By Shirin Sand

The almost two weeks in Nablus, Palestine were the most touching two weeks in my whole life. You see immediately if you are in Palestine or Israel because of the infrastructures, architectures, destroyed houses etc. It is very hard to accept the gaps between the lifestyles of poor and rich people. Very interesting are the opinions of academics and others about the political future of Palestine and in which way these differ from each other. Getting into contact with the locals and talking about basically everything was very nice and expanded my horizon.

The Zajel Program is a perfect chance to see how the situation is and how the people think about it. You are getting information directly and just being there is a very valuable experience. I would recommend it for everyone, to participate in this program. To me it was a very wonderful time and I will miss the people and atmosphere very much. I have met very nice volunteers from everywhere and being in the same situation united all of us. I want to thank Zajel Program for giving us this chance and the whole volunteers for being so welcoming and friendly to us. Thank you very much!

I was in a group of international volunteers from all over Europe, In the first day we saw the new and old campus of the university in Nablus and have met the group of students, who were staying all the travels with us. We visited the Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus and have seen how the Palestinian refugees from everywhere are living in worst conditions. In the next days we visited also other cities like Ramallah, Jenin, Aqrabah, Qalqiliyya, Rawabi city, Bethlehem, Hebron. We saw poor people without any possibilities of a home, ethnically cleansed villages, settlers and a lot of checkpoints. At the university we have had the chance to get more into contact with the students in the workshops. In the workshop of “Ice breaking” we have spoken about a lot of things like differences in culture, countries and languages and played games like Chinese whispers or “Guess who I am “. The challenge was to talk to foreign people about everything. We also trained the public speaking skills and the arguing in discussions.

In the two days without program our group of internationals went to the Dead Sea and to Jerusalem. Seeing the Wall and passing the controls was very strange. At the day of the farewell party we have heard a lot of kind and touching speeches and have taken a lot of pictures. Afterwards we have gone to a very nice restaurant named “1001 nights”. The food was amazing.

Thank you very much!