With this entry I feel as if I could write for days. The emotions and experiences that have filled my heart and mind over the past week have left me infinitely poorer and inexplicably richer at the same time. So many thoughts are churning through my head I don't know where to begin. Therefore it makes sense that I write this story as a chronology.
It all began just less than a week ago. This was the beginning of perhaps my most significant task on this mission to Palestine. As part of my workplan, I was designated to facilitate a workshop for 26 Palestinian experts in the field of community planning in the West Bank, with a specific focus on the Municipality of Jenin and its surrounding villages as a pilot project. For those of you that don't know, the Israelis like to call Jenin the capitol of terrorism in the West Bank. During the 2nd intifada a few years ago, it was believed that many of the Fatah militants, particularly the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, were operating out of Jenin. In response to a handful of suicide bombs in Israeli communities, the Israeli military bombed a large refugee camp in Jenin, killing hundreds of civilians, many of whom were women and children. Although it is fair to say the camp housed numerous militants that the Israelis were in search of, it is undoubtedly clear that their methods of missile attacks on the camp showed little regard civilian life. Although life has moved on in this conservative city and the camp has been rebuilt with support from the UN, the community remains one of the poorer cities in the West Bank. Anyway, my job was to work with representatives of this community to develop an operationalized methodology for establishing a participatory development plan. The Irish Aid organization has earmarked significant funds to develop participatory and democratic plans in Jenin, which are to be replicated in the remainder of the West Bank municipalities. My job is to establish the method in which they will do it. To get it right I developed a five-day workshop for participants to assess the process, try out the 'tools', and learn how to use a way of making structured decisions called decision analysis. This was undoubtedly a difficult task, even for someone with way more experience than I bring to the table.
So last Sunday, after weeks of preparation, the workshop began at the Rocky Hotel in Ramallah. I have no doubt that as the participants entered the room, they were surprised to see a consultant like me... young, enthusiastic, pierced, tattood, and perhaps a bit out of place. Under most circumstances, consultants that do this type of work are much older, much more conservative, and far more serious. But this has never been my style, so I figured I would just approach the project with a pure heart and an informed mind, hoping that the professionalism of my work would outweigh my unusual appearance and youthful exhuberance. To my dismay, it took less than the morning session for the group to warm up to me, largely due to a little game that we played that incited more laughter than I have ever been credited for. It is a normal practice for my colleagues and I to launch workshops with a bit of an icebreaker. The day before this workshop my colleague John emailed me a new one that he thought would be a hit. The activity, making a paper airplane, is designed to show people that even with clear and concise instructions, results can be different every time. Participants are paired off and one is given written instructions to make a paper airplane. The only rule is that the reader can only tell the builder each step twice. This may sound easy to you, but seeing the results the other day, I can assure you its not. As a matter of fact, it was the 10 engineers in the room who struggled the most. The result... about a dozen airplanes that looked like shitty origami. As people shared their products with the group, the laughter made the room shake. From then on, my attempts to incite dialogue with the group turned a corner. You could see that new relationships were being formed on a daily basis and I was at the centre of this amazing energy. It was one of the most empowering and rewarding experiences of my professional life. So the remainder of the week was dedicated to teaching this group the ins and outs of strategic planning, providing them with 23 different participatory tools for decision making in their communities. The diverse group, from professors to mayors to non-profit heads to government officials, took to the activities like fish to water. And it was clear that everyone was enthusiastic to participate.
Day Two began much like Day One, with the group actively engaged and excited by the activities... that is until I introduced the gender analysis tool. As you can probably imagine, the highly educated women from the national Ministries in Ramallah (although wearing al hijab) came to loggerheads with the conservative men from Jenin. The dialogue got so heated that I had to interject on numerous occassions to prevent the discussion from become deconstructive. It became clear to me why gender issues in these contexts are usually handed to experts specifically tasked with handling such complex issues. But again a little laughter did the trick, as I let it be known that my apparent 'sensitivity' was the result of having three strong-minded sisters and a feisty mother. I guess my interjection had an effect, becuase during the break, one of the professors came up to me and gave me perhaps the greatest compliment of my life. He said simply, “I was talking to a few of my colleagues and couldn't figure out what is larger, your heart or your mind”. It took all my might to hold back my emotions, forcing me to leave the room for a few minutes to regain my composure.
By the end of the day, after working through eight activities and about two hours of presentation, I was physically and mentally drained. When I got back to my hotel room, I dropped my bag and collapsed on my bed, with hopes of a 45 minute power nap before preparing for the next day. But thirty minutes later my phone rang, turning my world more upside down than ever before in my life.
Half asleep and fully dressed in my monkey suit, I was awoken once again to Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On. As I drowsily picked up the phone, all I could hear were uncontrollable sobs. At that moment I knew what had happened. My Japhydog, one of the great loves of my life, had passed away. And my dear friend Brook, eight months pregnant, had to deal with the whole situation, leaving her with an undeniable sense of guilt and loss. The feeling that came over me at that moment was one I had never before in my life been party to. It was a hollow feeling of helplessness, layered with horrific feelings of guilt, sorrow, confusion, and nausea. It was like getting hit by a train. I was beaten down so badly that nothing in life seemed significant anymore. I had lost the greatest friend I had ever known, the one that had seen it all, the one that had seen me transition from boy to man, the one that had given me unconditional love while teaching me to do the same in return. He was my family when I had none. He was the one I could pour my love into when my son was so far away. And he was the one thing in the world that gave me a definition of what I call home, because wherever the Japhydog was, was without a doubt where I wanted to be. He was more to me than most can understand. And without him life seemed to unhinge. Like my dear friend Liz described when referring to the passing of her dog Bruce, you just become untethered, with attachment to nothing and no desire for attachment to anything but your sorrow. It took a few minutes, but once I was able to stop sobbing and could regain my breath, I tried to tell Brook that I was so thankful that Japhy was with her when he passed. Because if he couldn't be with me, there were few people in the world who I would have wanted him to be with. And without question, I mean what I said. Because Brook has that uncanny ability to shower love and kindness on those who cross her path. She did that with Japhy. And as usual, Japhy was happy to reciproate.
But I couldn't handle the conversation at that moment. My room ws closing in on me and I was beginning to feel claustrophobic. I had to get out and remember how to breathe. So I hung up the phone and headed out into the late afternoon sun. I walked out of my hotel with little attempt to shield my puffy red eyes from those who I passed, heading straight for a quiet spot on one of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. For the next five hours I cried like I had never cried before. And each moment the tears began to subside, I called someone I loved and someone who loved the Japhster, to ensure that the tears wouldn't stop flowing until I was damn well ready. For some reason I knew that the more pain I could inflict on myself that night would help to begin the long healing process that I would so desparately need. And for all the people I spoke to that evening (Brett, Kiki, Mom, Leigh, Robbie, Dave, Mike, Rhonda, Liz, Brook, John, Jen, Wael, Patti), I will never be able to thank you enough for your words of kindess, your desire to make the pain subside, and your beautiful memories of Japhy that brought me smiles through that darkest of nights. I will, of course, save my special words for each of you when we see each other face to face. But until then I must once again say thank you. And I love you all very very much.
That night will be one that will never be forgotten as it ws one that never seemed to end. Although I lay in bed for over five hours I never managed to get even an inkling of sleep. My mind was filled with thoughts of sadness and guilt, compounded by the stress of the following morning's activities that I had yet to prepare for. But at the time, nothing was on my my but the Japhydog. I tried thinking pleasant thoughts. I tried doing some yoga breathing. I tried clearing my end. Nothing worked. So I ended up starting into the darkness until the sun rose over Jerusalem and I could go grab a few cups of coffee before leaving for Ramallah. The day that followed was excruciating. I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. But I had a responsibility to my workshop group so I tried my best to power through... which I did for the next three long and arduous days. But at the end of it all, when the workshop finaly wrapped up, I knew I had done the right things. Everyone was enthusiastic about what had taken place that week, people were genuinely excited about the tools and methods I had introduced, and according to the evaluations, they were more than happy with my facilitation of the week's tasks. Overall, the workshop was a resounding success, providing me the credibility and support that I needed to continue my work in the West Bank.
That night, upon returning to my hotel, I decided to get away to clear my mind and search for some closure from the difficult days of the week. So the next morning I picked up a rental car and headed out to the Dead Sea for a day of floating in the heavily saline water under the fifty degree sun. Well... actually I think it was only 48 that day! The drive to the Dead Sea that morning was amazing. It began with an incredibly steep descent out of the mountains of Jerusalem, with the first sign of elevation about 15 minutes out of town. Painted on the dry desert wall out of which the road was carved, was a long white line with lettering stating 0 ft above sea level. Over the next 3 or 4 kilometers I continued to decend to 100, 200, 300, 400 feet below sea level. As the road leveled out around 430 feet below near the turn off to Jericho, I was deep in the Jordan Valley, the lowest point on earth. Although I have spent lots of time in the desert, I have never been to a place like this. Life was virtually non-existant here, with almost no vegetation to speak of. Everything was dust covered and radiating the unbearably summer heat of the region. But miraculously, there were numerous makeshift dwellings, often teeming with goats roaming free. There were the homes of Bedouin people... the same people who once roamed these lands freely in search of water, feed for their livestock, and shady places to rest their bodies. However, the world we live in today leaves no place for the wandering peoples of yesteryear. Their movements have been constrained by artificial boundaries and borders, forcing them to settle in one place, often the poorest and most inhospitable places imaginable. Although I have been in Africa many times, and have seen poverty that is indescribable, the quality of life these people had was arguably the worst possible. They needed little but had nothing, stripped of their only true dignity over being connected with the cycles of nature through their mobility in search of greener pastures each season. You can't imagine how sad a sight is was.
Anyway, searching for smiles rather than more sadness I proceeded to the Dead Sea, a small nature reserve on the sea's north end facing across the water to Jordan. I spent the next four hours floating in the water and basking in the sun, with the occassional break to cover by body in the rich claylike mud on the shoreline. It was just what I needed, to absorb some of the life and love of the world that had been lost over the previous week. The floating was amazing. Unless I was perfectly balanced, my feet would inherently float to the surface, turning me onto either my back or stomach. I had been told in advance not to shave and to ensure that I didn't have any significant cuts or srcapes, because the water was so salty that it would have burned like hell. Nevertheless it was so saline, that as sweat dripped off my brow, the water on my body would drop into my eyes creating a stinging that was excruciating. Needless to say I spent another day with very red eyes, although for a better reason that the days prior. After I couldn't bear the heat and sun anymore, I packed up my things and headed toward the city of Jericho in the West Bank, known to be the oldest city in the world. Like many days past, as I entered the checkpoint I was grilled by the Israeli soldiers there. Over and over again they questioned me about what I would want to go to Jericho for. I simply kept saying that I was going for lunch. They didn't seem to grasp the concept of eating lunch, at least not in the West Bank, as I had to repeat myself at least four times. Finally I showed my UN identification and they reluctantly let me pass. Of course, 100 meters later as I was stopped my a Palestinian soldier and showed the same i.d., I was greeted with the seemingly customary, “Welcome Mr. UN man. Have a nice day!”. By then it had little effect other than inducing a few chuckles on my part. Although I didn't spend much time in Jericho I found it to be a lovely place, full of kind, friendly, and chatty people. I felt as safe and welcome as I have since entering this part of the world. But the day was getting late and I still had a steep, uphill drive through desert heat to maneuver. So I headed back through the checkpoints, where I was waved to by the Palestinian and stopped by the same Israeli soldier who questioned me on the way in. Although once he saw my face, he waved me through, he still chose to point the dusty barrel of his M-16 right at my head. What a guy! I made it home at around 7:00 PM and collapsed on my bed, not to awake until 7:00 AM the next morning, the result of way too much heat and sunshine.
To be continued...
Jericho Checkpoint
Yuqim Springs Nature Reserve (Dead Sea)
Dead Sea Floating
Dead Sea View of Jordan
Dead Sea Mountains
