Saturday 18 February 2012

the UNRWA school, drama and other stories

Saba ekhair to all of you,

hope you're all well. The weather in Abu Dis is not the best today: torrential rain, strong winds which resemble more mini tornados. It's good fun really and I'm enjoying it a lot.
It means that there are no kids at Dar Assadaqa today, so I'm using this opportunity to update the blog and tell you a bit about my first week at the UNWRA school.

Everything is going well, the teachers are lovely (especially our school coordinator, Aemna, who refers to me as her sadiqaa, her friend. well, she is my friend to, even though we don't speak the same language we communicate together just fine:)
Some of the kids are hard to handle: it's easy for them to take advantage as neither me nor Sarah speak Arabic very well. But it's getting better, the trick is to divide them up in groups and keep them busy. And once they're actually doing something, they come up with very good things.
Especially the girls in the 8th grade. We're currently devising a play together and it's going very well, as we're adapting Cinderella to the Palestinian context.
The girls are enjoying the devising process and all of them are involved in various ways. Practically the whole class comes to Dar Assadaqa on Saturdays to do more drama and develop the play further.
I'll upload some pictures in the next couple of days, so watch this space.

Last Monday me an Sarah watched one of their school performances which was held in the school yard in the morning. It was lovely as all of the pupils, teachers and headmistress were part of the audience.
Here are a couple of pictures.

On this note, have a lovely weekend and I shall keep you update about UNWRA, the kids, cinderella in Palestine and other mischiefs:)


Ma'Salama,

Vesna