BY LEE MICHAEL KATZ | OTISFIELD, MAINE Teams of teenagers in blue and green T-shirts have been battling each other for days in everything from basketball to canoeing.
Color wars are an American Camp tradition, but you’ll never hear that term used here. At the Seeds of Peace International Camp, the staff makes a point of calling the fierce intercamp battles between teams “color games.”
That’s because the kids here are unlike others in the many camps that dot the Maine woods. They are the children of war: Arabs, Israelis and teens from a divided Cyprus. The prospect of bloodshed is part of their life.
But 5,000 miles from home, these campers are living the peaceful existence their parents can only dream about.
“Adults haven’t felt what it is like to live in peace, and that is what we’re doing here,” says Noa Epstein, a 15-year-old Israeli.
Teenagers whose leaders can’t make peace stroll hand in hand between towering Maine pine trees. Checkpoints divide many of them at home, yet, here, Arab, Israeli, Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot youths sleep in the same cabins, eat at the same tables and play on the same fields.
“We basically put a face on the enemy,” says Linda Carole Pierce, director of the camp’s facilitation program.
The camp is part of a private program launched in 1993 by former journalist John Wallach to bring together children from troubled lands. Wallach says he was tired of “being a fly on the wall of history” and wanted to “inspire hope.”
Private donations cover the $2,000 cost per camper. The camp is located 45 minutes from Portland. The campers all speak English. Counselors and a handful of campers come from the United States. Applicants must write an essay on “Why I want to make peace with the enemy.”
The hope is that by living together, the youths can overcome stereotypes and form friendships that were once impossible. That has happened with Noa Epstein and Palestinian Bushra Jawabri, who have become inseparable girlfriends. Bushra lives in a refugee camp, and Noa is from a comfortable Israeli family.
The girls met in camp last year. At first, their views of each other were shaped by the bloodshed that affects their people.
“I used to think that the Israelis were just soldiers with guns and weapons,” Bushra says. “Their purpose was to kill Palestinians. I used to hate them because of that reason.”
For Noa, “All I knew about Palestinians is that the are terrorists coming to bomb our buses and kill our soldiers. I could never really picture a Palestinian friend.”
Now, the Israeli and Palestinian teens walk around camp with their arms around each other. When one of the girls has to set the table in the dining hall, the other comes along to help.
“I love her, and nothing will change her friendship,” Noa says.
Back in the Mideast, they have visited each other’s homes, shared religious celebrations and taught each other Arabic and Hebrew. Bushra never thought she could be “so close” to an Israeli.
Color Games
The purpose of Seeds of Peace is to bring the teens together, but for three days they are intentionally divided. For the color games competition, the camp splits into teams of youths with green and blue T-shirts.
“It’s a way to forget about nationality for a few days. Here you have a new nationality: green or blue,” says Yaron Avni, a 15-year-old Israeli boy.
Hand-painted signs hang from trees. “Go Green, the Mean Fighting Machine.” Another proclaims, “Go Big Blue, the Lake Awaits.” That is a reference to the prize for winning the color games: first rights to swim in the camp’s Pleasant Lake.
When they are announced as the winner, the blue team erupts. For a full two minutes, Arab and Israeli, Greek and Turkish Cypriot kids pound and hug each other. The blue team goes into the water fully clothed. A few minutes later the Green team joins them. Splash fights break out. They soon give way to hugs.
In a white shack on the edge of the camp is the computer lab. Seeds of Peace wants every camper to have an e-mail account before going home. That’s because no government or soldier can stop the kids from meeting in cyberspace.
“If you’re using e-mail, you dont have to worry about checkpoints,” says Aaron Naparstek, a former Microsoft employee who runs the lab.
What makes the Seeds of Peace camp different from other summer camps is the almost daily “Coexistence” session. Campers from feuding areas talk about how to make peace.
In Bunk 12, Palestinian, Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian teens sit in a circle and talk about what they have accomplished. Negotiators back home have not even begun to address the future of the Palestinian state and the fate of Israeli settlements. Yet these campers have already resolved thorny issues.
But when the fate of Jerusalem comes up, the unanimity fades. The city is under Israeli rule, but Palestinians also claim Jerusalem as their capital. It is an emotional issue, even at Seeds of Peace.
“Don’t say both sides want it,” says Omer Kurland, a 17-year old Israeli boy. “We already got it. They want it.”
“In my opinion, it’s mine,” responds Abdassalam Khayatt, 17, an equally passionate Palestinian. “You don’t have control of me.”
Omer jokingly asks Abdassalam if “you want to get it on outside?”
But he also makes a serious point about violence. “We can have what our parents didn’t. We need to argue with our minds.”
Wallach says the campers “learn to disagree without resorting to force.”
Just Being Kids
Despite the clear mission of Seeds of Peace, the campers also enjoy just being kids. They play ping pong while listening to salsa music. Like all teenagers, the campers can be downright silly. They spontaneously march around the dining room, singing “Yum, Yum, Yum.” The kids put shaving cream on one another’s pillows.
One evening, the campers were treated to a dance with a local oldies band. It is like any teen dance in the USA. Inside a cavernous gym, the campers dance in groups, alone and together. An Israeli boy and a Palestinian girl do the jitterbug.
Dancing particularly close are a couple of 16-year-olds from different sides of a divided Cyprus. Alp Eminsel, a Turkish Cypriot boy with glasses, clutches Andri Constantinou, a Greek Cypriot girl with braces and a shy smile. They dance to the balladWonderful Tonight.
On Cyprus, they are separated by barbed wire. But “we can meet each other in the USA,” Andri says. Back home, “they won’t let us live in peace.”
The next day, she autographs his T-shirt, “From Juliet to Romeo … Your Andri.”
Still campers say they are beginning to change the mindset of hatred in the Middle East through their experiences in Maine.
Omar Abaza, 14, of Egypt, notes if “someone at home says, Those damn Jews, theyre bad, theyre the enemy, I fight back. I tell them, no, its not like that.”
Seeds of Peace graduates sent a letter to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this spring.
“We are writing this letter as people who have experienced peace temporarily,” the campers declared. “We enjoyed the taste but we want the whole pie.”