On My Happiness

Recurso 22
Recurso 26

Category

Palestine

Tags

Happiness

During my last visit, I remember leaving Palestine with a sense of deep happiness. I went back to my daily life with the comforting awareness of knowing there is another pocket of the world in which I can feel at home. My second visit is being equally powerful and engaging.

I am taking some time to reflect on my experience during Recrear-Apply! while sitting in a lively coffee shop after a long day touring Jerusalem. We were given an incredible amount of information by a Palestinian tour-guide who took the time to walk for about 6 hours with us presenting an overview of both the politics and history of the city.

A big chunk of the history of the world is contained in the wall that surrounds the old city of Jerusalem. The city is packed with dense, important, spiritual history that is to me very hard to distill. Palestine is a land in which potentially powerful lessons for humanity are playing hide and seek behind politics and religion.

Just as I cannot easily digest and make sense to the information I received today, the people and the places I have visited in the last week are generating a ton of reflections that I have had little time to explore. In a land famous for its conflicts, I find myself being constantly positively amazed.

There is something almost irrational about the sense of satisfaction I feel after a leading a session during Recrear-Apply! As I answer students’ questions, I feed off the students’ sense of gratitude for our work. Similarly, it is simply priceless to be assisted by a number of people that are so genuinely glad to support and help your initiative.

To make justice to the happiness of the last days I need to thank few people – Mr. Mohammed, Yazan, all the volunteers at al-Najah deserve a humongous THANK YOU from me. To the students at Al-Najah a sincere MUA’ (which in Italy is the sound a big kiss makes!) Virtually every person we are meeting on our way in Palestine has donated to us a healthy dose of positive energy. While more articulated, transferrable lessons play hide and seek, I feel content with my joy.

GG

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