Sunday, 24 February 2002 | Other cultures

As soon as we arrive, the group picks up their mats and heads outside, arranging themselves in rows in the brown grass underneath the bright blue sky. They sit with their legs folded Indian-style, backs stiff, and eyes closed—concentrating—their composure neatly countering my frantic picture taking. Their arms and hands move in smooth curves while I intrude with my lens, squatting at different heights and crunching as quietly as I can through the sword-shaped leaves. Todd stands on the sidelines and (fortunately) does the chatting for me.

Five minutes pass. Suddenly we're at the Jewish Film Festival, crashing into another culture I am not a part of. There, we meet several others, sit in a long row in the theater, stare forward and put popcorn in our mouths (well, I do) and watch Promises, a two-sided documentary about Palestinian-Israeli relations, told from children's perspectives. The woman behind us makes her perspective known throughout the film, scoffing and muttering "that's not true," whenever she hears something she doesn't like. But by the end, everyone is clapping, including the woman who'd been grunting and hissing at the screen.

Ten minutes pass. We're eating Mexican food, discussing the film, and I'm scraping the beans out of my taco. We stop for coffee, smudging the glass of the dessert display with our pointing fingers, and we walk further, running in spurts, our group separating into divergent clusters, the way groups unfailingly do. At a used bookstore, we flip through records and old books and I'm passing out tart candy and by now our conversation has changed completely. People begin to peel off, one by one, and I drive back to Raleigh.