“Can’t go home again!”
This is the time of year I start planning my yearly vacation. Since I am usually gone for 4 weeks, I have to put in my request months in advance. I like to be the first to put in my request, so I can be the first to get approval :grin:
Anyway, my trip will not be until May 2007, inshallah …I still have a long way to go, but this is around the time I start getting excited… I tend to plan ahead of time, and I tend to get disappointed almost always because I never actually get to do 5% of what I initially had planned out to do.
Jordan and Palestine is where I usually spend my summer vacation … I enjoy my time in Jordan a lot…But I never get to go to all the places I had planned to go to… Hoepfully, I can this time around!
The time spent in Palestin is very pleasant and twice as depressing. I have the luxury of travelling all over the West Bank, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Yafa, Aka, Beesan, Nasra with no problems, but the burden of having to sit for hours at a check point, living the hard conditions of their everyday lives is far from one’s idea of a relaxing vacation! And I am sure that’s why israeli soldiers- upon learning that I am from Chicago - always tend to ’surprisngly’ ask: “You came all the way from Chicago to here? for what?” “For vacation!” I would say. “Who would come to a war zone for vacation!” he would say as he hands me back my passport with a smile! (That’s another thing I can’t stand…the fact that I have to carry my passport on me at all times!) “I keep coming back every year!” I take my passport and walk away!
Here is an interesting Op/Ed by Sam Bahour that appeard in the NY Time:
THIRTEEN years ago, I left a comfortable life in the United States for an uncertain future in the West Bank. Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization had just signed the Oslo Accords. Like many others, I saw an opportunity for Palestinians to finally build a society and economy that would lead to freedom — to a thriving Palestine alongside Israel. [Continue]
