I'm still here...but not for long.

Well, yes, today is the four-week anniversary of the last time I made a blog entry. Most of you probably can’t even imagine how much has happened since I last blogged, and it is going to be rather time-consuming to try to even recount the small fraction which can be put into words. I cannot give the attention and length to each topic that I would had I been making entries every day obviously, so don’t take the brevity of some stories or explanations of events as a reflection on their significance—just remember that there is much to tell, and I am aware that the average adult attention span is only something like 19 minutes.


Volleyball

If you’ve been watching the slideshow and noting the new pictures every so often, you have seen a picture of me with a few Palestinian men in front of a volleyball net with some Palestinian flags painted on the wall in the background. This was not just a random photo op with a group of men who were actually wearing shorts in public; no, in fact that is a picture of me with some friends I have made this summer who belong to a volleyball club in Beit Sahour only a few minutes from my house. I have been playing with them twice a week nearly all summer long. It has been really appreciated, not only because I love to play volleyball and rarely get to while in the U.S., but also because it has been one of the only means of exercising that I have had since being here (besides my walk to Bethlehem uphill everyday). Only a couple of the men speak English, but I feel like I have gotten to know them well from playing together so long.


My Birthday

My birthday was actually a wonderful day regardless of the fact that I did not actually celebrate it (aside from a few e-mails I received from friends). On that day I went to Hebron for my meeting with CPT as I reported in my last blog, and spent the night in an ICS orphanage. Even though nothing happened during the night (which is a good thing), I was very pleased to be doing something meaningful and helpful, and it was heart-warming to meet Rashiid, the director of the Hebron orphanages, who was so grateful for such a small act. The day after my birthday was actually much more eventful. When we awoke around 7 a.m. we got a call from the CPTer who was staying back in our apartment in the old city, telling us about a home invasion that had just ended in the Hawuuz neighborhood of the city. Since we already had video cameras and our other gear, the CPTers I was with decided to go straight to the scene and let me come along. I won’t describe the situation at length, but rather suggest that you visit a couple of links. Here is the link to the synopsis of what we learned had happened, http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2008/07/15/hebron-israeli-soldiers-terrorize-seven-families-nighttime-home-raid, and here is the link to the video which also provides some of an explanation and lets you see the scene as we did, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEYD0aFgq5I. (Since I had time, I was actually the person who, when we returned to the CPT apartment, uploaded the footage to the computer and edited this video.) I was very glad to be able to help in this way, helping to get out the information as soon as possible after the event had taken place. I felt very bad for the family. Not only had I just witnessed a complete violation of their home, but they had been so kind and generous to our team of visitors, serving us tea, juice, and chocolate in one of the lesser-damaged apartments for over an hour after our inspection of the damage. It seemed obvious that they must have still been in shock—the violation of what had just happened could not have fully sunk in yet—since they were able to be so hospitable and visit amiably with us. I have no idea how the family is doing now. … And on a lighter note, not only did I experience the whole home invasion, but when I got home from Arabic class, my host family had a cake ready for me, and they sang the four different “happy birthday” songs they have here. It was a sobering day but also a very good day.


Tulkarem

Tulkarem is a population center in the northern West Bank. A visit here was the final weekend excursion I went on as part of the PSE program. Here we met with the governor of Tulkarem who spoke with us about the importance of lobbying with our politicians at home about the situation here. It really is impossible to imagine how the PA can gain any support among U.S. politicians with the huge Jewish and Christian Zionist lobbies in the States. (This is my own thought, not his.) We also visited two of the villages in the Tulkarem governate to see how the Wall divided a village, killing its commerce, and then was actually removed and placed somewhere else. (This was also the case in another spot in the area where the route of the Wall was supposed to be near some Palestinian homes, which were of course demolished to make way for it, and then the route was changed.) We saw a house that had the Wall running right into it—a home which a man had saved up for years and years to buy, and then was taken over and occupied by IDF as basically a huge guard tower. We learned of the Wall’s new path which separated just one house, which had been left on the Israeli side, from all the others in the village so that none of their family was able to visit them even though they were living 50 yards away. (And of course it’s worth noting in all of this that where the Wall is near Tulkarem is all within the West Bank, grabbing land from the Palestinians over the green-line and de facto annexing it to Israel.) And we also spoke with the mayor of another village in the area who told us about all the famers unable to work their own land because in order to do so they need a permit to cross the Wall into Israel—they were separated from their lands when the Wall was built. In order to farm, first they must be lucky enough to get a permit, and then those who get the permit may only cross during the two two-hour windows of time during the day that the crossing is open. If they fail to return to their side of the Wall at night, their permit is revoked. Essentially it strangles their ability to farm and therefore to live because they have no money and no food. Oh, and the mayor also related one especially endearing anecdote about the Wall in their area: there was a summer camp being held near the Wall which the IDF said must be stopped. In protest the camp continued, and in response the Israelis arrested all the participants in the camp. That’s right—20 or so children, put in jail (and kept there indefinitely) for going to summer camp. After having some nice cheesy bread (which I will bring up again later), we headed on our way back to Bethlehem out of Tulkarem, but not before driving by the chemical factory which Israel built on the Palestinian side of the Wall, which may or may not have something to do with the people in that area having the highest rate of cancer in the entire West Bank. (And I hope you can see the sarcasm dripping from that sentence.) As we got closer to Bethlehem, we were stopped at a checkpoint for quite a while, waiting on a huge line of cars to go through. (This is not uncommon—it happens whenever the soldiers at the checkpoint decide they want to make things inconvenient, and they just don’t give people’s permits back after checking them. The people can’t leave without their permits, and so they wait and wait and wait until finally they are able to continue on their way when the soldiers give them back. And it is also worth noting for those unfamiliar with the circumstances, that these checkpoints have no right to exist as they are on Palestinian land on Palestinian roads. I suppose that is why we call this the Occupied Territories though.) Well, when we finally got up to the gate of the checkpoint, a few soldiers boarded the bus to have a look around and make sure there weren’t any terrorists in our midst. One of them stopped in front to talk with our tour guide, Elias, my friend. (Elias is a young Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem who works for Holy Land Trust, organizing the PSE program.) From where I was sitting he seemed to be jovially shooting the breeze; later I found out that the soldier had asked Elias if he were taking the women on the bus to Bethlehem so he could “f*** them all.” And then he told Elias to give him four of them so that he could go “f***” them. Elias responded quite coolly by telling the soldier that he would have to ask them himself. (An impressive response I think given the proposition; I would’ve probably been too appalled to even say anything.) Then the soldier took Elias’ sunglasses off his head and put them on his own face. He made some comment about them, and then took them off, placing them back on Elias, and then he pushed them forcefully onto Elias’ face while his smirk turned to more of a snarl. After being here for more than two months this shocked me, even from an IDF soldier. At that moment, there was so much anger that rose up in me; I was absolutely furious at what this … had just done to my friend. I cannot even imagine what I would have felt if I were Elias. From the position he was in, I can imagine it would have been extremely hard for me to keep from either pushing the soldier or planting my foot right in his chest in response. Of course, this would be a deadly thing to do because the soldier would have shot him right then and there. It must have taken an unimaginable amount of something to keep Elias from responding at all; he just sat there while the soldier got off the bus and we went on our way. I can see a situation like this even turning a non-violent person to violence. Even now, weeks later, thinking about this incident makes me livid and makes me hate the Occupation and resent it to my core. It might seem ridiculous, but I was so upset at witnessing this that I didn’t even know what to say to Elias that night; I really appreciated what my roommate, Tim, said though—something to the effect of: “It didn’t take any courage at all to do what that guy just did; you [Elias] were the one with courage to respond the way you did.” Needless to say, I have the utmost respect for anyone who can live under Occupation with situations like these and worse, day in and day out, for years and years without lashing out violently in response. After only living here three months at this point and knowing the entire time that I will be able to leave, I am still quite sure that even to just keep my sanity, I need to get out of here very, very soon. (I did read Psalm 37 the other day though, and that was very helpful. I would suggest it to anyone to look up and consider from a Palestinian Christian’s perspective.)


Shigella

Again, if you’ve been watching the slideshow, there is probably one photograph more than any other (though there are some pretty interesting ones which require some explanation, if I do say so myself) that made you wonder what on earth was happening with me. That of course would be the picture of me on an IV (with the IV bag on my head). Remember the cheesey bread I mentioned briefly in the lengthy paragraph above about Tulkarem? Well, it turns out that that bread, though it tasted very good at the time, probably had some shigella bacteria in it. A day and a half after being in Tulkarem my pipes started “loosening up.” This isn’t really an appropriate thing to discuss, I think, with many people (not that many people care to hear about it either), so I will keep the description of what happened to me succinct and vague: I was in intense pain for six days (four of which were spent in and out of the hospital—two over-night stays), and I lost a lot of blood and fluids, becoming very dehydrated, and I was put on an IV for hydration and antibiotics continuously for a few days. I was put on six prescriptions once I was released, and I have since finished all of them, though things may not be totally back to normal for a little while yet. (For a real explanation of the problem, visit: http://www.about-shigella.com/shigella_symptoms_risks.) The reason I think I got sick and no one else in my group (who all ate the same thing) did is because I actually liked the food so much that I got a second serving and ate twice as much as everyone else. I am feeling much better, and though it was an absolutely horrible time which I in no way enjoyed, it is an interesting experience to be able to tell about and look back upon. The “hospital” I was in is actually a clinic that has permission to do surgery so they call themselves a hospital. It is the least expensive place around (and conveniently located just a 5 minute walk from my house) thankfully, and now what I am most worried about is whether the insurance claim will go through when I return to the States and am able to fill everything out. (I do not have health insurance, but I am covered through the PSE insurance. Had something like this happened at home it would have ended up costing thousands and thousands of dollars, but here it actually totaled—with medication, observation, overnights, food, and everything else—only a couple hundred dollars.) As to the reason why the bag is on my head in the picture: Johnny told me that instead of wheeling around the stand that held the IV bag, I should just balance it on my head. I tried this method briefly once and found it to be much more dangerous and requiring of too much effort however.


Volunteer Placement

It's unfortunate that I can't really remember all that I've told about my volunteer placement and the events happening there to this point, but I don't really have the time or energy to go back and read everything I've written to figure it out either. Seeing as well that I am going to have to present this story numerous other times at later dates and in a more formal way, I don’t feel like expounding entirely too long on it here. (I apologize to those of you who may be reading this blog simply for an update on the work you sponsored me for. There will be opportunities to hear more when I make presentations at St. John and at Bluffton however. Of course, if you are from Colorado, that’s not much of a consolation, but feel free to give me a call, and I’d love to take the time to explain things in real-time over the phone.) After rambling on for so long I may as well begin my explanation. The summer began with me being rather frustrated over a few things with my volunteer placement. First of all, I did not realize that the organization I would be working for was an American NGO. I had planned on working in solidarity with Palestinians because I believe that when a person really wants to help others who are different from him/herself, that person needs to be in a supporting role, not a leading role (i.e. assist people in fixing their own problems, not fixing their problems for them). Even though I really enjoyed the people I worked with very much, there was only one Palestinian on staff for the organization. (Later, two Palestinian girls were added to the team to help lead camps though—we desperately needed the Arabic speakers.) The second frustration is that I did not really get to work with kids as much as I was expecting. I found out when I arrived that I would not be working with kids immediately—instead for the first month I would be helping get ready for camp. This meant a fair deal of physical work (which I don’t mind besides my back pain flaring up constantly), just interacting with the other volunteers from the U.S. Then we were supposed to have the entire month of July full of camp—five solid weeks from June 30 to August 1. We had so many issues though. The first issue was funding—we did not have enough money to subsidize the cost of camp (which even though it was only 100 shekels, is still a lot of money for one week of camp to the people here). This led to the second issue—finding campers: since the cost of camp was so high and the concept of a day camp that only lasts a week is foreign to the people here (they are used to cheaper camps that will keep the kids over night every night), very few (i.e. none at all) kids signed up. So our first two weeks of camp were cancelled. Then to add even more problems to the mix, we had to deal with settlers. The park where we have our climbing tower and do all of camp is called Oush Grab. It is on the outskirts of Beit Sahour, and it is very close (just down the hill) from an abandoned Israeli military base. The municipality has been putting a lot of effort into developing this land (which should have been formally handed over to the municipality a long time ago but at present still has not—it is in Area B, just a few meters away from Area A in the existing municipality). They have many plans for the things they want to do with it including the park, a much-needed children’s hospital, and other things. (I encourage you to look at this brochure which explains the plans: http://www.beitsahourmunicipality.com/english/muni.pdf.) But, lo and behold, before anything too good could happen, Israel had to intervene somehow. This time it was in the form of ideological settlers (the worst possible kind—motivated by their belief that all land originally “given” to the Israelites thousands of years ago is theirs and by their persistent hatred of Arabs). Groups of settlers started coming to try to occupy the abandoned military base and begin a new settler outpost they call Shdema. Here is a link to their main literature, http://womeningreen.org/shd.htm, and another to a very misinformed and Jewish-biased “news” article, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126195. I wish I could sit down with each and every person I explain this situation to, to just go through the numerous bold-faced lies that they put in their publications. Some of the things they say are even so outrageous, people who know absolutely nothing about what is going on at this site would have to know that they are not telling the truth. And if you browse around and read some of their things, you will find out that because I have been working at our park and spending time there to maintain an international presence to aid in stopping the settlers from vandalizing things and taking over, I indeed am an “international anarchist.” There is so much more to this situation that could be explained, but obviously this synopsis of my volunteer placement has already missed the goal of keeping things brief. So unfortunately when my time volunteering with PAIDIA was done, all told with settlers (we had to cancel camp once because their presence made the area unsafe), sickness, and lack of campers, I actually was only a counselor for seven days total this summer. This is disappointing, but I find at least some solace in getting to have been a part in helping the Sahouri’s (people from Beit Sahour) keep their land and work toward a better future. The camp that we were able to have was actually quite successful. At the end of our final day with kids (at the conclusion of our second week), apparently when one of the boy campers got home, he immediately told his mother that he wanted her to call and sign him up for camp next summer because he had had such a good time. I am so thankful to hear stories like this because I know how much hard work went into preparing camps for our kids.

There is a Palestinian saying that if you live in a place for 40 days, then you take on the identity of that place.
Well, ana Sahouri—I am Sahouri.


The remainder of the story

I am currently working with CPT as I had hoped back at the time I wrote my last blog. I will have to find time to write more about that later however. I can say that Hebron is a completely different world from living in Beit Sahour most of the summer, but that’s all for now.


Miscellaneous note

If you sponsored me to be here (i.e. contributed funds) or are a family member, you should have received at least one post card from me by now. If you haven’t, I’m sorry. I would love to give you a very lengthy explanation of my lack of trust in the Israeli postal service sometime.


Until next time,
ma'salaame