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Palestinian school
students guided virtually through
Holland!
Yesterday
was a big day for students of the
Evangelical Lutheran School in Beit
Sahour. For one day, they were able
to have a 'live' view in the lives
of their Dutch peers. Palestinian
Tania (14): "I see many bikes at
your school! Why are there so many?"
Thanks to the
efforts of several institutions in
The Netherlands and Palestine, a
live internet connection was
realized between the high school KSE
in the Dutch village of Etten-Leur
and the Evangelical Lutheran School
in Beit Sahour. The schools were
brought together by the Arab
Educational Institute in Bethlehem.
Eye4You, a
Dutch charitative organization, aims
to have Palestinian youth getting in
touch with their Dutch peers. On
both sides, such initiative can
broaden the perspective of teenagers
with regard to the world they live
in. A Dutch IT company, Joyo,
developed a sophisticated software
program with which the Dutch
students were able to make web cam
recordings of their environment,
allowing at the same time the
Palestinians to see the recordings
on their computer screens in Beit
Sahour. The Palestinians could react
directly to the Dutch, give them
comments and ask them questions
about what they saw.
In this way,
there was a dynamic live interaction
between Palestinians and Dutch.
Difficult
start because of Dutch weather
After weeks of
preparation and several successful
test trials, both sides were really
looking forward to get in touch.
Unfortunately, the night before
D-Day, a serious frost showed up in
Holland, covering not only the
traffic ways, but also the
electricity cables! After having
resolved all technical problems, the
guiding tours could start!
Showing the
Dutch high school and supermarket
Five Dutch
students took their
laptop-with-webcam and started to
walk around the school, explaining
everything they encountered. Around
seven Palestinian scholars, boys and
girls all in the age between 13 and
16, looked intensively at the
computer screen. The first tour was
the school environment. Tania
shouted: "Look at these bikes! Why
are there so many?" The answer came
immediately: "We all go to school on
our bikes!" That was something the
Palestinians could hardly imagine.
After having
seen the school, the Dutch went to
the shopping mall to show a
supermarket.
Love blues
and other stuff
After some
time, the laptops stopped working,
and contact was re-established by
chatting. It seemed that the absence
of an image made the teenagers even
more feel free. The Palestinians
wanted immediately to know how
things worked with respect to love.
Dina: "Do you have boyfriends?" At
the other side, Dutch Eva answered:
"Yesss!" Dina, very curious: "So
what do you do?!" Eva, giggling:
"They are kissing all the time! Or
they go to the swimming pool or the
cinema."
Dina told Eva
and her friends that in Beit Sahour
there is no cinema. And that it is
absolutely forbidden for a girl to
be alone with a boy. Then it was for
a minute quiet on the other side of
the line. "Wow, I cannot imagine how
it would be to live without cinema.
We couldn't live then!"
"But we hang
out together in groups, and we go to
parties!" Dina added.
The teenagers
started to become more and more
familiar with each other. George
(16) from Beit Sahour, calls: " Sing
a Dutch song for us!" With much
giggling, the Dutch did. Then the
Dutch wanted them to sing a song as
well, of course. After some
deliberation, the Palestinians
started to sing a national song.
Clapping in their hands, they made a
big party of it.
"How do you
see us?"
After some
time, Tania asked how the Dutch see
Palestine. It remained silent for a
while. Then the Dutch started to
answer hesitatingly, clearly
searching for the right words.
"Actually, we thought that it was
very bad in Palestine, because of
the things we read in the newspaper,
the problems with Israel and so. But
now we found out that you are just
as we are!"
The end
All of a
sudden the Dutch coordinator
mentioned that there were only ten
minutes left; the groups had been
chatting for at least an hour. The
Palestinian students felt sorry. "We
really like to talk with the others!
They are so nice," they said. "We
didn't know each other at all. But
now we know something about each
other. We learned new things," said
Dina. "We expected that they would
be kind. But now we are sure!"
Sytske van
Bruggen
International volunteer at AEI-Open
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