"Even the five fingers on your hand are not the same, are they?" - Arabic proverb

Tel Aviv is just over an hour from Nablus, but the two cities are worlds apart in so many ways. Nablus is a conservative city with somewhat crumbling infrastructure in some areas, where I can't show my shoulders in public and I feel self aware of my lack of hijab covering my hair. And where people are nothing but encouraging as I struggle to communicate in Arabic and excited to tell me their stories.

In Tel Aviv, I could walk around in a bikini if I wanted to and nobody would even notice. Men and women run on the streets for exercise and wear skimpy attire every day--- it's a beach town, so not unlike LA or Miami in terms of tourists, bars and clubs, and clothing. The buildings are tall and new; hotels line the beach front, and if you don't focus too much on the Hebrew you could imagine you are back in America with relative ease. But I could either talk to people in English and maybe be understood or try talking to people in Arabic and either be understood perfectly or shot dirty looks for attempting it, depending on if I was talking to an Arab Israeli or a Jewish Israeli.

The Port of Jaffa, with Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean visible in the background.

Telling people I worked in the West Bank offered me a wide number of reactions from local Israelis. Some gave me the reaction I was expecting, which was: Why would you work there, with those people? Why should Israelis learn Arabic when Arabs here speak Hebrew (never mind the fact that Israel is surrounded on all sides by Arabic speaking countries)? But some gave me more unexpected answers. Some didn't even know that Israelis could get into the West Bank, let alone Americans. Some approved of what I was doing, but with the tone that it was good that I was trying to "fix Palestine", never mind the fact that much of what is wrong in Palestine is a direct result of the occupation. Some wholeheartedly thought that what I was doing was amazing, asking if they could do something to get involved and help the kids in Palestine. Even the five fingers on your hand are not the same, are they? No two people are the same, and you can find as many different views of the Israel/Palestine conflict in Israel as you can in Palestine as you can in America.

One of many very cool art installations in Old Jaffa.

While there, I also took a short tour of Old Jaffa, the most ancient port city still in use today. It's a city that changed hands many times, from the Arabs to the Turks to the Ottomans to the Romans to the British to the Jews (and not necessarily in that order). It was also a major location for a number of biblical stories, including Jonah and the Whale and the resurrection of the widow Tabitha by St. Peter (which I had never heard of). The Old City of Jaffa is beautiful, full of winding alleyways named after Zodiac signs filled with artists galleries and little shops, as well as restaurants run largely by Arab Israelis who live in Jaffa. It was definitely my favorite area of Israel proper that I've seen so far, and if I had more time and wasn't carrying a bag while waiting for check in time at the hostel, I'm sure I could have explored those alleyways all day long.

Street art and graffiti always catch my attention--
This one was in a doorway in Old Jaffa.

In the meantime, it's back to reality. So back to teaching classes, which are partially suspended due to transportation strikes over the next few days. Back to speaking my broken Arabic. Back to the reality of living within checkpoints, which from midnight Monday to midnight Wednesday means no leaving Nablus. Israelis regularly shut down all checkpoints in and out of Palestine for Jewish holidays, which means that if you are Palestinian, you'd better plan your emergencies ahead of time-- if you need medical or humanitarian assistance during this time, you have to get it pre-approved by Israeli authorities and get a permit. Makes sense, no? Yeah, I didn't think so either.