Hi from the City that God Wanted

Hello from Ram'allah, which can be interpreted as "The City that God Wanted," or more commonly "Hills of God." Sorry, the sound quality is pretty bad.

Yesterday, I got a _wonderful_ interview with one of our French language teachers. She's the one who was stuck on the other side of the Israeli invasion on the 19th, and we talk about that experience. It's stuck in my camera right now, and it's in French so I'll have to subtitle it, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Then, yesterday afternoon, I went from Nablus to Ramallah, a four-checkpoint trip of maybe 40km. At Huwwara checkpoint (just outside Nablus), I went around the checkpoint in the vehicle lane, because the Israelis had the checkpoint completely closed. The first time a soldier waved me back, so I waited ten minutes and tried again. This time, nobody noticed me until I was almost all the way through; that fact, and a bit of attitude got me out of that horrible place. I always feel a little dirty when I use my American passport in this way.

Now I'm in Ramallah, and visiting a web and design studio. They've done some really impressive work, and they've also worked with Project Hope on a pinhole camera project in refugee camps. That, and the fact that I had coffee and doughnuts for breakfast this morning has me optimistic about making something of this "Numa Nablus" video project. The depressed state of Nablus relative to three years ago, the assault on Lebanon and the Nablus invasion kind of took it out of me for a few days there. Ramallah, western food, and a great design studio is just what I needed.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• palestine
• ramallah
• numa
• nablus
• project
• hope
• palestinian

[paliprincess880]

my land is soo pretty (;

[Naderkj]

This is our house in the background( upper level) and my brother's in the lower level, wlad kanaan judeh jadallah altaweel.

[madcomputer]

thanx alot ,, its nice work ;)

[bentkan3an]

umm, i was thinking to comment about ramallah but all i want to say is, nice hawaiian shirt worn in Ramallah, Palestine!! hmm lool

[calista48]

a bit late, my response, but i am an american woman and i lived there in nablus and just outside ramallah for over a year. you will find that all palestinian territories are safe for you, at least I did. THe oonly thing you have to really worry about is the driving and the Israeli soldiers.

[silkysandy]

It was great to hear some insight from an american in Ramallah, Ive been debating on making a trip over there, It would be very helpful to me and appreciated if you could give me your honest opinion as to the security of americans is over there,is it safe for a woman to travel to ramallah? ty God bless!

[everiaal]

I love your videos of my homeland.