The Land of Living Stones

Today is the first day of Ramadan, a time of religious furvor and significance in the Muslim world, including Palestine.(Side note: I regret that I am writing from a computer with limited capabilities, including the frequent inability to type the letter h and much delay.) Anyway, this is a time of fasting and praying, with many people not eating or drinking anything at all until sundown.  The whole month or so will be very different around here than other times of year. School is shorter, people take off early. We will see how it affects me.

I am at the Hope Flowers Center, which is a distance from the School, and which offers the teacher trainings and community outreach projects. I have just learned that I will be at the school two days a week to teach stories to the upper levels, and I will most likely work from here the other days doing writing, editing, or whatever they need. Femke is to be my supervisor, and housemate also. Tuesdays and Wednesdays I have scheduled Arabic lessons from a tutor at the Bethlehem Bible College.

Funny thing about Ramadan: the time has changed, falling back an hour for Winter Time. Unfortunately, no one thought to tell me about this in advance, and I only learned it the night before from an MCCer. But Israel does not change the time with the West Bank, so now I am an hour behind Jerusalem and the MCC office there. Hmm…so maybe a month or more of this confusion, and then Israel will change also.

I would love to hear from you. Write to:
MCC Kim MacVaugh
PO Box 19208
Jerusalem Israel 91191