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!