Wartime Lullaby

So as some of you know we who are over in Jerusalem have been experiencing a little unrest. So I am going to tell you a little story. Friday during our Islam class we were given an announcement that there may be some trouble in our neighborhood of East Jerusalem. I didn't think too much of it until they told us that we were not permitted to visit our neighborhood or the Old City. This made me a little concerned but I tried not to think too much of it. After class I headed down to my room and when I got there I started hearing noises and I went outside to look. Well, it seemed that our neighbors were firing guns off the rooftop and lighting smoke bombs in the street. One of my teacher's kid who lives in the Center made me feel soooo much better.

Being a wise little three year old she let me know that she couldn't go to the playground today because they were lighting fires there. She acted like it was nothing. So after movie night I went to get ready for bed and as I was laying there I started to hear these loud booms! Like window shaking loud. So I crept out to my balcony to see and literally right below our building in the street there were gangs of people lighting fires in a dumpster in the street and blowing up more smoke bombs - it was nuts! Then yesterday we went on full lockdown and no one was allowed to leave the center. Needless to say I am excited to go to Turkey today. All this is happening because of Nakba day.

Nakba in Arabic means catastrophe and it is referring to the 1948 creation of the Israel state. It's funny because earlier this week we were at a huge party in West Jerusalem with the Israelis and it was a happy celebration of these events and now we are experiencing the opposite effect of all those events. I really wish I could have taken some pictures because they were literally right outside my window but we were told not to because if either side thought that we were a journalist or a government worker that could cause big problems for us and being dragged into the street and stoned wasn't on my todo list. If you want to know more there is a pretty good article here: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinian-protesters-clash-with-israeli-forces-in-east-jerusalem-as-nakba-day-begins-1.361793

Well I leave for Turkey in a half hour so I should probably get going. I will be internet-less and phone-less for a week so expect lots of long blog posts when I get back next Sunday.