(Please check out my final video project from my time in Dheisheh on CurrentTV, refugeeHood: the inheritance or you can always download it on Ibdaa's Cultural Exchange Page)

The world has a different tint to it now; I look upon things through different eyes. My vision is still blurry, my head is still spinning and it has taken me days to even sit down in front of the computer and begin to write since I landed in the United States. Slowly I am beginning to refocus, my head is beginning to wrap itself around the fact that I am no longer in the West Bank, even though my heart is still there.

My final few hours in Palestine brought together my entire experience. Coincidentally, that afternoon there was an emotion-filled luncheon for thirteen Palestinian prisoners from Dheisheh who had just been released from Israeli prisons.   It was an appropriate precursor to my farewell gathering showing the realities, and normality's, of life in the refugee camp that I had become accustomed to.

I am not very good at goodbyes and in fact I usually tend to avoid them. But it's hard to hide from the basketball boys whose presence fills the room when they are together along with other members of the organization who took over the fourth floor restaurant that night. Abu Isaam, the organization elder, stood up to speak, his words the vocalization of Ibdaa's thoughts as I have heard him do before for others. Ibrahim whispered the translation in my ear but I understood most of the words of thanks, of solidarity, of the pride I helped to bring to the center from my work with the basketball team and with the youth.

Across from me, YaHya, the guard for the team began to cry. His tears freely flowing down his cheeks said more than he would ever need to communicate in words. Abu Yusef sat next to YaHya, just smiling. We all shared a laugh as Abu Yusef, the 280-pound power forward, tried to give a meaningful speech in English. I stood up and the calls came out for me to say a few words in Arabic. I spoke for ten minutes, all the eyes focused on me, some conveying, in a bit of disbelief, that apparently I had been hiding my Arabic skills from everyone. More words, more personal goodbyes, men are much more free with their emotions in Palestine. Traditional Arabic goodbyes, three kisses on the cheek and finally hours and hours later the last people had walked out of the restaurant.

Barely 10 hours later, the plane pulled away from the airport, speeding down the runway. My tired mind barely noticed when my body was pushed back into my seat of take-off, I scarcely could comprehend that I was leaving. After the two and a half hours it had taken me to get through security at the airport, I was a little worn out. I mean, come on, who doesn't believe that I am a Christian on a pilgrimage to decide whether seminary is the right next step for me and thus I must visit the place where the baby Jesus was born? Or one of the other slew of lies I had to make up in order to defer suspicion from my work in the West Bank that is discouraged heavily by the Israeli government.

The world here in the States looks the same, oh there are a few new stoplights on the streets in Chicago and they are doing some major construction across the street from my mother's apartment on the Southside but basically nothing seems to have changed. Its strange, I sit and talk with good friends; I walk the streets, my eyes shifting to familiar sights yet something has been transformed, that something is in me. I look out at the park where I played as a child, my mind wanders out the window of the rocking train window onto buildings and graffiti I have seen so many times, I walk down the street to that restaurant where I spent so many hours in high school and something new flutters around in my mind.

I'm sure I am not the only person who has gone to the West Bank and come back a different person but it's difficult for me to get a grasp on and I know its hard for my friends and family to see, they just see the same guy and maybe miss the new shadow, the new light, the different glint behind my eyes. How can I explain this kind of culture shock? I feel like I just opened my eyes a few months ago, that I have aged years and years in just a short period of time. It reminds me of what Eeman, the former prisoner and Ziad's niece, said after getting out of prison after three and a half years. She said, "Its like I was born again when I stepped out of the jail." While I can in no way compare with her experience, I can understand those sentiments, the feelings, and the emotions. It seems as if sometimes I am walking in old footsteps here, I find myself lost, remembering things that might be from a different life.

What have I learned? I have learned that I still have to keep learning, that there is still so much that I don't understand and while I may never comprehend some of the things behind the conflict I can still keep an open mind. That's what I have learned. That I still have to look at the world from multiple perspectives, to hear both sides of the story. From sitting with Israeli's on the streets of Jerusalem to walking with Palestianians next to the WALL I listened while I was in that part of the world. I don't have a solution but I have many new friends, new relationships I will never forget and I will keep trying to learn, keep trying to tell what I saw with my own eyes on the streets of Dheisheh, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem...This world used to be what I saw on the television or read in the news papers, the pictures in my mind were of explosions, guns, fighting, suffering... It was epitomized by just a word "conflict". Yet now when I think about Palestine and Israel I see faces, I see homes, roads, buses, restaurants, couches, food, basketballs...and so much more...