Khair min Allah. That’s what the people here call rain, “A blessing from Allah.” We are getting a good rain this morning. I woke up in the night to banging noises as the wind made the windows rattle. As I write this, the wind is blowing the rain in sheets against the windows of the hallway outside my apartment. These windows look out to the southwest in the direction of the old city of Jerusalem, though I cannot see the old city walls from here because the Bab az-Zahra neighborhood on the next hill over, obscures the view.
I usually go for my run at this time, but because of the heavy rain it would not be wise today. There are two problems with running in the rain here, first, getting soaked, and second, trying to negotiate the flooded streets of the neighborhood. The streets and crowded neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz here are not designed to handle heavy rain so the footing would not be safe this morning.
My fijil (radish), sabanagh (spinach), and jarjeer (arugula) seeds are getting a good soaking today. Just what the doctor ordered.
There are also some very nice plants currently flowering in my landlord's garden.
If you know the names of these plants, let me know. I am going to ask when I have time too.
I got to teach today for a little over an hour on the subject of e-learning in Palestine. We briefly compared the online learning in technical communication at my university, Minnesota State University, Mankato, with the "e-enabled" courses here at Birzeit's Center for Continuing Education. Second, we worked with taxonomies to classify types of e-learning and finally, we discussed our ideas for the future of e-learning in Palestine. We generated some interesting ideas in our groups as to how and why e-learning holds promise in Palestinian education.
