Off we go...

Towards the end of May 2012...
I went through a lot of mental torture trying to obtain my Israeli visa. I finally had it on May 15th, we booked our flight to Amman on May 17th and we were off. Our flight was from Chennai, a stop-over at Doha and we were at Amman.
The taxi driver at the Amman airport spoke fluent Arabic and did not know English. An eccentric character, he played some dabke music as we drove around the lovely countryside of Jordan layered with olive trees on hills, Bedouin camps in some places and at the far end, one could see the dead sea. I wondered whether Palestine would be similar! "It is, except there are many settlements on hilltops", Evan said.
We reached King Hussein Bridge and after a prolonged investigation of my luggage from the Israeli authorities, we reached Jericho.
Soon we drove down to Jerusalem in a shared taxi accompanied by the Journalist, Paul Martin and another Palestinian who had a view that the attack on the World Trade Center was an American Conspiracy.
Paul took me for a small walk showing me the old city of Jerusalem, the walk ended up being a little long and  in the middle of the night, I was finally at my Indian friend's place. 

The Holy land

Early May...
May 3rd was the day I'd been waiting for. This was the day Evan and I were to fly to Jordan and cross the border into Jericho, Palestine. Since Palestine is not a full member of the UN and not recognized as a sovereign entity by its Zionist occupier, there is no procedure to obtaining a Palestinian Visa. One needs to get an Israeli visa not to mention the problems you face once you tell the Israeli consulate that you're heading to Palestine!
I had a friend studying in West Jerusalem, Israel and she was helping me out with the visa procedures. Ramya, is a student at CEPT (Centere for Environmental Planning and Technology) in Ahmadabad and was on an exchange program in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
My visa was to arrive on May 3rd since that was the day my flight tickets were booked. But guess what?
Yes I did not receive my visa yet and Evan headed off to the airport on his own that night. Could this be another case of my visa rejection? The last time I got admission to the University of Edinburgh, my UK Visa was rejected. I thought its happening again!
I called up my travel agent and asked him to cancel my ticket. Evan felt sorry and he left to the airport. Adding insult to injury, Evan calls me up at 3 in the morning and says "Hey... They're not letting me in the flight, they say my ticket is cancelled!" This was horrible. Not only was I not able to go to Palestine, I was losing out a lot at home as well.  

Internship in Palestine?

April - 2012

Although I've been dreaming of going to Palestine for the past 3 years, I never thought about the practicality of it. As you follow my older blog posts, you'll notice how much I've been interested in the conflict. The name of the blog 'intifadat' comes from the Arabic word 'intifada' which means 'uprising'. In its history, Palestine went through two popular uprisings; one in 1988 called the 'first intifada' and the second called 'Al Aqsa intifada'.

Reading, listening and watching videos of what Palestine is going through, the longest occupation in modern history was extremely shocking to me. However, I wanted to see whether the kind of picture I created in my mind is close to what is actually happening. I did not want to take up any side on the issue unless I go see it and investigate on my own. Is that enough? Perhaps at this age and point in time, it is!

Initially, I did not know any Palestinian and was finding it a little difficult getting in touch with one. Soon, luckily there was a Palestinian architect, Nadia Habash on a web based social forum which my mom was a part of. Could I intern with a Palestinian architect? At this point of time, I was willing to work with anyone in Palestine.

Nadia put me in touch with Mamoun Matar, a media analyst and the director of Wide Media in Palestine. "It is my pleasure to offer an internship with Gautam..." was what I read in my mail when I got up one morning. This was extremely good news. Now, all I had to do was to get an Israeli tourist Visa and cross the border into Jericho from Jordan! Not to mention I'd be travelling and staying with an American faculty and a performer from my university, Evan Hastings! All seemed mellow!