I'm sure you've all been on tenterhooks but your wait is over. I am back in Ramallah and it feels great. The short story is that I had a very enjoyable week in Dahab and a relatively painless re-entry into Israel. I won't bore you with the details of the border crossing, suffice to say that the security personnel seemed taken aback by my honest approach and, despite asking hundreds of questions (including a bizarre request for my grandfather's name!) and recording my answers, were relatively civil in their approach and only detained me for an hour.
One of the Israeli officers even seemed concerned for my safety whilst living in Ramallah. I reassured him that I felt far safer than in London given the almost complete absence of crime here and that there was a stabbing on my street in Camberwell and a shooting just down the road when I lived in Brixton. I didn't tell him that the only time I feel in danger here is when passing through Israeli checkpoints!
For those of you reading this from your desks at work I know how you hate reading guff about lucky buggers relaxing on beaches, watching sunrises and drinking cocktails. You'll be glad to know then that I did none of these things in Dahab. I was far too busy diving, watching sunsets and drinking ice cold beer.
Before you start throwing things at your screen, be assured that I am definitely back to work now. Or at least I should be if I wasn't writing this. I am now an external contractor for the NGO with which I had been interning. This means that I work from home. I hate working from home. I especially hate working from home when the biggest time waster ever invented by man (the internet)is combined with the biggest sporting event on the planet. The next month is going to a be huge test of will-power and discipline, one which I expect to fail miserably. For Chrissakes, there are three football matches a day!
By way of appeasing my guilt for this particular example of procrastination that you are reading now, instead of ending with photos I have included an example of the kind of stuff that I am working on. My organisation (a Palestinian human rights organisation called Al Haq) have asked me to develop a project using Google Earth to create virtual field visits that can be used in their advocacy work. The first examples go live at the end of the month on our website. For now, feast on your eyes on this fantastic video put together by Google using the same software to give a virtual tour of the World Cup Stadiums, some of which are stunning. The tours that I am working on are a bit less MTV and bit more BBC4 but you get the idea.
Here endeth the Ramble.
One of the Israeli officers even seemed concerned for my safety whilst living in Ramallah. I reassured him that I felt far safer than in London given the almost complete absence of crime here and that there was a stabbing on my street in Camberwell and a shooting just down the road when I lived in Brixton. I didn't tell him that the only time I feel in danger here is when passing through Israeli checkpoints!
For those of you reading this from your desks at work I know how you hate reading guff about lucky buggers relaxing on beaches, watching sunrises and drinking cocktails. You'll be glad to know then that I did none of these things in Dahab. I was far too busy diving, watching sunsets and drinking ice cold beer.
Before you start throwing things at your screen, be assured that I am definitely back to work now. Or at least I should be if I wasn't writing this. I am now an external contractor for the NGO with which I had been interning. This means that I work from home. I hate working from home. I especially hate working from home when the biggest time waster ever invented by man (the internet)is combined with the biggest sporting event on the planet. The next month is going to a be huge test of will-power and discipline, one which I expect to fail miserably. For Chrissakes, there are three football matches a day!
By way of appeasing my guilt for this particular example of procrastination that you are reading now, instead of ending with photos I have included an example of the kind of stuff that I am working on. My organisation (a Palestinian human rights organisation called Al Haq) have asked me to develop a project using Google Earth to create virtual field visits that can be used in their advocacy work. The first examples go live at the end of the month on our website. For now, feast on your eyes on this fantastic video put together by Google using the same software to give a virtual tour of the World Cup Stadiums, some of which are stunning. The tours that I am working on are a bit less MTV and bit more BBC4 but you get the idea.
Here endeth the Ramble.
