Free Running in Gaza

Seeking inspiration for my next blog post, I came across a link to NAKBA REVIEW, an online newspaper.  http://paper.li/Satyagrahi_ji/1305447315  I was immediately drawn to it because it looked very professional and I loved the format.

The idea behind the online paper is simple.  The articles are written as lead paragraphs in a news article.  If the reader wants more, he/she can click on the article and a new window opens with the original source article.  As in a print newspaper, the articles are separated into categories.  The reader is free to jump to other categories immediately (picture a man removing the sports section from a paper while his wife reads the books section).

The source of the article is given up front, just as the location of a print newspaper article is given first.  The pictures (including videos) are amazing/interesting/eye-catching/supply your own adjective.

I followed this REUTERS picture to an article “Parkour around the World: The Art of Moving” and learned that Palestinian youth in Gaza are training in Parkour or free-running in cemeteries and in former Israeli settlements.

The point of free running is to get from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible, not letting obstacles get in the way.  The only tool is the human body.  Another way the wonderful resilient people of Gaza continue to make lemonade out of the incredibly bitter lemons life has dealt them.

Sir Isaac Newton would have been proud of how these young people are defying gravity as they defy the impossible odds of leading a normal life under conditions that are anything but normal.

Watch the video.  As someone who knows the horrors these boys have experienced, I found it heart-warming.  As a mother, I found it heart-stopping.