When I decided to do my studies in Israel, one thing was clear before deciding on the place: What I was going to study. Political science. Well, politics has been a very recurring theme in my life and of course in Latin America, where I come from, but how this passion was going to change my life was not foreseen.
Perhaps the first led to the second, choosing Israel as the favorite place to carry out my studies, a country that I consider a "social laboratory", or to a large extent a place where it is fascinating to live politics, in the good sense of the word, and not in the old and redundant term degradation to which most of it is referred by politicization and extreme political propaganda.
What I mean exactly is the feeling of listening to each one of the country's stories, the empathy of the people who tell you their points of view, what for them is good and evil, fair and unfair, the truth and lie.
Therefore I was sure of something, maybe my comfort zone would be living in Tel Aviv, a city I enjoy being in but it doesn't make me feel at the center of what is happening in the country.
And then an opportunity appeared in my life: to live in a settlement on the West Bank. This is probably very unusual, especially for a foreigner who only wants to study in Israel, and it certainly is. Anyway, my case is different, a part of my family on my mother's side lives in Israel too, specifically in a settlement called Neriya, a place where I would later decide to live.
I'm sure it's quite a novelty to hear a case because living here requires a special effort. Every morning and night do tremping because there are no regular buses in these areas, usually traveling to Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan takes me longer than expected and requires me to get up earlier, some services such as shops are further away and less accessible, however, it is a fascinating adventure to live in this place.
First of all, I live with a lot of nature around me in a big house compared to student apartments in tel Aviv, I have had the opportunity to take care of several feral cats, and take care of the plants around me in the least artificial way possible. For me, as someone from Latin America, and I have the habit of living close to nature, it helps me a lot to feel at home. But apart from everything mentioned, there is something more unique and that is that I am at the center of the political dispute, and not precisely regional, but global, it is not a secret that there is a lot of politics behind the tensions of the place.
Here I live it, feel it, and hear it from the people who live near broadening my perception of the country, I am no longer just the student who travels to Bar-Ilan University every day, I am the student who lives, listens, and learns daily the reality of one of the most affluent countries in a social and political matter.
Martin Espinosa came to Israel as an international student in 2021. He is currently studying political science and communications at Bar-Ilan University. He has a passion for politics and social sciences.
