Despite my excitement, as a Palestinian seeing the West Bank for the first time, it took me 2 days in Balata refugee camp to never want to see the place again. To be in the camps was to constantly wonder how they functioned at all. Any given camp feels ridiculously claustrophobic, ready to crumble upon itself and the lifestyle is always teetering on the brink of inadequacy. It then took 2 more days for the 'physically and socially impossible' to hardly even seem noticeable. An incredible testament to the adaptability and adjustments human beings are capable of. The Palestinians have been forced to exist under this 'adjustment', and all its attendant strains on stamina and psyche, for almost 60 years.

Balata and Jenin are quite isolated; you cannot drive into Balata, you must stop at a checkpoint and take a different vehicle from the other side. Gunfire and nightly incursions were a regular occurrence but so were weddings, parties, electricity, fairly regular running water and a quiet resolve to go on despite the nagging hopelessness that many residents said they felt.

I accompanied the Voices Beyond Walls project (offering storytelling workshops to youth) to Balata and Jenin in July/August of 2007.