Tent of nations, thunder horses and desks in the wild.

I continue my Paris journal with more from the Middle East, a minimal effort
in the face of how long people there have been continuing their fight for a living be they carriers of israeli or Palestinian identity cards. Like the Nassar family, living outside of Bethlehem where they run a farm and a project called Tent of Nations, who have been proving ownership to their land since 1916, but still are under the threat of having their property demolished. And the 27th of may this year, the order came for nine of their structures to be demolished. A letter can be sent to the embassy in your respective countries to show concern for the matter, I’ll leave the draft in a comment under this post.

As the name implies, tent of nations is an initiative for different nationalities to get to know one another in the best way there is: Though manual  labour, theatre and eating. In particular, they have been    organizing camps for Palestinian refugee children. For me, it  was a slice of heaven to be there. Just throwing stones off a  field, doing something useful and most of all – not talking so  much. Then, walking around the estate, seeing the theatre  scene, and my some of my favourite things: desks out in the  grass. And, to maximize the perfection of the place (for me): a beautiful reddish-brown horse, his arabic name, Ra’ad, meaning Thunder.

They work for understanding. They work for building down hostility, and for building up trust. Trust, so hard to gain and if broken almost unfixable, and still so so essential for continuing together towards something better. Their woman empowerment program is especially worth a highlighting. This family does what demands effort from their very soul. And at the same time they are working for survival.

So what does all this add up to?

A good place to volunteer some of your time, thoughts, letters, money and prayers, a place to build relationships (and muscles) under the baking sun, a place to sweat while saying to yourself “for crying out loud, I’m actually doing something to better the whole entire middle east crisis!!”…plus eat the  best couscous of your life, and maybe in the early morning light go for a ride in the golden landscape..