Music and Laughter

Coming back to my room, it is now one o’clock in the morning. I don’t want to go to bed yet; there are still people hanging out in the quad and I don’t want to miss a minute of this special time when everyone is still settling in, figuring each other out, and high off of just arriving to begin the program. I feel though that if I don’t go to bed soon I will fall asleep in the grass. So just to give you a brief glimpse of how things look around here, here is a brief tour around the tiny quad outside of the Arava Institute Dorms. There are a few people gathered around a guitar, played by a lanky Israeli hippie who’s trying desperately to get out of the army reserves – they are singing Hebrew songs, almost all of which gravitate around A minor, C, and G. I join in here and there on another guitar or my harmonica, sometimes trying to sing along. I take the lead and play moondance, and Gabe, an 18 year old American kid from Cleveland, rips on the Sax. A little further down from us on the grass a few Americans are laughing and chatting with some Israelis and a Palestinian or two. Gabe and I spend about 45 minutes taking a Capoeira lesson from one of the Israelis who has just returned from Brazil – it is one of the fundamental differences between Americans and Israelis that they get down to business with school only after 2-3 years in the army, maybe one of community service, and then big year-long trips around the world to India, South America, East Asia, the US. Most of the Israelis in the program are 22-24, and have never gone to any post-secondary schooling before. Their life experience, however, is incredible. After drinking about a litre of water and cooling off on the grass I head over to the area where the Arab students have set up a couple hookahs and are laughing and talking away in Arabic. The circle is dotted with Americans and Israelis, but the conversation is mostly in Arabic – for the Arabic students the day today was full of choosing classes, registration, filling out forms, and all that other administration stuff that is the necessary evil of running an institution, all in a language that even the most advanced of them are not thinking in yet. How exhausting! The conversation often turns to asking each other how to say certain words and phrases in each other’s respective language, laughing as we try to pronounce the words. Over a little bit, Wa’ad and Yasmiin are trying to teach a few Israelis some Arabic dancing.

Music is coming from all around and the soft sounds of chatter and laughter pervade the space. Everyone is incredibly welcoming to each other, a hopeful sign for the months ahead. Getting to know one another and getting a sense of where we are all coming from will be very important once we start talking politics, as in the compulsory non-credit course called Peace-building and Environmental Leadership seminar, or PELS. This is where we get down to the dirty business of talking about why things are not always as pleasant as they are behind the scenes, out of context in a magical no-man’s-land such as the Arava Institute. I don’t know where the quote is from, but I remember it well: If you stand beside a person at the bus stop for ten minutes and say nothing, you may not ever think about him or her again. But speak for one minute, find out about their children, their job, some music they like, and you may just feel willing to jump out in front of that bus to save their life. Yell at them for an hour about your differences of opinion, and you may become friends for life – this is how the Arava Institute supposedly works. Anyway, I’m going to sleep – will be in touch soon.