It’s 11:15am on a Saturday morning and I’m at the nail salon. I casually check my voice messages from the week. I hear a voice message from a woman asking me to join a social justice delegation to Palestine.
What this woman and many others may have not realized, was that Palestine was my last chance at finding my identity. A trip I have avoided practically all my life, was calling at my door. A chance to see my father’s homeland.
As a person who truly believes in signs, I could not take this call from this woman lightly. Mainly because the day before, a coworker asked me “what cool trip will you be going on next”? As a traveler myself, I told my coworker I had dreams of Thailand, South America, and even Antarctica but that my soul needed to go to Palestine. So a day later, I receive a call to join the June delegation (literally 5 weeks until the trip). And suddenly I found myself feeling the urge to dive in, to fulfill this longstanding search for my identity, and to finally visit the one place on earth that I had studied about since a child.
Without having my father by my side, I have decided to take the leap to see his upbringing; to witness the lands he walked on as a child, and to center myself in one of the longest, uprooting conflicts of the last century.
The main reason this trip is detrimental is because
1) I can no longer preach of Palestinian human rights and culture without visiting the one place I seek justice for.
2) With the recent Trump deals and a next intifada brewing in the air, I’m afraid this may be my last chance to see this land upclose. To see the beauty of the land before war and turmoil take the streets.
Going forward, I will be blogging about my experience in the Middle East and providing a 360 degree view of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict today. While I do plan on touching on both sides of the conflict, my journal entries will also serve to preserve my Palestinian identity the best way I know how: through detailed writing. I want to write every inch of Palestine through my palms to ensure their story stays alive. To ensure Palestine is remembered for its food, culture, history, smiles, and more.
I am so excited for the opportunity to go on this trip and I cannot wait to share my feelings of anxiety, fear, optimism and hope that will come along with it.
Sincerely,
A woman who is closer to finding her identity (and some good falafel)
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