Liz and I arrived in Tel Aviv on Saturday 24th October and have
been in Bethlehem now for four days. In some ways it does feel like
we have been here for much longer however, in others I think it is
only just sinking in. We have experienced a wealth of new things
such as hummus and chips for Breakfast and getting up at 6am to
travel on the school bus with the children of SOS…something
neither of us has done for a very long time! We had the fantastic
company and guidance of Canon Paul Miller and Claire Tillotson for
the first three days whose previous experience of the SOS Village
has helped immensely

On Saturday 24th October Liz and I arrived at the SOS
Childrenís Village in Bethlehem (and havenít stopped
sweating since!) We are living with one of the house mothers
ëKoukaí and her two children Hamsa (11) and Raani (5).
The house mother is great and has a super sense of humour although
she does insist on giving Liz and I a grilling on our Arabic over
breakfast and at the moment we are not doing so well! Speaking of
breakfast, we have so far experienced a large spread of chips and
tomato sauce, chocolate biscuits and are fed homemade hummus at
regular times throughout the day! Having been here for four days I
think we have almost met all of the children as we rotate our meal
times throughout the houses, dining with a different SOS family
every day. Everyone here has been extremely welcoming to us.

Went to the school today and we were both extremely moved at how
accepting and enthusiastic the staff were about our visit and about
involving music therapy in their school.. We have already drafted
up a plan for this week, which is largely based on observation and
drafting timetables as the sessions will begin next week. We have
almost sorted the staff at the school and in the SOS Village who
will take part in the training which is exciting as they seem
really keen and eager to learn new skills.

What’s making me laugh the most at the moment is my name (being
arabic) is of no problem to them yet Liz has now become known to
many as ‘Lids’ :)†