Two months have passed and I am still very much trying to keep the things I learned in the Balkans in mind. The images that we saw and the people that we met still inspire me to write poetry, stories, and essays directed towards addressing the issues that came up during our time in the Balkans. It has been a difficult semester mainly due to my workload and outside commitments; however, it is also coupled with some problems that my car “Aziza” has been giving me. Aziza was named by my father because it was his first top-of-the line car that he purchased in 2000 at the age of 42. A C 230 silver Mercedes-Benz that he passed along to me two years ago. Aziza’s car troubles have reminded me to keep in mind the things we learned because; believe it or not my mechanics are two brothers who are half-Palestinian and half-Bosnian. Rare and coincidental. Yes, every time I take her to the shop, despite my frustration, When I see Amir and Amer I remember that they, in some sense, both figuratively and literally, embody a personification of my experience in the Balkans in the summer, all because they are two simple men, with a very tragic childhood, due to the fact that they have a Palestinian father and a Bosnian mother. So either way, if you think about it, although they won the genetic lottery their lives are plagued with the consequences of political actions that people have taken on their behalf and in their names. They remind me of my responsibility as human being love humanity and help humanity.

On a lighter note, my campus presentation is scheduled for next Wednesday and I have invited our campus Hillel and MSA to come hear about Abraham’s Vision. There will also be many other people there. I am taking a Central and Eastern European Politics class and I have decided to write my paper on Military Mobilization in Bosnia and Kosovo.

I think that several of you know that I had a group of friends here that consisted of 2 Palestinians and 2 Jews and we used to talk about issues a lot. The Israeli girl Leehe and my Palestinian friend Khalaf left and are now living in the Holy Land. So, it’s just Ricky and I now and to be honest, I don’t have the same outlet anymore because we have less of an incentive to get together and talk.

I cannot wait to see the other fellows. I can’t wait to hear what has been going on in their lives.

- Suja Sawafta

I have been thinking a lot about AV this month as I work on fellowship applications for next year. I am in the middle of some fellowship applications that might allow me to design my own project in South Africa and Ireland. Our process, our questions, and methods during the Balkans trip have certainly informed how I am thinking about designing these projects and putting together these applications. I think AV prepares me well for the difficult and demanding aspects of this sort of comparative analysis and travel as well as the rewards.

Hope all is well for everyone else!

-Jewish Participant

It’s difficult to put into words what it has been like adjusting back into the ‘real world’ after going on the trip. I have found it a lot harder to adapt into my old lifestyle of southern California where entertainment and celebrity gossip reign over politics and intellect. In fact, I have found it so difficult that I have been stuck in a limbo of figuring out where to go from here.

I used to want to be an event planner. Mostly for weddings and special occasions. Or work for a magazine. Yet, after learning about how much is wrong in the world and how much needs to be fixed I have cut ties with my superficial dreams and started to develop a new path of helping bring equality and justice to the world. I have become more aware of my responsibility as an American and how that affects my relationship to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Although the trip seems so far away I keep reminiscing back on what I learned, the friendships I made, and the knowledge that I developed throughout the program. I have taken the time to process the combination of workshops, group processes, and speakers on my own with the hope of further developing my relationship to issues of conflict resolution and ethnic cleansing.

After reflecting on the trip I have developed a more mature approach to my conflict resolution skills and how I want to approach the situation in the future. I feel like throughout the trip I let my anger consume me and it stunted my ability to not only communicate with others but to hear what was being said by the rest of the group. I was so focused on my own emotions that I was not open to hearing other people’s opinions and point of views.

Now, after observing the approach of other fellows I have realized that the best way to get my point across is to 1) stay calm and articulate what it is that I want to be said and 2) make a conscious effort to listen to others when they are speaking.

That being said, I have narrowed down my focus into two areas: Gaza and the rights of women.
With the knowledge I have gained from the trip I hope to eventually get involved with an organization in the U.S. that provides services to the children in Gaza. After seeing how greatly the siege affects their mental state I want to help bring a glimmer of hope in their lives.

Additionally, I hope to somehow use my background in mental health to organize a group of psychologists, therapists, and psychiatrists who are willing to provide mental health services to the adults dealing with trauma and depression in the region. Yet, in order to accomplish any of these two goals I have realized that first Americans need to be educated about the issue. As a result, I have gotten involved with the American Association for Palestinian Equal Rights and have signed up to organize the Palestine Freedom Walk in Los Angeles. The purpose of the event is to raise awareness to American citizens about the situation in Palestine with the hopes of getting the community involved in calling for freedom for the Palestinian people. My hope is that this will spark my involvement within my community so that I am able to act locally rather than expecting to remedy the entire conflict overnight.

-Lillie Kasim

Well, it's been over a month now since Abraham's Vision has ended and life feels like a complete blur; at times I wonder if I'll ever finish recovering from the trip and processing everything. For some reason I thought the trip would happen in a vacuum -- I'd go to the Balkans, have a wonderful and highly emotional time, come back and process everything, do some presentations and write some papers, and... yeah, that's about as far as I'd daydreamed before the trip. I never really expected that the Balkans would only be the beginning of my own journey, and in retrospect I didn't really want to think about it; thinking about post-trip life meant thinking about things like how my friends and family would react to my experiences, how my values and beliefs might change and how those would conflict with the mindsets I've grown up with and been surrounded by, and how I'd have to integrate my experiences into a busy life that's been very afraid and detached from Israel-Palestine affairs. Maybe there was no way to truly anticipate all of these things, but either way they've smashed into my comfort zone like a train at full speed and I'm still reeling and grasping for some stable ground to stand on. Okay, enough metaphors and sweeping statements, it's time to elaborate.

After the Balkans, I went to Israel for two weeks and visited my family and it was pretty rough. At some point while we were in Bosnia I realized that I was carrying around a lot of fears about rejection and abandonment and being a labeled as a traitor, and visiting my family made it very clear where those kinds of fears come from: “Hey, I noticed you have friends with Palestinian flags on your Facebook; you know, there are people who track down Israelis and their families on Facebook and they kill them, it just happened last week, and I know it's normal to be naïve at your age but you're putting your family in danger...” “Hey, so about the Arabs on the trip, where did their families originally come from? Because I was reading a book earlier about how despite the claims to the land that the Arabs make, actually the vast majority of them came at the same time that the Jews did, in fact they came because the Jews provided work in farming and construction...” “Hey, so you know there is no such thing as a 'Palestinian', right? They're the same people as all the Arabs, the term was only invented very recently as a political tool by Arab leaders who wield them as a weapon against Israel?”

I can go on and on. It's not that they even know anything about the trip or what I experienced at this point, all they know is that I was traveling and dialoguing with Palestinians. However, I've come to realize that this is one of the mechanisms that perpetuate conflict: even just getting to know the 'other' and understanding them and hearing them out is a form of betrayal. People mesh together the concepts of 'understanding' and 'justifying' and are afraid that understanding why the 'other' does horrible things leads to thinking that they are justified in doing those horrible things. It's much easier to reduce people to good and evil than it is to really understand why people do the things that they do. This came up time and again during the trip. I won't speak for others, but for myself I know that I came in with a fear that I'd be a traitor if I listened to things like the plight of the Palestinians and the reasons people become suicide bombers. My family's reaction comes from a fear that they'll lose me to the other side and forget who I am and who my people are and all the injustices done against us. It's frustrating to think that every side in every conflict has those exact same fears, and that every family has the traumas and experiences to justify and reinforce these fears.

Well, now I'm back in school and trying to find an outlet for these kinds of struggles. I have an incredible group of friends and a very supportive environment where I can talk about these things, but I still have a long way to go and a lot of processing to do. And a lot of work to do. It's so much easier to do math homework than it is to struggle with these things and I've yet to find the proper space and time to think and write about all of the things that are going on in my head. That means it's time to do some rebalancing and prioritizing. I'll let you know how that goes this month.

- Amit Deutsch

Since I have been back to Greensboro I feel a very deep sense of fulfillment. At first, I couldn’t figure out whether it was due more to studying abroad in France or whether it was because I had just seen a very beautiful region and gotten to know a group of amazing people on a very personal and deep level. I quickly realized it was both, and as people began to ask me about my trip to France, I asked them if I could talk about the Balkan’s instead. The entire month of August was spent informing people about both conflicts I learned about on the trip. During my first month back, we had some long time family friends from Saudi Arabia over and they asked me if I could do a presentation about the program.

I made a slideshow with about 150 pictures and talked about all the group members, mentioning what my favorite thing about each person was and then I talked about what happened in the Balkans and very vaguely, what happened in terms of our negotiations as a group. I didn’t want to give away information that other members of the group might view as personal. I often found myself thinking of the other group members, wondering how their trips post-program were going, especially those that were in the Holy Land.

I found myself thinking about my Grandfather Sido who recently had a stroke and I began to wish that I too could go to the Middle East. I also started thinking about the situation in the West Bank more and more, and more so than Gaza, because I actually lived that reality.

I don’t know if the other fellows found it easy to adjust to life as it was pre-program. However, for me, I always think about the situation because my immediate family is virtually alone in the United States. I have distant cousins in California, and first cousins that are Canadian, so with all of my family in the Middle East, I find my mind wandering there quite often. The program gave me even more issues to think about and consider, so in a sense my mind never rests. I am currently working on my project which is a comparative analysis of women’s resistance during the Balkans war and during the first and second Palestinian Intifadas. I want to incorporate an element of sisterhood by also mentioning Jewish women who are empathetic with their Palestinian counterparts and who help these women make it through their silent and in many ways often neglected struggles. To be a Palestinian mother is so powerful and this role model is implanted into the mind of young single Palestinian women who often hear; “Marry a Palestinian man, keep our nation alive, and become a Palestinian mother”. It is a beautiful narrative though it is quite a difficult legacy to carry on, especially as an Arab-American. I want to compare this struggle with the struggle of the Mothers and Daughters of Srebrenica in particular. All in all, I am enlightened and I feel happy and privileged to be able to pass this experience along to other people, especially my Jewish friends who have treated me to coffee just to hear me speak about AV. I am adjusting and continuing to learn.

- Suja Sawafta