Brilliant volunteering opportunity, I highly recommend the EC

After three winters of revision for English literature exams I felt the need to warm up, literally and figuratively, for what people call ‘the real world’. Whilst I had no ambitions at all as an activist, I was looking forward to helping out in a West Bank community and learning something about living in a less than ideal political situation. My university essays had been read by a single, presumably rather bored tutor, I thought, it would feel good to do something likely to make slightly larger ripples.

The seven days I gave myself between my first click on the Centre website, and arrival in Tel Aviv weren’t exactly stress free, but there were enough youtube videos of happy, normal looking volunteers to keep me satisfied. What’s more, the problems that I encountered at the beginning of my trip were not ones that more days of preparation could have avoided. My dark eyes and olive complexion, combined with a passport carrying a stamp for two months in Morocco fated me to a long wait and an even longer series of questions. Perhaps it’s a good thing that I don’t sleep on overnight flights, since when my bags were impounded for five days in Tel Aviv, my irritation was somewhat dulled.

Thankfully, with the exception of my laptop, once here I felt that I could quite well do without my things. The whole experience of being looked after by a host family and by the Centre felt roughly analogous to the fleecy pink jumpsuit I was lent by my host mother to use as pyjamas. Relaxed, comfortable, and often exuberant: Palestine fitted well enough.

An important factor in my newfound contentedness was the food. I did not consider traditional, Palestinian breakfast at the Centre a poor exchange at all for my eight a.m. start. Flat bread, eggs, humous, falafel, soft cheese, tabouleh, and cakes with tea and coffee, is an undeniably good way to start the day. Between mouthfuls, breakfast is also a good chance to catch up with everyone at the Centre. Chat is conducted in a melange of English, dialect and classical Arabic, covering topics as broad as may be expected from the range of people at the Centre, from the European refugee crisis and US politics, to the local gym and who may or may not be whose habibi.

Breakfast, and Friday holidays are about the only constants in the very varied time table of staff and volunteers at the Centre. I usually spend mornings in meetings and writing and editing articles, but I’ve also helped conduct interviews for new staff members, participated in teacher training programmes, and assisted with oral exams. In the afternoons, twice per week for hour and a half periods, I take Arabic classes in dialect and MSA, which are regular enough but equally varied in content, often involving different media, from music to news articles. Afternoons are mostly spent teaching however, either in the Centre, or at local universities and schools. Trips to teach in local educational establishments are a great chance to see a bit more of the infrastructure here, and invariably involve invites to coffee or lunch by staff members delighted to welcome internationals.

Unsurprisingly, though, my favourite afternoons are spent on trips with the Centre. Though I enjoyed trips with a friend who I (easily) persuaded to visited from home, there’s nothing better than being shown somewhere new by a local, especially in a place as complex and politically charged as Palestine. With the Centre we visited the Old City and the famous ‘sterile street’, Al-Shahada where staff explained how restrictions imposed after 1967 had resulted in a mass exodus of Palestinians. We hiked in the nearby agricultural village of Battir, and visited a local refugee camp, Fawwar. We ate with Bedouin living in the village of Sussia and discussed residents’ struggle to retain the land after their wells and the caves that were their homes were destroyed by the ISF.

I feel very grateful to the people I have met here who have been so generous with tea, maklouba, and most of all the wonderful and sometimes terrible stories about their lives. I am delighted to recommend the Excellence Centre to anyone willing to get stuck in, and I guarantee you will get a lot back.