Hope, Creativity, Freedom......10-08-10--Bethlehem, Palestine

Many contrasting feelings: happiness to see my girls, but anger to see the environment they are living in. Anger because I cannot promise them that it will be better soon. They are beautiful girls and they will soon grow to be strong, but who has the luxury to be weak living under occupation, it hardens your heart. It hurts me to see this covered systematic violence,many times physical, but here expressed in lack of opportunities, while our kids in America and even here in Israel have sports, music, art and have to be involved in all sorts of after school activities. Here, there is little of that, whatever the UN and other NGO's provide, but it is not their responsibility to raise kids and they can do all but give them the freedom that they need.

It breaks my heart and I feel like crying in front of them and telling them that it is my fault, because my government is supporting the occupation. My government is supplying weapons and billions of dollars to sustain the occupation. I wish I could tell them that this is why I am here, to show that there is people who care!!!I wish I could tell them that me and many others in America do not support our government but are not enough to break the corrupted system that just wants to occupy land (in Israel) and minds there (in the US). That our government claims to be fighting the "war on terror" on our name and with our money. That along with Israel they claim that the West Bank and Gaza are one more school for terrorists and that ending the occupation, will mean another Al- Qaeda haven to breed terrorists.

HOPE


On the other hand, I am so happy and humbled to be here and to share the simple, but sometimes crazy daily life in Palestine. The refugee camp I stayed is a labyrinth, many ways to get in and out. It can intimidate you with its graffiti and paintings of people whom you might not know, but every Palestinian knows well. Its narrow allies, where not more than one can pass at the same time or even cannot open your arms wide can scare you. When you walk, you can see your neighbor's living room and smell their food, there's no such thing as privacy.

I feel lucky and ashamed at the same time, that I can be in Bethlehem and next I can show my blue passport and next thing be in the Old City of Jerusalem, something not every Palestinian can do. I didn't ask for that, I didn't even chose that, I was born with it, as the Palestinians are born under occupation.

I wish I could take my girls in a car and go to the sea, they have asked me..... They have never been to the sea, even though it is a 45 minute drive. I know that it is not going to change anything, but at least I know that I will see the most beautiful smiles in the world. That is something, and they will see beyond the Wall, they will know there is something else....

CREATIVITY


Now I am in the bus on the way to Ramallah. I can see rain falling on the windshield, it's smell is unique. It has been a long time since I saw rain falling, last time, I was home so it reminds me of Puerto Rico. We drive by Maale Adumim,is an Israeli settlement. With a population of about 34,000 it's a city on its own. Ma'ale Adumim was established in 1976 on territory occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War. It was built as a planned community and suburban commuter town to nearby Jerusalem, to which many residents commute daily. They have big recreational spaces, an irony that is built on occupied land and that Palestinians cannot enter.



Everytime I am in a bus in Palestine and I see an Israeli settlement, I look to the side at the Palestinian sitting next to me and wonder what are they exactly thinking, living in this land, that they love so much and watching powerlessly how everyday they are stripped of more, and more land while Americans and Internationals come and go, curiously taking pictures, listening to stories, while the occupation is still here taking more land, more young people into jails and robbing children of their childhood. But then I go somewhere and I listen to someone's story and reflect on the 62 years that they have endured in jails and refugee camps with resilience. Or simple see the kids on the street playing and when I pass they start saying: What's your name? That gives me hope that one day my girls will be going to the Mediterranean and watch the most amazing sunset.....One day.....we'll all be free.

Sunset in the Mediterranean Sea


My sweet girls....how can you not love them and want to end the occupation so they have something to live and hope for...

Three cups of tea in the camp....

This morning I woke up around 9 am and everyone, except Najah was gone. I escaped of having to wake up really early after promising Tamara I will take her to school if she went to sleep. Lara's house seems to be a sweet spot, as neighbors come and go all the time or maybe is just part of the Palestinian culture. While having breakfast Najah was telling me how blessed she was to have a job. She has been a nurse for around 20 years in the children's area of the hospital, here in Bethlehem. She was thanking God for having healthy children because she witnesses every day how children and their families have to struggle when they go to the hospital, and how she feels for them because she is also a mother. She said there are a lot of cases of cystic fibrosis, which affects children gastric system when they are very young and later, it affects their respiratory system. She explained that sometimes the children have to spend up to three weeks in the hospital in order to receive treatment.

She was recalling 15 years ago, when she used to go to Jerusalem with her friend and do shopping and sitting and having lunch and after spending the day, coming back to Bethlehem. That was before she was married and of course before the wall prevented them to go to Jerusalem. I stopped counting how many cups of tea we had......

In one of the camp streets, you can see art everywhere

She told me stories of people that left Palestine and went to the gulf countries to work. Now they have money, but I chose to stay " why should I leave my country". " We don't have too much work, but alhamdulillah (thanks to God), we are happy."She also told me how she would like to go back to study a specialization in neonatal nursing, but: "I would like to study more, but I don't have time because of the children".

About life in the camp she told me that "when someone is sick, even if I don't have time, I make time to go and visit, if my neighbor goes out of the hospital, I go to visit him and take something to him, and if I don't have money, I borrow some to get something to him. This is Palestinian culture. Here in the camp we are really close, joining here hands and fingers as to show me how close.

A look from Lara's bedroom

After the nice conversation and an Arabic lesson, she had to go to work, and I stayed in the house. After half an hour Tamara came.....she is just so sweet, but Oh My God, she can drive you completely crazy in 2 minutes! She was taping her mouth and everywhere else too. Then, Lara came and the rest of the troop. it was like 1pm.

Me and Tamara, guess who is the four year old....
I don't know how I survived the next 3 hours until we left the house. It was almost madness, I don't know how could you possibly survive with 5 kids! The two small boys, fighting to use the computer, Tamara, jumping all over in the kitchen while I was trying to teach Lara how to cook lentils. She was literally walking on the counter...and putting her hand inside when I was preparing the soup....

Then we got to Bethlehem and Lara showed me her little secret spot where they had all sorts of things for only 1 -3 shekels, wow, like a Palestinian version of a $1 store but better. I got a wood spoon for cooking!!! Then we took a service taxi to her grandmother, it was close to Bethlehem but it was in the mountains, a really nice view of Bethlehem. There I met some of Lara's aunts, They asked the same questions that people here always ask: 1.Where are you from? 2. How old are you? 3. Are you married? And then they look at me as wondering what am I doing here! I guess sometimes amazed and sometimes skeptical. They could not believe my age and the fact that I was not married. Then one of the other aunts came from work with grandma and started talking to us, she works in Bethelehem in one of the NGO's. she was the twins Raneen and Haneen's mother. After a while, we left back home to the camp. Everyone including grandma came into the car, Lara's uncle was driving us and the two young aunties were also in the car. The was some music playing and me and one of the aunts were dancing. I don't remember the name of the singer now, but it was so nice.
Grandma and some of the kids...

Now we were back to the reality of the camp again, the same small space, the same small allies. We went to eat something in a small take out place in the camp. Tamara was crying because she wants to get a juice and her sister tells her that she should pick another one, because that one is made by Israel. Tamara keeps crying and after trying to convince her, she gives up and gets her the "Israeli juice". So, here is a 15 year old, with her version of BDS here in Palestine, although there is not much that we boycott without starving. Everything comes from Israel, that is the business of occupation. Then we went to eat knafe and after that we go home. I survived my second day in the camp, laughing, learning and living.....under occupation....

What you cannot see from outside the wall--October 7th, Bethelehem, West Bank

I have been two months in Haifa and I wanted to go back to the West Bank. So I decided to go to Bethlehem to visit the kids from the Tent of Nations summer camp. The problem always is the timing and restrictions in transportation, plus Friday and Saturday there are no buses because of shabat. To go from Haifa to Jerusalem, there is no problem; the problem is how to get into the WB if you go later than 7:00 pm. I finished working at about 4:30 pm on a Wednesday and the next bus is at 6:00 pm, which means it gets to Jerusalem at 8:00 pm. Conclusion: NO way to get to Bethlehem, unless you have money to pay an expensive taxi, which at this point is not an option for me.

So, I went to the source to get the exact information: Edward, a Palestinian friend from Jerusalem who now lives in Haifa. He arranged for me a friend of him to pick me up from the station in Jerusalem and take me through the checkpoint into Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. Edward also took me to the bus station in Haifa. He also gave me his mobile phone so his friend Munir could call me when he came to pick me up. I am so blessed to find such friends here. Palestinians are the kind of people who give everything for their friends. Nayef, another Palestinian told me how he is so thankful that people leave their own country and come from abroad to advocate for their cause that he feels he needs to do anything for them.

Me and Rachel, an Australian volunteer painting a segment of the separation wall inside Bethlehem back in July. In the back Andrea, a German volunteer artist that came to the camp to teach art to the children



So, I met Munir at the Jerusalem Central Bus station and we managed to pass the checkpoint and get to Lara's home. Lara lives in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. Dheisheh is a Palestinian refugee camp located just south of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Dheisheh was established in 1949 on 0.31 square kilometers of land leased from the Jordanian government. The camp was established as a temporary refuge for 3,400 Palestinians from 45 villages west of Jerusalem and Hebron who fled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. According to UNRWA the camps population is of around 13,000 people.

Me and Lara at the Tent of Nations summer camp on her birthday, she brought a cake and share with the whole group


Lara took me to her home, through a small street. I was greeted by her mother, Najah, and two of her neighbors that were there visiting. Immediately I was served Arabic coffee. The women were talking about the tawjid, the national exam that young Palestinians have to pass when they finish high school. It is quite an event here and when kids pass the exam, parents make a big celebration, which includes fireworks, but also is a big pressure for the students to do well in the exam. They said, is celebrated more than weddings.

Lara doing some homework, which is hard having three younger siblings running and screaming all over the house

After they left we ate and then were chatting and watching TV. Tamara, Lara's 4 year-old sister was watching the children's channel and also playing on the computer, while her older brothers Ahmed and Mohamed, had to come to the computer when she came crying, to fix whatever was wrong with it, and she didn't give up either. She kissed them in order to convince them to help her. When her dad came and was trying to get her to give him the remote to watch the soccer match, she was checking herself if there was a match, she kept the remote and said that there was no match and put the childrens channel again. Her dad just smiled! Tamara is the queen of the house and she could make you angry and desperate and could make you smile all at the same time.

This was just the face of a real family and the real Palestinian life that is not often portrayed in TV or newspapers, but that I was invited to witness. It is incredible how little they have and how, even despite the daily struggle they welcomed me as another member of the family. We got some ice cream for desert and me and Tamara got our faces full of chocolate. I was trying to dance to the rhythm of a song playing in the kids channel and Tamara was making fun of me. After that, Tamara prepared the bed for me and was crying because she wanted to sleep in the room with me and Lara. Lara convinced her that if she went to her mother’s room, I will walk her to school next morning. She went to her mom’s, but I couldn’t wake up in the morning at 6 am to take her to school…Shame on me!

Me and Tamara enjoying some ice cream



Tamara insisted on doing my bed....she is so sweet!

Watering the Sunflowers-July 21, 2010-Bethlehem

We started the day as always at 7 am. The children came and we divided into the groups. Some of them went to learn an African dance. The girls were really good at it. Our group is preparing a play with the theme of reconciliation. The guys are doing a dance/fight with swords that they made themselves. The girls are working on a dabka dance for the happy ending of our play, where the two families that have been fighting for years finally reconcile when they realized that they have more thing is in common than differences. I am also trying to teach the children a song, it is called I believe I can fly. The song is about believing in yourself and in your capabilities and that you can touch the sky if you really believe in yourself. It is very difficult to make the children follow instructions, sometimes even frustrating. At one point I told them that I am going back to PR because they are not behaving, then I came back…

On the last session we painted the wings for the small girls to dance over the song. The German volunteers that are doing the art workshop helped the girls to paint the wings that we are cutting.

In the afternoon we went to Bethlehem with the German group to paint over the separation wall. I was wondering what does it mean the fact that we are going there and painting over a wall so high that is causing so much suffering. What does it represent for Palestinians that we paint and leave and they stay here, looking at the wall and being its victims. I didn’t know what I was feeling, only painting, being present and solidary. The Palestinians in the shop nearby the wall, looked with curiosity, maybe they thought, one more group painting here. Also I reflected over the German comments about the wall in East Berlin and what it represented for them to be painting in Palestine. They knew better what this wall means. Some people stopped by, curious, some took pictures while we were just painting. It felt so nice to be there painting, and putting some color to the wall. The topic was you look at me I look at you. Painting for justice, peace and conservation of the environment. It was a sunflower with two faces looking at each other. We explained to the shop owners what it meant, when two people are looking at each other, they have to listen and talk to each other. One of them asked how much they had to pay for the painting, since now it looked so beautiful where before there was dark or graffiti. It was really nice because at the end one of them came and thanked us and was really happy about the painting. I told him that now it was his responsibility to water the sunflowers….

From Bethlehem through the checkpoint, destination the Old City- July 20th-

From Bethlehem through the checkpoint, destination the Old City- July 20th-

Today our day started like always at 7 am. After breakfast and our meeting to prepare for the daily activities, we continued to pain the meeting room. I went with the girls to prepare the wings for the festival for our song. We took some fabric and cut them with the shape of wings. Today was one of our girls birthday, Lara and she brought a chocolate cake, with cups and plates and soft drinks and we shared it during our break. After we did stone painting with peace messages to give to Israeli soldiers. They were very impatient and it was hard to get them to work. Some did very nice designs, like Miral that did a dove, symbolizing peace in a blue background and the dove was on a cage. Suad also did a great design too and wrote the word peace on the stone. Then on the third workshop we wanted to work again on the wings and on doing invitations for the parents to come to the festival. The kids were very loud and running from one place to the other and I got a little bit anxious and started to scream to them to be quiet. Of course this did not work and Gisla was getting a little bit anxious too. She wanted them to paint some cards with different mandala designs but we could not get them to listen to her instructions. Mirna fell down and had some scratches in her leg, so I went to wash her leg and after she was with her big beautiful dark eyes and her sweet smile that always remember me why I am here. She smiled and gave me a kiss. I forgot all my anxiety. Eventually they were calmed and started to paint.

After the camp we took the kids bus and we were left close to the checkpoint to pass from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. There is a new practice that the soldiers use now, to make people trying to cross the checkpoint get off and walk through the checkpoint. One of the volunteers that has been here for 8 months and commutes from Jerusalem to Bethlehem every day was explaining her theory that this is done to discourage people from coming to Bethlehem with the purpose to debilitate the only source of income of this city. So, it was our turn to experience it, we waited for more than half an hour and eventually we passed. I realized that there was no point but to make people uncomfortable. On the other side the soldiers barely look at you when you were passing, so I really support the previous theory. The soldiers are behind a plexy glass and they are not doing a specific search of anything.

Once on the other side of the checkpoint you have to take another bus into Damascus Gate. Immediately we went to get a falafel from the kiosk on the corner and went into Paolos house, a very nice and beautiful guest house for German pilgrims. It has a great terrace that overlooks the old city and you can see all the churches and mosques from there, we went for a short tour of the city. We stopped at the western wall and Agnes explained that that wall was the wall of the complex that surrounded the third temple and was built by Herodion and destroyed it around 570. It is not the wall of the temple itself but it is the only structure that was kept. The complex including the wall; called the Temple Mount by Jews is very sacred to the Jews since they believe that God lives in the temple. Inside the wall now lies the Al Aqsa and the Dome on the Rock, where Mohamed the prophet is believed to have ascended into heaven. She explained that before there used to be a lot of Arab houses near the wall but the Israelis destroyed them to get access to the wall. It is controlled by the waqt, a Muslim institution. One of the city entrances is here, golden gate which is closed. The Jews believe that this is the gate by whish the messiah will come. We also visited the church of the Holy Sepulcher, There we learned about the current status quo that the different Christian denominations have to have control of different parts of the church: 6 denominations control the church in a very strict contract that includes who cleans which part of the church, Thank god that we believe in the power of religion to unite people.