Fantastic time

My name is Martha and I am a 20 year old Politics and International Relations student, studying at the University of Birmingham. I came to Hebron for a week-long Human Rights course in August 2019, during a month-long trip to Palestine.

My week in Hebron has been fantastic. My friend and I stayed with Marwa, who provided everything we could have wanted and was so warm and funny. It was great to meet her enormous family too and practice our Arabic with them, as we began to learn it at the centre. Osama, Mahmoud, Mohammad, Mutaz, Rafat and everyone else who works at the centre were friendly, helpful and very well informed.

During the week, we did many activities, leaving the centre to visit people or sites every day. I thought that our course would mostly be in classrooms, learning through lectures and so on. However, almost everything we learnt was through meeting Palestinians, human rights activists and through tours by fantastic guides (especially Mahmoud). We visited the closed down Shuhada Street, the Ibrahimi mosque and a family who live surrounded by three checkpoints. We also did fascinating things which were cultural and apolitical, such as visiting a glass-blowing factory, a keffiyeh factory and the Old Town market stalls.

We got to know a lot about Palestinian culture. We learnt some (limited!) Arabic, ate lots of fantastic food (especially knafa and kufta) and spoke to as many Palestinians as were willing to speak to annoying foreigners! The thing which has amazed me the most about Palestinian culture is the openness and friendliness of Palestinian people. We have got used to hearing “welcome to Hebron!” shouted at us on the street, and when we got lost people were always willing to help us as much as they could. The culture of chattiness and friendliness has been such a fantastic discovery on our trip here.

We have always felt safe. My friend and I (both female) have walked home almost every night, mostly quite late, and never felt unsafe during the long walk. People were by and large friendly and helpful, I never felt at risk while we were exploring the city. I felt uncomfortable when we were in military-controlled areas as I’m not used to being around police/soldiers with guns etc, but we never witnessed any incidents whilst on our trips.

I would recommend this programme highly. I have learnt so much about the situation for Hebronite Palestinians, met so many interesting people and had lots of interesting discussions. If anyone is interested in the difficult life that has been created for Palestinians here, or the ever-changing and complex military oppression, then this course is brilliant. Mahmoud was the perfect guide and provided lots of local insights and translated for us tirelessly. I would love to come back.