Kids and Bethlehem

God gave me a little gift yesterday. See, this whole seeing the culture but not being a part of it has been kinda hard. As a female, I can't be friendly to the men here (because they already think American women are loose...if you're friendly, it's so much worse) and for the most part am supposed to ignore them (except in certain settings), and I really haven't had an opportunity to talk to the women here as they are not nearly as accessible as the men and are not out in public as much. Thankfully, I will be getting opportunities to get to know some of the people soon- I'll post on my new gypsy friends later. But anyway, God just brough along some really sweet kids in the market the other morning. They were on their way to school, and though many Arabs don't want their picture taken, I decided to ask...just in case. At first they were hesitant, but as soon as I showed them their faces on my camera screen they were totally into it. They goofed off and hammed it up for me for a good five minutes before running off to school. It was so nice to be able to laugh and smile and just "be" with them- even if it was just for a few minutes. I'm so excited for more times like these...(-:



Aren't they just precious?

So...I'm not gonna lie, the whole "West Bank Wall" (This is the wall that separates the West Bank form Israel. People are not allowed to go back and forth. Everyone has one side they must stay on) really struck me the other day as I went into Bethlehem for the first time. I was going to post a lot of pictures and write about it now, but I think I am going to wait until I am more informed. The wall has really intrigued me and I might even write one of my term papers on it. I have some crazy pictures that I will post eventually. This is just a little picture of what I get to see and do twice every week for Arabic class.

I found out later, that I'm not allowed to take pictures of all the security stuff we have to go through...oops. There are several gates, a long chain fence walkway, metal detectors, x-ray bag machine things, and two passport checks we have to go through to get back into Israel. It's crazy what an American passport will do for you though, it's like money here. Flash it, and we're good to go.