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!