I’ve had a bit of an epic day so far, beginning with a nice long chat with Russell via IM. It was late at night for him, and early in the morning for me, which I kind of like. I had my coffee and my labneh as we chatted. Then he said goodnight, and I headed off to the camp.

English class was fun. After the journal writing and the vocabulary words, I asked them to each write a question that they wanted to ask me on a notecard. I answered them all – most notably, “Why don’t you have any children?” – something that I have not been able to adequately explain, since they all think I am married. Then each of them had to go around and answer the same questions. Lots of giggles when you ask a 16 year old girl what her husband’s name is and ask why she doesn’t have any children.

One of my students was missing, because her mother was in the hospital, so after class, another teacher and I went to see them. Haifa Hospital is in Bourj al-Barajneh camp, and is the only hospital in the Beirut area that Palestinians can use. It is a very basic hospital, and for very specialized emergency care, they must go to a hospital near Saida and Ain el-Helweh camp, which can take well over an hour to reach. The mother of a friend of mine died in February after being turned down at a Lebanese hospital in Beirut- they weren’t able to make it to the hospital in the South in time.

Haifa Hospital was actually nicer than I had anticipated. It’s certainly spare, but it seems clean, with very professional doctors and staff. It is far less depressing than the hospital I visited in Tbilisi, Georgia a year ago. That said, employees are still paid very little and electricity cuts are common.

The mother of my student was actually being released, so the other teacher and I helped her get a taxi to go home. My student and I helped her get upstairs. The other teacher was male and therefore could not take her arm to help her. Once upstairs, she seemed to regain some color and feel better. She and her husband are both English teachers and were extremely welcoming, insisting that I drink jellab and coffee and eat fruit, even though the whole family was fasting.

We are heading downstairs for iftar with our landlord’s family now.