At the Lebanese-Israeli border. Our Palestinian friends waved their flags proudly...

Lesson 1: the importance of sleep, “me time” and processing.

I started off this week feeling a cold coming on and it hit me pretty fast. A lot of us have been getting sick, getting better, getting each other sick, picking up germs from who knows where, you know, ew. I’ve not been feeling 100% since I’ve been here and when I felt the cold coming on, I knew what to do. Nyquil and get a good 8 hours of sleep. It’s amazing, but it worked. Since arriving here, I probably haven’t had a full 8 hours of sleep. Even if I have the time, the heat and no AC or fan, loud neighbors and calls to prayer keep me up for most of the night. But after that night, I felt so much better. And now I am better.

I’ve also realized this week that I need to set time aside for myself. Each day when my alarm goes off, it is “go time” without stopping till I finally fall asleep that night. Even on our weekends we have excursions, seminars, errands, meeting people. Then our weeks, teaching is amazing but exhausting. Especially when you work at 9-6pm day with no electricity (aka: no fan) for the whole day, except for maybe the 20 minutes the electricity does make a “surprise appearance”. So the weekdays are exhausting but then we spend our evenings lesson planning, exploring the camp, having dinner with neighbors (which here can go till 11pm) and more. And I live with 11 girls, in one apartment (and one bathroom)…that’s a learning experience in and of its self. So yes, I have started to feel the over-burdeness of this intense experience. This week I made myself sit down and have “me time”, my new go-to place is the roof, early in the morning. There I can write, plan and reflect.

Especially after hearing of the loss of my student in DC, this is vital in processing. Tomorrow, I plan to go to the Corniche (the area right by the sea), to sit on the rocks and watch the sunset. The time I go will be the time in America when they will be having his service. I need to focus on him and my students tomorrow night, I am craving that time alone.

Lesson 2: Even though I am only here for the summer, I can make an impact.

There are a few students who are my “problem” students, especially one named Ali (from the infamous Mohammad and Ali dynamic duo in my class ;) ) This boy is full of energy and can’t stop talking. He can’t sit still let alone keep his mind focused for longer than 10 minutes at a time. Yesterday, I stayed with him after class and to work on his worksheet alone with him. During that, I realized that this kid is smart, he knows what he is doing and has so much potential. But it is his behavior that holds him back. I also realized that he craved that attention. His face lit up, he was calm and he enjoyed it. When that happens, as a teacher, I know that there is something going on in which he is not receiving attention he needs. Obviously, in these conditions that is the case. Naturally, I want to help him, “fix him” and no matter how much he can drive me crazy in class, he has captured my heart. But then I start feeling overwhelmed, I have only 2 weeks left, what realistically can I do for this kid during that time?

Lesson 3: Everyone needs to go stand on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

On Saturday, we had another teacher excursion. This time we went to the South. We first went to a castle from the Crusader’s time period which was also used during the Israeli-Lebanon conflict. We spent a few hours climbing around the rocks of the castle’s ruins. We then traveled even more South, to a part of the country in which we had to get extra security clearance ahead of time to go to. Our directors took us literally to the Lebanon/Israeli border. We were standing on a ledge and the border fence was closer than a mile away.

It was a very powerful and emotional moment. The children were not with us but some people from the refugee camps who help us in the school did come with us. For all of them, this was their first time ever laying eyes on Palestine...(just a bit of info for those of you not familiar with this conflict: Palestinian refugees as well as many in the Arab world still call Israel, Palestine, not Israel. It was moving to watch these refugees, who had now become good friends and fellow workers, become emotional at this sight.

And it was here, that I too became very emotional. It hit me very stronger, and I’m still having trouble putting it exactly into words. Even though I am not a refugee, or have any ties to any Palestinian background like some people in my program, I still felt incredibly overwhelmed with emotion.

As I sit here now, I am processing exactly what I was feeling. The first emotion that comes to mind is guilt. As I have mentioned before, since being here, guilt has continued to creep into my mind. Standing at the border, looking at a simple fence which symbolizes so much heartbreak, tragedy, tension, hatred, conflict and war, I felt the guilt again.

Growing up, I did not know much about the Middle East. Until two years ago, when I started developing an interest in the Middle East, I never really read about it. We didn’t learn about this conflict in high school…except just through what we heard on the news. I never studied political science or international affairs, I don’t have relational ties to anyone who is from this area, so I am not as educated as some who do have deep family histories in this region. So what I do know about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is limited. Much of the time, it has been limited to what the American news has fed me.

I have been living in ignorance. I know I am an American so technically it's "not my problem", but it is. I am a citizen of this world and as one, I have a responsibility to care for humans and issues that affect their humanity and rights to life. Since arriving here, I have learned so much more about what Palestinian refugees have been through, I have been experiencing what conditions are like for their lives in the camps and I have been educated about the history of the conflict in an international classroom instead of through western media bias. Through all of this, I am seeing this conflict in a more accurate manner and I feel incredibly guilty of being an ignorant American for so much of my life. The perspective I have gained while being here for only two weeks is incredible, I feel like my eyes and mind has been opened to reality and truth instead of bias and political propaganda. Standing at the border, watching these refugees cry over a homeland they will never get to step foot in, made me feel guilty and angry.

It also made me realize how blessed we are as Americans. One of my friends from the camp, who is a refugee, asked me if I ever hoped to go there one day. I responded with a “I hope so”, and immediately took back my words. How easy it is for me to say that and how high of a probability that it will happen. I buy a ticket and get a visa anytime to Israel, but these people never will. It makes me count my blessings.

It also was powerful over the symbolism that this border has. So much conflict started here, so many lives have been changed at this border. How amazing that a strip of land, a geographical area can bring so much pain, struggle, hatred and heartbreak.

Incredible.

Lesson 4: the most growth you will experience is at the end of your comfort zone.

This is a lesson I will be learning forever. So much of this experience has been living outside my comfort zone. Being immersed in an unfamiliar language, living and working with a large group of people with many various personality styles to learn how to interact with and get along, living in conditions that we could never imagine, balancing being overwhelmed with hope and positivity, stretching myself in so many directions as a teacher, pushing myself to learn more, do more and soak in more. Making myself sit down and reflect. Learning how to love when it seems like it is the last thing anyone else is doing. Sharing and igniting hope in an environment where it seems non-existent.

…Stepping outside of my comfort zone so as to come into my own and become even more than I ever thought I was.