I have to be honest: I don’t like sports. I’m just not interested in watching other people play games. But Amani Awartani, coach of the Palestinian Olympic swim team, weaves a story of gender, international politics, cultural pride, and personal challenge. Through her eyes, I see the upcoming Olympics as a significant milestone for Palestinians and the rest of the world – and a lot of fun.

Did you know that Palestine was recognized by the International Olympic Committee in the 1930s? That Palestine is listed on the official website of the Olympic movement? That there is a Palestinian Olympic Committee?

In fact, this is the fifth time that Palestinians have taken part in the Olympics, the first being in 1998. Since Palestine isn’t a state, Palestinians have to compete in the World Championships that are held before the Olympics and win points that make them eligible as “participants.” Until now, all the Palestinian competitors have been swimmers.

“This is the first year we have a ‘qualified’ competitor,” Amani explains. Maher Abu Rmaileh from Jerusalem competes in Judo. She adds quickly, “You can still win a medal if you participate by winning points and are not considered a qualified competitor.”

Since there are Palestinians all over the world, I asked Amani if Palestinians in the diaspora can swim with the Palestinian team. “Sometimes we are contacted by Palestinians in the US or elsewhere who want to swim with us. It is allowed as long as they aren’t registered as swimmers in another country But generally we refuse, even if they might bring us medals. We want to give local people a chance first.” Her voice trails off as she adds, “Maybe later we could include them in the national team, but how could we support them without funding?”

Although she is coach of the Palestinian Olympic swim team, Amani doesn’t actually train the Palestinian competitors for the Olympics. Ahmed Gebrel, a Palestinian refugee in his twenties who lives in Egypt and Sabine Hazboun, who is only eighteen years old, have been living and training in Barcelona. “Sabine missed her Tawjihi, the last year of high school, in order to train,” Amani said, clearly proud of Sabine’s commitment. Expenses, including funding for their coaches, were provided by the Olympic Solidarity Committee. But next year they’ll have to raise funds themselves.

Amani tells the story with such enthusiasm, I nearly pulled out my wallet to make a contribution. In fact, I was so taken by her passion, I almost jumped onto the table at the Zaman Cafe in Ramallah where we were talking to do a little cheer.

“Although this is voluntary work, I want to do my job 100%. We’re a team. I want the team members to know I am always there for them. I tell them: ‘You swim, and I’ll take care of the rest,’” Amani says.

Amani’s own children enjoy swimming. Her son used to sneak into Jerusalem to swim, since he doesn’t have a permit, but he didn’t want to pursue it competitively. Her daughter enjoys recreational swimming, but is more serious about football and, more recently, ballet.

“Everybody has his own thing. As for me, I find it a tremendous honor for us to be standing in front of the world, recognized as Palestinians. It’s overwhelming.”

But the best part of this story is yet to come! Do you know what a feeding stick is? Check back here to find out.

Amani Awartani, Coach of the Palestinian Olympic Swim Team, smiles triumphantly as she recalls her first swim competition. Although in those days it wasn’t considered appropriate for girls to swim in mixed-gender competitions, she swam anyway. Amani came in first in freestyle and second in breast stroke.

Then came the first Intifada. “There were curfews. Everything was upside down,” she remembers. Amani was not able to pursue her swimming ambitions. She never competed again.

But no one can doubt that Amani is still an athlete. Besides her tall, strong physique, she oozes an enthusiasm for sports that is infectious.

“Swimming was new, then,” Amani reminisces. “There was a group of young men from Jerusalem who were instructors. They started teaching others how to train. For cultural reasons, men can’t train women, so that gave me an opportunity. I trained the women.”

Amani became a trainer when she was only eighteen. She also taught swimming to three and four-year-olds for two years. “They were sweet but exhausting,” Amani confesses.

Palestinian participation in the Olympics came later. A German man from FINA, the international governing body of swimming, visited the Palestinian Swim Federation, a post-Oslo volunteer organization that oversees swim training, the pools, sponsorships, and competitions. It was around 2007 or 2008. Amani joined the Palestinian Swim Federation.

Volunteers with the Palestinian Swim Federation learned how to put together a real training program. “Training is tailored for each race. For the 50 meter, you need speed, so you practice jumping, train for speed on land, speed in the pool. But for the 10K race, you need endurance. The training is different.”

According to Amani, people who swim for speed and people who swim for distance have different kinds of personalities. The speed swimmers have to deal with pain and the distance swimmers have to deal with exhaustion. Both have to be determined.

Even today, although the competitions are mixed, men and women train separately. And there are still many more boys than girls. “Overall, the sport of swimming still isn’t very popular in Palestine,” Amani laments. “One problem we have is that our pools are almost all outdoors. That means you can only train about three months each year. Even the few indoor pools—at the YMCA in Jerusalem and Bethlehem—aren’t good enough. They are only 25 meters long. There are no 50 meter pools anywhere in Palestine.”

There are rumors that the Palestinian Authority may build a 50 meter pool in Jericho and Amani hopes they’ll allow competitive swimmers to train there. Unfortunately, there isn’t very strong advocacy for swimmers in Palestine. The Palestinian Swim Federation was reorganized in 2012 and, due to some internal conflicts, they have to start to build their systems from scratch. They plan to hold competitions to record times for swimmers all over the West Bank and Gaza, to rebuild the database that is used to determine eligibility for competitions in the future. But even this simple activity has been scheduled and cancelled and rescheduled and is fraught with conflict and rumors of corruption. Moreover, although there have been many gains in the sport, Amani is still the only woman in the entire Palestinian Swim Federation.

Check back for the next part of this interview to learn about Palestinian participation in the Olympics. Meanwhile, leave your comments!

You’ll have to come back soon to find out!

(Hint: Photos are printed with the permission of the Palestinian Olympic swim team coach.)

Gideon Levy, one of Israel’s best journalists, just published an article in Haaretz newspaper exposing the Israeli practice of confiscating water containers from Palestinians and Bedouins in the Jordan Valley. I thank Sam Bahour of ePalestine for bringing the article to my attention. Since we’re on the topic of water, I thought it would be helpful to direct your attention to the article, which even I found quite shocking. Can human beings really deny other human beings the water they need to drink in order to live? Well, after you read the article, watch this short, excellent video on +972, produced by an Israeli NGO, about the water shortage in Al-Dik, a Palestinian village.

In fact, these types of injustices happen all the time and they are documented, in Hebrew and English, in the Israeli and international press by both Israeli and international journalists. So, Israelis can’t say they don’t know what’s going on, and neither can we.

Please click “leave comment” to the left of this post to share your views.

Today, a Palestinian police officer tried to give me a ticket because my car was too dirty. A little while later (presumably in protest), my car died just as I was at the checkpoint — my passport in the soldier’s hands!

But nothing can bring me down from the joy of seeing my friend (and my co-author of the soon-to-be-published-we-hope picture book, “Because it is Also Your Story”) in her first public exhibition called, “Experiment #1. She and three other brilliant young Palestinians make beautiful furniture  from trash.

Here is Danna  sitting on a stylish seat made of discarded packing crates and covered with an attractive cushion made by a local artisan.

High bar chair made of old water pipes with a woven seat made of discarded inner tubes.

  This is a very comfortable “beanbag” chair. It’s made from thrown-away blue jeans and stuffed with old, foam packing pellets.

The picture does not do this justice! It’s a lamp made from a broken shower head with a lamp shade made from a loofah.

A beautifully finished table made from a door they found in the street atop old water pipes.

Attractive sofa made of a discarded wood shipping box and cardboard tubes thrown aside in the industrial zone in Ramallah.

See more work of these “four emerging architects [who] came together to work on finding environmental solutions that hold social responsibility at their core.” They are on Facebook at ShamsArd Design Studio, the web at ShamsArd.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @ShamsArd or by email at ShamsArde@gmail.com.

Read part one of this post…

I am happy to report that my youngest daughter has a sore arm. Today, she took her last vaccination, bringing her up to date. Here’s how it came to pass….

Yesterday the school gave me two sheets of paper proving that my daughter was vaccinated twice in the first grade, not once. One time, the Health Committees in the Palestinian Authority came, and the second time, the Israeli Ministry of Health came. No one came when my daughter was in the second grade. (The school was right.)

The paper told me what my daughter was vaccinated against, not what vaccinations she took, so I had to have them translated into English and then cross check them against the vaccinations booklet. Surprise, surprise. EVERYTHING was written down! Even the ones given by the Health Committees of the Palestinian Authority (who the Israeli Ministry of Health said never write things down). They did write down the date and the vaccine. (The Health Committees were right.)

At that point, I realized that it was all a big mistake. My daughter was up to date. I was an idiot.

I called H from the Israeli Ministry of Health to put closure on the matter and she said, “It’s up to you as the mother to decide what vaccinations your daughter gets. I cannot force you.” I was confused again. I explained that in fact she had gotten the second grade shots in the first grade, so isn’t she in compliance? No, it turned out: “The Palestinian Authority uses a different combination of vaccines. The combination your daughter took does not include Pertussis or Whooping Cough. That what she’s missing.” “Is it important?” I asked, my heart sinking again. “Well, because the kids vaccinated by the Health Committees didn’t take it, we now have an outbreak of Whooping Cough.” (The Ministry of Health was right.)

That was enough for me. I woke my sleeping angel and we drove like the wind to Abu Tur. If you read my last post, you’ll know that the Israeli Ministry of Health vaccinated the girls in Samhar school today. It was my last chance this year to get the vaccine.

Abu Tur is a mixed Jewish-Arab neighborhood in West Jerusalem. I shouldn’t say “mixed,” I should say, “divided.” I followed the signs and found myself on the Jewish side. I asked several people where the Samhar School for Girls was, but no one knew. Then I asked them to point me to the Arab side of the neighborhood. They pointed down the hill.

I asked a ton of people but no one knew where that school was, but they kindly directly me to the girls school. Once there, I found out it was not Samhar, and one of the teachers said, “That’s in Tur.” “Isn’t this Tur?” I asked. “No, this is Abu Tur!” “Tur is on the other side of the Mount of Olives.

It was 9:55 am and the nurse was only to wait for me until 10 am. I was far, far, far beyond the palce where I was supposed to be. H didn’t answer her mobile phone. I felt angry at myself and guilty for dragging my daughter through the heat, without breakfast, without knowing where I was going.

I flew up the hill, past Jaffa Gate, past Damascus Gate, down into the valley next to the Russian church, up to the Mount of Olives, and down the other side. It still took ten minutes of going to the wrong place before I found the right place. “The nurse from the Ministry of Health is upstairs,” I was told. “The nurse from the Ministry of Health just left,” they told me at the top of the stairs. “But…but…but…”

Then I found the nurse, M, waiting for me in a little kitchen upstairs. She double-checked the vaccination booklet, prepared a combination vaccine that included Pertussis, and shot my daughter in the left arm. My angel didn’t make a sound.

My daughter, I think, is the only now third grader from her entire school (and perhaps from all the private schools in East Jerusalem) who is vaccinated for Whooping Cough. I can’t be sure of this, as I am not sure of anything.

If you ask, I might share  what this all means to me, a resident of East Jerusalem, a place that is part of the West Bank according to international law, that was illegally annexed by Israel, and which receives some benefits (like health coverage) but lots and lots of discrimination from Israel. I can’t write about it now because I’m simply too tired.