Khitam was teaching a four hour workshop in art therapy to fourteen kindergarten teachers from schools in the area, preparing them to use the Artbus. Ah, the Artbus… A few years ago, when she was working on her Masters Degree in Creative Art Therapy at Lesley in Cambridge, Khitam had a dream of driving a bus around Palestine, a bus full of art materials and small tables and chairs. She would take the bus to villages where schools could not support an art program for the children. They would come running out of the school with their teachers and do art with her.
Last year, after three years of fund raising and telling people about the project, it became a reality. A Palestinian bus company donated a bus, painted and configured to her specifications. A local NGO came up with funding for the first year's work, and soon Khitam was traveling to villages and teaching art to primary grades and teachers. The dream was active and it worked, and it continues. Part of the grant money has supported a driver for the bus, essential to Khitam's being able to do her work and not worry about getting a bus driver's license, driving the bus all over Palestine, finding and executing parking and figuring out where to keep the bus.
Now, after a year of traveling from village to village in the bus to share art with children and their teachers, she has begun training teachers to use the bus without her. The driver will go to village schools and to schools in cities where teachers Khitam has trained to use the bus will do art with kindergarten and primary school students. "This way the bus can reach more students. Sometimes I will go with the bus, but if I train lots of teachers and if we get more funding for the bus, more teachers and do art with more students!"
So, back to Khitam's workshop with the kindergarten teachers… Many, perhaps most of the teachers she was working with yesterday did not know each other. They came in pairs, a teacher and her principal, so seven village schools were represented. Khitam started by introducing me and asking if they minded if I stayed and if I took pictures. They gave their okay. I watched most of the time and then took a few photos. After introducing me, she talked with them about the work, the importance of art for kids, the fun of it and its educational and developmental value. Then she introduced the teachers to the work, having them do all the tasks she would do with five and six year olds. It didn't take long for the work to catch on and take off. The teachers worked alone, in pairs and in larger groups, making art, solving problems using art, telling stories with group paintings. Before the end of the workshop, the teachers were fully committed. Khitam talked with them about problems that had arisen: sharing ideas, reacting to your idea's not being chosen, listening to others. The discussion was lively and Khitam kept it on track, enabling the teachers to learn not only about making and using art but also about resolving disputes and misunderstandings. It was a terrific workshop. There was much discussion I didn't understand because my Arabic is limited, to put it mildly. Still, it was obvious how engaged the teachers were, how eager they were to learn and how much fun they were having.
After the workshop, we drove into the downtown which was swirling and honking and pushing and shoving with people shopping, teenagers talking and hanging out, people eating ice cream, parents pushing strollers and people eating kanafeh. Ah, kanafeh! I first had it when in Beirut about fifty years ago. It is a soft cake, a little like corn bread but thinner, richer and sweeter; it is in a shallow pool of a syrup that is somewhere between sugar water and maple syrup. It is rich and delicious and clearly the most popular dish on the street where we bought ours. The shop was small and packed. People were buying to take out, eat in, eat outside the store, and as soon as a seat came available, it was filled. We found seats, ate our kanafeh and were barely out of them before they were filled again.
To top it off, last night, after a visit to a wonderful organic food project I'll write about tomorrow, Khitam asked if I wanted to go into East Jerusalem for a beer and a pizza…maybe she said "pizza" and I suggested beer! So off we went to a popular restaurant on a narrow side street - like many streets in East Jerusalem - where we found a free table and had a Greek pizza that was very good and a mug of Taybeh beer, Palestine's favorite. A tasty finish to a full day. I'll send photos tomorrow or later tonight.
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