Middle East conflict too close for some in Santa Fe.
Maya Hochstadter, Rawan Khatib and Jwana Al Hajhasan sit side by side in a room strewn with brightly hued clothes, glossy magazines and photographs.
"I am so happy to be here," Al Hajhasan says, beaming at her new friends through dark, flashing eyes. "We are from the same land, but at home we cannot even meet. But here, we are like sisters."
Here is 35 acres nestled high in the mountains of Glorieta, the home of Creativity for Peace, a
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camp that works with teenage girls from Israel and Palestine on issues of empowerment, leadership and conflict resolution skills for women.
Each summer, nearly 30 teenage girls, selected by the camp through a rigorous application process, travel to New Mexico in two separate
groups to learn about each other through dialogue and art-not to mention shopping, bowling and movies.
"It's basically about teaching these girls to live amongst all this violence," Rachel Kaufman, the camp's founder and executive director, says. "We're teaching them to have a meal with the enemy. Because your enemy is only a person whose story you haven't heard."
The camp is in its fourth, and perhaps most difficult, year. In late June, just before the latest group of girls traveled to Glorieta, the Palestinian group Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier, prompting Israel to reoccupy portions of Gaza it had previously abandoned.
Shortly thereafter, Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed group that operates from Lebanon, kidnapped two more Israeli soldiers; Israel responded with an intense and ongoing bombing campaign of Lebanon aimed at destroying Hezbollah's infrastructure. Hezbollah, in turn, has struck back by firing rockets into northern Israel.
The impact of the latest, heart-wrenching chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict has been profound for Creativity for Peace attendees and employees.
Most of the northern towns and villages, where the Israeli and Israeli Arab girls hail from, have been hit by the rain of Katyusha rockets lobbed over the Lebanese border by Hezbollah.
Hochstadter, from a village in northern Israel, is close with the sister of the soldier kidnapped by Hamas. Lately she's been crying a lot, Kaufman says.
Palestinian girls have seen the Israeli military reoccupy their towns. One girl was close neighbors with a young man who became a suicide bomber.
"The saddest thing is that the girls think they're going to die young and not live out their dreams," Kaufman says. "But they love each other. And now they have to deal with what that friendship means."
Still, despite the flood of bad news from home, the girls have embraced each other with all their hearts.
"It has been hard to express our feelings to each other, but it has also made us much closer," Khatib, whose Israeli-Arab family is from Western Galilee, says. "This has been so great, so special for all of us."
Hochstadter, whose family recently went into a bomb shelter, echoes Khatib's sentiment.
"We used to be enemies, and now, all of a sudden, we see the enemy is suffering too," she says. "And we are supporting each other, Arab next to Jew."
The students and staff at Creativity for Peace are not the only Santa Feans directly impacted by what's happening in the Middle East.
Jacqueline Dunigan, a stylist at Axis Hair Studio, was trapped for more than a week in Beirut with her 8-year-old son Luke. The Dunigans traveled to Beirut for a family reunion on July 6-Jacqueline's father is of Lebanese descent-only to find themselves stuck in an apartment without electricity.
"It was a nightmare," Dunigan says. "The most terrifying thing I've ever experienced."
Dunigan, like hundreds of other Americans, was told by US embassy officials in Beirut to stay put until the bombing stopped. Instead, Dunigan and her family travelled north, away from the fighting, to a beach near a Lebanese army base where they thought they'd be safe. One day, just as the Dunigans were going for a swim, Israeli helicopters swooped down on the army base to take out its radar, Dunigan says. One of Dunigan's relatives grabbed Luke and thrust him underneath an upturned boat for cover.
"Then, the Lebanese Army started firing their machine guns at the Israelis, and we were all just running for cover," Dunigan recalls.
After rushing back to Beirut, Dunigan and her son hopped on a boat owned by her family and managed to sail past an Israeli naval blockade and through the night to Cyprus.
From there, US officials whisked them back to the States on a chartered plane with other American women and children; the Dunigans returned to New Mexico on July 21.
"I never thought we'd get out," Dunigan says as she tussles Luke's hair.
When asked if he ever wants to go back to Lebanon, little Luke shakes his head emphatically no.
For the girls of Creativity for Peace, there is no choice. By the time this story publishes, Hochstadter, Khatib and Al Hajhasan will be readying themselves to return home. Hochstadter and Khatib will return to an area that lies directly in the path of Hezbollah rockets. Al Hajhasan will weave her way through Israeli checkpoints until she gets to the city of Jenin in the West Bank, and the almost certain possibility of more gun battles between Hamas fighters and the Israeli army.
Through it all, the three girls vow to keep in touch: to travel to the monthly gatherings Creativity for Peace holds for alumni, to tell everyone about their time in America, to hold tight to the powerful lessons they learned high in the New Mexico mountains.
"I will never forget this as long as I live," Hochstatder says.
Her new friends nod in agreement.
Their smiles, for the moment, eclipse a war that knows no end.
