Every day is an adventure in Palestine, at least if you are an American. If you are a Palestinian, every day necessitates finding really creative solutions to really awful problems. The last 5 days have been intense, and it took me about an hour just to write out some notes about what I want to share with you in my upcoming blog entries. There is so much to say about the things I see here - it is surreal. I have decided to write entries for each day in the order that they happened, but this probably means that I will continue to be behind by a few days until after I return to Philly.
Sunday night after I finished updating my blog, I ran out to get something to eat. All I wanted was a little falafel or something light, but I ran into a guy who showed me his restaurant, and this meant a brief sit-down dinner. I started talking to all the guys in the restaurant, telling them about PfP and my trip. Soon, I was deep in conversation with the whole staff. I sat down with the owner, nicknamed Kojak, and he told me stories of his work as the only Palestinian paramedic at the beginning of the first intifada. He talked about how he transformed his car into an ambulance by putting in oxygen and IVs and how he would pick up injured Palestinians from everywhere to get them proper medical care. Eventually, he was able to train a number of other paramedics. We talked for a few hours about politics, and finally I excused myself to leave so I could have a phone conversation with Samer (my husband), who I am missing SO much!
On Monday morning, Susie left to fly out of Jordan and handed the rental car over to me. I checked out of my hotel in Mount of Olives because I was going to spend the next few days with Shaher up north, in Nablus and Jenin. I had plans to go to Bethlehem with Karam, as I had scheduled a meeting with a guy named Fares, who is interested in working for PfP. Karam and I left Jerusalem and got to the Bethlehem checkpoint (that fancy one I told you all about a few days ago). We thought we weren't allowed to bring the car in because it has Jerusalem license plates, so we parked it in the lot, got out, and walked into the pedestrian passageway. There weren't long lines that morning, and people were going through two different turnstiles. It looked like it would be a quick process. I showed my passport to the soldier in one of the lines, and he let me pass through. Then Karam showed him her Jerusalem ID, and he said she could not pass into Bethlehem. No?, we asked. Why? Well, as it turned out, Karam was not allowed through because she does not work in Bethlehem. I explained to the soldier that she had come into Bethlehem just two days before and it did not seem to matter then, but he would not budge. He said, "You can say whatever you want, but she is not going to pass to Bethlehem." We argued and argued with him and another soldier, and finally we dropped it and walked to the other turnstile, where we were promptly turned down again because one of the guys we had just been arguing with told this soldier not to let Karam through.
Resigned to our defeat, we walked outside, intending to go to the car so I could drive Karam back to Jerusalem and return alone for my meeting with Fares. On our way to the parking lot, though, we ran into another soldier, a man who we had asked directions from on the way in. He asked us why we were not passing through, and Karam explained what had happened. He told us to come through with the car and said he would make sure we got through. So we did exactly as he said and made it into Bethlehem! This is such a great illustration of how arbitrary all of these so-called "rules" are at the checkpoints. So much of what happens to people as they go through checkpoints is up to individual soldiers, and, though soldiers tend to talk about rules as if they are set in stone and have always been the same, in reality the rules change daily and even hourly. I think this particular "rule" about Jerusalem residents not being able to cross into Bethlehem if they don't work there came about only because of all the protests about Gaza that had been taking place around Jerusalem and the West Bank the day before.
My meeting with Fares was good, and I look forward to talking with him again. Fares works for BADIL, a refugee rights organization that was established in 1998 and whose mission it is to protect the rights of refugees by advocating for refugee communities and informing people about issues that affect Palestinian refugees. One really big piece of what they do is to defend the right of return for ALL Palestinian refugees everywhere. Hassan, another employee at BADIL, told me about youth programs that BADIL does with youth from many refugee camps in multiple countries. This summer, they will be running a youth camp in Damascus. Fares and Hassan gave me a number of excellent BADIL publications to take home with me. I think Samer may find them useful as well.
As we drove to my meeting with Fares, we had passed by an IDF tank that had stopped and blocked off one direction of a major road. When we went back towards the checkpoints after the meeting, we had to go around this road because soldiers were shooting at young Palestinian children who were throwing stones at the tank. I will never forget that image of the tank, the soldiers with their guns, and the sea of stones in a big pile right in front of them. I hope nobody got hurt.
Sunday night after I finished updating my blog, I ran out to get something to eat. All I wanted was a little falafel or something light, but I ran into a guy who showed me his restaurant, and this meant a brief sit-down dinner. I started talking to all the guys in the restaurant, telling them about PfP and my trip. Soon, I was deep in conversation with the whole staff. I sat down with the owner, nicknamed Kojak, and he told me stories of his work as the only Palestinian paramedic at the beginning of the first intifada. He talked about how he transformed his car into an ambulance by putting in oxygen and IVs and how he would pick up injured Palestinians from everywhere to get them proper medical care. Eventually, he was able to train a number of other paramedics. We talked for a few hours about politics, and finally I excused myself to leave so I could have a phone conversation with Samer (my husband), who I am missing SO much!
On Monday morning, Susie left to fly out of Jordan and handed the rental car over to me. I checked out of my hotel in Mount of Olives because I was going to spend the next few days with Shaher up north, in Nablus and Jenin. I had plans to go to Bethlehem with Karam, as I had scheduled a meeting with a guy named Fares, who is interested in working for PfP. Karam and I left Jerusalem and got to the Bethlehem checkpoint (that fancy one I told you all about a few days ago). We thought we weren't allowed to bring the car in because it has Jerusalem license plates, so we parked it in the lot, got out, and walked into the pedestrian passageway. There weren't long lines that morning, and people were going through two different turnstiles. It looked like it would be a quick process. I showed my passport to the soldier in one of the lines, and he let me pass through. Then Karam showed him her Jerusalem ID, and he said she could not pass into Bethlehem. No?, we asked. Why? Well, as it turned out, Karam was not allowed through because she does not work in Bethlehem. I explained to the soldier that she had come into Bethlehem just two days before and it did not seem to matter then, but he would not budge. He said, "You can say whatever you want, but she is not going to pass to Bethlehem." We argued and argued with him and another soldier, and finally we dropped it and walked to the other turnstile, where we were promptly turned down again because one of the guys we had just been arguing with told this soldier not to let Karam through.
Resigned to our defeat, we walked outside, intending to go to the car so I could drive Karam back to Jerusalem and return alone for my meeting with Fares. On our way to the parking lot, though, we ran into another soldier, a man who we had asked directions from on the way in. He asked us why we were not passing through, and Karam explained what had happened. He told us to come through with the car and said he would make sure we got through. So we did exactly as he said and made it into Bethlehem! This is such a great illustration of how arbitrary all of these so-called "rules" are at the checkpoints. So much of what happens to people as they go through checkpoints is up to individual soldiers, and, though soldiers tend to talk about rules as if they are set in stone and have always been the same, in reality the rules change daily and even hourly. I think this particular "rule" about Jerusalem residents not being able to cross into Bethlehem if they don't work there came about only because of all the protests about Gaza that had been taking place around Jerusalem and the West Bank the day before.
My meeting with Fares was good, and I look forward to talking with him again. Fares works for BADIL, a refugee rights organization that was established in 1998 and whose mission it is to protect the rights of refugees by advocating for refugee communities and informing people about issues that affect Palestinian refugees. One really big piece of what they do is to defend the right of return for ALL Palestinian refugees everywhere. Hassan, another employee at BADIL, told me about youth programs that BADIL does with youth from many refugee camps in multiple countries. This summer, they will be running a youth camp in Damascus. Fares and Hassan gave me a number of excellent BADIL publications to take home with me. I think Samer may find them useful as well.
As we drove to my meeting with Fares, we had passed by an IDF tank that had stopped and blocked off one direction of a major road. When we went back towards the checkpoints after the meeting, we had to go around this road because soldiers were shooting at young Palestinian children who were throwing stones at the tank. I will never forget that image of the tank, the soldiers with their guns, and the sea of stones in a big pile right in front of them. I hope nobody got hurt.
The tank, the stones, and the stone-throwers:
On our way back into Jerusalem, Karam and I went through the checkpoint in the car once more. It was just our luck that the same soldiers who initially told us no on the way in just happened to be the ones checking our IDs on the way out! We were a little afraid that Karam would encounter some problems, but in the end it was ok. They just looked at us quizzically and asked how we made it in (they recognized us from before). They did tell Karam to go through the checkpoint as a pedestrian, but then the guy who had let us in talked with them and they let us both stay in the car and pass through.
Graffitti on the Bethlehem side of the Wall, leading up to the checkpoint:
Karam and I had to go up to Ramallah to meet with Shaher and Muhammed, since Shaher was planning on taking us to Birzeit University that day. We drove up to Ramallah without incident, but as soon as we passed through the Kalandia checkpoint at the entrance to Ramallah, we freaked out. After the checkpoint is a circle (a turn around for cars), and right in front of us were soldiers crouched behind the doors of their Jeeps, shooting at Palestinians in the distance (pictures to the left and below). We pulled up to the parking lot nearby and called Shaher to ask him what we should do, since it did
not look like a good idea to drive through the shooting. But, in the typical fashion of a Palestinian who has experienced years and years of occupation, Shaher just told us that this was normal and that we should drive right by it. He said that they don't shoot at cars, just at people. How comforting. So we drove by, and everything was fine, but I have to admit that I was scared out of my mind.That afternoon, we went to Birzeit University with Shaher and, by chance, met up with a student who knows Shaher and gave us a great tour of the campus. Birzeit is one of the top universities in Palestine, and it has very high academic standards. Students have to be at the top of their class in order to be accepted. The student we talked to said he goes there for free because his father is a political prisoner in an Israeli jail. Birzeit was beautiful, and I was quite impressed by our tourguide!
After seeing Birzeit, Shaher and I had to drive Karam back to Jerusalem in my rental car. We planned to drop her off, drop off my car at Shaher's friend's house, and then get to the Hawara checkpoint at the entrance of Nablus by 7. Why such a tight schedule, you ask? This is an important question when you're in the West Bank. Shaher's car is registered under the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in Nablus. CIDA got a permit for him to take the car through the Hawara checkpoint any day between 5AM and 7PM. On the other hand, because my car has Jerusalem plates, I cannot bring it through the Hawara checkpoint, which means that I can't take it to Nablus or Jenin. So we had to park it in Shaher's friend's garage and go into Nablus in Shaher's car before 7PM or we would turn into pumpkins. Not really pumpkins, I guess, but we wouldn't be able to to get into Nablus. Luckily, we made it to the checkpoint just in time (literally at 7 on the dot), and we met Shaher's friends for some of those amazing Nablus sweets before heading off to Taybeh, Shaher's village, where we stayed with his family.
Shaher's family was so great. His mother was sweeter than all the k'nefe in Nablus, and I felt so welcomed in their house. She also made a really awesome dinner and breakfast, and you all know how much I love to eat! Even though I am definitely not drinking enough water here, I have been eating so well, because Palestinian food is incredibly healthy. I eat a lot of veggies and grains and not a lot of sweets (except, of course, when I'm in Nablus). Yum.
I will try to post pictures later, but for now I'm just going to try to get another blog entry done...
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