Today in moments and paraphrases

Matt again.

I think today can be summed up in a few moments and quotes, so here goes.

1. This morning we were exiting through one of the main gates of the Apartheid Wall and were stopped by the soldiers so that they could check our passports. As we are sitting there with a soldier walking up the row of seats with his gun slung across his waist, I look out the window of the bus and watch a stray dog slink through the gate. A stray dog can walk freely through the gates but we have to sit and wait and verify that we are who we are here.

2. We visited the lowest point in the world today. 412 meters below sea level. The Dead Sea is so salty that we couldn't help but float in it. We all felt pretty gross afterwards and any cut or scrape burned soo bad, but it was a lot of fun.

3. In the late afternoon we visited the UN Refugee Center in Bethlehem. Though many of the stories again are very sad, the man who guided us through said something that gave me hope. I'll try to paraphrase it for you: "In America, everything is very big, very open. You can get whatever you want. But you have to have money to survive. Here, you don't need money to survive. People will ask about you, if you are having dinner or not. If you don't have dinner, I give you dinner. I you don't have meds, I give you meds." Everyone here is so dedicated to helping each other make it, it's amazing.

Tomorrow will be another long day, so that'll have to do for today.
Good night all.