August 16, 2001

Because our professor can't pass the Israeli checkpoint at Surda, our class was moved to Ramallah today. That worked our well for us, since we spent the night in Ramallah last night. We met in one of Birzeit's extension locations. It was our last day of formal class, since the next week will be exams. Unfortunately, we'll miss exams because we have to be back in Zababdeh on Saturday.

Palestinian and international students working together.

Today we presented sketches covering a wide variety of our Arabic vocabulary for the year. Elizabeth's group presented the life, death, and after-life of a typical rags to riches story. Elizabeth played the parts of Gabriel and Satan with great gusto. The hero of the story was given the eternal punishment of sitting next to screaming children and in front of a smelly, crying baby on an airplane (one of our chapters was on airport vocabulary).

We headed back to Birzeit and walked across the checkpoint with not even an ID check - things have calmed down there today. We spent the rest of the day packing and getting ready for leaving back to Zababdeh. A group of friends from the University came over to say farewell, and we snacked, played games, sang songs, and did a little dancing. It was a nice finale for our summer.