cassie's story

Silence: Indulgence of the Powerful/Symptom of Suffering (and my e-mail address)

2006-09-25T23:11:00.000-04:00

I left Palestine a little over a month ago, and every day I read the news and wonder what it means for the lives of the people that I met there. I'm frustrated that the governments and politicians have the audacity to say that they are so principled or fervent that they won't hold talks, won't move forward, won't recognize each other. They have the privilege to be able to do that, they can retreat to their respective sides and justify their silence. Meanwhile, there are people in Palestine who would like nothing more than to have somebody listen to them, and there are others, even Israelis who would listen, who are listening, when they can, but the machine of oppression and ignorance and power steamrolls those voices so that they can't be heard. And there are others who just don't (want to) hear.
Do the ends justify the means? Does withholding aid to Palestine, because of Hamas, punish Hamas? It cripples their ability to govern, and they are certainly weakened, but do they suffer? Are they learning a lesson about democracy? No. The people are suffering, they aren't being paid, and they are being punished. And meanwhile, the US won't recognize Hamas as anything but a terrorist group, Hamas refuses to recognize Israel, and all the moderate voices are lost as every side withdraws to their respective corners, waiting for someone else to budge.
Feed the hungry. Pay the poor. Educate the uneducated. House the homeless, protect the vulnerable, restore dignity, and recognize that politics is not about the players, or power, or religion or ideology or any of that. It's about the people. Every day that passes where nothing more is accomplished in moving towards peace, another meter of that Wall goes up. Another Palestinian family goes without a paycheck. Another crazy terrorist launches a rocket into Israel, and another Israeli teenager is commanded to kill. There is no dignity in violence, no excuses for allowing people to suffer. Give the Palestinians their aid. Other countries have found a way to bypass Hamas, to get to the citizens who need it most. Forget the politics and remember that we are talking about real people, like you and me, who want to live a real life, but instead suffer in silence and wait for the people in the suits to find common ground. Here's the common ground: we could all be Palestinian. We could all be Israeli, or American, or Lebanese. We all drew a lottery ticket when we were born, and some of us got lucky. All human beings can suffer. Some can inflict suffering. And some can make a real, a big, difference, right now. No one should retreat from the table when the quality of life of an enormous group of innocent people is at stake. There is common ground; we are standing on it as we speak. Let's try taking it from there.

This stream of thought was sort of inspired by this petition (scroll down for English version) and also because I realized that what I read about Palestine and Israel in the news is so abstract, and almost always from a macro, political level. I tell myself that at least it's in the news. Someone asked me if there was a special security force with my group while I was there, and another confided that he was practically positive that I was going to get kidnapped. What kind of news are we being fed to think things like that? No wonder so many people chuckle when I tell them that I studied peace and conflict resolution. No wonder they say, "good luck," or "yeah, they could use that over there," as if there's nothing to be done about the "other" people who just can't seem to stop fighting. I spent 8 weeks in Palestine, so maybe it's no wonder that I found the courage to speak openly when people ask about what it's like to be an American in Palestine. I speak because what they should really be asking is what's it like to be a Palestinian in Palestine, because they aren't finding that in the papers, or hearing it on the news, or in the political debates taking place. And now, I tell all of you, because I can. And because I believe in the truth behind my opinions more than ever. I'm no politician, and I don't grasp all the complexities of political relations, but I've realized that I can still have opinions. And strong ones. And that I shouldn't be afraid to share them just because someone might disagree. So, to my mostly anonymous blog readers, sorry to make a sudden swerve into politics in this post, but I think you can see how it's been a long time coming. peace&love
Cassie
If you want to get in touch with me, I'm (finally) going public: cassie.weaver@gmail.com

Culture Shock

2006-09-07T23:41:00.000-04:00

Last night I had a dream that I was in my house in Palestine and the door bell rang. When I opened it, all the kids from the refugee camp, who had swarmed me in real life to have their picture taken, were gathered outside. They were begging me to come out and play with them, but I kept saying no. I couldn't remember why I wasn't able to, but I just knew that I couldn't. Finally I had to shut the door on them.
I miss Palestine.
After arriving back in the States, I immediately went to Canada and spent a week far, far away from any civilization whatsoever, with only my family members around. It was a good introduction to "real life," but nothing compared to coming back to DC. In Canada I dreamed of Palestine a lot, but mostly just woke up confused about where I was. In DC, when I wake up, I know exactly where I am. My first "holy shit what am I doing here?" moment came driving home, when we stopped in a Tim Horton's in Canada, of all places. My mother abandoned me in the line (ok, she went to the bathroom) and I had to pay out of her purse. I opened the little bag and spilled the money into my hand and almost immediately began to panic. The dimes looked like shiekels, the gold loonies looked like half shiekels, the two-tone two dollar coins looked like ten shiekels, the quarters looked like five shiekels, and nothing made sense. The guy behind the counter looked at me as I chokingly laughed and half panicked, totally unable to figure anything out. Finally I handed him a five dollar bill, even though it was obvious to both of us that I had more than enough coin to pay. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I finally walked out of the store. I felt really out of place, and really far away from my summer.
The emotions I feel being back here are really hard to explain. I feel homesick, in a way, and I definitely feel guilty that I left, although I keep telling myself that I shouldn't feel that way, because I plan to go back and because I had to come home, and because there are things I can do here to help. I haven't been sleeping very well the last few nights because of the dreams. It is hard because I was so accustomed to talking to people every single day about Palestine, while still going about my daily normal life. I wrote about that two-fold reality in an earlier post. Now, I feel like I am living this daily, normal life and am unable to do anything Palestine-related at all. I feel really helpless. I read the news and watch the news and I recognize the names of the towns and can picture the maps in my head and I just miss it. It's really hard, and weird. I wasn't able to look at my pictures for a while even. Two days ago I finally put them on my mini-slideshow on my google desktop sidebar, so that I could see them out of the corner of my eye. When I saw the article in this week's New Yorker about the forgotten war in Gaza, I nearly started crying. It took a phone call from my sister tonight to get me going again. I went through all the rest of my pictures, wrote captions, and uploaded them. I e-mailed some people who were in Palestine with me, and I decided to write in my blog.
I still can't read my journal though, not the one I kept while I was there, not this blog, not even the one I wrote before I left which would probably be the most interesting to me. I don't know. Sometimes it feels like the whole thing didn't really happen, even though three weeks ago I was definitely there. So what has changed about me? I *get* the conflict in a way I didn't before, it is very human and real to me now. I process the news from the region in an emotional manner and imagine the effect it will have on all the people and organizations that I know there. I ordered my Arabic alphabet workbook and CDs. I take shorter showers. I miss Arabic coffee. My backpack smells like the zatar my host mom gave me before I left. I read ten different news sources a day, searching for news from Palestine, from the West Bank particularly. The biggest change is that I have life plans! When I left for Palestine I planned to come back for a four month commitment at my nannying job and then..... big empty space starting January. Now, I'm going to travel again starting in January, heading to Southeast Asia, then back to Palestine for a few weeks/couple months, and then my sister and I want to backpack central America next summer. Finally, I plan to start my graduate studies at American University next fall, where I got my undergraduate degree. I want to study International Peace and Conflict Resolution or enroll in the newer Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs program. Either way, I will be concentrating on Palestine and hopefully doing some field research there. So now there isn't a big blank spot for at least a couple more years. I feel so lucky that my family is so supportive with all of this, even though my brother confessed that he hardly slept all summer, just like my mom and sister. They all really do understand why I do this though, and hopefully they'll get a little more used to it?
I really do feel better already, just by writing in here again and putting those pictures up. It'll take time to re-adjust, I know that, and I've only been back in DC a week.. And this weekend I'm meeting a friend at a nargilah bar to tell her all about my summer, so that will help too! Thanks again for reading, I'll keep writing sporadically so check back every now and then. Peace and love,
Cassie
and don't forget to look at the pictures, six new albums, hundreds of new pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/cassie.weaver

Home Safe! ( aka my mother can now sleep soundly)

2006-08-21T13:04:00.000-04:00

I'm home safe and sound, writing from the computer in my parent's basement, probably the site of the most anxious blog-checks anywhere : )
Let's see... I guess I'll start by talking a little bit about my last week in Palestine and then the story of the return trip. Last weekend I went to Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Architecturally, the site is beautiful and well-designed, the main exhibition hall is a series of rooms connected to a main corridor that ends on a terrace that looks out over the hillsides around Jerusalem. I've been to the holocaust museum in Washington, DC, a couple of times so I was trying to mentally prepare myself for what I was about to see, but of course nothing can really help. It is so hard to imagine the terror and horror of those times, and the scale of the holocaust, the millions of people affected... I have the hardest time understanding how so many people collaborated, consented, or turned away from the plight of the Jewish people and the other targeted populations. So many people were compliant, so many soldiers at the camps and people living around the camps and the ghettos.. And in places like Denmark, so few people working together made an enormous difference and saved thousands of lives. Being reminded of the holocaust while living in Palestine was important, I think, because I have been searching for reasons for the Israeli government's actions and fear and security are the two biggest motivators.
It is so forbidden to compare anything to the holocaust, and certainly nothing has happened since on any remotely similar scale, but the creation of the "other," the de-humanization of a population, the mass grouping of ethnic and religious groups, the exploitation of fear, the building of walls and creating of ghettos, population control, restrictions on movement, identity cards with religious categories, all of these are present in every day Palestinian life. The last story I shared, about the old woman who lays awake at night fearing the sound of boot steps on her stairs, reminded me the books I read about the holocaust, the stories from the survivors. I'm not really expressing myself well right now and that is a bad thing; like I said, it is an untouchable subject, but some of the actions by the Israeli government and military absolutely parallel tactics used not only in the holocaust, but in other cases of apartheid and ethnic violence. For example, I learned that in official Israeli government documents, the roads built by Israel inside the West Bank for the settlers to use are referred to as "sterile roads."
I walked away from the museum upset and disheartened, but with even more faith that the one way to change anything in this world is to start by changing yourself... Maybe I'll talk about that more at the end.
Last weekend I went into Tel Aviv again for a day and finally got to eat at the "Taste of Life" restaurant where nothing but vegan food is served. So good. Then the rest of the week was a total blur of organizing and saying goodbye and worrying about security checks at the airport. Before I left for Jerusalem on Saturday night I said goodbye to my host mom and it was so sad, she started crying right away and so did I, and all I could say was that I hoped that I would come back soon.. of course, she told me I was always welcome. I think I could show up on her doorstep any day and she'd welcome me and have food in my stomach in under ten minutes.
My biggest worry about leaving was that I would somehow get blacklisted, which means no entry into Israel for up to seven years, because I would be seen as a Palestinian sympathizer and threat to Israel. I don't feel like a threat, but who knows? Other people in my group who had left already had experienced hours of questioning and had their bags totally unpacked and searched. There are different "tactics" to use at the airport, one of which is playing the tourist and saying that you've been traveling the country for two months, and the other is to tell the truth but not give the names of anyone you talked to, worked with, lived with, etc. in the West Bank, because if the security knows that you've been there, they'll want to know who you talked to. My friend J and I were on the same flight so we decided to say we had been traveling together. We stayed at a hostel in Jerusalem the night before so that the shuttle would pick us up there and take us to the airport. In the hostel, instead of sleeping, we got out our guidebook and brushed up on the places we had visited. J was planning to tell them that he had volunteered in Bethlehem but that we spent most of our weekends traveling in Israel. By the time we left for the airport (our shuttle picked us up at 3:45 a.m.), I was too tired to be anxious anymore, and just wanted to get on the plane and be done with it. We were first approached while we were standing in line and asked how long we'd been in the country, what we had done while we were here, where we had stayed, etc. At first J didn't say that he had volunteered, because they didn't ask, but then they did and he told them the truth. The woman took our passports and we went to screen our bags. We were asked the same questions again while they x-rayed our bags, and then they sent us to another place where they opened and partially un-packed my bags while asking us both more questions, including, "I'm sorry to ask a personal question, but what is the relationship between you two?" and, "While you were in Bethlehem, did anyone invite you in for coffee, tea, dinner, conversation? Were you in any private homes?" We said no, which is so laughable because every single person we talked to invited us for tea, dinner, everything. After they checked out our bags and I managed to stuff everything back in my backpack, we went to the ticketing line, got our boarding passes, and then got some food. The final security check was before entering our terminal, and was just a metal detector and a hand check of our carry ons. I was so relieved that we got through with little hassle, I'm curious to see how the other woman did who was also on our flight, because I'm pretty sure she was one of the last people onto the plane.
The flight to London was long and boring and I slept for most of it, and then I only had an hour in London so I basically walked from one gate to another. The second flight was even longer, 8.5 hours, and hard because I was alone for the first time. I definitely cried thinking about everyone I had left behind, and I began to realize just how far away Palestine is, and just how far away my life there was about to become. When we landed in Detroit at 4:30 p.m. local time I had been traveling for 20 hours straight, and I was exhausted, stressed, and ready to see my parents. I went through customs with no problems at all, and felt like I was totally lucky because my bags were already on the carousel. I got a luggage cart, grabbed my bags, and prepared to greet my parents. Seconds before I went through the final gate, a man stopped me and asked to see my passport and customs sheet, which I showed him, told him where I had been, and he let me go. I was literally two steps away when a woman pulled me aside and asked for the same documents, and then began to ask even more questions about what I had been doing. It didn't take her long to decide that I needed more screening. She took me over to an inspection station, basically a computer in front of a long conveyor belt. Besides the usual questions, she wanted to know who I had traveled with, and when I only gave his first name, she wanted to know his last, and when I asked her why, she asked me why I wouldn't tell her, so I said that I didn't want him to get in trouble. Bad move, in hindsight, but I meant that I didn't want him to have to get pulled aside and questioned as well. Too late, she took his last name and then made me put my bags on the conveyor belt. I'm happy to say that I started crying immediately at the thought of having to re-pack those damn bags again, and I told her so, but she really didn't care. She went through my carry-on first, and pulled out my journal. We'd been told in Palestine that the Israeli security guards don't have the right to read journals, so I felt safe carrying mine through. Homeland Security does not share that view, clearly. She thumbed through it looking at the papers I had tucked in it (travel insurance and a copy of my passport), and then started looking at the pages. I immediately told her that it was my journal and asked if she really have to read it? She responded that yes, she had to read it, because she needed to know if I was telling the truth or not. I honestly felt sick to my stomach, not because there was anything "bad" or "illegal" in the journal, but because I write things in my journal that even I wouldn't want to re-read, it is a totally safe and private space that was being invaded in front of my eyes, for no apparent reason. She called her supervisor over and told me to ask him any questions, but I didn't really have any questions, I just wanted to know why she was reading my journal. He told me that they have the right to inspect any documents or items that anyone carries in the United States, period. I don't find fault with this, I just don't understand why I seemed like enough of a threat or a liar to warrant having my journal read. She finally set it aside and unpacked the rest of my bags, examining every piece of paper she found. After she unpacked my two checked bags and camera bag, she told me that I could re-pack them. I asked if I could re-pack my carry-on and she said, "No, I need to read your journal a little more closely. You seem to refer to the military and soldiers frequently." There are soldiers on every street corner in Israel, and to go anywhere outside of Bethlehem, I have to deal with the military... I told her that, but again, she didn't care. She sat down, in front of me, and read my entire journal, beginning to end. She laughed at parts, made faces, and made me explain one part where I had written "Italia! Italia! Italy won the W.C. tonight." Do you get it? It was when Italy won the World Cup, and everyone at the bar was chanting. Why she wanted that explained, of anything, stumps me. She also asked me to explain relationships I talked about, and asked why I wrote "I love Palestine" in some of my entries. It was really terrible, it makes me feel sick thinking about it, and right now I can't imagine re-reading that journal without getting queasy at the thought of someone else reading it. It definitely reminded me that the right to privacy is so important. I mean, we all close the door when we use the bathroom but that doesn't mean we have anything to hide. She told me, "it's ok, I'm not your mom. Two seconds after you leave here, I'm going to forget about you." I was getting more and more anxious as time went by, I felt totally invaded. Finally, another supervisor came over and asked me if I was okay. I responded by telling her that I was very uncomfortable with someone reading my personal journal and couldn't understand what threat I posed as an American who had traveled as a tourist to Israel. At that point, the first lady finally put down my journal, mostly because her supervisor had come over, and gave me my passport. I re-packed my bag for the last time, and went to greet my parents crying, upset, and angry. What a welcome home.
Now, here I am, and I'm over the journal-reading thing for the time being. I just don't know what to think of it, really. I'm a little anxious about my friend and hope that he didn't get any extra-questioning, but as I keep reminding myself, all of this is nothing compared to what Palestinians go through on a daily basis. (He just called and thanked me profusely for selling him out before telling me that he had no problems whatsoever at US customs...)
So they told us that we might experience some culture shock when we get back. The term, to me, is literal. Last night especially and today I feel like I am a walking zombie. The grass is so green! It's so quiet! The air is so nice! The lake! Good pasta for dinner! Filter coffee! On the other hand, no amazing Palestinian breakfast, no crazy taxi guys to drive me to work, no beauitful breeze all day long. Hopefully my ten days down time in Canada will be nice, and then back to DC, which will undoubtedly be crazy.
I'm all over the place, sorry... it was nice to get home and have some political conversation with my parents. I think that my father is a one-man awareness raising campaign. He alone has drawn more people to this website and talked to more people about what I am doing than anyone else I know, myself included. It is also really cool that my parents have become such activists in the sense that they are totally up on the current events and engage others in conversation about Palestine all the time. My friend and her boyfriend came over last night as well, and he immediately started asking me questions about my time in Palestine, which was really cool because I was afraid that I'd get here and people just... wouldn't care. Maybe that will be my experience in the future, but for now, people are definitely interested. Even my friend, who is not political at all, had a ton of questions and was genuinely intrigued and wanted to know more about what I want to do with my life. Which is a good question.
So that's all for now, and then more next week. I don't think that any of the world's biggest problems can be solved by one person acting alone, but I don't think that any of the world's problems are too big to be solved either. I think the solution lies within all of us. I think that if every person decided to be more conscious, every day, of the shared humanity of life, we could end oppression and foster justice. We are all humans, we are stuck here together on this earth, and we are all stewards of life. If we all reached out and tried to humanize the senseless deaths in Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, everywhere, and we all tried to imagine what it would be like to live oppressed, or poor, or hungry, and we all opened our hearts a little bit more, I think that there would be enough of us who refuse to stand by and let our fellow human beings live in such conditions. We wouldn't stand for it if it was our daughter, or our grandmother, so we have to accept that everyone is someone's daughter, everyone has a grandmother. My friend's boyfriend asked me if I was optimistic about the Wall, about Palestine, and I said yes and no. No because the Wall is being built, it is a physical barrier that is surrounding the West Bank and strangling the people and for it to come down and life to return to normal is pretty far out right now. But yes, I am optimistic, because I truly believe that even if I act alone, I can make a difference in Palestine. I think that by raising awareness and having conversations like that and by keeping this blog, I can do something. The power of the individual shouldn't be under-estimated, and I can do anything.
Thank you so much, to all of you, for reading this and keeping up with my summer and taking the time to care. Some days, just the thought of being able to write here and process my thoughts here was all I had to keep me going. Some of you I may not know at all, so a special thanks to you for reading the story of a complete stranger. Thanks to my friends who spread the word, and my family who also spread the word. And again, the biggest thanks to my dad, who supported this blog more than anybody. The hit counter is over one thousand now, and nine hundred of them can be attributed to him and his tireless networking skills. So thanks again, and check back next week for pictures (I promise! I finally have room to upload all of them!) and more postings.
Peace and love,
Cassie

Leaving...

2006-08-19T10:58:00.000-04:00

tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. I'm staying in Jerusalem tonight so that I can have an Israeli shuttle take me to the airport, where I'll face some scrutiny from the security officers (hopefully not too much) and then onto the plane. I'm so mixed up inside, I can't really begin to write. I haven't posted in a while but I've been writing in my journal, so when I get home I'll update with a few posts about different things. Also, I'll keep updating for a while when I get back to let you know what I'm up to and how I'm working to raise awareness about Palestine. So look for posts Sunday night/Monday morning US time, and then again a few days later when I return from my vacation. I'm so sad right now, but I have about a billion things to do to get ready because I've put it all off for the last minute. If you know me, you're not surprised. Keep your fingers crossed that I slip through security as a harmless American tourist and not a newly-proclaimed activist for justice and human rights! (Sounds good, right?) Thank you for reading, be prepared for a real wrap-up post soon. And more pictures, hopefully. Love and PEACE from Beit Sahour, West Bank, Palestine,
Cassie

"I want you to tell my story."

2006-08-11T05:45:00.000-04:00

Sorry it has been such a long time since I last posted, things have been busy. Which means this could be a long post : ) Last Sunday I traveled again to Hebron, this time with the whole group. We visited an organization called the Tel Rumeida project, a group of right internationals who live in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Hebron. Tel Rumeida was once populated by 400 Palestinians families, now less than 50 families live there with a couple hundred settlers. Again, these are the fanatic, ultra-religious settlers who attack the people of the town on a regular basis. The people who work for the Tel Rumeida project practice direct non-violent intervention. In other words, they stand between the settlers throwing the stones and the kids or old people being hit. Our presenter was hit the day before right on her lower back when she intervened with a group of two dozen young settler boys attacking two old men. We again visited the Ibrahimi mosque but also went into the Jewish side of the mosque this time as well. It is much smaller and mostly outside, but the grounds around it are beautifully cultivated. There were some settlers walking around and I wanted to approach them but two things prevented me: first, that I had been warned by the Tel Rumeida project people, the leaders of my non-violent camp, and the people who run the organization that I am here with that the settlers are violent and irrational. Second, I was in a large group of internationals, so I doubted that I would have the time to really approach them without disturbing the whole group. The contrast between life as a settler or life as a Palestinian kid the life that I am returning to DC is really hard to process. Since I leave here in nine days, I know it is something I need to start thinking about...
The rest of this week I spent my mornings conducting interviews with various people in the Bethlehem and Beit Jalla area. I met with a one woman fighting machine, Carmen. She is over sixty years old and lives on the second floor of a six story otherwise abandoned building that is now surrounded on three sides by the Wall. This is the section of the Wall designed to provide security for Rachel's tomb. The map that links to is provided by B'tselem, an Israeli human rights group. This is one of the best maps I have found yet. Note the green line, which is the internationally defined and UN accepted border of Palestine. Then note the red and purple lines. If you can find Bethlehem, (south west portion of the West Bank, zoom in and look for all the crazy zigzags next to Rachel's Tomb.
a story:
In 1983, Carmen's family opened a restaurant on the ground floor of a six story building they hoped would one day be a hotel, and the whole family moved into the spacious apartment on the second floor. For years, business was good. One of her three sons got cancer and died, but the business provided enough money to take care of his widow and their children. The customers were not just locals, but many tourists traveling into Bethlehem, and even Israelis who came easily and frequently from Jerusalem in the time before the Wall. During the First Intifada, in the '90s, the restaurant stayed open and business remained steady, although the number of tourists fell off until the end of the intifada. When the second intifada began, and Bethlehem was sieged by Israeli forces, their restaurant was ransacked by soldiers. During the siege, they used the restaurant as a primary post, while Carmen and her family lived upstairs, imprisoned by a twenty four hour a day curfew for forty days, and too scared to leave anyway. The soldiers often raided the home, trashing the house in search of documents or evidence of participation or sympathy to the Palestinian fighters. They confiscated the key to their front door, as well as to the stairwell door and restaurant door, and chained the doors shut. Then they boarded her front door shut, so that her and her family were forced to leave by clambering down a concrete ramp with wooden slats for steps. When the siege ended, her family fled to their relatives' houses in Bethlehem, but Carmen remained, terrified that if she left, the soldiers would take the building. The restaurant had been transformed. Once a bright and inviting room with neatly set tables, pictures decorating the walls, a cabinet filled with local wine and other liquors, and windows on all sides facing out to greater Bethlehem over the hills, the restaurant lay in nearly indescribable ruin. When I saw it this week, the floor was covered with a layer of dirt and dust where it wasn't glittering with broken glass. Empty liquor bottles were the only things remaining from the once well-stocked bar, and playing cards lay scattered across the floor. An old, crusty loaf of bread, now gray with dirt, laid next to a broken table fan. The tall Coca-Cola refrigerator was pulled sideways out of the wall, the trays removed and door ajar. An empty bullet casing lay amid the broken glass, and Carmen wept as she walked us around the room. It gave me the serious creeps, to think that she had to live above a family business now taken over by Israeli soldiers. Before we entered the restaurant, we had peered carefully through the windows to make sure they were not inside. Carmen tells us later that she can hear them at night, their boots on the stairway next to her bedroom that she can no longer use. Before the wall, the building was the tallest in the area, and the Israelis established a post on the roof. They still use the roof, often at night, but now a guard tower in the wall next to her house gives a higher vantage point. She tells us that the soldiers in the area rotate, they only serve a short term near Rachel's tomb. Each time a new unit rotates in, her home is raided. She was hospitalized once, along with her son, because she was beaten badly in the chest with the butt of a gun. She shows us the hospital report. After we have seen the restaurant and we have clambered up the concrete "stairway," she leads us into her home. The first thing she does is show us the bullet holes in the glass in her front room, and then leads us onto the porch and shows us the baby chicks she is raising to keep herself busy. When we settle down for tea and the first four fresh figs I have ever eaten, she tells us most of the story I have just related to you. She sometimes visits her grandchildren in town, but sometimes when she leaves her home she returns and things have been moved in the apartment, and so she knows the Israeli soldiers are watching her, and come when she is gone. Her son stays at the house with her at night, but still she has trouble sleeping because she is afraid that she will wake up and the soldiers will be standing over her bed, as has happened before. Her grandchildren are terrified to visit, the sounds of the heavy caliber machine gun fire and soldiers boots on the stairways have left them too petrified to visit her. Their courtyard, once well kept, is now so overgrown that you can hardly see their playground. Their front porch once offered a breathtaking view of Bethlehem, as we saw in pictures she showed us. Now, we see only 25 feet of concrete wall. While we look at the pictures, she gets out another stack of papers. They are her water and electricity bills for the last six years. The sums are astronomical, almost 30,000 NIS ($6,800) in unpaid bills for the electricity alone, with some months well over 3,000 NIS. Alone, she uses less than 200 NIS/month. However, the soldiers constantly run a generator on the roof, and tap directly into her water supply. She runs out of water sometimes, and sometimes the utilities just get shut off and she has to fight for them to turn it on. When she complains to one bureau, she tells us, they send her to another. So she documents everything and shares it with people like us. She asked the Red Cross and the Red Crescent for help, because her family is broke, their business is totally shut down. She was given a box of food that fed her family for less than a week. The Palestinian Authority gave her a bag of beans that proved to be rotten. They are not doing their job, she says. I'd say that is an understatement. A few months ago, the wall was only two or three meters high, but since then they removed the smaller fence and put in a big one. So now that is the only view from her front porch that she will ever see until it comes down. She can't afford a lawyer to fight this, and she'd had to fight in Israeli courts anyway. Her family can't afford the ten thousand dollars it would take to renovate the restaurant either, but even if they could, the Israeli soldiers could easily ransack it again. We tell her that we are writing a booklet about the Wall, and ask her if she could tell the world anything, what would she say?
"I am hopeless. I want my business back, and I want my family back. I am hopeless. All I see is destruction, destruction, destruction... I want you to tell my story."
She is crying now, I will cry later. We thank her for her bravery and strength, this one woman soldier against injustice.
I have more stories, a landowner who sits each day in his fields and watches the bulldozers tear down the carefully cultivated land that has been handed down for generations. But let me save that one, for tomorrow maybe. And maybe I can post some pictures so you can see what it is that I'm talking about. In the meantime, check out http://www.stopthewall.org/ and http://www.openbethlehem.org/
Also, the restaurants are hopping in Bethlehem...unfortunately. My favorite cab driver, Y, told us that just the other night he convinced a friend of his who owns one of the two discos in the area to open up for just one night to a group of 150 people. Who are they? Refugees, from Haifa and Nazareth, seeking shelter from the war. And there are thousands of them here.
And, I want to tell you about my trip to Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum in Israel. I have a lot of catching up to do, I'll try for later today or tomorrow, insha'allah.
Peace and love from Palestine.

"Every mother has a baby..."

2006-08-02T13:05:00.000-04:00

Story:
He is a shopkeeper in his mid-60s in Beit Sahour, he sells clothing for children and women in an upstairs shop on a half-abandoned, half-busy street. I am buying some gifts and have to pay with a 100 NIS bill, so he sends his daughter to get me change from the shop across the street. "Why are you here?" he asks, and when I tell him I am learning Arabic and volunteering, he wants to know where I volunteer, where I take classes, where I live. "Thank you," he says, "for visiting me in prison." I don't know what to say. "The West Bank is the biggest prison in the world," he says, and I have heard this before. "My whole life is controlled by the occupiers. I cannot travel anywhere. Here, I drive maybe 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in an entire year. I hear that in America, you can drive that much in a day, if you want. You can move around." I nod, thinking of all the miles I put on my car last summer. "It hurts business, you know. I have to go into Israel to buy the clothes, and they are expensive. And then, when I come back, I have to wait at the checkpoint. And just to get into Israel, I have to apply for a pass. Sometimes, they still won't let me through. This is my life." I finger the clothes in my hand, think of the effort put into acquiring them, and feel guilty because I just paid less than half what I would pay for such things in the States. "But this, this is my life. What can I do?" His daughter comes back with my change. She gives it to me but I don't leave yet, I can't walk away without saying something. Finally, I say, "I'm sorry..." Why is this the only thing that ever comes to mind? He says, "Do not be sorry. I want to thank you. Thank you for coming here, for staying and living this life with us. Do not forget us. You are always welcome back in Palestine. Thank you." I thank him, I turn and I leave. His wife, who has sold me the clothes and called me "darling" the entire time shouts to me, "And come back to this shop too, darling! We carry everything you like, and we will always be here!" I wave goodbye.
Story:
I am interviewing a woman for work about her experience with the Wall. Eventually, the conversation leads around to her family. I ask her if she has any children, she is in her 60s. "I have three children, two boys and a girl." I ask her where they live. "My sons, they live here, one in Ramallah and one in Beit Jalla. They are in their 30s. My daughter, my baby..." she pauses. "She lives in Haifa." I wait, expectant. Haifa is a town in northern Israel, much in the news recently. She waves her hand at the tape recorder in front of her, indicating that I should turn it off. I do. "I cannot say this on tape, I cannot risk it. But I want to tell you her story." I turn off the tape recorder, close my notebook. I haven't been taking notes anyway, I force myself to look her in the eye. "My daughter... she went to university, like her brothers, in ---." (I won't name the town here, I'm changing identifying details because her daughter could be put in danger.) It is a West Bank city. "She is Christian, and while she was there she met a boy in her prayer group. They liked each other, and he asked his father if he could become engaged to my daughter, and then asked my husband. We asked our daughter if she liked the boy, if he was a good man, and she said yes, so we gave our blessing." She pauses. "I am going to tell this without crying, maybe, for the first time..." A longer pause this time, she takes a deep breath. "After they were engaged, they spent a lot of time at our house. He was born in Haifa, his family lived there. He has an Israeli passport then, of course. But they spent a lot of time with us, and everyone could tell they were in love. So comfortable with each other, so happy." I smile, thinking of how my mother will one day tell the stories of how my siblings and I fall in love like this. "Then, Israel passed a law. No Israeli citizens could marry Palestinians. It is a form of population control really, to maintain the Jewish majority in Israel. My daughter... she was heartbroken. He was back in Haifa, every chance we had we applied for a pass, we used all of our passes to help her see him, and sometimes he could come see her. She spent so much time on the computer, talking to him. Our family and his family, we did everything we could, talked to every authority. But it was a law, it was not something we could appeal. We approached the religious leaders in our community, they told us to forget it. A broken heart, it is better than prison, they told us. He could not give up his Israeli passport, move into Palestine. He could make no living here, he would be a prisoner and my daughter as well. My daughter... she could not be consoled. I am her mother, I could do nothing. Finally, the day came when many Palestinian Christians were granted passes to go into Israel for a big feast. He called us and said prepare for a wedding, we will do it when you come for the feast. I am preparing for the wedding here, he said. There was so little time for anything, just to prepare and not for goodbye. We went, it was just one day." She pauses again. My heart is pounding and my eyes are stinging. Her eyes well with tears and as they begin to fall, so do my own. "My baby... I had to say goodbye to my baby in just one day. She is gone now, she is living with him there. I can't see her... my baby. I talk to her, she tells me she cannot give me grandchildren because she is too sad, it is too hard to raise a child there." I am crying, she is crying, my friend and co-worker is crying. "My baby..." she says again. I hear my father's voice in my head, calling me his baby. We sit silently, and I think that star-crossed love is not so romantic at all. I think it is very sad. Now I hear my own mother's voice in my head, calling me her baby. She says, "Every mother has a baby, you know? She is mine. She is my baby. One day, you will be mothers. You already are daughters. You know what it is like to love a mother. One day you will know what it is like to love your baby." We are all still crying, but the interview is over. It has been over. In fact, maybe it was never an interview. Maybe it was a release, a telling of a life to two young witnesses who will one day fall in love. Or maybe we have intruded into a very private and painful story... but then she stands up and dries her tears, and so do we. There is work to be done. She doesn't say it, but I am thinking that she will always cry when she tells this story. Only it isn't a story! It is a life, a person, a real event. Her baby daughter, on the other side of a concrete wall, on the other side of a country, and it might as well be on the moon.
And now I am crying again. I think that every five days or so I just stop processing and need to cry.
Today my brother asked me why I am here. I thought about it. I told him I can't remember why I came. Maybe when I go home I can look in my old journal, maybe I wrote a reason down there. But I don't remember. Was it really just to learn Arabic? To travel abroad? To immerse myself in a foreign culture? Maybe. But now I am here, and those things don't matter. I am here because at some point, in the first week that I was here, I opened my heart and my mind, and this land came tumbling in. Imagine walking down the street and seeing a child crying on the curb. Would you stop to ask what is wrong? And when you found out what was wrong, would you do something? Or try to do something? Or maybe just listen to his story and try to comfort him, or relate somehow? Either way, what would happen if you just walked on by? Maybe it wouldn't bother you too much, but maybe one night a few days later you'd be laying in bed, trying to sleep, and his face would come into your head. Or you'd hear the sounds of his crying. Maybe it would bother you, but you could tell yourself that it wasn't your place, or it wasn't a big problem. Or maybe it would be a little dangerous for you to stop there, you'd heard stories about the place. But if you'd stopped, asked him what was wrong, and then left with a word of comfort and not much else, maybe that would bother you even more. Maybe then you'd lay awake thinking about what you could have done. For me, the only thing harder than opening myself to this place and letting it all in and vowing to speak and fight and witness, the only thing harder than that, is walking away. I don't know why I came, but I am here because I will never get Palestine's tears, Palestine's face, out of my mind.
peace and love

"There's no self without other people..."

2006-07-31T11:10:00.000-04:00

I'm back on my regular work and school schedule today, so maybe my head will settle back into the routine as well. It has been a crazy few days here, especially with all the news from Lebanon. The incongruity of wandering Bethlehem yesterday and then playing cards in a cafe last night while all the atrocities were happening in Qana is unsettling, but that is how life goes here. You have to somehow digest the news and yet, you also have to live your life.
I spent all of Friday and Saturday in Tel Aviv with a friend. It is just like any major city in most aspects: expensive, busy and loud. Our goal was to be on the beach in Tel Aviv on Friday by 11 a.m., which in Arabic time means we were right on time at the beach at 1 p.m. We left Bethlehem around 9 and caught a bus into Jerusalem, where the bus driver helpfully let us off at a stop where we could catch a bus to the main bus terminal where we could catch another bus to Tel Aviv. The round trip bus ticket to T.A. was 30 NIS (about $6), the other bus trips plus the shared taxi to our hostel raised the total cost to maybe ten dollars. Tel Aviv is around 45 minutes away, so we took the time on the bus to read our guide book and while we were looking a guy in the seat behind us asked us if we were looking for a good place to go out on Friday night. We ended up talking with him for a while, his name is Eli and he is an American Jew who studied for a year at Tel Aviv University and came back after graduating in order to help guide a group of 600 American Jewish teenagers around Israel. It was one of his two days off in the six week trip. The discussion eventually led to the whole "what are you doing with the rest of you life?" conversation, and he said he was looking at grad schools. I ask which ones, he says American University. It turns out that he applied to the same grad program that I did, the IPCR program, and spent a half hour in May talking with Professor Said, my mentor and original source of inspiration for all my studies and now, travels. He was equally as taken with Professor, saying that just one half hour in his presence was amazing. It is a small world, everyone here who has studied the Middle East or Peace studies at all has heard of American University as well as Professor Said. Anyway, Eli then helped us to navigate the super-mall that is the Tel Aviv bus station. There are armed soldiers everywhere in the station, and there are at least six different floors, and there are fewer English signs there than even in some of the tiny West Bank cities that I have visited. But, mish mishkala (no problem) we found our way to MoMo's hostel three blocks away from the beach. We checked in, dropped our bags, and proceeded to lay in the sun for three hours on the beautiful sand. The Mediterranean sea is like 75 degrees too, and we were lucky to be there on a day when the jellyfish weren't out, so we could swim. The surf was big too. Friday night we went to a couple different bars and then collapsed in bed right around the first call to prayer at sunrise. We had to checkout at 11 a.m., so we rented a locker for the day to leave our bags in. Because it was Saturday, and therefore Shabbat, absolutely no buses run from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, or within Tel Aviv at all, until sundown at 8 p.m. Also, all the shops and markets are mostly closed. We found our way, slowly and in a circuitous path, to the Tel Aviv art museum, which was really cool, especially because it was air-conditioned. In my ever-lasting luck with Impressionist exhibits, the museum had some Monets for me, and some Rodin that I especially admired with Thomas in mind. After the museum we had time to kill so we went and saw the absolutely awful Superman Returns. We ate some schmach (which is totally not what it is called but when I remember I'll tell) that is pita bread stuffed with ten thousand different salads and dressings, hard boiled egg, and fried eggplant. It tasted pretty good sitting on a curb in Tel Aviv people watching. Then we went to the beach and walked on it as the sun set, which made for some absolutely beautiful pictures which I somehow managed to delete... Inshallah, I can recover them when I get home. The cool thing was that people were still swimming, even at 10:30 when we finally left the beach, which seems like a good time of day to get in the water, considering the temperature. The bus ride back was uneventful, but when we got to the Jerusalem bus station the bus to the Wall checkpoint in the Bethlehem area had stopped running, so we had to pay 40 NIS to get there, and then once we passed through the checkpoint (a wave of the passport at the bored Israeli guard), we had to walk a looong ways with all of our bags before I finally caught a taxi home and collapsed in my bed at 1 a.m.
Sunday I spent wandering the Beit Sahour hillsides, the view of the beautiful valley filled with olive trees marred by the vast and imposing settlement on the opposite hillside. This morning I finally caught up with all the weekend news and am sick all over again. I really feel like the US should be shouldering so much of the blame for the bombing campaign that has targeted the civilians of Lebanon. The casualty figures are staggering, almost 550 Lebanese civilians dead (which is expected to rise if and when rescue/retrieval operations begin in southern Lebanon) and 51 Israelis dead. I make no excuses for the killing of any person, but these numbers speak for themselves. Hezbollah made a cross border raid and killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers. The Israeli response is to bomb Beirut into oblivion, destroy the infrastructure that would allow Lebanese civilians to escape, and create a zone so susceptible to Israeli air strikes that it is impossible for any aid to reach the civilians stranded there. This is not justice. This is not retaliation. This is collective punishment, a war crime. A few days ago, the US caused a UN Security Council Resolution calling for a ceasefire to be tabled. Today, after the deaths of literally dozens of innocent children, the US will now call for a temporary ceasefire. Why? Why did we have to wait for such an atrocity to occur before we called for a ceasefire? Why does it all seem so obvious from here, the blatant disregard for human life when it can be taken with the justification of defense? And these are US missiles, one recent report showed that 5,000 lbs. of missiles were delivered from the US to Israel in the past week. I can only hope that there is outcry in the States. Again, there is a march in Washington, D.C. on August 12 that I urge any of you D.C. readers to attend. This madness must stop, and every day that it continues, by air or on the ground, means more innocent life taken and a higher toll paid in blood. We cannot shrug and walk away. Take a position, get informed, even if you want to disagree with me. Just don't let this pass you by. Call your congressional representatives, read the news, check out english.aljazeera.net for a different viewpoint, and don't just discredit it because it is Arabic. Look at the official responses of other nations to Israel's actions, especially non-Western nations.
.... Sometimes I feel like I should try to organize my thoughts better, provide you all with facts and sources, lay this all out methodically, but as soon as I start I find myself frustrated and sad, and so my emotions color all of this. The facts are out there, the sources are out there, I guess I leave it to you to search it out, while I sit here and try to pass my feelings through a computer screen.
"The idea of absolute freedom is fiction. It's based on the idea of an independent self. But, in fact, there's no such thing. There's no self without other people. There's no self without sunlight. There's no self without dew. And water. And bees to pollinate the food we eat....So the idea of behaving in a way that doesn't acknowledge those reciprocal relationships is not really freedom, it's indulgence."
Peter Coyote
With love, from Palestine.

Time for the Fat Kid Blog!

2006-07-27T12:30:00.000-04:00

Do you want qahwye? This is my host mom, pushing sustenance on me as usual. I have promised a nothing but meals post for a while now and maybe that is the only way to follow my last post. First of all, every store you walk into, if you are there for more than five minutes, they will offer you tea or coffee. The tea is usually Lipton but they often put in big sprigs of fresh mint (nana). They also put nana in fresh squeezed lemonade, which is so good. The coffee is usually either Nescafe with milk and sugar, or Arabic coffee, which is really strong and served in tiny little espresso cups. There is always a lot of coffee sediment at the bottom of the Arabic coffee, but I think it tastes much better.
If there is one thing that is always, always readily available to eat, it is hubes, or bread. It is what we would call pita bread, except thicker and always served hot and fresh. There is bread at almost every meal, including breakfast. Breakfast is like the best buffet I could hope for. My mom sets out little plates with hummous, thick yogurt, sliced cheese and homemade white cheese, fresh berry jam and apricot jam, salami, olives, pickles, and zeet and zatar. Zeet is olive oil, zatar is this mix of spices that you dip a piece of bread into after you dip it in the olive oil. It is so good! I personally like to make little sandwiches with cheese and hummous, or jam and yogurt. I leave the salami to my roommate, as I have managed to avoid meat while here. And we always have tea with breakfast, and water. I drink the tap water here with no problems, at first I thought I was drinking bottled water until I saw my mom filling up the bottles from the tap.
At work, we make Nescafe and I usually get a cola from the store next door (it is called "Seven to Eleven) for a couple sheikels. For lunch, we hit up the fresh falafel stand down the street from the college where our Arabic classes are held. The perfect falafel sandwich is an art, and easiest to make in places where they let you put your own salata on. Here, however, they do that for you. They take three or four falafel balls (mashed up and fried chickpeas) and smush them in the bread, and then smear the inside with hummous. Then you get to pick salata, or salads, to put on top. There is a funky pink-red cabbage one that I am not a big fan of, but I like the cucumber and tomatos, the minty-yogurt, the spicy "Arabic salad" that is like a tomato sauce, pickles and when they have them, some patatas (french fries). So basically they hand you a three pound sandwich stuck in a sleeve of paper, dripping sauces everywhere and, hopefully, steaming hot. So good. There are consequences to a falafel lunch, however. The Palestinians refer to falafel and hummous as "cement" or "concrete" because it feels like it in your stomach. You can't eat more for hours afterwards (a big problem, as there is always more food around every corner) and it makes it really hard to stay awake in class. The other option for lunch is schwarma, which is fatty roasted meat carved and stuffed into a sandwich just like falafel. I hear it is good, but they roast it in front of their stores on a huge stake that makes every storefront ten thousand degrees hotter than necessary. They usually fry the falafel in big shallow bowls out front as well.
When I'm in class, I need snacks. The candy here is ok, but almost all chocolate. They have good chocolate wafers like kit kats, and lots of chocolate and hazelnut cream combinations. One thing to absolutely always avoid are deceptively appealing: peanut butter flavored cheeto snacks. They look good, but it is not a good combination. You can buy Pringles as well as some other standard potato chips.
Dinner... I could go on about dinner for a long time. My mom is actually making me my favorite tonight, little lentil-like beans mixed in with spiced rice served with hot hot hot bread and yogurt. You dump the plain yogurt onto the rice, stir it up, and eat with your fingers. You eat everything with your fingers here, it's fabulous. She makes stuffed grape leaves for me too, which I eat by the dozen until I'm so sick I can hardly stand up. At first my mom was a little confused by the whole vegetarian thing, but now she sees it as a challenge to make things that taste good that don't have meat in them. Other favorites include one dish that she usually cooks with chicken, but it is some kind of green, a mix between grape leaves and spinach, cooked in olive oil until soupy, then dumped on rice with a lemon squeezed over it, and eaten with... bread. I got so lucky to get one of the best cooks in Beit Sahour, she is renowned for these meals. She makes a mean chocolate layer cake, and some coconut jello combination that I only had once but it was good. If I go out to dinner, or like at the birthday party I went to the other night, for example, the meal is served in two courses, and not until late. First come the plates of salata, which is hummous, baba ganoush (smashed up eggplant), spicy Arabic salad, minty yogurt salad, raw onion and cucumber salad, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and olive oil, fetoosh (cucumber, tomato, olive oil, mint, lemon and toasted pita), olives, pickled beets, faquoos (small fuzzy cucumber) and pickled cucumbers. Everybody either just dips their bread right into the dishes and eats it, or uses a fork to scoop some of it onto their own little plate. So after I have thoroughly stuffed my stomach during this course, I sit back and wait with everyone else, sometimes an hour, for the second course. You can smell the second course from the moment you arrive at the party, because there are huge grills set up roasting pounds and pounds of lamb, chicken, beef and pork. It is usually grilled kabob style on skewers or as small steaks. One delicacy is to make a kebab of just the fat chunks and grill that. The smell tends toward overwhelming, especially in combination with the massive amount of smoke generated by the grills. By the time it is ready, I have prepared my defense for "la lahme" (no meat), which always causes some kind of fuss: "You don't eat meat? Oh no, and on a night that we didn't grill any chicken!" So really, not much different than in the States. Either way, everyone enjoys the second course and I'm too full to notice or care.
So that is the food here. I am carefully nursing my growing bread baby, along with everyone else in the group, and not at all looking forward to the meat-centered world of American cooking! I'll miss my yogurt and rice most.
As for everything else here... not too much to report. If you're reading the news you know what the US response has been to the war in Lebanon, and I completely disagree. It is an assymmetrical reaction that is neither pin-pointed nor precise and is killing hundreds of civilians, wounding an unknown number of civilians, and displacing upwards of three-quarters of a million people who will have no homes to return to if and when the bombing campaign stops. I do not condone the actions of Hezbollah, but there is no reasonable defense for the killing of so many people and destruction of the infrastructure in Southern Lebanon. South Lebanon is being blown apart and atrocities being committed by the Israeli Defense Force every single day, and the US government has been actively supporting the bombing as well as blocking efforts of other countries to bring about an immediate cease fire. There is a march in DC planned for sometime next week, if you are in the area try to make it out. Also, I'm proud to say that one of the largest marches in the States occurred in Dearborn, Michigan. Did I tell you all that they refer to the Arab community in greater Detroit as "Little Beit Sahour?" Can't wait to go home and practice my Arabic on the streets!
Love you all, and peace from "big" Beit Sahour.

I almost forgot..

2006-07-27T05:37:00.001-04:00

Momma, this one is for you.

I almost forgot..

2006-07-27T05:37:00.000-04:00

Momma, this one is for you.

Palestinians are People Too...

2006-07-21T17:06:00.000-04:00

Here I am again, trying to decide which stories to relay, what parts of my days I should share with all of you to give you the best taste of life here. Words always fail though, to understand you have to come here and live among the Palestinians for a while. Before I forget, I put up new pictures. We spray-painted the wall near the Bethlehem checkpoint on Wednesday, not to make it pretty but to make a point. We did it right along the main road that the tour buses will use to drive the tourists to see the Nativity Church, and we took over a large portion of the wall. It felt really, really good to make a statement. I wrote, "United in justice, this wall will not stand, and peace like a river will roll through this land." Also, "It's cool to care," which is for my big brother, so spread the word. Last night we had a farewell party for those participants who came for the first two months or just the second month (the second session ends this weekend). It was a blast, lots of food and music, as usual. My Arabic dancing abilities are kind of lacking, however. There are some other random pictures in a "Good times..." album where you will see how a shopkeeper insisted on dressing us in some traditional Arabic clothing. Finally, there are the pictures from Hebron.
Hebron is the southern-most district of Palestine, and also the name of the largest city in that district. It is a very, very sad place. I visited with my non-violence training camp, first stopping in an old village called Tuwani. The houses are all built of stone, the village has been populated for hundreds of years. Now, however, it is being surrounded by Jewish settlements and outposts. All of the settlements within the West Bank are illegal, although the Israeli military is still charged with providing security for the settlers. An outpost is also illegal, but much smaller than a settlement, as few as ten people even. In Hebron, the settlers are ultra-orthodox and ultra-violent. For example, a volunteer in Tuwani took us to the school and proceeded to describe some events that have occurred recently. The school in Tuwani, which to runs to grade nine, serves children from a few nearby villages. The fastest way to get to school is to walk the main road for about twenty minutes. The road runs alongside settlements. The students are in serious danger if they walk this road, because they are often attacked and beaten by the settlers. The students, the children, are attacked and beaten by grown-ups, because they are Palestinian. The settlers are not punished, not brought to justice, no matter how many complaints are filed, which is dangerous to do in itself because it is dangerous to get to the police station because it is in an Israeli controlled neighborhood in Hebron. An international volunteer organization learned of the attacks, and decided to escort the children to school every day and keep them safe. Instead, the settlers attacked all of them. One volunteer had his arm broken, another had her internal organs damaged because she was beaten with a club. By grown adults, because they volunteered to escort children to school. This happened repeatedly. Finally, they attracted just enough media coverage to force the Israeli military to start escorting the children to school three days a week and the Israeli police to escort them two days a week. The military was given orders to not touch the settlers. Thirty settlers planned and successfully carried out an ambush before the end of the school year, while the children were being escorted by the army. No settler was punished, no soldier was allowed to interfere, and their presence didn't stop the settlers. It's hard to believe, isn't it? The mind wants to pretend that I am somehow making this up, that things like this can't happen, don't happen. Especially because these are children, some as young as six years old. Children just like the ones in America, like my cousins. Exactly the same. Except they are Palestinian, and are therefore attacked by adults on their way to school. The final proposal, to allow these kids to get to school which gives them a chance to escape the terrible poverty that has engulfed them since the settlers came and made it impossible for their families to provide for them, is to build a road that skirts outside the settlements and outposts. The children would have to walk for over an hour to get to a school that is twenty minutes away to avoid being violently attacked by grown adults. This is happening, right now, all over Palestine. Senseless oppression and violence unto an entire group of people because they are Palestinian. Period. Not terrorists, or revolutionaries, or security threats. Just the "wrong" race or religion.
Within the city of Hebron, settlers have established four settlements, taking over entire blocks of the city. Where there are settlements, the streets are abandoned and often barricaded shut. Where settlements are alongside market streets, the streets have to be given ceilings of chain-link fence to protect the people as they do their shopping because the settlers throw bricks and bottles at them. Look at my pictures, you can see it. There are a few hundred settlers in Hebron, there are literally a few thousand Israeli soldiers there to protect them. I could go on about Hebron but how much more can be said? And I have other stories I'd like to tell.
One exercise we did at the non-violence camp is to break into small groups and share stories of how violence has affected our lives. One girl in my group, 19 years old, had her arm broken last year by an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint who swung a gun at the man in front of her, who ducked. One girl told us of a woman in her village who for years had been trying to have a child and finally invested her savings into fertilization treatment. She had a healthy pregnancy until the ninth month, when she was stuck at a checkpoint that had closed, inexplicably, for hours. She went into labor and because the checkpoint was closed an ambulance wasn't allowed to come, and her son died. The girls told us how soldiers will make the Palestinians line up against the wall and play "Simon says" with them, make them dance, sing, get down and bark like a dog. Another time, a soldier forced two strangers to kiss each other. Many of their fathers won't travel at all if it means having to pass through a checkpoint, because they are ashamed to be harassed by the young soldiers. Soldiers younger than myself. Men my father's age, old men my grandfather's age, humiliated at checkpoints. The checkpoints, by the way, are often between two West Bank cities, not only along the borders with Israel. While I'm on the topic of checkpoints, when the Wall around the West Bank is complete, the existing checkpoints will be turned into permanent buildings and gates, directly paid for by foreign aid to Palestine from the United States. They are taking aid money from Palestine to put checkpoints on an apartheid wall.
I apologize if I seem angry, but I am. I'm angry that it is happening, and I'm ashamed that no one knows about it, or talks about it. And it isn't as if this is some country where we aren't obligated to get involved. The US gives the Israeli government billions of dollars. It is literally our tax dollars at work. There is just no way that I can come here and see these things and not do something about it, even if the only thing I can do is share their stories.
I love this land, I love these people. I found a home in Palestine and in four weeks I am going to leave. The children are always asking me to take their picture, and the adults are always telling me their stories. I am handing this to you now, so that you can know what it is like to live in the only nation recognized by the UN that has no official borders. Palestine is getting a border now though, and it is 8 meters high and ugly and racist and illegal according to international law, and the Palestinians are the ones building it because hey, everybody has to make a living and support their family.
I'm off to nap before a fantastic dinner with my family out on the breezy balcony where we can watch the stars come out as we eat. In peace and with love from Palestine.

New Pictures, Same Wall

2006-07-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

I started the non-violence training camp yesterday, and right now I'm not entirely sure how I like it. I'm taking a wait and see approach though, and just trying to find more ways to interact with the Palestinian youth who are also attending. It is tough to get everyone speaking the same language.
I uploaded 5 new albums tonight, and took some old ones down since I still can't seem to find the "missing link" to buy more space. The first new album is from the second protest that I attended two Fridays ago and described in my post on Sunday, 9 July. Next are pictures that I took at a fashion show I attended last week. They aren't very good because the place was dark and they wouldn't let me use my flash. The "Bethlehem at Night" album are pictures I took when we left the fashion show and walked down to a restaurant called the Tent to hang out. I was mostly just playing around with exposure time and night shots, but I think it gives a nice sense of what the streets are like around here. There is an album called "Winery, Basketball Game, Night Out" that I took last Friday. The first shots are from a monastery that makes their own wine, Cremisian wine. We went there as a group and tasted lots of the wines, then went into a little wooded park and had a picnic. It was a good time, and the wine was pretty good too! I'm going to bring some back as presents, and olive oil as well. The boys in our group play basketball games against local church groups, so some of us went and watched that game after the winery. Sarah talked us into playing cheerleaders, so I put those pictures up as well. We lost, unfortunately. After the game a few of us decided to go and meet up with some of the friends we made at the restaurant last week.
We went to a place called the Greek Orthodox Club, which is an outdoor but tented venue with a stage, bar, and a bunch of tables and chairs. A band was playing and there were maybe 45 people there smoking narguila, dancing, singing, having fun. Steve, our friend, was there with a group of his friends so we sat with them. All of the sudden, some of the people sitting in the middle of the place stood up and started to rush towards the exit, and people started shouting. I stood up to see what was going on and saw 6-8 men with their faces covered with traditional red and white and black and white checkered scarves marching across the dance floor, shouting. I didn't know what was going on, I don't really even remember being scared because everything happened so quickly. I got my camera and went and stood with John and watched as the owner of the place talked to the men and then quickly ushered them out a back exit. I took a couple pictures before the group I was with told me "la! la!" (no, obviously.) Steve explained that they came because they thought it was inappropriate that people be singing and having a good time when there is a war going on, and they wanted to break up the party. They were talked out of it and asked to leave. Steve said they were not armed, and I didn't see any guns. He also said that he knows the people that do things like that, and usually he even knows beforehand, but this time he wasn't sure what group they were with, maybe Hamas but he didn't think they were wearing the right clothing. The band started up again, people kept dancing, and we left an hour later. What an experience.. I really wish (as I have constantly recently) that I speak Arabic so that I could understand what everyone was saying while it was happening, and afterwards.
The last album is a big one, it is from our overnight trip to Qalqilya and Tulkarm. Qalqilya is a town that is surrounded on three sides by the Wall, where much land has been stolen from the Palestinians who have farmed it for generations. We met with some of the farmers and heard their stories. At one point we stopped to check out some awesome graffitti on the wall and some of us needed to use the bathroom. Some locals on the street led the boys to a mosque and one family opened their doors to four women, including myself, so that we could use their bathroom. It was a large Muslim family living right next to the wall in a very modest home, and they welcomed us in true Arab tradition. After we had finished in the bathroom, they invited us to sit and drink cola with them and eat sweets. Despite the fact that an entire tour bus was parked in front of their house, waiting for us, we didn't decline the invitation. The hospitality here is absolutely incredible. Similarly, earlier in the day in the market area of Qalqilya, we stopped in a store to buy some water and the shopkeeper invited the three of us to sit and talk with him. He was an older man who spoke very clear English, in fact, he was an English teacher in the nearby refugee camp. He told us a little about his life and then what he thought about the conflict. Like so many others I have spoken with, he blames the Israeli government and the US government for the occupation, and insists that he has no problem with the Israeli citizens. After leaving Qalqilya we drove a few hours to Ramallah, the largest city in the West Bank. As soon as we got off the bus I had this rush of "home" because the traffic was awful, the streets were really crowded, and there were lots of open shops and restaurants. I never thought I'd be the type to miss a big city! We checked into our rather seedy hotel and then headed out for dinner. After dinner we found a bar that served TayBeh on tap. TayBeh is brewed in the West Bank, the only local brewery, but in Bethlehem you can only get it in bottles. After a little drama with some bed bugs in my roommate's bed, we all got some sleep and headed to Tulkarm the next morning, another town that is being strangled by the wall. There, the farmers have lost so much of their land that it is generally impossible for them to live on what remains.
My computer battery is running low and this is running long, but I'll post again soon. I was told today that the YMCA where they are holding the camp has wireless internet access... Too weird, but it will keep me in touch. Much love to all of you, thank you for caring and reading. Know that I do feel safe here and what weighs so heavily on my mind is the stress that some of you feel because you are worried about me. The violence and war is terrible, and I know you are seeing it on the news and reading it in the papers. We here keep a close watch on the situation, and rest assured that I will always use my best judgement and I always remember that there are people at home who love me! Peace, thank you again for taking time to read this.

Salaam

2006-07-16T13:08:00.000-04:00

Just checking in quickly in response to the many e-mails and comments I have gotten recently. First, thank you so much for reading this blog, I am always composing new posts in my head, I just don't ever find enough time to get them all in. As for the safety concerns, I am completely fine. Bethlehem remains a sleepy little town, despite the atrocious violence committed elsewhere in the region. Some here celebrate Hezbollah, most just wait, and mourn, and pray for peace. Everyone I meet sits me down to tell me his or her story, from the coffee man to our bus driver. I will continue to use my very best judgment but for now I see no reason to worry.
I'm on my way to the 10 day non-violence training camp that I am attending just down the street at the YMCA so I may not be posting regularly (do I ever?). So quickly, some parting thoughts I've had recently.
As a witness to this land and this conflict, I am sad, angry and often feel powerless. I have no doubts whatsoever that the Israeli government is waging a lopsided, unjust and illegal war against a people who do not deserve this treatment. The Wall is a wall of apartheid. The security measures taken by Israel to restrict movement within Palestine are not security measures at all, they are acts of psychological warfare designed to break the spirits of the people. Families are unable to visit each other, farmers are separated from their crops. On any road, Palestinians are pulled over and harassed at floating checkpoints. The movement of goods into the West Bank, including food and goods to support local businesses is under a strangle hold. The Israelis are simply not allowing the transfer of goods whatsoever. Arab-Palestinians living in Jerusalem are not allowed into the West Bank, a recent decision made by Israel, and blatantly racist. I hope that you can understand that the "security measures" taken by Israel are acts of warfare, a massive operation undertaken to persecute people based on their ethnicity. The Wall surrounding the West Bank is but one example of the human rights violations that take place every single day and target an innocent civilian population. The Palestinians with whom I speak are adamant in their anger towards the Israeli government and leaders, but always quick to add that the Israeli citizens are people, just like the rest of us, and don't deserve to be targeted for the actions of their government. No one deserves to be treated in such an inhumane manner. The Palestinians are strong-willed, but the mental anguish that they wake up with every morning and take to bed every night is enough to make me cry, and should enough to make anyone sit up and take notice, take action even. The situation here is terrible, and the United States shoulders much of the blame, for funding the Israeli government and for turning a blind eye to the human rights violations, not to mention the violations of international laws and treaties. The most liberal of Western media is only barely grasping the immensity of the injustice here. As a witness to this land, this life, and these people, I pass their words along to you. Peace & Love from the Holy Land.

This is embarrassing...

2006-07-12T11:04:00.000-04:00

but necessary. After somewhat denying that I pretended to ride the camel like a cowgirl, I received this picture in my e-mail. Needless to say, I retract the denial. The timing of this shot is perfect.

Other news: I changed the setting so that you should now be able to post comments without having to join Blogger, and I'll start responding to them as well, I promise. Also, I have more pictures to upload but first need to buy some more space on Picasa web, so check back later this week. Real post coming soon, I'm going to a Palestinian fashion show tonight, woo hoo!

Jericho and the Dead Sea Mud

2006-07-10T03:33:00.000-04:00

The Dead Sea is an awesome place that I hope all of you get a chance to visit someday! On Sunday morning we left early to go to Jericho. We were on our big "love bus" that could fit a group twice our size, and it gets a little scary on some of those roads. They are narrow and really, really curvy. Like hairpin turns with no guard rails over three hundred foot cliffs scary. My roommate does not like those parts at all ; ) We had to pass through an Israeli checkpoint to get to Jericho and we played our official checkpoint song, "Security" by Otis Redding. Because we are a big bus full of mostly white tourists, we just fly on through. First we hiked down one side of a canyon and up the other to visit the monastery where St. George lies. The hike was really steep but it was pretty and not too hot yet. In the monastery we took some pictures in one dark room where a single shaft of sunlight acted like a spotlight. It may have been a little "tacky" to set up shots like that, but they turned out cool! We turned and hiked back to the bus, and though it was hotter and steeper going back, we all made it. We drove into Jericho for lunch and stopped at the most touristy place you could imagine. It reminded me of a rest area on the Ohio Turnpike, with the added benefit of a couple of huge stores selling Dead Sea salts in every possible cream, lotion and soap. I walked out into the parking lot to see my friend Kristen atop a camel, trotting around the parking lot. Apparently a guy was selling rides on his camel for 15 NIS (like three USD), and I was the next one in line. It was a little like riding a horse, only higher and bumpier. The man who owned the camel encouraged me to pretend to swing a lasso around my head and whoop like a cowboy. I (mostly) declined.
After lunch we drove to a beach on the Dead Sea. It was so nice to see a big body of water, it made me miss Lake St. Clair. However, the Dead Sea is way cooler in some respects. I imagine most of you have heard that because the saline content is very high, people are really buoyant in the water. It is hard to describe just how buoyant that really is. When I was in water up to my hips I just kicked my legs off the ground and laid down, like I was in a bath tub. My whole body floated with zero effort from me. I could even roll over and float on my stomach just as easily. The bottom was sandy with big pockets of the famous Dead Sea mud, which was a little tricky because I sank in up to my knee a few times. It was hard to get out too, because the sand abruptly gives way to rocks right before the beach, which are slippery and uneven. After floating under the bright, hot, clear blue sky, we decided it was time for the mud treatment. There was a little hole dug into the sand down the beach a ways where we scooped mud out by the handful and rubbed it all over ourselves, until we were literally covered. From toe to forehead, I was a mud lady. We took pictures and then sat in the sun to let it dry, the dark brown goop tightening and then cracking like bread crust in an oven. When it was dry we went back out into the sea and rinsed off. My skin was slippery smooth, like a baby's. It was amazing. Of course, we had to rinse our faces in the freshwater showers on the beach because if you get that salt water in your eyes or even on your lips it stings like anything!!! But even the super-sensitive skin on my face liked the mud.
After we got back we tried to practice basketball at the YMCA but couldn't get a ball, so I went home and napped before dinner, then headed out to the Citadel to watch the World Cup final. I was cheering for Italy. At the Citadel they always reserve a table for our group, which can sometimes be 20 or 25 people. Last night was no exception and we kept having to pull up more chairs. It was a great game, though by the end I was practically falling asleep in my seat. The singsong chants of "Italia, Italia! Italia, Italia!" followed us home. I collapsed into bed, looking forward to a good night's sleep.. and then Molly called me at 1 am. What's an eight hour time difference between sisters, after all?
peace and love.
Dead Sea and second protest pictures up tonight?

Here, Two Sides of Life

2006-07-09T12:01:00.000-04:00

(This is from last night, I wasn't able to post it until today. Love and peace! Forgive the typos)

I've had some not so good internet connection recently, which is why I haven't been able to post much. I went to another protest yesterday, it was little crazier than the one last week. It was at the same place, but this time we were able to get right up on the highway, which made everything a little more intense. At one point, a sort of scuffle broke out when an Israeli soldier tried to move a protester backwards, away from the street, and some of the protester's friends went to help him. All of the sudden, another Israeli soldier, standing maybe five feet from me, raised his gun and fired into the air. I was terrified, to be honest. The whole point of the shot was to scare us, I guess, and it worked. My heart was pounding and I backed away immediately, as did everyone else in the near vicinity, but I didn't run, and I lifted my camera and started taking pictures. I actually haven't looked at them yet, I don't think they will show much. But it was a scary show of force, especially because it is hard for me to view the protestors as a threat. We were all unarmed, facing a huge mass of physical force; jeeps, guns, tear gas, sound bombs, rubber bullets, boots, batons, handcuffs, everything. The little blonde kid from my pictures last week was making a lot of us nervous though, he kept taunting the soldiers and it doesn't seem like it would take too much for something to happen. Later, I learned that his home was demolished by the Israelis... which is why he is so angry, and fearless. There was one soldier here this time who just stands there, half-smiling, with the total appearance that he would rather be anywhere, anywhere else in the whole world. He even laughs at the kid a lot.
When we got home last night my dad here told us that in Bi'lin yesterday, another protest where soldiers regularly fire tear gas and sound bombs, three or four protestors were injured by rubber bullets and sound bombs. Rubber bullets are steel cubes or balls wrapped in rubber that are designed so that they don't penetrate skin. Instead, they are often fired at people's legs so that they can't run away, and can be arrested. If they hit the ground before they hit you, they lose most of their force, but if they just hit you, you can expect a big bruise. Tear gas is either rolled or tossed, grenade style, into the crowd, or fired so that it will drop into the crowd. Sound bombs are usually rolled into the crowd, because if it explodes near your ear, in the air, it can damage hearing and injure you. I learned this tonight at a three hour non-violent training session a lot of us attended, in case we decide to go to Bi'lin next Friday. Other things: if they throw tear gas, you should cover your face with a scarf (which we carry to the protests anyway, just in case) and stick an onion near your nose, to block the gas from getting in. The people in the town near the protest hand out cut onions to the demonstrators as they walk by. Don't wear contacts or makeup, because that makes it stick. Don't run, because the tear gas will eventually blow away but they continue to fire it at receding protestors. Plug your ears and open your mouth if you see a sound bomb coming, and don't run. Don't run was definitely repeated a lot, I guess even if you are running away from the soldiers you can be considered a threat and they can shoot rubber bullets at you. As an international, I'm more protected from the rubber bullets because they are really trained not to shoot internationals. The rubber bullet stuff is definitely worst case scenario information, the woman leading our session has been protesting here for ten years and never once been hit. The tear gas and sound bombs are pretty regular occurrences, however.
It was all good information to have at hand, but I haven't made up my mind about attending the Bi'lin protest. By staying on the sides or in the back, you are safe from arrest, tear gas and sound bombs because you can leave the scene and you aren't posing any threat at all to the soldiers. I'm not going to do anything stupid, but I would like to see it. We'll see.
On Thursday night we walked to an olive grove in Beit Jala to watch the sunset, and then up to an outdoor restaurant on top of a hill to eat, drink, smoke narguila and dance. Almost everyone left but four of us stuck around and ended up hanging out with the guys who were working there and a bunch of their friends. They played the guitar and sang, mostly Arabic music but notably "La Bamba," Bob Marley, and Ben Harper's "Lonely Day." When we realized how late it was (well after midnight) and we weren't able to get our usual cab driver on the phone, the guys offered to give us all a ride to the nearest checkpoint. Because the olive grove we had been in (which is a huge valley) is currently being annexed by Israel to build the Wall, they have floating checkpoints in the area. So we got a ride with them there, and one of them stayed with us while they went back for the rest of their friends, then they were going to give us a ride back into Bethlehem. As we waited for them to come back, a jeep full of Israeli soldiers pulled up. They asked us where were from, where we were staying, what we were doing, apparently the usual. We told them we were Americans and that we all had our passports, and that we were just tourists who had just come from Jerusalem to see the sights in Bethlehem for a few days. We definitely did not tell them that we were living there, or working as volunteers. They tried speaking to us in Arabic and we pretended not to understand. True, I didn't understand anyway, but two of us spoke relatively fluent Arabic, so they pretended. I wasn't really scared, it was just an experience that helped me to once again better understand what it is like to live there. I didn't have my camera with me but my friend slid his to me behind his back so that if anything were to happen, I could take pictures. The other people from the restaurant showed up a few minutes later, and I was worried that they would be harassed, but to my complete and utter amazement, the soldiers and the Palestinians started hugging and kissing, laughing and talking. They turned to us and said, "Oh! We know them, they pulled us over last week, and now we are friends."
If only everything was that easy!!! We got our ride back into Bethlehem, and promised to go hang out with them again soon.
Tomorrow we go to Jericho for a little hike, and then to the Dead Sea to float and rub ourselves with Dead Sea mud, which will supposedly make our skin clear and beautiful and maybe even be the Fountain of Youth. I'm just kidding. But it will be nice to have a relaxing day.. with lots of sunscreen. It isn't that much hotter here than it is in DC, but the sun is totally different. I think that if it was ever quiet here (which it isn't, in a good way) I'd be able to hear the sun burning. It is not a friendly orange ball, it is like a flat yellow-white disk like you'd draw in elementary school. After Jericho, back to Be'it S'hour where we have rented out the YMCA for the day for swimming and some basketball practice... That's right, the women's Greek Orthodox team has challenged us to a friendly match on Monday night. Our numbers are low and most of us haven't played in at least 8 years, but we'll bring what we have!
Reading this post through reminds me of some thoughts I was having earlier today, after reading the news. There is a duality to life here that almost seems normal by now. There is Everything Else, by which I mean hanging out with my new friends, reading my books, studying Arabic, riding the bus, navigating the seriously slippery streets, getting falafel from our falafel man, playing with my brothers. Then there is the Reality of life here, which is that people are being killed not far from me, protestors are being shot, walls are being built, lives are being destroyed, families separated... I guess Everything Else has to happen, life has to continue on, but it is strange how quickly my mind can adapt to it, how easily I can carry both streams in my head. All of my conversations are one or the other, we can be hanging out at the Citadel (our restaurant/bar/World Cup venue) and on one side having a conversation about the best way to attract the attention of the guy with the coals for our narguila, and on the other side debating the recent news that Palestinians from East Jerusalem have just been barred from entering Bethlehem, even to see family. See what I mean? It would be impossible to be in either mode of thought all the time... but it feels like it should be pretty hard to be in both at once, as well.

More New Pictures

2006-07-07T05:41:00.000-04:00

Four new albums are uploaded. I'll finish my earlier post later, just can't do it right now. Peace and love.

Sometimes, it's all just too much.

2006-07-07T04:45:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday we, as a group, traveled into Jerusalem to meet with a human rights group, B-Tselem, an organization called the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, and with Mordechai Vanunu, the man who blew with whistle on Israel's secret nuclear weapons program in the mid-1980's. Let me share some about B-Tselem. It was founded in 1989 during the first intifada to collect information about human rights violations. Since, they have issued over 120 human rights reports. The organization is very well respected and known for its impartiality and fair presentation of facts. First, the representative discussed the barrier. When complete, it is supposed to stretch 680 kilometers (420 miles) and will cost Israel $1.5 billion dollars, not including the terminals (checkpoints.) The money for the checkpoints is being donated by other nations, including America. 40% of the barrier is now complete. The route of the barrier is still in court, but as now planned, when complete, it will take 9-10% of the West Bank land (as defined and recognized by the Green Line) and de-facto annex it into Israel. She discussed the "strangulation policy" employed by Israel to restrict the freedom of movement of the Palestinians. There are 40 check points in the West Bank and 26 checkpoints between the West Bank and Israel, as well as physical road blocks that completely prevent vehicular movement on some roads, at last count, there are 470 of them. The West Bank is divided into five areas and it is difficult to impossible to move between the areas. She said that there is no logic whatsoever to the roadblocks, that they are just a type of psychological warfare. She talked about a lot of things, including the madness of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. One of the settlements near Nablus, Yitzhar, is extremely violent. The villagers risk their lives just to harvest their olives, as their orchards are back to back with settlements. The settlers will sometimes uproot the olive trees, destroying the harvest and destroying the Palestinian's source of income. The settlers are rarely punished, even for beating Palestinians. In Hebron, near another violent settlement, it is extremely difficult to reach the police station, it is inside the settlement and there are three checkpoints just to get to it, not to mention having to walk through the Israeli area. Despite that, 300 complaints were filed last year. There were 8 indictments, and two sentences served, both one year suspended sentences...
It is so hard for me to really accept all of this. I know that it is true, but why is there so little outrage? The Palestinians are having their land stolen out from underneath them, aren't being allowed to move around to visit family or get to work, are having their crops destroyed, home demolished, are being beaten in the streets, are forced to abandon their shops because the market is taken over by Israelis... She told us that there is one street in Hebron where Palestinians have been known to crawl out their back window because they aren't allowed to be on the street in front of their house. They live there! There is no decency in this, none at all.
I was going to talk about the ICAHD tour but I don't think I can right now. Everything is so frustrating and so unjust... Yesterday, a friend of mine looked upset so I asked her what was wrong. She responded, "Sometimes, it's all just too much, you know?" And it's true. Every day people are being killed, especially in Gaza, young women my age are being dragged from their houses and arrested in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, or young women my age are fighting to be free from a refugee camp where they were born, their parents grew up, their grandparents died. Sometimes I have an overwhelming urge to tug on someone's arm as I walk down the street and just apologize. I'm sorry, I'm sorry you are forced to live like this and your children have to grow up inside a wall and I'm sorry that your story is never told...

Israeli Incursion into Beit Sahour

2006-07-05T04:28:00.000-04:00

I want to give you all the link to a much fancier website run by Frank, our group leader (not his official title, I'm sure) here in Palestine. Be sure to read his blog about the Israeli incursion into Beit Sahour early this morning, I wasn't aware of it until I talked to him today, but it was literally just down the street from where I live. Here is a news article about the raid, "Israeli Forces Raid Beit Sahour," written for Palestine News Network (PNN) by a fellow PSE particpant who has the coolest volunteer job ever. More later, I have catching up to do! peace.

New Pictures

2006-07-04T10:51:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone.. I still owe a post about my trips on Sunday, but for now I just wanted to let you know that I put two new albums up on my picasa web albums, "1st Protest" and "Mar Saba Hike." I also added captions to the SOS album so you can get a better idea of what is going on. Thanks for reading! Peace.

A Protest, Monks, Jesus and a Barbeque!

2006-07-01T17:48:00.000-04:00

Another intense couple of days.. Friday afternoon I went to a protest with many of the other people in my group. It is where more of the Wall is to be built within the Palestinian border, causing them to lose more land to Israel. Before coming here I had told myself that I would do my best to remain neutral while here, and be an observer. Obviously, attending a protest isn't exactly holding true to that promise, but let me explain why I went. First, having internationals at a protest will always create more media attention, which is a good thing. Also, having internationals can help to prevent a non-violent protest from turning into a violent one. The Israeli soldiers are more conscious of the media and internationals, and the protestors are aware that they are being watched as well. It is better to keep it non-violent. But that is not the real reason that I went. Honestly, I have been here one week and already my thoughts about the situations have been totally changed. It is impossible to remain neutral when I am a witness, every day, to the suffering and oppression faced by the most welcoming, friendliest and hospitable population I have ever encountered. To remain neutral is, in fact, to support their oppressors. If anything, I want to help by being a megaphone, by amplifying the voices of a people who often speak to the most deaf ears.
The protest was great. I have lots of pictures that I will put up tonight if the internet holds out, otherwise not until tomorrow night. As you'll see, it was a mix of kids, teenagers, and adults. Palestinian women do not attend protests. There were many internationals there as well, the Palestinian organizers asked that most of us stand on the sides, elevated a little above the road, so that we were clearly visible. Our taxi driver actually tried to drop us off on the "other" side of the protest, behind the Israeli soldiers, but the soldiers wouldn't let us go around them... which is interesting, because later I stood on their side and took pictures. There was lots of chanting, and waving signs. School just ended a few days ago for most of the kids, and they have some instinctual non-violent methods of protest that are hilarious. For example, look in my pictures for the shot of the kid dancing on the hood of the Israeli jeep. Priceless. After they chased him down, he ran to boulder pile nearby, put his hands in his ears and stuck out his tongue. The elder Palestinians spoke often to the crowd, in Arabic, so I don't know what they were saying, but later I was told that they were urging the children and teens to remain peaceful. Tensions were high before the protest but it went very well. Note also the shots of the Israeli soldiers crouched in the bushes and under the trees, passing tear gas containers to each other, just in case. Just in case, for myself, I carried a scarf I could use if they decided to use that tear gas. There is also a shot of the soldiers "hiding" in the bushes, looking down at the protestors, and next to them, reporters with bright "PRESS" vests looking down at the protestors, taking pictures.... An interesting dichotomy. When the protest was ending, everyone was walking away from the soldiers but a group of kids had gathered on the hill above them and were just standing around. At this point, the soldiers opened the doors on both sides of their jeeps and crouched behind them, surveying us. I don't know what would have happened had one kid decided to pick up a rock, but I'm relieved it didn't, and I'm glad I went. People were grateful that we came and showed our support, and I was heartened watching them.
After the protest, most of our group (25 of us total) went to Mar Saba. Mar Saba is the name of a monastery near the Jordanian border that was founded in 439 by a monk who had spent many years living in the natural caves around the monastery. It overlooks what was once a nice river but is now a "sewage creek," literally the gray water that comes down from a nearby Israeli settlement. It smells like a sewer. Anyway, the monastery and the surrounding cliffs used to be inhabited by up to five thousand monks, now there are maybe a dozen. We (I) couldn't go inside because it is only for men, but there is a hiking trail that takes you around the monastery, down into the canyon, where you leap across the river (don't fall in... ewww!), hike the canyon wall on the other side, back down, cross the river again on a shaky ladder-type thing, and then walk the canyon road back to the monastery. I can't explain how breathtakingly beautiful Mar Saba is, but hopefully the pictures give some idea. It was an awesome time, very sunny, dusty, and hot. I was fine on all the more difficult rock-scrambling, but of course on a gentle slope of loose gravel I wiped out and now I have a sweet bruise on my leg. The best moment came when we were all taking a break looking West across the canyon to the other side, and it was just beginning to sink behind some hills. My friend was shielding his eyes when he noticed a lone man on horseback riding up the cliff, approaching the sun. As we sat and watched, a flock of sheep followed the man up the ridge until they were backlit by the sun so brightly you couldn't see them at all with the naked eye. I closed my eyes, held up my camera, and took pictures at every setting I could imagine, hoping to get just one that worked. Another couple waited with me and tried but their camera didn't quite have enough zoom. As I was ready to give up (I couldn't tell if they were coming out at all) the sun dipped one fraction lower and all the sudden the sheep lit up, their shadows dropped for a dozen meters down the side of the ridge, and I snapped one shot. After this, expect no more good photographs from me, I think I'm only going to get one per trip.
This is getting long but let me tell you as quickly as I can what I did today.. It was too hot to breathe this morning so we ate breakfast (be prepared for an entire post about the food I'm eating here. My father here has offered to take up a collection to buy my roommate and I extra seats on the flights home because we're going to double in size. No joke.) Anyway, we ate our breakfast, read, relaxed, and I studied, and then around 3 we met up with two other participants and went to the Church of Nativity. I don't remember what I was expecting, but it was something. We didn't have a tour guide so we had to sort of figure it out for ourselves. (Funny moment: my roommate turned to a volunteer inside the church, pointed at some stairs leading downward, and asked, "what happened down there?" His answer? "That is where Jesus Christ was born." Oh.) Anyway, it is amazing in a secular view because it is so old, but also just observing the reactions of the other tourists. We tagged along with a Brazilian tour group for a while and I tried, unsuccessfully, to turn my Spanish into Portuguese. I have some pictures of where Jesus was born, and also where he was placed after his birth in the manger, but the vibe in the room was pretty indescribable. Many of the men and women were weeping, and all were singing, praying, holding hands. I was shooting from my hip so as not to wave my camera around, and without a flash, so the pictures are a little bit blurry and not always pointed in the right direction, but it was intense. The star on the floor marks his birthplace, you can see it in some of the pictures. After we went to the Bethlehem Peace Center and viewed a collection of crèches from around the world. I thought of you the whole time, Mom! They even have one from Chile that is exactly like yours, I took a picture for you. I felt very Martha-like. : )
While we were in the square we talked with one of the volunteers who was there during the Siege of the Nativity, when Israeli forces chased Palestinian militants into Bethlehem, and the militants took up position in the Church. The siege last 40 days, and at one point a fired burned in the Church. A few nights ago my father here was talking about how the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) helicopters hovered over his house during the siege, just above his roof, and he said everything in his kitchen rattled for days. His sons were two and five at the time. Anyway, I don't know as much about the siege as I should, considering it was only four years ago.
Last paragraph, I promise! After walking around Bethlehem all afternoon we were pretty beat, so we came home and watched some futbol with our family. If all other methods of peace and conflict resolution fail, I think the whole world can find common ground in a love of futbol. What's wrong with you Americans, anyway? ; ) After the game our parents hosted a barbeque in our honor. The extended family turned out in droves, including our mom's great aunt, a nun who left Gaza four days ago. She had to for safety reasons, but she hates traveling across checkpoints because she is harassed so much. She is at least seventy years old and wears her habit, I have no idea what threat she could possibly pose. We ate dinner outside on the balcony/porch, as usual, and the food was incredible, all sorts of salads and fresh tabouleh, bread, "cola," grilled whole onions, and then grilled chicken wings and breasts and grilled lamb for the meat eaters. If I thought that I would have been able to actually chew and swallow it, I would have eaten that lamb! After dinner, one of our dad's nephews, who is around fifteen, played two different instruments for us. One is a twelve stringed instrument that looks like a guitar but with a bent neck and a round bottom, and the other was like seventeen feet long (exaggeration) and had a lot of strings as well. I forgot what they are called. As he played, everyone sang along, and clapped. The sweet narguila smoke twisted around us, and the breeze was blowing, everything smelled like charcoal, the moon was out, and the lights in Be’ it S'hour twinkled on the hills below us. I got the chills and had to close my eyes, it was a sensory overload. My stomach was full, the music was beautiful, everyone was happy, I was halfway around the world under the same moon as always, and I forgot for a minute that I was in Palestine. I wondered if everyone else was able to forget for that moment as well...

Palestine: The War on Children

2006-06-30T04:00:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting in a cafe in Bethlehem that overlooks the Israeli settlement across the hill from us. I am supposed to be studying my Arabic but I was reading the news first and found a fantastic opinion piece written by John Pilger of al-Jazeera. If anything, it offers an alternative news source to the Western media coverage of the current crisis in the West Bank. It isn't very long, it will only take a few minutes to read, but it raises the most important point of all: the largest group of victims in this conflict is children. He writes that half of the population of Gaza is under the age of 15. If we act now we can help make these children peacebuilders, not violent fighters.
PALESTINE: The War on Children by John Pilger

PICTURES!!!

2006-06-29T18:50:00.000-04:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/cassie.weaver
I almost forgot! I am using Picasa web albums to post ALL of my pictures. Hopefully (Inshallah) I will have time soon to add captions to the Jerusalem pictures, there are some for the SOS pictures but they are also pretty self-explanatory. The kids actually took a few of them, which is pretty funny. Also, be sure not to miss the pictures of the Israeli Settlement... it is even more powerful to see in person. Peace and love
http://picasaweb.google.com/cassie.weaver

Until the Wall Comes Down.. and a Plea

2006-06-29T13:17:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was an incredible day. In the morning many of us "skipped" our volunteer work to go into Jerusalem to hear a noted Jewish dispensationalist speak, Dr. Michael Rydelnik. Maybe you are wondering what exactly a "dispensationalist" is, I definitely had no idea before I heard this man speak. He is a Zionist, and believes that if you normally and consistently interpret the Bible you will see that there is a difference between God's promise for the Church and God's promise for Israel. He also said, "by grace, through faith in the revealed word of God" one will achieve salvation. In other words, there are not two methods of salvation, he believes that eventually God will lead the Jewish people to accept Jesus. Also, he believes the purpose of God is to revel in his own glory. Still with me? He seemed rather defensive of his position, which I can most easily sum up this way: the Jewish homeland rightfully belongs to the Jews because God promised them Israel. One purpose of the Jews is to lead people to God and Christ. Christians and Jews must work together to create a safe Israel. He rejects a two state solution, rejects Palestine. He also believes that the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an teaches violence and that the leaders of the Muslim faith incite their followers to become terrorists and that the terrorists have no other motivation. In other words, they are not motivated by poverty, oppression, nationalism or political purposes. He said they did it because they do not accept God, and that the hearts of all men are evil. When I tried to argue this point with him, he referred me to Scripture, and I cannot argue against his faith, only tell him that I reject his opinion. He argued that Israel belongs to the Jews because: the land was granted to them by God, there are long-held traditions in the Jewish faith that indicate the belief that the Jews have always been intended to return to Israel (like leaving a part of one's house incomplete in hope of one day returning to the promised land), and that politically, the land was never fertile or populated when the Zionists first came, that Palestine never actually existed but the Arabs came in response to the settlers and then fled because their leaders told them to fear the Israelis, even though they had no reason to fear them. Dr. Rydelnik began to walk us through the history of the conflict but at this point many people in the audience started to question him, myself included. Many of the people in my group are Christian, and some evangelical Christians, so they understood much more of the theology than I did. The major point that I raised was that despite what the Bible says, despite his own beliefs, people are suffering. He dodged the question that I (and others) posed him: "what is to be done, now, to help the suffering Palestinians? And why must they continue to suffer?" Afterwards I spoke with Dr. Rydelnik and thanked him for coming. It was very good to hear an opposing viewpoint, and moreover, it was a harsh reminder of the conviction of many Zionists. This is a sad situation, and arguing theology will not solve anything at this point. People need food, water, safe schools for the children, and they have the right to freedom of movement and religion.
After the speech we ate lunch in Jerusalem and then caught the bus back to the Israeli checkpoint on the Wall surrounding Bethlehem. On the way out of the West Bank, it was a cinch to pass through, when the Israeli guards realized we were a group of internationals, they ushered us past the patiently waiting Palestinians and through the gate. We only had to wave our (closed) passports at the guard. The blue cover is a passkey around here. The way in was even easier, we walked right through. The best way that I can describe the checkpoint is like an indoor line for an amusement park ride. People line up, sometimes for hours, and wait to bargain with the Israeli soldier in the booth, sometimes successfully, most often not successfully if a Palestinian. After getting in, we all decided to walk to the Bible College for class instead of taking a ser-veece (shared taxi.) We walked up the street that we'd walked up before, it is basically deserted because the wall is being built nearby so the shops have closed and people have moved out of the homes. After a couple blocks, some men shouted at us that the street ahead was closed, that we'd have to turn back and walk around the Wall, a long hike to say the least. We went ahead anyway, thinking that we'd be able to get around it somehow. As we neared where the Wall was being constructed, we realized we'd actually have to go over it. The wall is 8 meters (25 feet) high when completed, but the section we were approaching was a joining section. It was literally under construction as we watched, a large crane was lifting blocks of concrete and closing the narrowing gap. In order to cross, the workers helped us jump a ditch, and then walk along the Wall (which was only about five feet high so far), and then jump across another ditch onto the other side. Symbolically, this moment was huge. We were some of the last people to ever walk across that piece of land until the Wall comes down. The workers building it? Palestinian. As my father here says, they have no choice, everyone must make a living.
(I saw where Roger Water's tagged the Wall, and also where a fan of his did. One bit says, "all in all we're just another brick in the wall," and other says, "we don't need no thought control." There is a plan afoot for many of us to tag the wall before we leave.. I'm still thinking.)
There is always so much to write! I have had a ton of interesting conversations with my father since we came here, but I'll have to write them later. In the meantime, I am tired, and tomorrow I may have interesting news to share.. we'll see. Some of you have sent me e-mails worrying about my safety, but the West Bank may as well be a world away from Gaza.
I wanted to avoid political pleading in my blog, but please, please, if you are concerned at all for the welfare of the people living in Gaza, talk to someone about it, the newspaper, your representatives in Congress. Civilians are being targeted and an even more severe humanitarian crisis looms. War is war, bombs or targets, kidnapping or capturing, attacks or defense, Israelis or Palestinians, Muslims or Jews or Christians. All are not guilty here, just as all are not guilty in America. Thanks for reading, peace be with you and within you.

Glimpses into the Palestinian Life

2006-06-27T13:00:00.000-04:00

Marhaba wmasa lheer! (Hello and good evening). For those of you who speak Arabic, forgive my transliteration, but as my class is "survival Arabic," we are not learning modern standard and have only begun the alphabet. Arabic is such a difficult language to learn, my mouth is not accustomed to the different noises, and because the dialects vary so greatly from region to region, even my roommate who has taken two years of Arabic language classes cannot understand the Palestinian Arabic. Still, it is fun to learn because my family is so excited when I manage to come up with the right phrase at the right time. My grandmother here jumped for joy when I greeted her with "good morning" today.
I'd like to talk about the orphanage at which I am working, but because I have two more months to describe that, I think I will delve a bit into the Palestinian life and culture. I cannot stress enough how welcoming and friendly everyone has been. Part of this is due to the fact that they are happy to see tourists here, because they often feel forgotten or think that Palestine has been dismissed as too dangerous a place to visit. Everyone is eager to speak English with us, especially the children.
Every day so far the "Palestinian situation" has come up in conversation. For example, when I was talking to my father about the morning I spent in Jerusalem, he said, "Ah, Jerusalem, I can hardly remember sometimes what it looks like." He is unable to leave Bethlehem now, unless he applies for a special pass from the Israelis, which is very difficult to obtain. He told us that few years ago he went to the American embassy to try for a visa to travel to the US and was shooed away in a matter of minutes. I was talking to the people who run the SOS orphanage here in Bethlehem and asked them how the SOS was doing in Gaza, and her response? "Gaza is like America to us... we can never travel there, we only hear about it." On our first night here, my father took us on a tour of Bethlehem, and at one point we came to an intersection and he said, "We must turn now, ahead is a checkpoint and we are not allowed near it." Israel is constructing a wall to surround Bethlehem and it takes my breath away just to see it. It is very high, very think and strong, and very symbolic. The line has clearly been drawn, the "Other" created and symbolized in an imposing physical boundary. I feel almost guilty sometimes about the ease with which I can travel from place to place here. My passport is blue, but it may as well be gold for all that it allows me to do. Because I have been here only a short time, I am wary of asking sensitive questions, but eventually I will feel more comfortable discussing things with them. Tonight my father's brother told me it was good news that Hamas signed the agreement, because unity within Palestine is the strongest bond.
There is an Israeli settlement, nine years old, that is clearly visible from most of Bethlehem. I will post pictures of it soon, it is an incredible thing to see. It was built after the accord was signed making it illegal for new settlements here, but that did not stop the construction. My father said, "It was Palestinians that constructed it, because they needed the work. It was going to be built anyway, and everyone has to make a living." I often look to it and wonder about the people that live inside, what they are doing, what they think when they look out their windows and remember they are surrounded by Palestinians. Many people from the West Bank protested its construction, but it was fruitless. It serves as a constant reminder to the ancient conflict that runs through the day to day life here.
The Muslim call to prayer ended just a few minutes ago. There are two mosques near our house and I still hear it every time, people have told me that I will eventually tune it out, but in the meantime it is such a beautiful sound, a chant and song at once.
My family drove us past the Church of Nativity two nights ago. Even though I would not call myself a Christian, something stirred within me as I realized the incredible importance of the place. How very old, how very holy, how very sacred. So much of the city is like this.
Have I mentioned that I love it here? ; ) Time to go, the futbol game is on soon and my friends and I are headed to the local bar to watch. It will surely be a good time. I'll write again soon, shukran for reading this, please feel free to post your comments, even (especially) if you disagree with me! Ma'e issalaame, w-Alla ma'eak. (Goodbye, and God keep you safe.)
Peace and love.

Shukran! Shukran!

2006-06-25T16:37:00.000-04:00

So much has happened in the last few days it is hard to know where to start! I landed around 530 a.m. local time (I am seven hours ahead of Eastern DST) on Saturday morning. I had been warned (and warned and warned) that security could be a hassle entering the country (although nothing compared to trying to exit) so I had the name of an Israeli who had agreed to be my "contact," basically an Israeli name I could give the guards so that they would not need to know that I planned to be in the West Bank, volunteer, or learn Arabic. When I approached the booth the female Israeli soldier asked me how long I planned to be in the country, why, where my contact lived, and was she Israeli. She stamped my passport and sent me on my way, and the security after I picked up my bag didn't even look at me twice. I was luckier than others, as it turns out. I decided to brave a "shared taxi" by myself that would take me directly to the New Gate in the Old City (Jerusalem), nearest our meeting place. On the bus ride I had time to admire the beautiful views. Israel and Palestine are lands of hills, so at points you literally feel surrounded by people on all sides. Most hills are covered in houses, light-colored concrete and sometimes stone, flat roofed and multi-storied. I was dropped off at the New Gate, paid the drive ten shekels (the conversion rate is 4.4 shekels to one USD) and went in.
I found the meeting spot without too much trouble and called one of the program directors to check in. He told me others would be arriving later, and pick up time was between 3 and 6 p.m. Looking at my watch, I had at least seven hours to spend, so I convinced the hotel keeper to let me leave my pack with him, and I set off to explore. The Old City is absolutely amazing. The streets are incredibly narrow, you'd never fit a car down the majority of them. The walls are high, most buildings are connected, residences on top and shops on bottom. The roads are all stone that is worn slippery-smooth, and the further into the city you go, the further downhill you go. It is truly a maze. I didn't even have time to get my bearings before I lost them. I overpaid a shopkeeper for a map before I could properly convert in my head (is anyone surprised that I struggled with mental math? :) but managed to get a watch for about three dollars. I spotted a sign for the "Hebron Hostel: Hottest Tea Room in Town!" that also had internet, so I went in. I paid five shekel for a half hour of computer use, and decided I could really use some coffee. While I drank it (my first true Arabic coffee, I highly recommend it.. Just don't call it Turkish coffee!) I spoke with the owner of the hostel who agreed to walk me halfway to the Dome of the Rock because he was going that way anyway. After being pointed in the right direction, I got lost three times and finally saw the gate for the Western Wall, guarded by three Israeli security officers. I showed my passport but the guard explained that on Saturdays, the wall is open only to Muslims. On other days, it is open only to Jews, only to Christians, etc.
I turned to leave and a local Muslim man offered to show me where I could take pictures of the Wall and the Dome of the Rock from above. I agreed, figuring I could ditch and run if anything seemed off, and besides, I was literally surrounded by people. I followed him up a maze of staircases to the top of the Old City. It was amazing! The golden al-Aqsa Mosque/Dome of the Rock is clearly visible in the upper left side, in the mid-ground you can see the Muslims in white at prayer at the Western Wall, and in the immediate foreground, roofs of Jerusalem. Below is a picture of Muslims in front of the Western Wall. The third picture was taken without flash while walking in Jerusalem, it gives you a good sense of the street scene
After seeing this, my new friend Ali took me on a running tour of the city. I have no idea why we moved so fast, but we did. I went into the Church of the Redeemer and took many pictures from the top of there, I also went into the Church of the Holy Sepulchure, and saw the Damascus gate. I have many more pictures that I will post when I have a more reliable internet connection.
After my "tour" I paid Ali around $20 for his time and then returned to the meeting place and met some of my new fellow PSE participants. After some confusion (apparently PSE thought I was on a different flight, so they were surprised to learn that I was already in Jerusalem) we all shared a taxi to Bethlehem. Crossing into Palestine was no trouble at all, we didn't have to take out our passports or anything. We met at the Holy Land Trust office and we were immediately bundled into taxis and sent to our host families. I was totally intimidated by this (I don't speak Arabic! I don't know where I am! Where am I supposed to meet everyone? What next?!) but Frank, one of the directors, shared my taxi with me and explained that we had a group meeting on Sunday night, our host families would help us get to it, and tonight was just for relaxing. Upon arriving at my house, I was very surprised to see my roommate: she was in line in front of me at the airport in DC, and it turns out she is from Bethesda, MD, just a few miles from my home in Potomac, MD. Small world. My family here is beautiful. They have two sons, aged 6 and 9, and my father speaks English very well. My mom does too, but she is more shy about using it. They laugh at my attempts to speak Arabic, which is only "shukran! shukran!" (thank you! thank you!) Also, I've learned that my first Arabic word is actually Cassie: it means "my glass." I have become a running joke in the family. "Where is Cassie? Where is Cassie? Oh! Right here!" and they pick up their glass of cola. Also, I have eaten more food in the last few days than I did in the last month I was in DC. And it is all incredibly good. The hommous, tabouleh, pita, fresh cheese, Arabic salad, yogurt, everything is fantastic. Apparently my mom thinks that my roommate and I are starving.

And so to end a very long and very crazy Saturday, I found myself sitting in a bar called the Citadel, drinking a TayBeh dark (a Middle East brew), smoking arguila (flavored tobacco out of a water pipe), and watching a futbol match with my new friends... I love this place. I'll tell you more about Sunday and today later.. But I have to get some sleep. I have another crazy day ahead of me tomorrow!

Sleep is for the Birds.. And Happy Birthday!

2006-06-22T22:52:00.000-04:00

I'm clearly not going to be getting any sleep tonight. Not because I'm not ready to go, but because my mind is not going to quiet down. I'm nervous and anxious, but more excited than anything. I have truly no idea what to expect, so I'm not sure what I should even be nervous about. The flight, the checking in, all the routine things that I always seem to find some way to screw up, that makes me anxious. But Palestine? What's to be nervous about when I don't know what's coming?
As for packing... I think I'm remembering everything that I'm not forgetting. Either way, in twenty-four hours I'll be on the ground with my pack on my back. What I have with me, I have, and what I don't, I'll do without. Really, so long as I have my camera I'll be happy, and that was the first thing I packed. My new lens is really sweet, I'll get my first pictures up as soon as I can get back on the internet... because I'll be taking them as soon as my feet touch the ground.
The next post will be from overseas... I can't wait.
(Happy Birthday Mom! Sorry my present is me leaving... ; )

The Map is Not the Territory

2006-06-15T14:41:00.000-04:00

I leave a week from tomorrow. Today I bought a big world map and spread it out on the floor in the playroom. G and I spent a while putting pushpins in all the places she knew. We marked Washington, DC, Florida, Michigan, and New York. Then we marked Costa Rica because that is where Molly will be all summer. Finally, I traced a line all the way across the ocean and marked Palestine. G counted, "1! 2! 3! 4!" as I did it, and then helped me push the pin in. It is a long, long way from our little pushpin in DC. We looked at the flags on the bottom of the map and found Costa Rica, USA, and Palestine. Palestine's is the very last flag, out of place in the orderly columned and alphabetized rows, and it has a little green asterik next to it. *Consisting of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, in theory this area is run by the Palestinian Authority with Gaza City as the capital. Just underneath that is a disclaimer meant to apply to the entire map, This map must not be regarded as representing official recognition of boundaries in dispute or awaiting definition by Treaty. Maybe I should have bought the physical map instead of the political one... At least there, a mountain is a mountain and an ocean an ocean. On this map, I can't even be certain of where I'm telling G that I'm going for two months.
When we left the playroom, we shut the door so that G's little sister, Bug, can't get in there and walk all over the map. After all, we'd hate to see our pushpins out of place, or the carefully printed boundaries torn apart.