English at Bourj Al Barajne

For the past few months, Wade has been teaching English on Saturdays at the Bourj Al Barajne Palestinian camp. The "camp" is just south of Beirut near the airport and is home to about 20,000 Palestinian refugees, people who have been refugees their entire lives.

The status of the 400,000 Palestinians living in Lebanon is a sensitive topic. According to Time Magazine, 220,000 of those Palestinians live in 12 different camps. The camps, established in 1948, were originally intended to be temporary. But three generations later, the camps are still there.

The Lebanese government places limits on the different types of jobs that Palestinians can hold; the government also, until recently, did not allow refugees to establish bank accounts or own property (although these laws are being changed); but worst of all, most Palestinians don't have a passport. That means that they can't leave this tiny country.

Bourj Al Barajne is a cramped place with people living on top of each other in makeshift, cinderblock houses. Plumbing is a problem, as is the supply of electricity. So the camp smells like sewage and the electrical wires hang so low that you bump your head on them in the alleyways. We're told that several people each year die from electrocution.

The camp is a maze of alleyways. When Megan visited she said that it reminded her of some of the poverty that she saw in Uganda, Rwanda, and the Congo.

Do not touch those wires.

Wade volunteers for an hour once a week at the camp's Women's Center. The center is run by Miriam, an impressive woman, born and raised in the camp. The goal of the center, Mariam explains, is to "empower women," training teenagers for careers as secretaries or beauticians, teaching them about their mental and physical health, granting low interest loans, etc.

Wade's students are an interesting mix of women and girls. One woman is a pharmacist who paid her own way through college. Another is a 22-year old divorcee training to be a nurse. Then there are a group of young teens who have dropped out of middle school. It's remarkable that the group of youngsters even remembers their English alphabet from the third grade.

Wade and Miriam at the Women's Center.

There have been a few interesting moments in the past few months. On three separate occasions, Palestinians have come up to Wade and asked, in broken English or through a translator, for help in getting a passport. But perhaps the most memorable moment came a few weeks ago. Just as Wade finished up his class, he heard some commotion in the alleyway outside. When he stepped out, two twelve-year olds ran around the corner with kitchen knives. The two boys were followed by an older teen with a shotgun. That's when Wade decided it was time to go home

It's not a good idea to walk around the camp with a camera; since most people feel like victims of U.S. foreign policy, seeing an American walking around taking pictures would only infuriate people. In spite of that, Wade couldn't help but take a picture of the poster above.

The poster appeared the week that the Obama administration vetoed the U.N. resolution condemning the Israeli building of settlements in the West Bank. People were not happy about that, to put it mildly. The poster captures the sense of righteous anger in the camps.

Wade probably isn't helping all that much when it comes to improving the English skills of his pupils. The hour each week, however, has given him a window into the Palestinian perspective that he won't forget anytime soon.