A Palestinian Peace Maker in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Palestinian Sami Jabber and his family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico where they opened a café called Alfanoose, The Magic Lantern. It has become a popular gathering place for great Middle Eastern food, music, and international camaraderie.
The Peacemaker: From Palestine to Santa Fe, New Mexico from pamela y. taylor on Vimeo.
I created this story for a Santa Fe Workshops class on audio storytelling, given by Bob Sacha. It was my first foray into recording interviews for a visual story. We used soundslides a program to make slideshows on steroids.
The challenge was taking pictures and doing interviews in a limited amount of time. I prefer to devote a great deal of time so people can feel comfortable and there is emotional depth to a story. Jabber himself turned out to be the solution. He gave me free access to photograph and gave several short interviews. He and his wife are genuinely warm and personable.
In the end, I was a bit disappointed with the resulting story. However, Jabber was delighted with the DVD I presented to him.
I found that the real story, one I didn’t have time to do, was about an organization they support each year called Creativity for Peace. Based in New Mexico, it promotes understanding and leadership among Palestinian and Israeli young women.
