Comparisons

As one landscape, person, idea or moment enters my awareness, another one steps back or even out. Traveling and exploring allow me and often leave me no other choice than to be present. Sometimes this manifests as last minute plans for lodging, as an abrupt change in what I will do next, and as a mindset that tries not to hold onto expectations of outcome, appearance, experience. This approach allows me to quickly adapt to my transforming surroundings, to jump from Ramallah to my cousins home in Aviezar to Jerusalem and now to Turkish North Cyprus.

I have spent the last six days enjoying the adorable company of my good friend Mehmet and his friends and family, enjoying the beautiful beaches, mountains, and food of Cyprus, and searching for more understanding of the conflict I came from and will go back to tonight, and the one here. After over 10 years of civil strife between Turkish and Greek Cypriots (after Great Britain left the Island in a set up for conflict), in 1974 Turkish troops entered Cyprus in order to protect ethnic Turks from violence at the hands of Greek Cypriots. The Island was divided north and south. Turkish Cypriots left their homes in the south to inhabit Greek homes in the north and Greek Cypriots did the same in their travels to the south. Since the Turkish army has occupied the Island, there has been no violence, an uneasy truce that has left the island divided. People seem to have put parts of their lives and the development of their countries on hold since it is not known who will once again loose their homes once an agreement is reached. Entire neighborhoods such as Varosha (pictured is a formerly very popular beach front hotel that is now on the Turkish side and strikingly beautiful in it's spacious emptiness) have been left unoccupied, slowly decaying. Greek Cyprus has entered the European Union, while Turkish Cyprus has not. In 2005 the closed borders were opened allowing people to travel to visit their former villages and homes. Over the last thirty years as well Turkish Immigrants/settlers have moved to the northern part of the island, changing the demographic of the Turkish side dramatically and there are also tensions about this.

Clearly there is a lot more to this conflict than I can write about or understand yet. When I first arrived it was hard to resist comparing to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now it is a little easier to understand on its own accord. With the stalemate of the last 30+ years, wounds still run deep for people here in Cyprus. Humanity has created some incredibly knotty, sharp and sticky situations for itself around the globe.

Meanwhile I am oh so much enjoying and appreciating my life. Feeling gratitude hourly for the opportunities I have had, for what I get to see, for my brain and my health. Tonight I return to Tel Aviv and on Thursday I have the opportunity to facilitate a dialogue for an Israeli organization that works with young American Jewish youth for trips to the wonderland.

Popular Education

Over the last week and a half, I have led 6 CPR and first aid trainings in Bethlehem, Na'halin, Ramallah, Nablus, and Qalqiliya in the Palestinian occupied territories. This week I will lead 4 more. As a newly trained EMT, somehow I am in the position of the emergency medical authority in these trainings, and I am striving to provide folks with accurate, life saving skills and information. I certainly have so much more to learn myself about this topic and so it feels a little strange to be training others. When I stand and give trainings I find myself energized and enjoying my role as educator. I am giving the trainings in English and limited key Arabic words like breath, pulse, counting from 1-30, "what's your name?", and such. I continue to find that language barrier a challenge, though it is one that is certainly not preventing my from teaching and the folks that come to the trainings from learning.

I encourage questions from folks in the class and there are a few that are asked in every one. People want to know how to stop severe bleeding, especially when someone is shot. This question comes in the context of Israeli IDF soldiers shooting at folks. Along this line, people seem to agree that when people are shot, their heads are often aimed at, and are therefor worried about the possible spinal injuries that go along. Another thing that has been stressed by participants that I teach, is how to transport and move the injured with possible spinal injuries, since apparently a significant number of people have been paralyzed here after being moved hastily after a spinal injury. I believe it is not the movement that paralyzes them, though the original injury itself. I am asked every time how to deal with snake bites, since there are a good amount of venomous snakes here. I was asked today how to treat and deal with tear gas as well. I do my best to answer these questions, though one thing about emergency medicine is that there is little we can do. (A common joke in my EMT course was that EMT's can only treat injured folks by giving them oxygen and transporting them to the hospital) The goal is to prevent further injury and death, and deal with any life threatening emergencies. Non-medical professionals lack many supplies and training. Oxygen, gloves, mouth masks are all needed and people just don't walk around carrying them (this is most places), and here during my trainings we do not provide face masks for giving CPR, and we clean the dummy with alcohol and gauze between people.

When we drive from Ramallah to any other Palestinian town/village, we go by at least 3 IDF checkpoints. Sometimes we are asked to show ID, sometimes as we drive slowly through serious guns are pointed at us, often Samer, driving the ambulance is told to get out of the car and open the back for the soldiers who are checking for anyone riding there illegally. The soldiers use muted gestures, the simple putting up of a hand close to the body to signal the driver to stop, the waving of a car into the checkpoint. They seem so confident of the power of their guns, that their bodies do not melodramatically signal as they stop people, scrutinize them, and slowly wave them through. These are intra-Palestinian area checkpoints that are set up near Israeli settlements. Often, right by the checkpoint, we pass by religious-looking Israelis who are tramping (hitch-hiking) and of course only signal to cars with Yellow Israeli license plates (Palestinians have white and green ones for commercial vehicles). I often wonder who these soldiers are who are controlling this land, though I know they are mostly people called up for compulsory military duty and are "just doing their job". There are soldiers though who resist and do not serve, or who speak out about their own and Palestinian dehumanization while serving in the military. The majority of Israelis are complacent with how they experience "peace" in it's current state and are cheerleaders for their soldiers and state policy of terror of an entire population.

When I introduce the medical concept of shock in the trainings (the loss of great amounts of volume in the body, possibly leading to death), I am asked about psychological shock as well. Today I heard a story from a young man who's niece went into psychological shock (though it manifested quite physically) after the IDF military barged into her family's home. She started shaking, grew cold and collapsed. Palestinians, collectively and individually, have experienced unfathomable trauma and violence. As I come from a people who have also collectively experienced trauma through our history, I cannot help (as others have also done) but connect the two. The trauma has been passed on to Palestinians, though it has not erased Jewish trauma, and our memory of it as well.

It is very hard for me to really internalize and imagine all the traumatic experiences the folks that I am training have had collectively. I try not to presume that I know best about what they should do in an emergency, and what "Safety First" even looks like. I try to stress that they need to use their personal judgment to determine whether a scene is safe and they want to enter it in order to provide emergency care. I am a foreigner who has grown up in a privileged, peaceful way, and I have not yet practiced as an EMT. I don't blame myself for any of this; blame is not the issue. It is something that I struggle to keep in mind as an evolving educator, as a medic, and someone in a position of authority when I teach these classes. There is a fine balance between demonstrating and exuding confidence, competency, knowledge, and kindness in order to pass that on to the folks in the class, and getting caught up in my pride as the authority in the room on the subject.

Passover in Palestine

Traveling back and forth from Ramallah and other Palestinians territories into Jerusalem and Israeli territories is a challenge for me (though I have it much easier than Palestinians, and Israelis for that matter). Using public transportation in places I am unfamiliar with confuses me. Though I am used to and more comfortable knowing the layout of the streets and the land around me, I am able to adapt to not knowing as I make mistakes and get lost and then find my way again. Ramallah has been a confusing place to find my way around. There is one central roundabout, Al Manara, and the main streets spiral out from there. However there are no street names posted, and I just keep getting turned around. This morning I managed to walk to the center and then take the correct shared taxi to PMRS. Victory!

I am still getting used to leaving myself enough time to travel from Ramallah and into and then out of Jerusalem. The bus takes 40 min, the checkpoint can take anywhere from 15 min to over an hour, and then once in Jerusalem, I have preferred to walk to the central bus station. The buses out of the city stop running a few hours before Shabbat starts, which almost left me stranded this past Friday.

I have passed through many doorways and into very different worlds again this past week. I spent Seder night with the holy hippy Jews, my cousins' friends, who have a beautiful home ripe with blooming everything and the most beautiful seder set up, outside around fires and under a canopy of sweet smelling flora. There were about 30 of us there, and the seder went on into the morning. Most folks there were American-born transplants, some had served in the army. There was much singing, some very verbose young scholars-in-training, and towards the end of the night some discussion about freedom and the state of the Jewish people in Israel. As right wing as some of the folks were, there seemed to be a general consensus that something is not right with the Jews, we need to make changes. I sat and listened to the conversation and appreciated people's openness to at least discuss it. Agency and power were not mentioned of course. I spent the rest of my day and a half there relaxing, listening to people's stories, playing with my sweet cousins, and singing. I was also able to find a moment of privacy to take a quick dip in their pond/pool/mikvah which was so refreshing.

Afterward, I immediately jumped back into travel mode to make it back to Ramallah for a training on Wednesday morning. I went again to the auditing and finance ministry and this time gave most of the training on my own- on wounds and fractures, and transporting patients. Overall I think it went well, and the language barrier was a little easier since many of the folks there spoke English. I am trying to use my expressive facial gestures and body language to communicate a lot as well.