My experience with the Excellence Center in Hebron

My name’s Orla, I’m 21 and from Bristol, UK. I study Arabic and International Relations at SOAS, University of London and took part in the Individual Dialect Classes for 2 weeks at the Excellence Centre in Hebron, Palestine.

Whilst at the centre I took part in some of their trips and tours, including one to the village of Dura which was great. I also participated in the weekly conversation class.

I really enjoyed my Arabic classes. I found them really interesting and useful. My teacher Myriam was so lovely and helpful with my learning, her teaching style was very dynamic and she was able to adapt very readily to things I wanted to cover in lessons even if that didn’t fit with the lesson plan.

Whilst in Palestine I made a trip to Jerusalem and Bethlehem for the weekend. When I finish my studies I plan to go to Ramallah and Nablus too.

I absolutely loved living in Hebron, my host family totally fitted the Hebroni stereotype of being incredibly hospitable and kind. They didn’t speak any English so it was really great for my Arabic and I had lots of fun playing with the many children who seemed to always be around. I also really liked the city of Hebron, it’s not crammed with enormous amounts of things to do but there are nice cafes and gardens that me and some of the other volunteers went to and I found I was never without an invitation to someone’s house for tea, coffee or food.

I generally felt very safe in Palestine. People tend to really look after you and look out for you because of the culture of hospitality. I found as a white western woman I was treated differently to Palestinian woman and generally found the culture a bit conservative with regards to views on women. Sometimes this led me to feel unsafe as I (perhaps wrongly) was overly conscious of people’s intentions and felt anxious at night when walking alone. Additionally, while I was there-there were lots of protests in which tear gas is often fired. It didn’t make me feel particularly unsafe as it was definitely something you could avoid if you chose to.

There isn’t something I love most about Palestine, there is too much to write! I love the food (the maa’lubeh, hummus, falafel, kanafeh) the weather (was warm but not too warm - in late June and early July), the people were gorgeously kind and hospitality and I plan to embark on lots of walking trips so will let you know about the nature, but generally I’ve heard it’s beautiful.

A favourite experience was meeting my host family and playing endlessly with their granddaughter. We played loads of great games and they even took me to a Palestinian wedding.

I have found lasting impressions of Palestine. I really want to come back and volunteer at the centre and stay in Hebron for longer, two weeks was not enough!

I would definitely recommend the Excellence Centre to anyone wishing to gain a good grasp of spoken Arabic. It’s really immersive, with people engaging in conversation with you in Arabic from the minute you walk through the door. The staff and volunteers were a really lovely group of people and I had such a great (if short) time there.