So much has happened over the past month it's hard to know where to start describing life here. One evening last week we climbed a hill behind our apartment to watch the sun set across the city, hearing the call to prayer bouncing across the valley in which the city is set. Looking down you can see the vast array of white apartment blocks, into the beautiful old town and also to a refugee camp in the centre of the city. So many contrasts in such a small place.
Music Harvest is a recently established NGO which provides music lessons to children across the city. It runs out of a centre called Nablus the Culture and is housed in a large and beautiful building of tiled floors and thick stone walls so it stays nice and cool in this intense summer heat. We're so privileged to have this haven to work in - I can't help but imagine the comparison with living and working conditions in August, during Ramadan, in other parts of this city. Aside from the international volunteers (there have been between 5-8 of us since I arrived), the centre is run and maintained by a Nabulsi who has thrown all his time, energy and finances into creating this space; the only Palestinian piano tuner in the West Bank; and several young Nabulsi musicians who spend time here playing, and helping us translate lessons and workshops with some of the children who struggle with English.
The last few months has seen a solid flow of volunteers to the project, teaching Piano, Violin, Whistle, Guitar and Drums. Since I arrived i've been trying to start a small choir a singing lessons. It's taken much longer than expected, but there are now two students coming to lessons, a children's choir that is a part of a morning music workshop that we set up a week ago, and an older choir of about 10 singers. We are yet to have a rehearsal with everyone together, but fingers crossed for this Thursday! The last violin teacher here also set up a Violin club which i've continued, doing some basic folky stuff with an aim of the kids playing in a celidh in a month or so. A friend here has another project in Nablus, Celidh's beyond borders, which started introducing folk music to some of the kids who come to the centre for lessons a year ago - and they LOVE it! Much more fun than the classical stuff they say.
So aside from increasing amounts of violin and singing teaching in the afternoons, and a two hour rhythm/singing/instrumental workshop with other, much younger children every morning, days here are filled with arabic lessons, oud lessons, general jamming and lots of talking over the best coffee in the world. I can't express how inspiring it is to be here, surrounded by like minded musicians who are all aware that teaching violin and piano to a few kids isn't going to change the world, but might hopefully them with some sense of solidarity, and in a fun and exciting way.
