Seekers' thoughts

Post 2.

One of my biggest concerns about travelling to Palestine was football – I had a good routine going prior to travelling, and I was kind of in-form, so was worried about a possible 10-month layoff. I wanted to find a weekly football session as soon as possible.  

Thankfully, through work at the school in Nablus, I was able to play regularly during breaks with my two colleagues who became my close friends: a foreign teacher also from England, and a local teacher from Palestine. We Brits were eventually invited to play in our Palestinian friend’s Friday weekly sessions with his football group. Thank God. 

As with everything in Palestine, life is filled with complications and dangers. A regular football session becomes life or death/life-altering. Several times we were put on hold from our football sessions due to raids being conducted in the city by the Israeli forces, where young men would sometimes be killed or arrested and taken away. This had happened while we were playing, too, and behind the screams for passes and cheers for goals could be heard gunshots.  

The funniest thing (though it isn’t really funny) was how my football friends would express their frustration at not being able to play. They would be constantly calling up the football pitch to get a read on the situation – was it “safe” enough to come play. There was even a running joke about us two Brits being spies because we both happened to skip out on football the day of a raid.  

They really loved to play football, just like me.  

But from this you may get the impression they have become desensitised to what was happening around them. Not the case at all. Every single one of these football lads I spoke to – for a lot of them were fluent in English – expressed the deepest sadness, frustration and anger, and a strong desire for justice. Whenever someone had died, there was always genuine prayers for mercy; when the army would enter, there were genuine hopes for everyone’s safety. But at the same time for them, life went on. And it goes on. And football is life haha. They just wanted to play. And I loved and respected this about them. Regardless of what was happening, they would not lose out on what they love and enjoy if they could do something about it. I miss these football sessions.  

Picture courtesy of one of the football lads, who is also family. This is the pitch where we played our sessions in Nablus, Ebal area.