After a few weeks wait, a day of rushed packing and a 5 hour flight, we found ourselves halted a further 3 hours in Ben Gurion airport. Now, it’s not to say that weren’t exoecting this, Israeli security is renowned for it questioning (what’s your father’s name? what’s your email address?) you know, the absolutely crucial questions needed to be asks in order to allow someone into a country.

However, the end of this what seemed to be a lifetime wait, was absolutely worth it. Our drive from tel aviv to east jereusalem allowed us to see the Al-Aqsa mosque and the infamous west bank wall within the first hours of being in the holy land. Once we reached Abu Dis we were greeted with classic Palestinian hospitality in the form of food (always a winner). We got talking to our friends on the Palestinian side of CADFA who explained to us that we got it easy. The route which most Palestinians take from Jordan often takes 2 days to pass. That, combined with our warm welcome soon made our relatively small problems melt away and we were excited to start our project.

Our team (Team Black) finally got to meet the majority of the group the next morning. Surprisingly we surpassed the usual awkwardness of meeting someone for the first time,  and got straight into learning about each other’s lives. The real task of the morning was outlining the differences between our every day lives and culture. We took an informal tour around Abu Dis Guided by our new Palestinian friends, which ended up with us looking over an stunning valley overseeing the whole of the city. Much to our surprise, our appreciation of our surroundings and what seemed like a personalized tour came back to reward us. Once we got back, we were asked to list all of these differences and given all of the surrounding we took in TEAM BLACK WON!!

Here is our victory picture: we are excited for the rest of this journey and the time we will spend with our new friends.