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What We’re Reading: Traveling the world, no passport necessary

We often associate summer with adventurous books, maybe because, for many, it’s ingrained since youth as a season of freedom and possibilities.

This edition of What We’re Reading is inspired by the desire so many of us have to seek out new horizons in the summer. And though travel is a privilege that’s not always attainable, the beauty of books is that they allow us to explore all kinds of new terrains, no matter the status of our passports or bank accounts.

From the Amazon to Turkey; the Caribbean to Iraq to the Arctic Circle, these books open up new worlds for both the characters and the readers. Regardless of what the rest of the season holds for you, we hope one of these works will be a suitable sidekick—or navigator—for your next adventure.

Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid
A young couple, Saeed and Nadia, live in an unnamed city undergoing civil war, from which they are finally forced to flee. Using a system of magical doors, they find themselves searching for sanctuary in Greece, England, and eventually, the United States. This book is as timely as it is eye opening into the experiences of those seeking asylum around the world today. As described in The New York Times, “Hamid does a harrowing job of conveying what it is like to leave behind family members, and what it means to leave home, which, however dangerous or oppressive it’s become, still represents everything that is familiar and known.” — Dindy Weinstein, Director of Individual Philanthropy

Notes on a Foreign Country, by Suzy Hansen
In this insightful and provocative book, Suzy Hansen interrogates her own narrative and the narratives of America and Americans. Recounting her own experience as a journalist living in Turkey, she uses this book as an opportunity to look inward at her own experience and the myths that make up the American experience. Hansen unpacks the shortsighted and ill-informed conceptions she once held of the Middle East and Central Asia as well as her own misguided conceptions of self, people, and country. Hansen brings to light the overt and subtle ways in which American culture, governance, and military forces have shaped regions and places that she once knew nothing of, but that, for decades, have known a great deal about her, her country, and her people. Her book pushes us to question ourselves and our narratives as a result of being confronted with the often uncomfortable realities of the world we live in and our roles in that world as citizens of the United States of America. — Kyle Gibson, Deputy Director, Global Strategy and Programs

Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan
This book takes the reader on a journey across the world, and to a bleak past, with a slave boy named Wash and his master’s brother, a naturalist and explorer. By boat, by horse, and by hot air balloon, they voyage throughout the Caribbean, then to the Arctic Circle, London, and Morocco. The story explores the fraught relationship between those who are free, and those for whom the color of their skin prevents them from truly experiencing freedom—despite what local law may or may not proscribe. — Deb Levy, Director of Communications

State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
Here is a beautifully told story of a scientist who travels to the Amazonian jungle, in part to research a new fertility drug that allows women to bear children until old age, and in part to figure out the truth of the assumed death of a fellow scientist whose visit preceded hers. Of course, the larger mission becomes peppered with vivid stories of life deep in the jungle and unforeseen discoveries along the way. A joy to read.
— Eliza O’Neil, US/UK Programs Manager

The Flying Camel, Edited by Loolwa Khazzoom
In this anthology of essays and stories by Jewish women of North African and Middle Eastern heritage, each chapter opens a window into the Mizrachi and Sephardi communities, which are often overlooked/erased/discriminated against in the Ashkenazi world. These women challenge the dichotomy of “Jewish” vs “Arab,” bring to light experiences—both positive and negative—that are not associated with the mainstream Jewish narrative in Israel, America, and around the world, and explore their struggle to define themselves in terms of gender, religion, race, culture, and the intersection between them all. In the work that we do, it is critical to constantly reexamine the lines society has drawn between people, and to continuously open our minds to the nuance and complexity of human experience.
— Emily Umansky, Development Associate

The Book of Collateral Damage, by Sinan Antoon; translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright
We begin with an Iraqi scholar, who finds his American life interconnected with his homeland’s past and present after he encounters an eccentric bookseller in Baghdad. A work of fiction loosely based on Antoon’s return to his homeland (Antoon is a professor at New York University) after the devastation of the 2003 Iraqi invasion, it is ultimately a story of all that is lost in war, and I’ve never read anything quite like it: The chapters alternate between the professor’s life and the bookseller’s writings, each of the latter telling the first minute of war from the viewpoint of a completely different being or object, such as a boy who spends his days scavenging among trash; an overworked, aging horse that is nostalgic for the loving care it received as a young racing champion; a living-room wall that witnesses a family grow up and move on. At first the bookseller’s excerpts felt distracting from the scholar’s life, almost like commercial interruptions during a television show—until you suddenly find yourself fast-forwarding to get to the commercials. These chapters made me slow down, look up from the book and take stock of what was around me, and I think that’s the point. Coverage of a war and the concept of collateral damage, as Sintoon told NPR, “makes the massive destruction of lives just an abstract concept. And it becomes like a black hole into which humans, lives, houses, objects—entire lives and potential lives—disappear.” This book does not let them disappear.
— Lori Holcomb-Holland, Communications/Development Manager

What would you add to this list? Any recommendations for future editions of What We’re Reading? Let us know in the comments below, or send your picks to lori@seedsofpeace.org.

Seed Stories: Remembering Asel Asleh

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

This quote means so much to all people living under oppression—to people in need of recognition, help, and support to overcome injustices that suffocate all that is good.

Friends of the oppressed should never be silent. They should always lend a voice to the oppressed, because on this journey to freedom and justice, we can’t walk alone. We can’t survive without true camaraderie that knows how to speak the truth and seeks peace for all.

Nineteen years ago, the Asleh family from Arrabeh, the Palestinian town inside the Green Line, lost a pure soul, a son, and a pioneer named Asel.

They were not the only ones to feel the loss and that pain: many of Asel’s friends from different circles, including Seeds of Peace, still miss him and commemorate October 2nd as the day a beautiful human soul was taken.

Asel was murdered by Israeli police in his hometown as they brutally suppressed demonstrations that were taking place on both sides of the Green Line. These protests were a reaction to the massive response by the Israeli military against demonstrations in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem that broke out as a result of the provocative visit by Ariel Sharon to the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem. Sharon was the head of the Israeli opposition in the Knesset and was running to become Israeli prime minister.

These demonstrations are known today as the start of Second Intifada. The Israeli military response to them left thousands of Palestinians dead; the Palestinian retaliation took hundreds of Israeli lives. Inside the Green Line, 13 Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli police and border police during demonstrations.

Our beloved Asel was one of these 13, one of the too many lives lost in this cruel reality in which we live.

Asel was shot at short range while he was wearing his green Seeds of Peace t-shirt. He was there because he believed in justice, in peace, in acting against oppression, and because he believed in humanity.

To date, no one has been held accountable for his killing, despite evidence of who shot him and who gave the orders to do so.

Asel represented all that is good in this world. He touched the souls of so many while he was with us and the souls of many more who only met him through hearing his story and the details of his peaceful life and genuine heart. He managed to build relationships with enemies and with people he never knew before—to connect with everyone he met with honesty and love.

This week, we remember Asel.

This week, we remember martyrs everywhere who were killed fighting injustice and oppression.

History should not be forgotten. From the pain of the past we must move to a better future. We must wake up and lead for justice and peace. We must embrace our role in ending oppression and building a world in which all are respected.

Seeds of Peace is growing and developing. As a part of this process, we are approaching things in new ways. We will progress and be a true light on the path to peace.

We exist so we can create together a future in which, having learned from the agony of the past, we can all thrive in a world free of oppression, racism, and violence.

Like Asel, Bashar is a Palestinian citizen of Israel. He is currently the Palestinian Programs Director at Seeds of Peace.

Bonds of Friendship in a bitter war
The Christian Science Monitor

OTISFIELD, MAINE | In the end, Ariel Tal came back and Saja Abuhigleh stayed.

Simple acts, perhaps. But also acts of courage and hope at this wooded Maine camp, a refuge from the devastating daily violence of the Middle East, a place where teenagers from Israel and Palestine meet in an effort to find solutions rather than propagate hatred.

Ariel had twice before attended Seeds of Peace, as the camp is named. But that was before a suicide bomber in Jerusalem last December blew up his friend just 20 feet from the ice cream store where Ariel was sprinkling jimmies onto a cone. Had he not lingered a few seconds, he knew, it could have been his funeral for which the neighborhood turned out.

Amid the carnage, he looked down and realized he was wearing his green Seeds of Peace sweatshirt. “I got really confused,” Ariel says. “I didn’t know what I was looking for here, and why I was chasing it so hard.”

Even before arriving for her first year at camp, Saja had her doubts about sharing a bunkhouse and breaking bread with Israelis. On her second day, she called home and learned Israeli soldiers had occupied Ramallah, her hometown. They had detained her great-uncle’s son and struck the elderly man when he asked why.

“When [my family] told me, I started crying, and I said, ‘I want to go to my home in Palestine right now! I can’t stay here,’ ” Saja says, stumbling over her words in the rush to get them out.

But Saja stayed and Ariel shed short-lived thoughts of vengeance and came back, one of the small group of returning campers who offer support and mentoring to new arrivals each year.

Their experiences, however, attest to the challenges facing a camp that some call naively idealistic and others see as the only sane response to a world situation that seems to have lost all reason. Journalist John Wallach founded Seeds of Peace in 1993, prompted in part by the first bombing of the World Trade Center. He invited 46 teenagers that year, hoping to teach young people from this bitterly divided region how to listen to one another.

But the camp has never faced a summer quite like this one. Working for peace in the Middle East has always been a courageous choice. Doing it amid the horrific violence of the current intifada, and Israel’s brutal backlash, is practically inconceivable. It is a violence that has become personal, even for teenagers, even for children.

And if the camp is to succeed, if the three weeks teenagers from each side spend laughing, arguing, and living together is to mean anything, it is a violence they somehow must find the strength to look beyond.

Getting acquainted

On June 24, the same day President Bush called for the ouster of Yasser Arafat in a much-anticipated Middle East policy speech, 166 teenagers arrived at this sleepy lakeside retreat 30 miles northwest of Portland, where only the names of the campers and the constant presence of police cars at the gate indicate that this is any different from the dozens of other camps nearby.

Almost all the campers are sponsored by Seeds of Peace; all went through a lengthy, competitive application process to get here, and all were selected by their education ministries in part for their potential to lead.

Their mission: to get to know one another as individuals rather than as the enemy, in a place removed from the hatred back home. Though Seeds of Peace has expanded over its first decade—it now accepts young people from other regions of conflict and has established a year-round Center for Coexistence in Jerusalem—it still rests on the same simple premise: that interaction breeds understanding.

You don’t have to like each other, camp director Tim Wilson reminds the campers at the opening ceremony, just recognize that each individual is a human being deserving of respect.

“You can go home, and yes, there are things there we have no control over,” Mr. Wilson tells them. “But here, we do have control. You have the right to sit down and talk to someone you normally would not talk to.”

The campers listen eagerly, applauding vigorously. When it comes time to sing the Seeds of Peace song, they belt it out: “People of peace, rejoice, rejoice/ For we have united into one voice….”

When the gathering ends, however, they cluster with others like them, finding comfort in a shared language and traditions. It takes a few days, or more, says Wilson, before many start branching out. When he sees girls from different sides “sitting around talking about P. Diddy,” or boys discussing the World Cup, he knows they’ve reached common ground.

The camp is designed for informal interaction. Six to nine campers, grouped by conflict region, share each of the well-kept bunkhouses that line the shore of Pleasant Lake. Campers eat with a second group and join a third for the daily 90-minute “coexistence session.” With this third group, they also play sports and participate in activities intended to build cooperation and trust, from a ropes course to a dance exercise in which they mimic each other’s movements.

One of this year’s new campers is Sami Habash, an articulate, blond Palestinian from Jerusalem who plans to attend Israel’s prestigious Hebrew University next year although he’s only 16. An intense young man, he’s pleased to be in an environment where everyone wants peace. But his first interest is in scoring political points.

“I want to tell [the Israelis] that we don’t have water at night. I go up to drink, and no water.” During debate, Sami hopes “to see Israelis themselves freely admitting their country’s mistakes.”

Adar Ziegel, an Israeli from Haifa who for as long as she can remember has dreamed of being her country’s prime minister, has less formulated plans. She’s heard great things about the camp from her boyfriend and is excited to see whether teens on opposite sides of the checkpoints can find solutions. Adar shares her bunkhouse and her coexistence session with Saja. Sami will be in a coexistence session with Ariel. The Monitor chose to focus on these four teens two Israelis and two Palestinians to gain some insight into the small triumphs, epiphanies, and setbacks that occur in these weeks of typical camp fun mixed with not-so-typical discussion and debate.

All four arrived with hope, but also a degree of skepticism their homeland, after all, is in tatters. Saja, who has never met an Israeli before, came armed with photos, downloaded from the Internet, that graphically portray Israeli soldiers’ abuse of Palestinians. She cannot forget the day she saw a soldier strike a small boy on the head, causing blood to spurt out.

And Sami, though ready to listen, has a long list of grievances from life under occupation to share with his Israeli counterparts.

In past years, says Ariel, discussions focused mainly on policy. “We just argued about the past and whether or not we want Jerusalem to be united.” This year, “the new kids have personal experiences. I have experiences of my own.”

Trying to win

In a nondescript one-room cabin, words and allegations fly. Facilitator Marieke Van-woerkom had eased into the coexistence session with a rather vague question: “What does it take to have peace?”

But after a few predictable, detached responses—”Stop war,” “End the bombs,” “Both sides have to trust each other”—the campers switch gears to get at specific gripes, often using a “we-you” phrasing.

“We can’t trust you,” says one Israeli. “We gave you weapons in Oslo. Today, we see those weapons being used on us.” And, he asks, why did Arafat reject Israel’s offer at Camp David two years ago?

“It wasn’t enough,” responds a frustrated Palestinian. “We want our land, but also to be free in this land. We want borders like other countries. A government, like other countries.”

“What do you want us to build a government for you?” the Israeli shoots back.

“When you give us the land, you must trust us.”

Saja objects when one Israeli refers to suicide bombers as terrorists. A fellow Palestinian likens them to messengers, delivering a message from a people who have no other resources.

“Do you think the message is being delivered in the way you want it delivered?” an Israeli girl wants to know.

After about 90 minutes, Ms. Vanwoerkom brings the session to a close with a final suggestion: “What I’d like for you to think about is, what it is inside of us that makes it so hard to truly listen and understand each other? You feel you’re not being listened to, but where are you not listening?”

Ariel, in his third year, has seen campers doggedly stake out their own positions before: “They come to win.” So did he, when he first arrived, a camper with right-wing politics and the view that the best solution was to remove all Arabs and “put them somewhere else.”

“It changes,” he says. “They face the reality and say, ‘OK, we can’t win. What next?’ You realize understanding is the important part.”

Still, even during this particular heated session, the teenagers have accomplished what many of their compatriots back home seem incapable of. They’ve carried on a debate without violence or, for the most part, raised voices.

Besides, reaching consensus is not really the goal. Vanwoerkom says she’s wary of pushing campers too far, too fast. The “brick wall” they hit when they get back home will be that much harder, especially this year. “I’m trying to find that balance,” she says, “between learning, development, growth and going back home and being able to build on those lessons.”

Facing challenges

Midway through camp, Adar finds her political foundations shaken.

She considers herself progressive, even pro-Palestinian.

But when Saja compares the Israeli occupation of Palestine to the Holocaust, Adar loses her composure. Her grandparents narrowly escaped Poland and Germany. Many of her relatives died in concentration camps.

“[Saja] said that from their point of view, we can just go back to Germany and Italy and stuff,” says Adar angrily. “I myself would never go back to a place that put numbers on my grandparents’ arms.”

Still, she thinks carefully about how to teach as well as react, giving Saja a copy of “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.” “She’s actually reading it,” Adar says a few days later. “I feel that once she reads that book she’ll have a much more wise understanding.” For Sami, facts have been the primary source of tension.

The Israelis in his coexistence session, he says, get them all wrong. “When I’m talking to [one Israeli settler], I’m counting on some facts that I know. When he changes the facts, I say I’m sure my facts are correct. He’s changing my facts just to make it more difficult for me to talk!”

Like Saja, Sami in his session pressed the point that Israelis should leave Palestine. He remains baffled by the outburst his comment provoked.

“They got really crazy about it,” the normally mild-mannered Palestinian says resentfully. “They said they were offended because some of them understood it as ‘Go back to Hitler.’ Others understood it as, ‘I don’t agree with the idea of a Jewish state.'”

Neither is true, Sami insists. What he wants is for Israelis to acknowledge they took land that wasn’t theirs. Finally, he lets it drop. But the experience leaves a bad taste in his mouth. “At the beginning of camp, I had some more positive ideas about the people I was negotiating with. But now some of [those opinions] have changed.”

Final days

If the informal mingling of Israeli and Palestinian teens signals success, then camp this year could get high marks.

The camp’s color games—three days of athletic competition—further erode national allegiances. The competition here is between blue and green, not Israel and Palestine.

“My team won!” says Saja brightly. She played baseball and canoed for the first time. Now she’s running around like a senior before graduation, asking everyone she knows to write indelible-ink messages on her T-shirt.

Adar, meanwhile, eagerly recounts tales of the talent show, for which she coached a boys’ bunkhouse in a ballet routine.

Now, with a teenager’s bent for melodrama, she says she’s heartbroken at the thought of leaving. “I’m going to hug a tree and carve myself into it,” she sighs. She’s already making plans to visit Nada, an Egyptian girl in her cabin, and says she’s even forgiven Saja.

“We have the best bunk ever,” Adar says firmly.

But all hasn’t been perfect.

In the middle of color games, John Wallach, the camp’s founder, died in New York.

“I didn’t want to continue any more,” says Ariel, who knew Wallach. “I was unable to think. But I realized the kids are looking up to me, and if I were to leave color games, they would do the same. [So] I kept on going.”

Just days after Wallach’s death, Dateline NBC runs an hour-long special about the camp, focusing on five teenagers from its first summer. One Israeli is now a right-wing settler, and a Palestinian he befriended at the time is active in promoting nationalist causes. The other three also seem to have drifted a long way from the idealistic teenagers who shook hands with Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat 10 years ago.

The camp may create an aura of hope, Dateline implies, but the dreams the teens walk away with will likely wither in the heat of the violence back home.

It’s a charge the camp’s leaders are familiar with. They accept that some campers will lose the lessons of peace.

Still, Bobbie Gottschalk, the camp’s executive vice president, says she’s heard from most of those original campers since Wallach’s death. One, an Egyptian named Tamer Nagy, is this year’s program coordinator. Koby Sadan, who attended Seeds of Peace in 1994 and ’95 and just finished his three-year stint in the Israeli army, is also working as a counselor this summer.

Seeds of Peace now has more than 2,000 graduates, Ms. Gottschalk says. If just a few of them hang on to what they’ve learned and eventually become leaders in their region they could have a big impact.

“We’re just trying to get people to think for themselves,” she says. “And to care about people who are not like them. If we can expand the circle of their concern to go beyond people who are not exactly like them, then we’ve gone a long way toward building a citizen of the world.”

Heading home

No one can say what makes the camp’s message stick with one person and fizzle with another. All that’s certain is that it will be tested back home, one reason the camp has created a year-round center in Jerusalem to continue work with former campers.

Saja is excited to have made Israeli friends. But she hesitates when asked what life will be like when she returns to Ramallah. “Here, I can do everything I want,” she says. “But [in Palestine] I can’t move … To go to school from Ramallah to Jerusalem, I have to pass three checkpoints. When I stand there I think that I want to kill these soldiers, and I don’t want peace with them.”

Adar insists the bonds she has formed in three weeks, with Palestinians as well as Israelis, are stronger than those she’s formed over three years back home. She still feels her country is “falling apart,” but she takes heart from something Tim Wilson, the camp director, told her. “Tim [who is African-American] asked his father when segregation will end. And his father said, ‘When this generation dies.'” She and her fellow campers, Adar hopes, will form a new generation. Sami, however, finds it harder to imagine how Palestinians his age, pushed to a boiling point, might respond to a message of tolerance. “They’re going to tell me, ‘Can’t you see what’s happening? Aren’t you living in this country? You still want peace after all you can see?’ ”

To a point, Sami shares their rage. He is furious when he thinks of Israeli tanks and guns overpowering unarmed Palestinians. Still, he has thought carefully about the situation. “There is no way but peace for Palestinians. The Israelis have power. They can manage with peace or without peace. We Palestinians have rocks. We have nothing. So, of course, I will keep trying.”

A few days after he returns home to Jerusalem, Sami is already thinking about contacting the Israeli friends he made and visiting the Seeds of Peace center. Recent events have changed one plan, though: He no longer wants to attend Hebrew University, shattered last month by a cafeteria suicide bombing. The Technion, in Haifa, he reasons, is as good a school and less of a potential target.

From what Ariel suggests, much of what Sami, Saja, Adar, and other new campers learned at Seeds of Peace this summer has yet to sink in. He has learned that the emotional highs campers take with them from Maine can quickly crash to devastating lows. Only then can they begin to decide whether what they experienced was illusion or truth. “The experience is different [for each one],” says Ariel. “Camp is a bubble.”

Ariel, who toyed with the idea of vengeance after the suicide bombing he saw in December, is now firm in his own path.

“I got to a conclusion that we have no other way [but to work for peace],” he says. “We can do this. We can’t do anything else.”

Read Amanda Paulson’s follow-up 2003 Christian Science Monitor story »

Advice to future Seeds of Peace campers

Going to any new place, especially one where you may not know anybody beforehand, is a nerve-wracking thought for many people.

As Seeds, we can try with all our might to assure you that you shouldn’t be nervous about going to Seeds of Peace Camp, but we understand that until you experience it for yourself, that’s hard advice to follow.

We reached out to fellow Seeds from our years and delegations to offer some tips and tricks that will help you acclimatize to Camp life as quickly as possible so that you can get the most out of your time in Maine.

  • Make friends on the bus; it’s always nice to know people when you get there
  • Don’t be afraid to try something new in your spare time; your Camp days will be very busy, but there’s always free time built in to to explore something new
  • Express your opinions the way you want them to be heard—don’t ever feel you should be quiet because you feel that others wouldn’t agree with what you’re saying
  • The beds are comfortable, but the bunks are old; do your best to keep them clean, as the cleanest bunks win prizes
  • Bring crocs
  • Live in the present, enjoy the company you are with
  • Make friends with counselors—they’re really easy to talk to and want to get to know you
  • Make friends with Leslie—she oversees the whole Seeds of Peace organization, and she loves getting to know Seeds
  • Get to know Bobbie; she’s got a lot of great stories
  • Take a nap during rest hour
  • Bring long-sleeved clothes and bug spray—mosquitos are vicious
  • Bring a camera—you can record your memories
  • Showering isn’t as important as you think
  • Wear bug spray at night
  • Keep a journal—it’s great to be able to look back after, and even during, Camp to see how far you’ve come
  • Be raw and forthright—the more willing you are to open up about yourself and put yourself out there, the more powerful your experience will be
  • Wear flip-flops in the shower house
  • Invest yourself in dialogue 110 percent and have conversations outside of dialogue
  • Come ready to hear harsh, contrasting stories
  • Don’t hide your emotions; explain and express them

A truce among teens in Maine brings young people from the troubled Middle East together for three weeks
The Philadelphia Inquirer

BY LINI S. KADABA | OTISFIELD, MAINE The big news at the Seeds of Peace camp, tucked deep in the towering pines, had been the raucous pillow fight a few days earlier.

Then details of violence half a world away hit this placid spot. A young Palestinian furniture salesman on a suicide attack had rammed his car into hitchhiking Israeli soldiers, injuring 11 before police shot him to death.

In Maine, the campers—Israeli and Arab teenagers—listened. Then something astonishing—and unthinkable back home—happened.

Adi Blutner, 14, an Israeli, embraced Dena Jaber, 15, a Palestinian. To an outsider, the magnitude of the gesture, repeated throughout the camp one day last week, might be lost, but the campers understood.

“If it had been at the beginning of camp,” Adi said, “I would have gone to my Israeli friends and said, ‘See. See. Why are we even here?’ But the person that it felt right to go to was Dena.”

Adi and Dena are two of the 172 fresh-faced Israeli and Arab teenagers who have traveled 6,000 miles to the unusual Seeds of Peace camp to make friends with those who live only yards away back home. Today, as the teenagers prepared to return to the Middle East after a tour of Washington, they promised to stay in touch with enemies-turned-friends.

“They come with preconceived ideas. They have their facts ready,” said Linda Carole Pierce, a former North Philadelphia native who directs the daily rap sessions that are the heart of Seeds. “Then they find out they like the same music. They’re teenagers … You watch them grow past the fears.”

John Wallach, a former Middle East correspondent with Hearst Newspapers tired of the endless carnage, founded in 1993 the nonprofit camp, which for fiscal year 1998 had a cobbled-together budget of $1.9 million. The camp brings together teenagers from the troubled Middle East, and occasionally other conflict areas, for three weeks of bonding in the woods of Maine. (Private donations cover the $2,500 per-camper cost.)

This could never happen in the Middle East. It takes an idyllic and neutral location. It takes this haven on Pleasant Lake near Portland, the old boyhood camp—Powhatan—of real-estate developer Bob Toll, who bought the place a few years ago with his wife, Jane, a board member of Seeds, to save it from development.

“It’s the old NIMBY business—not in my backyard,” laughingly said Bob Toll, who built himself a home along the lake.

In 1997, the Tolls of Solebury, in Bucks County, agreed to lease the camp property, rent-free for now, to Seeds, which was looking for a long-term home for its camp. The Tolls also raise funds for the camp.

“Here you have people who are brought up to intensely dislike someone else,” the chairman of Toll Brothers Inc., the Huntingdon Valley real estate company, said. “Now you bring them into an environment [where] … you’re playing football, baseball, soccer, and all of a sudden it becomes more important to live with that person.”

Such moments happen often once the campers, who must sleep, eat and do just about everything in mixed nationality groups, clear the initial hurdles of prejudice, distrust, even hatred. Sure, they come wanting peace, these mostly middle-class children picked by their governments to fill the 450 prized slots in the Seeds programs. But peace, it turns out, means many things.

“Our history books don’t say the same thing,” one camper said.

Jane Toll, who often bikes over from the lake house, has learned that lesson.

“I used to try to figure out an answer—who’s right and who’s wrong,” she said recently. “They’re both right.”

Of course, it is one thing to reach that spot intellectually, and it is quite another to sleep in a bunk next to someone known as the enemy of your people for generations.

“We don’t try to divorce them from the real world here,” Wallach said. “What we’re trying to do is get individuals, human beings, to begin to care for each other … to have some compassion for each other.”

Wallach, who is Jewish, has written with his wife, Janet, a biography of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.

“It’s all about the enemy has a face,” he said. “It’s all about breaking the barriers of fear.”

That’s why a hug between an Israeli and a Palestinian is such a big deal. That’s why every camp activity carries enormous meaning, whether it is climbing a wall and trusting your safety to the other side, or building a sculpture that reflects both sides’ suffering, or competing in that camp ritual, the color wars—recast here as the color games, for obvious reasons—or even sharing a tube of toothpaste with a bunkmate.

“Maybe I can’t see the side of Palestinians because I’m Israeli,” Adi said at one rap session. “But I tried to,” she said in English, the language of the camp. “If I was Palestinian—and this is so hard for me to say because I feel I’m betraying my country—but I’d probably do the same.”

She sat in an uneasy circle with nine other Arab and Israeli 14- and 15-year-olds in the Nature Hut. All around the camp, groups of teens gathered for 90 minute coexistence sessions, the frank, often-heated discussion of the very issues stymieing peace negotiators back home.

Typically, when the Israelis and Arabs begin, they are at odds over, you name it, the West Bank, water rights, Israeli settlements, each side practically competing over who has suffered more. Imprisonment. Bombs. The intifadah. The Holocaust. But by the end, the teens shake hands over real agreements.

“All of us had this thing in ourselves, to make friends with the other side, to achieve something that our leaders could not,” said Shirin Hanafieh, 18, of Jordan, who has returned for a third summer, this time as a peer leader. “The way it works here, you wish this was the real world.”

But even here, peace isn’t always so neat. Adi’s group, Group G, has struggled from the start. Old disputes that have plagued the Middle East for decades continue to simmer, and sessions have ended with mean words, even tears. Some of the hurt spills over into late-night conversations. That’s why facilitators walk the bunk lines.

This evening was no different. Group G grappled with the suicide attack. One moment, Adi conceded much—just the type of compassion that Seeds hopes to sow. The next, the gulf between Israeli and Arab loomed as wide as Pleasant Lake.

The violence, she said, “makes me want peace, to stop the terrorist acts.”

That offended the Arab campers.

“That is not called a terrorist act,” shouted Mofeed Ismail, 15, a Palestinian whose cousin was killed by Israeli soldiers. To the Arabs, the suicide attacker was a freedom fighter whose own family had suffered at Israeli hands.

“I’m very sad about today, but he was not from Hamas,” Mofeed said, “and he had his reasons.”

That offended the Israelis.

“OK, he was a freedom fighter. But you know … soldiers were injured. They could be my friends,” said Israeli Alexandra Koganov, 15.

The firestorm blazed, until facilitator Liat Marcus Gross, an Israeli working with Palestinian facilitator Farhat Agbaria, tried to put it out.

“You said earlier what happened made you want to make peace,” she said, calmly. “You are not making peace right now.”

If camp seems hard, the return home is harder. There the struggle for peace begins with friends and parents. Many encounter taunts of traitor, or worse, because they have befriended the other side.

Palestinian Zeina Jallad, 16, on her second visit to Seeds, describes a most ordinary, but extraordinary, friendship. Since the last camp session, she had invited her best camp friend, an Israeli girl, to her home. But in the Middle East, all that has happened before weighs very heavily, and Zeina’s family was wary at first.

“It was very hard to have the enemy in your house,” said Zeina, who has seen her father imprisoned, and uncles and cousins, and who has had three relatives “martyred.”

“But, we are accepting it,” she said of the successful visit. “I want to go forward, without forgetting what happened.”

To that end, Seeds of Peace gives campers an e-mail address that allows what has sprouted here to bloom there despite the harsh words, the checkpoints and borders. Often camp friendships grow to include families and schoolmates. Middle East camp alumni also report and edit the English-language newspaper the Olive Branch, and last year a youth summit was held in Villars, Switzerland. This fall, Seeds will open a center in Jerusalem, where alumni—more than 1,400 Israelis and Arabs—will gather.

Back at the Nature Hut, Group G had fallen apart. To cool down, the group divided into Arabs and Israelis—the Arabs speaking Arabic, the Israelis speaking Hebrew. After 30 minutes, they came together.

Said Adi: “Now, I understand the goals of Seeds of Peace. It’s not to make peace between us, politically. It’s to make friends. We leave this place as true friends.”

Said Mofeed: “I agree.”

Seed Stories: ‘Four Ways of Looking at a Black Girl’

Seeds of Peace was the first place I ever performed something that I wrote. I never expected where the passion and courage I discovered in that moment would lead me.

Going from telling my story to Seeds at Camp, to sharing my experiences of growing up in Maine to an audience of over a thousand people two years later—alongside professors, poets, writers, artists, and musicians from Columbia University to the state of Indiana—is still crazy for me to think about.

I performed these pieces—part of my series, ‘Four Ways of Looking at Black Girl’—on April 2 at Show & Tell, a 90-minute literary cabaret at the State Theater in Portland, Maine. Show & Tell helps support The Telling Room, a nonprofit that empowers youth to share their voices and express themselves through free programs. I hope hearing my experiences helps inspire you as much as sharing them did for me.

Diplomat sees both sides of Mideast conflict
Santa Barbara News-Press

BY MICHAEL TODD | He’s a U.S. diplomat who spent most of his career trying to find peace in the Mideast, and he now runs Seeds of Peace, a program that teaches youths on both sides of the divide leadership skills needed to avoid war. But Aaron David Miller doesn’t see either approach bringing peace.

“It’s not the diplomats who can or will regulate what goes on between human beings. Seeds of Peace cannot end the Palestinian conflict, but neither can the diplomats.”

Still, there’s no despair in the adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations to six secretaries of state. Quoting President Kennedy, he calls himself “an idealist without illusions.”

“I think that’s the only approach to take up because you can’t give up … but you must go in with your eyes open.”

Mr. Miller will bring that pragmatic idealism to UCSB’s Corwin Pavilion on Wednesday when he addresses “Arab-Israeli Peacemaking” in a free lecture. The author of three books on the Mideast, he served in the State Department for two decades formulating U.S. policy in the region. His most recent posting, as senior adviser for Arab-Israeli negotiations, ended when he took the presidency of Seeds of Peace in January 2003.

In his book “The Missing Peace,” U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, Mr. Miller’s boss for a dozen years, assessed his deputy: “He was Jewish and in no small part that helped shape his personal commitment to peace. He deeply believed in Israel’s moral legitimacy, while also understanding the profound sense of grievance that Palestinians felt. Perhaps, because of his training as a historian, Aaron always tried to understand what was going on in terms of basic trends … He was also guided by his own sense of fairness, believing instinctively that the Palestinians should not be treated differently from any other Arab party. Aaron’s analysis was thoughtful, logical and honest. One thing I knew for sure: With Aaron, I would have a deputy who would never shy away from expressing the truth as he understood it, no matter what the audience.”

Speaking via telephone from the New York offices of Seeds for Peace, Mr. Miller demonstrated that his brand of diplomacy still brooks no evasions of hard truths, even about his own legacy.

“For me, the Arab-Israeli conflict has never been a morality play, no good vs. bad,” he said. “It’s not some sort of Manichean drama of light vs. dark.”

Instead, it’s a matter of meeting and dealing with competing needs that must be reconciled.

“My moral and political point of departure was not rooted in that I am an American Jew,” he contends. Instead, his interests were in furthering U.S. international influence. That meant, quite simply, “You really have to look at both sides’ needs,” he said.

His historian’s dispassion allows him to criticize both the current Bush administration’s “disengagement” with the “over-involvement of the Clinton administration.” The latter occurred under his watch.

“Three or four tactical and strategic mistakes were made during the Clinton administration, and those enabled the Palestinians and the Israelis to, I think, pursue policies that couldn’t succeed.”

In short, he said, “we were not tough enough on both sides.”

The recent death of Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat and the election of Mahmoud Abbas as his successor provide a fresh baseline for peace, he suggested.

“I think the passing of Yassir Arafat offers a chance for the Palestinians for the first time in their history to move from a politics based on personality to a politics based on legitimacy.” But legitimacy requires results, Mr. Miller stressed. One thing that isn’t needed, he said, is a “mad rush” back to the negotiating table. “What is needed is a series of unilateral actions (by both sides) that are credible and build trust … Any notion of going back to permanent status negotiations are not just foolish but a catastrophe.”

Mr. Miller’s suspicion about the favored weapon in the arsenal of traditional diplomacy is reflected in how he views two signal moments in the peace process — the Oslo accords, a 1993 agreement between Mr. Arafat and the late Yitzhak Rabin that codified Palestinian sovereignty, and the most recent nuts-and-bolts meeting between Mr. Abbas (one of the architects of Oslo) and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at Sharm el Sheik, Egypt.

“Oslo was a religion for believers,” Mr. Miller said. “Sharm el Sheik was a business proposition for pragmatists.”

Unstated is that the United States must be a part of the solution.

“While the time is long past when the U.S. can single-handedly solve the problem, when it comes time, there can be only one mediator. The United States is the only power in the international system that enjoys the trust and confidence of both sides,” he said.

Asked if Arabs trust the United States in a time of street protests and car bombs, Mr. Miller replied, “I do not believe, despite our diminished credibility, that the Arab world has given up on us.”

In that vein, he rejected additional “projection of American military power” in the region, although he did counsel the United States using “sunlight as the best disinfectant” in hounding Syria and Iran.

What he embraces, both as diplomat and president of Seeds of Peace, is “transformational diplomacy” to erode the “generational” conflict between Arabs and Israelis.

“Even if political agreements are reached, those will take years to take effect as anything we would recognize as peace.”

And that’s where Seeds of Peace comes in. The organization, founded in 1993, takes up to 500 youths from Israel and predominantly Muslim countries and teaches them leadership skills at a camp in Maine.

“We’re building for the next generation,” Mr. Miller said, unveiling his idealism. “Only individuals can turn back and reshape the crueler aspects of history.”

Sowing seeds of Mid-East peace
The Sun (UK)

JERUSALEM | Violence, hatred and tension rage on in the Middle East, with at least 13 killed in the latest fighting between feuding factions in the Gaza Strip.

Yet one organisation is breaking down barriers. Seeds of Peace was founded in 1993 by US journalist John Wallach and is supported by UK charity World Vision.

It aims to secure lasting peace by bringing together Arab and Israeli teenagers in month-long camps in the US to dispel fear and prejudices of the “enemy”.

Here we meet a generation who could provide an answer to the hatred and deaths.

Noa and Sara

Noa and SaraIsraeli Noa Epstein, 24, met Palestinian Sara Jabari at a Seeds of Peace camp in 1997. They became pals and even made the dangerous trip to one another’s homes—risking jail in the occupied territories.

English teacher Sara, 24, is married to businessman Izzeden and is mum to Yumna, four, and Dawood, one.

She lives in Beit-Hannina, a suburb of north Jerusalem. Noa, a co-ordinator for pressure group Peace Now, lives in Jerusalem’s Mevasseret Zion suburb.

NOA SAYS: “When I was 14 my teacher offered me the chance to go to a summer camp with Israeli and Arab kids. It sounded intriguing and was an opportunity to get to know people who live nearby but who I would otherwise never get to meet.

“At the time I first went to camp, in 1997, terror attacks here were escalating and I felt a little nervous. Then I met Sara.

“We spent hours talking and soon realised the other was not the monster stereotype which is too often portrayed.

“It was important for me to travel to Sara’s home in Hebron, which is around one hour away.

“It was the first time I had been in the West Bank, former Arab territory now occupied by Israel.

“Soon after, Sara came to my home. Since she moved to Jerusalem we have been able to see more of each other. The only way this conflict can be resolved is by educating people to break down the walls of hate.”

SARA SAYS: “Before I went to the camp, I always thought Israelis were the enemy and was very afraid of them.

“My family and friends would tell me, ‘Even when you are sleeping you must take care’.

“When I discovered I’d be sharing a bunk with two Israeli girls I stayed awake all night in case they attacked me—and later they told me they did the same. But day by day the animosity broke down.

“Noa and I developed a very close friendship quickly. We were not an Israeli and a Palestinian ? simply two friends.

“I was afraid of going to Noa’s home the first time, particularly when a woman entered the house in army uniform. I thought I would be arrested or even shot but Noa said it was her sister. [Israeli girls are conscripted at 18.]

“Noa’s family made me very welcome.

“I try not to be too optimistic, but I want a future for my kids which is free from crossing army checkpoints and being divided by walls. At least they are growing up with a role model of a friendship which refuses to be broken by war.”

Hamutal and Amani

Hamutal and AmaniISRAELI Hamutal Blanc, 16, from Haifa formed a firm friendship with Palestinian Amani Ermelia, 17, at a Seeds of Peace camp in June 2005. Amani lives in a refugee camp in Jericho.

HAMUTAL SAYS: “In many Israeli minds all Palestinians are terrorists. But luckily my parents have brought me up to think more liberally. Nevertheless, I wanted to meet Palestinians and see the situation with my own eyes.

“Amani and I slept in the same room at camp and formed a strong bond. We discussed lots of things, including the politics of our countries.

“I can try to understand a lot of things but I could never agree with suicide bombing. I was shocked to discover that most intelligent Palestinians do. I’d like to go to Amani’s home but it’s dangerous for me.”

AMANI SAYS: “To get to my school, five miles from my home, I have to pass through Israeli army checkpoints. I often feel scared because the soldiers can be hostile and even open fire.

“I wanted to go to Seeds of Peace to tell how I feel. I am like a bird in a cage, I can’t move freely in my own country. Just because I wear a scarf, Israelis think I am a terrorist.

“I respect Hamutal because she has made the effort to listen and understand me.”

Mahmoud and Amos

Mahmoud and AmosPALESTINIAN Mahmoud Massalha, 16, is from north Jerusalem. He made friends with Israeli Amos Atzmon, 16, of west Jerusalem, at a Seeds of Peace camp last year.

MAHMOUD SAYS: “Amos and I became friends because we both love football.

“The thing I admire most about him is that he is learning to speak Arabic. I am learning to speak Hebrew.

“That really helps because if we are going to make peace with the other side we need to know their language.”

AMOS SAYS: “It was the first time I had got to know Palestinian kids, rather than just seeing them as the enemy.

“I knew Mahmoud and I were going to be friends. We discovered we liked hip-hop music, particularly Eminem. I’d love to go to Mahmoud’s house but I’m a bit afraid. But if you don’t know the other side, you can never make things better.”

Read Sharon Hendry’s article at the The Sun (UK) »

Play for Peace & Seeds delegations in D.C. | Newsletter

NBA stars turn out for Seeds to ‘Play for Peace’

NBA Play for Peace

Ten NBA stars arrived at the Seeds of Peace Camp on Monday, July 28, to participate in the Seventh Annual ‘Play for Peace’ basketball clinic.

They were welcomed by 160 Egyptian, Jordanian, Israeli, Palestinian and American youth participating in the camp’s second session, focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

NBA stars include top draft picks Derrick Rose (Chicago Bulls), Brook Lopez (NJ Nets), Robin Lopez (Phoenix Suns), Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City), DJ Augustin (Charlotte Bobcats), Anthony Randolph (Golden State Warriors), with NBA ‘Play for Peace’ veterans Brian Scalabrine (Boston Celtics), Jordan Farmar (LA Lakers), and former WNBA star Sue Wicks (NY Liberty). Bulls great BJ Armstrong helped to lead the clinic.

NBA Group Photo

During the event, players worked with campers on basketball fundamentals and teamwork drills that help them understand the value of cooperation. In return, the players got an up-close and personal view of the nature of conflict, challenges to peace in the Middle East, and the possibility for lasting coexistence.

‘Play for Peace’ is organized by Arn Tellem, President of Wasserman Media Group Management, who is also the agent for the players and a Seeds of Peace board member. Tellem said: “At a critical moment in the Middle East and with renewed interest in diplomacy, it’s important that the players do their part to advance understanding and coexistence. Every year, this visit becomes an experience as much for the players as it is for the camp participants.”

Leslie Lewin, Camp Director at Seeds of Peace, said: “Sports, and in particular, basketball, is a very important part of the camp experience. The visit of the NBA players help teach the importance of cooperation and trust, and help draw attention to the courageous efforts of these teens.”

South Asian Delegation in Washington D.C.

South Asian DelegationAfter the end of their camp session in July, the delegation of Indian and Pakistani Seeds traveled to Washington D.C to discuss the issues facing both countries and the possibility of peace. Their trip included a reception at the Department of State where they were welcomed by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher.

Deputy Secretary Negroponte said: “The young people we celebrate today will bring skills, perspectives, and experiences gained over the past three weeks back to their homes in India and Pakistan—two countries that are important friends and partners of the United States, and two countries we want to see succeed. You are a group of extraordinary young people with the courage and the imagination to look beyond decades of conflict and envision a peaceful, hopeful future.”

Two Seeds also spoke at the event. Maria, a Pakistani, said: “Before coming to camp, I wrote something and I would really like to share it with you all. It goes like, ‘We have one world to live in, one world to share, one world to care for, and our one world is here.’ So Seeds of Peace basically highlights all of that. It brings us together to work for a better, peaceful tomorrow.”

Parikshit, an Indian Seed, said: “Before coming to camp, I had a different mindset about the conflict between India and Pakistan. I had read stories and books, I had heard from the media, from my parents and relatives their versions of the conflict, whose fault it is, who is right and who is wrong. Well, I can say that after spending three weeks with so many people, so many friends over there, the one thing I’ve learned is that what I think is not true, not necessarily true. You know, I must always broaden my mind, accept what the others are saying, though I may not like it.”

The Indian and Pakistani Ambassadors were in attendance in addition to many members of the domestic and international news media.

Seeds also participated in meetings on Capitol Hill with various members of Congress, many of whom serve on the Indian, Pakistani and Afghan caucuses. The Indian and Pakistani embassies also generously hosted the Seeds for briefings and tea.

Seeds Café focuses on media and conflict

Seeds CaféSeeds Café this month hosted television and newspaper journalists for a revealing discussion about the role of the media in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The guest speakers for this Seeds Café were CNN Producer Nidal Rafe and Yoav Stern, Ha’aretz newspaper’s Arab Affairs Correspondent. The audience had an opportunity to hear what happens behind the scenes of the media covering the conflict on a day-to-day basis. They addressed the difficulty of having positive stories run in the press and the importance of having local journalists covering events in the region.

Help Seeds of Peace win 1.5 million dollars

Members ProjectPlease take a moment and help support Seeds of Peace in a simple way—that’s totally free! Seeds of Peace is entered in the American Express Members Project. If everyone clicks on the link below and nominates our project, you could Help Seeds of Peace Win $1,5000,000! All you have to do is click! Every vote counts and the winner receives a $1.5 million grant. Runners up receive between $100,000-$500,000 each!

BUT … don’t just nominate—spread the word! Tell your friends and family members. Everyone can support Seeds of Peace at no personal cost. And, the links at the bottom of our Members Project page will help you send emails and even add a link to your Facebook page, etc. Let’s keep Seeds of Peace running for the next generation of leaders!

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Nomar, Mia visit Seeds of Peace: ‘You see the joy’
Portland Press Herald

Mia Hamm and Nomar Garciaparra are among this year’s guest stars at Seeds of Peace Camp.

OTISFIELD | Cool sunglasses masking his eyes, microphone in hand, Wil Smith worked his audience, priming them with introductions of the visitors. By the time Smith reached Mia Hamm, his campers at Seeds of Peace were beyond delight.

Teenage boys and girls, mostly from the Middle East, were heading to a new level of excitement. Waiting for his wife after his own noisy welcome, Nomar Garciaparra didn’t try to hide his smile.

So this is why his agent kept inviting him to this former boys camp on the pine-lined shore of Pleasant Lake. Actually, Arn Tellem’s reason was only beginning to reveal itself.

“You know the lives they’ll go back to, but you look in their faces and see the joy,” Garciaparra said Thursday morning. “They’re giving me much more than I can give them.”

This is Seeds of Peace, the oasis away from the world’s centuries-old battle for hearts and minds and land in the Middle East. Children from other places where fear and danger are constant companions also arrive here each summer.

It’s a universal mission: Dialogue can affect peace better than terror. Plant that seed.

“I go to sleep, thinking of my problems,” said Brian Scalabrine, a free agent after four seasons with the New Jersey Nets and the past five with the Boston Celtics. “What’s my future hold? Where will I play? Will my kids be safe? And then I think of the kids I’ve met here. What are their futures?”

Scalabrine was a rookie in 2001 when he first came to Seeds of Peace with Tellem and another rookie class of the agent’s clients. Unlike most of the others, Scalabrine has returned every year since. “In my lifetime, I want to see peace in the Middle East,” he said.

On Thursday, Nets rookie Brian Zoubek unfolded his 7-foot-1 frame from the SUV that also brought Xavier Henry (Memphis Grizzlies) and Scottie Reynolds (Phoenix Suns) to this place. Teresa Edwards, the forever young, 46-year-old Hall of Fame player from Georgia, also came. She was a five-time Olympian, winning basketball gold four times—the youngest at 20 in 1984, and the oldest at 36 in 2000.

“I’ve been blessed with a career that’s allowed me to travel the world,” Edwards said. “I know what’s out there.”

She didn’t know what to expect Thursday. Breaking for lunch, she was still trying to get her arms around the hellos and the smiles and a growing feeling of wonder. That she was able to get her arms around individual campers went without saying.

The task wasn’t to solve problems, but to let young men and women know they mattered. A smile works. Simple questions and simple answers, the tools of conversation, work too.

This wasn’t a USO troupe dropping in to entertain the troops. Believe it or not, March Madness and Major League Baseball don’t reach deep into the Middle East. The campers understood and appreciated that these men and women were stars. Wil Smith, the camp director, told them that.

The campers reached out to their guests on a far easier and more relaxed level. Nomar and Mia, Scalabrine and Edwards and the others responded the same way.

Maybe an American Seed, as they’re called, or an American counselor asked Garciaparra what he thought of the Red Sox chances this year. Maybe not. Those Seeds from Gaza or Jerusalem didn’t care. They were more interested that the man helping Hamm was her husband.

Some Red Sox fans saw Garciaparra in one dimension: He could play shortstop better than most and he could certainly hit. If they bothered to peer into his soul, they would have found an intelligent, compassionate and friendly man.

“I kept telling Arn I wanted to do this, but after I retire. Well, I’m retired.”

Tellem was a camper here more than 40 years ago when Seeds of Peace was Camp Powhatan and Tim Wilson was his counselor. Wilson was the first Seeds of Peace camp director. He’s retired but that doesn’t keep him away.

“We look for people who can make a difference, even if it’s just for one day,” Tellem said.

Someone came over to tell Garciaparra he had been picked for a soccer team for the next 15 minutes. The Yankees. He grimaced. And laughed.

“This is all hard to put into words,” Hamm said during a break. “It’s beyond my expectations. Everyone is so committed. Watching (the Seeds) talk to each other, play together … it’s emotional.”

Nearby, Zoubek, the former Duke basketball star, left the court to sneak into the soccer net to play goalie. Someone lined up to take a shot. The laughter was loud.

Read Steve Solloway’s article and view John Patriquin’s photos at The Portland Press Herald »