Edgware Road

This big meeting was organised by City Circle- mainly 50 people, very international. This meeting was different because it also included Kashmiri women speaking - this meant that each woman had only 5 minutes which wasn't enough time! More questions were raised about Kashmir than Palestine because it is a new subject for many people.

City Lit

We had a meeting with students - women mainly - at City Lit. It was a smallish group (16 people?) but it went very well, they seemed interested but the time was too short!

Whitstable

We didn't see much of the town because we arrived late and it was already dark - We had a nice dinner with our host and then took part in an event with a very good audience. It was nice to see some young people as our other audiences were older. One of them was Palestinian and is active in the BDS movement. There were good questions.

Hastings

It was a really rainy day. When we arrived we went to the beach and the countryside, and we visited two museums - Hastings is a really nice place. It is mixed, not only white. The event was good. And we met some Palestinians there - Someone wrote an article about our visit.

Chichester

We visted Chichester cathedral, museum and the countryside before our event in Chichester. It is a nice small town. It mostly has white people.
The event in the evening went very well - it was the first time we know of any event like this in Chichester.  We weren't able to connect the projector so we couldn't use our presentation but it didn't matter. People had a strong reaction and a long discussion - they raised lots of questions. Some of the people we met now want to go on a trip to Palestine with CADFA.

Looking forward to our next women's visit to the UK!

Here in London (and also in various places across the UK*) we're looking forward to the women's visit in early March 2020, which will bring six old friends of ours from Abu Dis to the UK, where we will take part in International Women's Day activities and a speaking tour across the country (mainly in the south).

Here in Abu Dis we have been meeting in small groups and working on speaking English.  It’s big ask but the social aspect of the learning is amazing. 

Here we are in Dar Assedaqa – notice the tiramisu Janan made and the chocolates that Nandita sent for Kefah. Eating delicious food has been a big theme ever since Yaz, Flo and I arrived in Palestine.

We are meeting most days from Saturday to Wednesday in Dar Assedaqa at 5.30.  I’m finding the group gets talking well when we have about 8 people and there is a buzz while people talk in pairs. When we have only 3 and people are shy it is harder for them to get talking with everybody listening but we have begun developing stories and that works with fewer people.   When another volunteer comes with that encourages chat and we can chat together using the target language and give people more listening time.  Communicating without translation is a wonderful thing, but the feedback is that folk really want someone to be there who is confident and happy to translate. Jinan is taking this on. She is standing on the right in this picture. She is learning 5 languages and plans to be an interpreter.

Her family all have a great interest in languages. Here is Kefah, Jinan’s mother, singing an Indian song she used to sing when she was a littles. W were talking about things we used to do.

As you can see, there’s a dance that goes with the song.