African-Middle Eastern Week

My last national week ever. It's so sad, because the next National Week is my own, so I won't get to participate in it. It was fabulous though, a great week to end on.
It started out with a phenomenal poetry session - the best I've ever seen. They brought blankets and pillows into the lecture room and created a warm and cozy atmosphere, and served Turkish tea, and then started reciting the most amazing poetry - so powerful, so full of emotion, so beautiful... and they did something no one else has done before: they sang some of their poems, and the combination of music and poetry was gorgeous.
The taster session was great as well, it rivaled the Italian one, because though it didn't have as much food it had much more varied and exotic foods that made up for it.

And they had Arabic/African music playing, so after eating we all danced and danced:

(The Israelis have the craziest hair ever, especially when they dance!)


The next day we had the "chill-out session" when we relaxed, drank tea, smoked nargille, got massages and face masks, and generally calmed down.
And then the show. Oh so much fun.
I was partnered with Honza, and we went as a camel:

There were some other really great costumes as well:

Marco as an African Warrior


Ridhima and Joe as street beggars


Eduardo as a Jew :)


I participated in the show, doing a skit with Nevin on the cultural differences between America and Palestine. e.g. How she literally drinks Tabasco sauce, and is shocked at short skirts, how I'm not allowed to touch the Koran and how (the crowning glory of the show) we dress differently to go swimming. She came out in a full body suit, looking like a deep-sea diver, and I came out in a bikini (in front of the whole school! AAAH!). It was fun, though I got teased mercilessly afterwards.
The skits were funny, the dances were beautiful, the raps were great. And there was one really profound dance/sketch that was serious; when four people came on stage representing four major issues: Julie as a drug addict, Eitan as a prisoner, Ansally as a prostitute, and Elroy as a disabled person.

It was really touching because it reminded us that the problems that we always hear about in African and the Middle East are actually universal, that everything they have, we have as well, but to a lesser extent.

On a more upbeat note, the next week is Native Speaker Week, the one I've been waiting for since Balkan Week, oh so long ago! I'm so excited for it, we have such a great group and such fabulous ideas, it will be the best week ever!!!!