Extreme Makeover: Playground Edition

This is what I signed on for. As a spouse of the foreign service I expected to be doing a lot more community outreach sort of activities. The reality is though, that I'm here in Jerusalem. In many other posts, volunteer opportunities seem endless. Here, the places that could use the work are in Gaza and the West Bank. Unfortunately, our access to the occupied territories is very limited. So when a chance to clean up a playground at a school here in East Jerusalem came up, I jumped at the chance. And it was awesome.

It felt great to get my hands dirty and put in some real work for once. It felt even better knowing that an overgrown and faded playground at a girls' school has been brought back to life.