Far'ata and Im'matin

 Micky T.K.

We arrived as usual before the beginning of the lesson. We had a conversation with the organisers and I understood from them that on Wednesdays they come here to learn Hebrew with Nurit P. and on Thursday they open the place up for our English lessons given to the five groups. They are happy to leave home and do something different.

When asked they told us that they travel to Nablus by taxis. The cost is 7.- IS. First they have to travel from their village to the next village, Punduk, and from there to Nablus. They said that there was one bus a day which leaves at 07:00, and which goes to the A-Nagach University in Nablus, but there is no bus back and to return one has to take a taxi…

As said – we volunteered to collect toys for the (empty!) kindergarten classes where we teach, and we hope to collect these toys with you help in the coming weeks.

Owing to the stormy weather only 8 girls arrived and as usual I have a helper who sometimes translates in to Arabic. I practice with them answers to simple questions. They cooperate joyfully. They very much love to sing, and inspired by Adam I taught them "We shall overcome".

Lilya P.

Owing to the stormy weather only 8 girls arrived this time (aged 15-16). This enabled me to seat them around two joined tables and to hold the lesson in an "intimate atmosphere", a bit in English and a bit in Hebrew. Before the lesson we chatted a bit with the adult women who acted as tutors, who come to accompany us at each lesson. We realized that they were happy to talk to us and we intend to devote in the future time for better planned conversations with them. During the lesson itself, between the practice of basic sentences in English and easy reading, we held conversations, some in English and some in Arabic, about their families, especially their sisters and brothers, their schools etc. As I understood they can learn in their village up to grade 11. Then, whoever is able to continue, is directed to Jam'a, to the University of Nablus. Some of their sisters study there.

The building in which we meet them serves in the morning as kindergarten. Beneath is there are the classes of the school for girls.

Gabriela

Far fewer girls arrived this week because of the stormy weather – I was able to learn one or two of the names this time – I spoke in English and only towards the end of the lesson did Majdoulin arrive. The lesson went fine. This week too they were very enthusiastic and particularly enjoyed the song we sang at the end. 'All together now' by the Beatles – which we did with mime/movements.

Ricky S.

The weather drove the students away, and only a group of 8, eager for knowledge, remained.

We read a story in pictures and worked on declinations of verbs in the present. It was nice working with a small group. The students were surprised that the verb in the singular, third person, takes an S, while they know the S as denoting the plural of nouns.

We repeated again and again the sentences of the story and similar formats. The "Talking choir" proved itself again.

The girls enjoy talking under the protection of the choir: all participate, even those who don't dare or aren't sure of themselves.

We finished by singing a new song, the words of which they quickly learned by heart. All of us sang, and then each on did separately (without any obligation to the original music) but       with an amazingly

 Beautiful musicality with a lot of laughter and smiles.

Adam:

OK,there are days like this too. They insisted that I should arrive at half past one. I arrived, after a trip in pouring rain, and only one pupil waited. Nobody knows where R., the organizer is and where all the others are. Y.'s uncle (she wasn't there either) went to fetch the key. Sometime before two o'clock five boys arrived. I have seen them before but until now they didn't participate in the lessons. Then six other girls arrived. The boys went wild in their corner, like children everywhere in the world with attention and concentration distrubances.  But I wasn't able to deal with them. The lesson finished at 14:50 and I was glad to drive to Imatin.

Five girls awaited me there and five others joined them twenty minutes later. The lesson proceeded beautifully and was, in fact' the forst working lesson at Imatin, which was the beginning of a program. We worked till five and the girls were willing to continue.