This is Unheard Cuts on Being. I'm Krista Tippett. You're listening to my

unedited conversation with Nidal Al-Azraq. He works with teenagers at the

Laji Center in the West Bank City of Bethlehem. I spoke with him on March 16,

2011 at the Ida Refugee Camp where the Laji Center is based.

The center view is included in our show Pleasure More Than Hope.

Download the MP3 of the Produced Show at onbeing.org.

If it's a taste like that, that's fine. I was in, I was in, sorry, you know,

Sabah's office, it, it was really loud. I called her, it came on, it, it came on

the last 10 minutes so we were already kind of tired and it wasn't.

If it had been earlier, we might have stopped but it was incredibly loud so that

I was having trouble hearing myself think and he always, he didn't seem to be

bothered by it. Part of me felt like we should just stop anyway.

But he clearly, so, so anyway, tell me your story about

well, my name is Nadal, I was born and raised here in Ida camp and I lived

almost all my life in this refugee camp where I, you know, witnessed a lot and I learned a lot

socially and politically and I got involved in activism early in life.

Started in the 80s, late 80s and early 90s and as many people who worked in

politics, we start working politics when Oslo came.

Right, those were the Oslo years, right?

Yeah, when Oslo came and at that time I was studying electricity and I finished

the electricity and I started working in Israel and Jerusalem,

goes all around the place. Then in the beginning of the

...