Another Playground Delay Update

I meant to write in my last post that, because of the newest round of closures between Israel and the West Bank, I am starting to doubt that we will receive the playground shipment anytime soon.

To recap, we had initially sought permission to build two playgrounds in the West Bank this month, one in a small town called Doma and one for disabled and orphaned children in Silwad (with Maysoon's Kids). We got word that we could not get security clearance for the playground in Doma, so we chose the alternate site of Beit Anan. We thought we had clearance for playgrounds, so we shipped them and they arrived in port in Israel. However, when Susie got here, she found out that we did not have clearance for the site at Silwad, so she quickly named a new site in Bethlehem. We thought all was well, but then the Israeli authorities told her that PfP would have to prove that the poles of the playground were not going to be used as rocket launchers. So she coordinated a barrage of faxes and e-mails from the U.S. showing the specs and designs of the poles, and we finally received clearance to send the playground from the port to the ANERA storage facility in the West Bank. In the meantime, PfP incurred almost a month's worth of port storage fees. The playgrounds were sent from port about a week and a half ago, I think.

We are still waiting for them to arrive. Muhammed told me that when they cross the Green Line into the West Bank, H will get a phone call about them, and he has not yet received that call. So up until now, it seems that they are still in Israel. Unfortunately, due to the checkpoint closures and backups in the last two days, we will likely have to wait even longer than we had anticipated for the playgrounds to arrive. I just hope they will arrive before I leave this coming Thursday!