drink of choice to refresh and hydrate on a hot day. In Bethlehem in August, they are all hot days.

Labneh and Za’atar. There’s really no good way to describe what labneh tastes like. It’s closest to a cream cheese texture-wise, but it’s much saltier and it’s technically yogurt. Za’atar is a thyme and sesame seed seasoning that Palestinians sprinkle on top of just about anything (olive oil, cucumber and tomato salad, straight up on pita, etc). If you mix these two together with a little bit of olive oil, you have yourself one of the greatest dips known to man. At the very least, I walk about four miles a day, but I think I may actually have gained weight simply because of my labneh and za’atar consumption.

Pictured: the incorrect way to eat labneh, it is better to dip/scoop it

Fresh Baba Gnoush. Enough said. Eggplants are gigantic in Bethlehem.

Foul – pronounced “fool” – is a legume that you cook for about an hour, until tender. Best served fresh with salt and pepper. My host sister calls it “Palestinian popcorn.”

Figs. There are two varieties of figs, purple and green. I used to hate figs in the States, but I realize now that is because I had only ever experienced them store-bought or in Fig Newton-form. Fortunately for me, it’s harvesting season for figs. Wi’am has a purple fig tree and my host family has a green fig tree on some of their land. I find something very calming and rewarding in the process of picking, cleaning, and eating figs with your coworkers and friends. Climbing the tree to get to the ripe ones at the tops of the branches is sort of a workout, too.

Cactus fruit. That’s right, cactus have fruit on them, who would have known? Cacti grow little yellow and red buds on top of them; these fruit are as spiny as the cacti themselves. Once washed of their spines and peeled, they have a juicy texture, similar to watermelon. It’s impossible to equate their taste to any other fruit, you’d just have to try it sometime.

But picking cactus fruit is less calming and more labor intensive than picking figs. It requires special poles with cupping tools on the end. This enables you to reach into the cacti patch, secure the fruit in your cup, and twist to release it from the cactus. You have to wear long pants, a long sleeve shirt, and gloves to ensure that when you get spines on you, they will mainly embed in your clothes and not your skin. You will inevitably get some in your skin, as well.

Cacti spines come in two forms. The first are the bigger splinters which you can feel as they poke into you. You can usually see these and pull them out of your skin with your fingernails. But then there is the smaller variety, which are actually the worse of the two. These ones can be as small as the head of a ballpoint pen and require tweezers, that is, if you can manage to get them out. Sometimes they get so deeply embedded that you have to leave them be to work themselves out of your body as they please. I had one in my thumb for a full week before it poked itself out enough for me to remove it. I would like to say that the fruit is worth all of the pain involved, but I’m not so sure it is. However, I can say that picking cactus fruit is worth doing, at least once.

Food takes time in Bethlehem. Whether you have to pick it, walk to a store to buy it, or cook it, there really is no such thing as “fast food” here. Most home cooked meals take a couple of hours or more to prepare, but when you take that first bite, you realize it is worth the waiting, picking, chopping, walking, and/or cacti spines in your hands.

Hiking:

On Sunday, about an hour and a half before sunset, I went hiking with a group of friends at a place called “Al Makhroud.” Al Makhroud is just outside of Beit Jala in Area C, which is Palestinian territory controlled by the Israeli military. It is ten miles of mountains, valleys, and farmland. One of the few green spaces left in the Bethlehem area, there are olive tree groves, gardens, and other foliage. There are also natural steep rock cliffs and old rock walls constructed by farmers who used to live there. In short, Al Makhroud, especially at dusk when we went, is stunning. It was refreshing to get outside of the city for a few hours. It didn’t feel like Bethlehem, it didn’t feel like anywhere else on earth. As we scaled the rocky soil and looked out over the gaping valleys of trees and rock dotted mountains in the distance, I grew aware of how quiet it was there in comparison to the city I’ve been living in for the past three and a half weeks. I felt very small; I felt like that moment in time, our hike there, was so miniscule and insignificant compared to the vastness of the environment, its history, and all of the other people who had walked and lived there over the centuries. Bethlehem has a way of doing that to you.

My host sister told me about the history of Al Makhroud. The land used to belong to families, and some people in her family had once had land there. When it became Area C, Israel forbid Palestinians from any further building and cultivating. Because of this restriction, many people have left their lands. Today, Al Makhroud is all but abandoned. There are dozens of deserted rock homes scattered along the hillsides. I thought about the injustice of prohibiting people from building on their own land. Suddenly, the silence took on a more somber tone.

Our hike took us up a mountainside and back down into the valley. We climbed a giant boulder and watched the sun dip beneath the mountain. The evening was going so well that we didn’t think about the simple equation of “sunsets = darkness.” As we scaled down the boulder, it became clear that soon it would be very, very dark, and we were about a mile away from the car.

Luckily, one of our friends, Juda, was leading our hike. He knew the shortest way back to the car, but it would require us to, in his words, “go off the path a bit.” My stomach flipped. We were going to be searching for our car, in the mountains, after dark, for an indefinite amount of time, with only the light of our cell phone flashlights. Images of snakes, scorpions, and coyotes came to mind, and I gave my host brother a panicked look. He didn’t look too thrilled at our situation either. The worst part was that it was totally our fault. We had gotten ourselves into this; we had stayed too long on the boulder. Our only way out of the darkness was to stumble around in it and find our way back as quickly as possible. Thankfully, Juda did know his way back, and after a terrifying but adventurous 45 minutes of trudging through the steadily increasing darkness while singing and telling jokes about being eaten by wild animals, we were back on the main trail toward the car. Under a half moon and bright stars, we clapped for Juda and howled in gratitude and celebration.

Hiking in Bethlehem is beautiful. It is a great place to think and experience silence when you’ve all but forgotten its existence. It is not advisable to stay on a boulder to watch the sun set, but if you happen to, it’s the best sunset you’ll ever experience.

Ma’a salama

So we went to El Salvador. This week was kind of a whirlwind, meaning I’ve spent a lot of time in the car. The car rides here aren’t bad, or are bad- I think it depends on the type of person you are. Let’s see if I can explain this.

Honduras is a little bigger than the size of Tennessee, but it is mountainous. The capital city, which is about 60 miles direct from where I am in San Marcos de Colon, cannot be reached directly because each road carves in and out of the mountain ranges. Instead, it takes about 3 ½ hours to get to Tegucigalpa from where I am. This makes for a lot of early mornings and late nights, depending on our reason for going.

There really is only one way to get there, and it’s a two lane highway, one lane per side of the road. Which means sometimes traffic moves slow, and sometimes people don’t like that. There’s a tendency to just drive how you want, passing whenever and wherever. Now, I have never felt unsafe as a passenger, but other cars making crazy risky moves have cause me to feel unsettled. You could say all the rules of the road go out the window in a place like this.

It makes it easier that the countryside is filled with beauty. I mean, the mountains, come on. Every outlook is a new perspective. We will travel from 4500’ down to sea level in 30 minutes, then begin the ascent back up toward the capital. It’s not a ride for the faint in heart, or the weak stomach. My first time, I genuinely thought I was going to throw up, and Emilia kept saying “it’s okay, I can stop, don’t feel bad.” But this ride into the capital, I was thoroughly enjoying it.

And we went Wednesday to visit the doctor and research some materials cost from a hardware shop. I try not to fall asleep when I’m riding along, because I sympathize with the drivers who have to make the trek. The roads are tough, pot holes literally everywhere, people and cows too. It’s like playing real life Frogger. You have to be paying attention. And I feel responsible if I fall asleep, because they can’t sleep on the long drive, but rather must devote all of their attention to the road for my safety. I try my best to stay awake, and on this trip I did. I couldn’t eat because we were going to the doctor for my stomach problems, so I was too hungry to sleep, and we listened to music and chatted the whole way.

After visiting the doctor, eating a sweet meal, and collecting our information from the hardware store, we began the journey home. The afternoon rainstorm hit and our ride slowed. We made it back around 7pm to no power, and the tired me went to be shortly after.

Just to get up early the next morning again and head out for the next adventure, this time to El Salvador. We left at 5:30am and started the drive. The mountains were settled with a thick fog, making for a beautiful and peaceful sunrise as we headed down into the valley. After an hour on the highway, we veered off to the left to take the route towards the border. Crossing the border was trick, but mostly HOT. We went through Amatillo, which is a sea town, meaning 100 degrees and high humidity. We waited for an hour to get our passports stamped and the car scanned, and finally kept on.

I couldn’t help it, this time I fell asleep. The car ride to Santa Ana, El Salvador is a little over 6 hours, plus the time traveling through customs. We were heading this way for a meeting with a leather tannery, a prospective provider to our vocational school of materials. Once we got out of the forest, and into the cities, the drive became something crazy beautiful, like passing the huge volcano and fields of lava surrounding it. Something unprecedented for me.

Our meeting went quite well, and I was so glad to have taken business classes in Spanish, so that I could keep up, despite the language barrier. When we left, I felt that we had a good thing started with them, that the trip was worth it. Then we started home, got a little lost in downtown San Salvador, and eventually made our way back. We listened to music until the speakers died, and I knew we were all tired, so I started the questions game around 8:30, to keep us awake and the energy up. We talked through the last 2 ½ hours of the drive, learning about each other’s lives. To me, this was the sweetest gift, to be welcomed in and included like this by two men I really admire and look up to. It made me feel like I really belonged.

By the time my head hit my pillow, I was thanking God for grand adventure, that my health was under control, that we could have successful trips and even have the ability to do this as a ministry. Who knows where we will be heading next!