It turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences I've had thus far. I lived in Beit Sahour, part of the larger Bethlehem area, with an Orthodox Christian family. My family was made up of my host mom, Randa, who teaches middle school science, my host dad, Nasri, who is an architect, and my three host sisters; Dareen (15), Daniella (13), and Nicole (11). They were absolutely wonderful, and made us feel so welcome.
During the week, we still had classes every morning at Tantur, but in the afternoon, we would make our way back to Beit Sahour to hang out with our family. Our host sisters were the best. Since my first words when Kellen was born were, "But I wanted a sister!" I was ecstatic to get to have three younger sisters for the week (Sorry bud, love you!). In the afternoons, we would all work on homework together, them helping us with our Arabic and us helping them with their English. Of course, they were teaching us words like "apple" and "grandma," while they needed us to explain words like "hydroelectric energy" and "fossil fuels." Similar, not. Our whole family spoke great English, so language wasn't really an issue, but they did teach us all sorts of new Arabic words during the week, and helped us practice for our Arabic test. Every night after dinner, we'd all sit down together and watch TV. Communal TV watching is a big part of the culture here. The whole family sits down together every evening and first watches Turkish soap operas (which were entertaining to try to follow). Then, the girls would turn on MTV, showing that globalization is making the world a smaller and smaller place. I swear, the girls knew more American singers than I did! We even watched Harry Potter with Arabic subtitles, which just made my night :) Each night, the girls would teach us new card games, which we'd play while watching TV.
The best way to learn about any culture is through the food, and we were given a true feast each night of amazing Palestinian cooking. Some of my favorites were malfouf (meat, rice, and spices rolled up in boiled cabbage leaves, then drizzled in lemon juice) and musakhan (flat bread with grilled onions, tons of spices, and melt in your mouth chicken on top). Needless to say, we went to bed every night stuffed and happy.
Weekends in Bethlehem are Friday and Sunday, to account for the Muslim holy day (Friday), and the Christian holy day (Sunday). Thus, on Thursday night our sisters took us to the Catholic Action Center with them. Its a place for the local kids to hang out Thursday nights, with a gym to play basketball in, a movie theater, a pool, a game room, and tables to sit at and talk. We got to meet many of our sisters friends, hear the gossip about the mean girls at school, witness an almost fight between two high school boys, and theorize about who was dating who. It felt like I was back in high school! After hanging out for a while, we went to our host mom's sister's house for a while. We hung out with our sisters and their cousins, and I had my hair braided in every design I've ever seen on Pinterest by their amazingly talented cousin Mireen. We then made it home in time for the latest episode of Pretty Little Liars.
On Friday, we had breakfast at our host mom's parent's house. Then, we got to go on a field trip with two of our sisters! They are both in the environmental club at school, which meets one Friday a month, and happened to be taking a trip to a conservation site in Beit Jala that Friday. Our sisters asked their teacher if we could go, and she said yes, so away we went with around 30 middle and high school girls from various Catholic schools in Bethlehem. While the presentation was all in Arabic, my sisters and their friends tried to translate for us. This got increasingly comical as we tried to pantomime environmental words back and forth, which neither of us knew in the opposite language. We had a presentation on tracking birds, got to see the museum, full wall to wall with taxidermy birds, and played group games in Arabic.
The best part of the week was the conversations we got to have, both with our family and with our sisters' friends. We learned about normalization in Bethlehem, how daily life goes on despite the occupation. We learned about being a Palestinian Christian in a region where you make up 1% of the population, and where most Western Christians don't acknowledge you exist. We learned about strikes, as our mom's teachers union was on strike one day we were there, because they government had been withholding their wages. We learned about Muslim-Christian relations within the West Bank, and how opinions vary on the viability of friendship between the two groups. We learned about school curriculum and universities in Palestine. We learned about travel restrictions. We learned about marriage and dating in a modest and family oriented culture.
We also learned that our commonalities define us much more than our differences. Middle and high school girls in the West Bank AND the US love Justin Beiber, Demi Levato, Selena Gomez, One Direction, Pretty Little Liars, MTV, and Twilight. People watch movies like Les Mis, the Hobbit, X-Men, Harry Potter, and The Vow for fun. Moms worry about their kids going off the college, moving away, and not visiting. Dads tease their daughters about any boy they talk to. Siblings "borrow" clothes, fight over the remote, complain about having the same teachers as the older ones, and tell each other to turn down the loud music blaring in the next room. Families gather around the dinner table to talk about their day, laugh, and tease on another. Parents love their children deeply and want what is best for them.
At the end of the day, its the commonalities that I'll take away. Not because I like people to act and think like me. But because underneath all our different opinions, politics, religions, clothes, countries, nationalities, and ethnicities, we have a common humanity. And at the end of the day, this is what really matters.
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