Some day... Some where...

Matt here.

So we arrived here in Bethlehem yesterday afternoon. This International Center is very different from the Mar Elias School in Ibillin. The school was nice and the students were friendly, but there is a different kind of feeling here at the center. This facility really feels like an oasis in the middle of town. We've explored the streets outside several times since yesterday, and the contrast between outside and inside is amazing. We walk around in busy streets and look at the small shops surrounded by graffiti covered walls, then we go inside and observe the art gallery/lobby and explore the incredible maze of bridges/passages/stairways in between all the buildings of the center. There are even caves under this place! We've decided we need to build more caves and tunnels in our church when we get back, because we never get bored here. We could start in the choir room and dig an underground maze. Yeah yeah?

I'm sitting here in the computer lab, about ten feet from a preserved hole in the second story floor. It's a souvenir from when Israeli troops invaded this facility for three days and some of the troops decided it would be a good idea to take a jackhammer to the floor. This isn't something rare though. We met with B'Tselem today, I believe it's spelled like that. B'Tselem is the Israeli Human Rights Organization. They help protect the rights of the people in the occupied territories. In our meeting with them, we heard so many stories of injustice and lying, it was hard to believe. In one case, a secretary who was asked for information on one incident involving a fisherman's boat being shot at sent them multiple correspondents that literally said to change parts of a report to make the firing seem more like warning shots than the harmful shots that led to the fisherman's arm being amputated. I won't get into all the details, but this is their website if anyone wants to get more information about their work: www.btselem.org/english/hebron. I should point out that this organization is in Israel (not Palestine), and most of the staff is Jewish. Though there is that large wall separating the two, there are people on both sides trying to find justice.
I think Bruno is talking about the wall, so I won't get into that.

But on a less serious note, we have a very good tour guide and another bus driver that can fold the bus in half, drive on two wheels, fly, etc. And I finally scored a map so I'm starting to figure out where we actually are every day. And tomorrow we should be floating in the Dead Sea. Apparently we need to get up at 5AM for that, and since I still haven't found a decent fake Rolex to tell me what time it is, I should probably just go to bed now.

"Shalom Y'all."