I haven’t had a chance to blog in a few days… Sometimes, I’m simply too tired and other days the Internet connection is not working. But tonight, I opted out of the football match at the university so I could stay behind and catch up on some blogging.
Saturday
On Saturday night, all of us went over to Sa’ed’s house for dinner. I met Sa’ed the last time I was in Nablus when he was head of Public Relations for An-Najah University. He is still very much involved with the Zajel program. On Saturday, he had us all over at his house where he gave lecture on the geopolitical history of the conflict, complete with a ton of maps showing different stages of the conflict. He also recounted the story of how his mother was killed in 2002 by the Israeli army while she was sitting on her front porch during a curfew. You can read about it on the website www.remembershaden.org.
Sunday
On Sunday, after all of us had returned from the refugee camp, all of the international volunteers gave a presentation on the country they live in. Since most people know more about the United States than we could possibly cover in a single presentation, we decided to do short presentations on where we are from in the US. This meant that I gave a brief presentation on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, complete with a few Terrible Towels. I gotta try and start that Steeler fan club here.! 
After the presentations, one of the local families in our village invited us out to a wedding party that was happening right in front of our castle. What a blast! I was warmly welcomed with my camera and I was able to get inside the huge crowd and take some shots. With the action and lighting, it was probably some of the most technically difficult shooting I’ve done yet. But, I am really happy with some of the shots. You can see a few below… I’ll even be putting a bunch of them on DVD before I leave so that the wedding party can have them. Who would have thought my first wedding shoot would be in Palestine?
Tags: Featured, My Photos, nablus, palestine, travel, wedding
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Nice - I like the 2 BW shots - Dude, your suppose to be an ambassador for our country, the Steelers - come on - Give them some COWBOY love!!!!!! and I am not talking about broke back mountain kind. ROMO’s the man!!!!
June 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Was this a wedding party or a bachelor party? I don’t see any females in the crowd!
June 25th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Haha… the women were there. But Nablus is a very conservative city and you will rarely, if ever, see women dancing in public.
June 29th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Wonderful photos Shawn, I bet you had a great time