Visit to villages: Kafr ad Dik, Rafat, Wed 6.7.11, Morning

This time the shift included visits to and activities with Palestinian women in three centres, two in the village of ad Dik and one in Rafat.

 10:45 a.m.

In the Hallah (apparently named after a woman) Centre in Kafr ad Dik a group of the 'old hands' was waiting for us.  Here we have already a set pattern – one group learns Hebrew with Bruria, today combined with the vocabulary of a day at the seaside.  The second group did an exercise class with Dalia P. who feels that the women are much more relaxed than during the first classes.  The activities in both the groups were successful and took place, as usual, in an excellent atmosphere.

 11:00 a.m.

In the Chanan Centre at the top of the village a very large group of women was already waiting for us, this time with a few young girls and small children.

The activities were in two groups, stringing beads with Tova, working by example, and learning certain designs together with time for the women to work independently.  Some of the women managed to learn, with Tova's help, how to work from printed patterns.

Hagar gave the women a Yoga lesson, this time she brought them yoga mats which she bought with our money.  The lesson was very good apart from the problem of overcrowding and lack of mats because of too many people in each group, when Yehudit K., joins us to teach handicrafts we shall be able to make the classes smaller.

 11:30 a.m.

Eina'am, the initiator, came to meet us with a group of women from Rafat Village more than a month ago at Kafr ad Dik and asked us to come to their village, to start up some activities for women.  Before we came today Eina'am told us that the women are very interested in learning to string beads.  We met with them, Dalia and Dvorka, to get to know them with the kind help of Nadim who translated for us.

As we got to know each other today each woman told something about her family, we talked about ourselves and about MachsomWatch and Eina'am told us that lately she had taken part, with women from other villages, in a self help and leadership programme which took place at Salfit.  She does not waste time and so she came to us and decided to coordinate women's activities.

The group comprised almost twenty women, some of them young, who want to learn English, some of them are students. The older women welcomed the idea of physical exercise.  At their request we also decided to work in two parallel groups, English and Yoga for 50 minutes each, and they would then change over.  We shall also try to combine lessons with Tova and Yehudit in stringing beads and handiwork.  We shall have Neta E., Judy O-S., and Rivka R., join us at future meetings at Rafat.

 It would be very helpful if one or two Arabic speaking members joined us (this time Pitchia was unable to come).

translation: Suzan