Is anyone thirsty?
How do you know?
Why are you thirsty?
What makes us thirsty? What is thirsty?
Looking at this photo that I took in December 2010 down the hill from East Jerusalem makes me feel thirsty.
A dry wadi/valley - East of East Jerusalem - 17 Dec. 2010 - Photo: Sherry Ann
Where do you go when you’re thirsty?
Some people like to go to the ocean or to the sea. I did that this winter when I was feeling really uptight and I wanted to relax. I was thirsty in a heart kind of way.
What is the sea? Or the ocean?
Here’s what three teenage girls said when they were asked this question in April 2011. They live just outside of East Jerusalem. They said:
One Girl:
The sea means the quiet, calm and great.
Deep, very nice, large and sea means to me beauty.
Her Friend:
The sea is deep
The sea is nice
The sea is wide
Their Friend:
The sea is nice, all people come to it to relax and don’t have noise and the sound of waves … For example: the Mediterranean Sea. The colors are formed I think by the color of sky.
Mediterranean Sea - Seen from Tel Aviv - 30 Dec. 2010 - Photo: Sherry Ann
In this story, four boys dreamed of going to the sea. Click here to watch the video and to see what happened.
What do you think? Does the sea in the story look like you expected? Were you surprised? Those boys live in the West Bank and are not allowed to go to the sea because the Israeli government is controlling the land and the water.
Here’s a video (click here) of the writing workshop near East Jerusalem with the three girls, their friends, and a few Ecumenical Accompaniers – dreaming about water and the sea.
Let’s imagine that the Israeli government will change its policies so that the young people who want to go to the sea will be able to go to the sea. Let’s pretend that we’re holding dandelion flowers and that when we blow on them our wish will come true, if not today, then soon…that all who are thirsty for peace (in that heart kind of way) will be able to drink that ‘peace’ soon.
KidsStories4Peace 
Comments on: "Thirsty for Peace?" (2)
Thanks for your thought provoking article, Sherri Ann!
I picked a dandelion and I blew on it and I am hoping….hoping….
[…] In response, I offer this YouTube video by a sister EA from the Jerusalem Team that followed my team in Spring 2011. In response to my suggestion to ask the young Jahalin Bedouin teen girls about the meaning of “the sea” to them, two EAs invited the girls to dream about water and the sea. In this hope-filled video (click here), they discuss in Arabic and English their dreams as they write poetry. See some of their finished poems here. […]