Rachel’s Blog

In November I traveled with a young people’s peace delegation to Israel/Palestine. You can read all about it here. Singing was an important part of the trip for me for various reasons. The most memorable singing times happened when…

• in the olive groves near Jenin at a Fairtrade Co-operative pressing plant, a group of young men got out a drum and started singing and dancing, full of pride
• we stood at the foot of the wailing wall and listened…
• singing on the bus with our American friends… swing low, pick a bale o’ cotton, belle mambe
• humming a taize chant at the airport to stay calm during the strip-search.
• a man who we met in D’heisha refugee camp, Bethlehem, who spent ten years in Israeli prisons, who sang to stay sane over 40-day stints of solitary confinement.
• the verse from Fred Marchant’s (who travelled with us) poem ‘First Song Again’

“Trust above all the imminent return

Of the small, but persistent

Impulse to sing.”