A week of Arabic in Hebron

My only regret is not having been able to stay longer. The Excellence Centre's management are wonderfully relaxed about when you arrive, when you leave and what skills you want to focus on, which makes it possible to fit your stay around other commitments. I'm especially grateful to Usama for helping me settle in and showing me the best falafel dive in town, and Maryam for listening patiently for a solid 3-4 hours as I babbled ceaselessly about what I'd done the day before, my favourite colour etc. When classes were over, we got a chance to what Palestinian culture is really about, through visits to a glass furnace, a sandal factory run by hand, the last kuffiyeh factory in Palestine and the old city, squashed between an Israeli settlement and a heavily guarded checkpoint. All in all this course was informal and relaxed in all the right ways, while delivering an intense and very practical language programme. My fellow foreigners who'd been around for longer seemed to have forged real friendships within the community; Hebron is welcoming, positive and interested in visitors.