Monday Monday...

Today was an incredible day. I was gone all week last week because I was sick, so it was fun to be back at school and to see all of the kids and teachers. Things are finally getting to be comfortable, which is so nice. I feel like I belong here and like this place which was originally so foreign to me is now home. While I am still struggling with the language barrier, especially with the kindergartners, I am finding that this barrier is not so much of an issue now. Granted, I still can't really control a classroom of kindergartners, but I am learning to accept that and to not be so hard on myself. I have been forming relationships with the children and the teachers, and those relationships are so valuable. It is amazing how close I feel to the children, even though we barely understand eachother. Today, two little boys came up to me and just grabbed onto me and hugged me and kissed me on my arm. No matter how stressful or overwhelming my day is, things like that make everything so much better.
Marta and I have also been forming relationships with some of the older students in the school, and that has been very rewarding. I have always been a little scared of working with high schoolers, because they are so close to my own age, but these kids have been very receptive towards us and very open to talking with us. This afternoon we met with one of the students to talk about an upcoming project, and pretty soon 2 more students joined in on the conversation. They could have left school and gone home, since they were done with classes, but they chose to stick around and talk with us. It was an interesting conversation, as we were discussing their plans for the future. One of the girls has a father who is half-American and half-Palestinian, so she would have the option to go to the US if she wanted. However, she says she would never want to live in the US, because Palestine is where her home is. She couldn't give up on Palestine and leave her family and friends. It was refreshing to hear that, and I really admire her, because to be honest, life is hard here. I wouldn't judge anyone for wanting to get away from here, and many people we have talked to are looking for ways out...usually they are looking to marry a foreigner, so that conversation gets awkard pretty quickly. But anyways, it was really great to talk to these students. They give us such a different perspective on life. I feel like I am learning so much more from them than they are learning from us...this is very humbling.