Northern West Bank travels day 7/8

Hey hey guys and gals,



I'm going to give you a little run down of the last week and where I've been etc.



So, to round of Jerusalem, on the last day I asked this girl for where the nearest cash mashine is (they're a bit of a nightmare) and she asked me where I was from 'Manchester', she was a journalist from Mancheser and she went to the University as well, so she asked me if I'd like to join her friend and her for diner, which I did. Her friend happened to be Sarah Hudson, married to a mutual friend of Adie, Patrick and Andy's called Mark. It's a small world after all hey?



So I ended up going to Bethelehem with them, I still owe her some money for diner, which was nice. She gave me a lonely planet as well(guide book).



So I crossed the wall and the checkpoint peppered with quality graffiti asking for peace and justice by Blublu, Banksy and a couple of other artists.



So then I was shown around the Holy Land Trust with Sami Awad, a Martin Luther King kind of person, with pictures and quotes of and by the Dalai Lama, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King. There were three projects that I liked and was happy to get involved with but I wanted to check out the rest of the West Bank first because Bethlehem is really a middle class christian town with very few problems compared to Nablus, Hebron or Jenin.



So then, after getting completely lost looking for their TV network called Peace News Network, stumbling into a human rights organisation to ask for help (there are hundreds of Non-Governmental Organisations trying to alleviate the situation here, to a debatable effect) and picking up a load of quality literature on the human rights situation here - which, needless to say is awful, I took a 'service' which is kind of like a big shared taxi, to Ramallah.



In the taxi, a smiley Jordanian Jewish girl sat down next to me and started a friendly rant about everything under the sun. Her name was Rowa, which means blessed water or something similar, and she explained half a dozen times that she was hyper because she was so tired...

I ended up being taken to an ice-cream place and having some tea before going back to her flat to meet the guys that she stayed with; Talal, Mohammed and an Egyptian gentlemen that had a nice chat to me about being a 'leftist' and lementing the demise of Egypt under Mubarak and Nasser's former glory...

So a couple of hours later, I was nackered and there was some debate as to where I would sleep and the social things were making it all impractical, so I went back to stay at Talal's, who I spoke a bit of French with and we made jokes that the others couldn't understand... He studied in Tunisia.

So the next day I ended up going to his village, after going to his flat, which was littered with litter and shared with his cousin who is a forty something business man, Abbuomar.

So after he finished work at 4.30pm at the Yellow Pages office (doing translation and consulting) we went to his village for the weekend - Al Zaowia, which means 'the corner' in Arabic. We went through some of the more grim check-points with bloody histories, which I got a little bit of on film, before getting to the village. It was beautiful and I said how I loved seeing all these hills after being in Holland, which is flat as a pancake, at which point Talal said 'do you want to see my hill?' 'yeah, of course, YOU HAVE A HILL?' I thought that was amazing.

The village was lovely, I started the visit with a chat to his Grampa, and a little consultation about his shakiness and inability to hold a glass of tea without spilling it, as we sat there and drank tea. His main concern was not for his health but for what the other villagers thought fo his shaking. I recommended that he watched his diet for strange amounts of sugar and that he had a good balance of potassium calcium and salt, and that if he was worried go and see a doctor... He was quite old with a beautifully weathered face,he worked in the fields all his life with wheat, olives, herbs and sheep. He now enjoyed his retirement sitting in the sun all day, literally dawn till dusk, still and pensive. Everytime I passed his house he was sitting either in the morning position or the afternoon position. People came to him to chat but he just sat there - of course his wife, diabetic, was doing all the house work and preparing his meals and tea etc. At least he wasn't making too much of a mess!

Then I lost a game of pool to Talal, saw his mates, went back and spoke to his family, went to his Father, who was living alone on top of a half constructed house that he was watching over, the ground floor filled with hundreds of chicks in warm red glowing light, with their musky smell.

The scenery was beautiful.

I met the three Imam's of the village and prayed at the mosque the next day after having a beautifully prepared vegan dinner ready for me when I got in the last night. I met more of Talal's friends and we discussed his film, he showed me the script and towards the end of the weekend offered me the part despite my not being able to be here after September, which was nice.

I spent a good part of the weekend sitting in the family court yard chatting to people and drinking tea and having shisha, with the women and girls of the house peeping from the window, hiding whenever I looked up and said 'salam uilaikum' or 'quifahaluk?'

On the saturday we went to watch the village football, and Al-Zawia won! Get in!

There were 2 Fiat Uno's with their top halves sworn off, looking like funny soft tops, I saw one ofthem filled with 3 women and 5 kids, half of them dangling off the back. Funtimes!

Then it was off to see the Sheikh, who rabbited on a bit about the British mandate in Arabic, and how the British treated the Palestinians less like dogs and more like people but still not human, and how Britian was responsible for the state of Israel. But after that was out of the way he was lovely. I ended up having him on the floor and showing him some back exercises and up against the wall showing him some knee exercises in front of his wife, cousin, nephew, grandchildren and so on... Might have undermined him a little bit but it was all good fun!

That night three Israeli Defence Forces Humvees pulled up close to where we were walking back from having more tea with Talal's Dad, the soldiers got out and started pointing their guns at everyone, I wanted to go and check it out(it was 40 meters away and there were some other youths with their hands up being shouted at) but Talal shouted through a wisper and grabbed my arm and we went to the basketball court where his mates were practicing. I had a shot and hit the ring from the D line, but no one else got it in so I didn't feel too stupid...

Then it was goodbye to everyone, which was sad, and I didn't know how to say thanks because it's kind of taboo to be polite like in England...

So Nablus the next day, I arrived, it was beautiful and very early in the morning because Talal had to go to work in Ramallah and we left at the same time (we worked a six day week but got Saturday off this week - the holy day in the Muslim world is Friday - which makes for a strange working week when you co-exist with Christians). The sun was rising on the crowded town and, sincei ti was in a valley and everything was shut on Sunday (tourism wise anyway) I decided to just walk up the nearest hill to get a view of the town.

It was breath taking, literally. The climb up (with the back pack, which was quite stupid) was increadibly steep but I did get a little lift in someone's car after walking up past the plethora of flats and posters of kids that had died resisting the occupation in one way or another, past the graveyard with grave stones painted in the colours of the flag (black red white and green that stand for black-suffering red-blood/the price of liberation white-peace green-either holiness/Allah or the land depending on who you ask...)

The hill was nice, full of wild flowers and herbs and olive trees, and it was a steep climb to the top, I filmed a bit of a monologue and did a span of the town in the morning light, well worth it. Then I satdown under an olive tree to read about violence and conflict.

By now the sun had risen to a level where I was hot just lying there with my top off. Then I decided I had better climb back down before I get too thirsty. Oh. Pants. I forgot that going down hill was exceptionally bad for my knees. B*gger. So, with the heavy backpackof books, I went down the steep slope one step at a time, and I did it without falling down! Yes! A nice little challenge and that proved to me how good the improvement has been with my legs. They were hurting at the bottom though so I just sat down in the nearest eaty drinky place which was pretty much a big tent with a gas burner, I said 'atash' which means thirsty, and he could probably see the sweat on my face, so he gave me a cup of water, then refilled it. He was nice but couldn't speak any English, he gave me some food and refused payment - it's really crazy how the people with the least here in Palestine give you the most.

I then was called at by a lively group of kids outside a shop. The shop owner was a boy my age with no parents, I didn't want to repeat 'what happened to your parents' to loudly and clearly in from of his mates as he didn't understand, so I don't know, but he insisted I sit down next to him at the counter and we had pigeon talk arabic chit chat and I mucked around with the kids a bit, they wanted to show me where to get a haircut... Maybenot such a bad idea!

Then it was back to Ramallah.

Back in Ramallah, I fancied a banana after putting my stuff back at Talal's, so the shop keeper, smoking some shisha in the back room with his mates, poured me a drink, gave me some shisha, insisted on me not paying for the fruit and gave me some more.... GENEROSITY, it's really excessive here. I love it!

So then I met up with Anan, a friend of Nasreens and he gave me a run down of the Marxism in Palestine and was having drinks with Mohamed's brother - who practically runs the organisation Action Palestine in England. So that was really nice, I ended up going back to his house and meeting Mohamed's parents in Tul Karim which is right on the border with Israel, after having drinks with some other people from Birzeit university or in that group of athiest communist fun loving students or ex-students.

I went around Tul Karim and to a nice shisha place and watched some TV, there was Hamas TV, BBC arabic, Sudanese chanell, they had everything, and my friend was kind enough to translate.

The next day I went back to Ramallah, after Abbas, Mohamed's brother, gave me a brief commentry on the history of Israel and the Palestinian politics and the peace processes since 48. I was amazed to find out that there had been no serious organised resistance for 20 years after Al Naqba by the Palestinians themselves until the creation of the PLO(Palestinian Liberation Organisation) in 65.

So then, after making friends with a blind gentlemen on the corner selling a cold and not so yummy drink, I went back to sleep as we had to get up at 5am to commute in to Ramallah - something that Abbas does 6 days a week, because his father is unwell. His parents were lovely though, and liked hearing about Mohammed's activities in Manchester, saying that that's what they sent him to England for, not to study!

So after having a little snooooze at Talal's I went into the University. Really stupidly I forgot my phone, so I didn't know that Anan wanted to meet up in the Uni and he must have thought that I stood him up, I haven't beena able to contact him since =(

Anyway, it was only a few days until election day at the University and most students were either sporting white and black Kaffir's, symbolising Fatah, or Green silk things that symbolised Hamas (which I was given, it's in the bottom of my bag but it I get caught with it I think I'll have a tough job explaining that I'm not a terrorist to the IDF or indeed the Palestinian Fatah Police), or they were wearing a red Kaffir which meant that they were socialist or democratic or 'leftist' or marxist or something. It was interesting.

I went to the Right to Education Campaign, went to the water resources study group to pick up their publications, and was shown the library by a friend who had spent 3 years from 16 years old until 19 years old and again for 3 months when he was 20 (he was my age, 20, but was shorter, looked older and really good posture, and had an aura of distance or hardness) in 'administrative detention' which basically means Israeli prisons where you don't need to have a trial and you can torture prisoners pretty much willy nilly.

He gave me a run down of the torture techniques that they used on him and the cell that he stayed in under Jerusalem that was pitch dark for a month - no bed, no toilet, not high enough ceiling to stand up... no body speaks to you and you get just enough food to survive but never anything with sugar or simple carbohydrates in because it would give you energy... etc. etc. etc. but I will post something on the prisons specifically as it deserves more than a passing mention. The torture sounds bad, it's called 'moderate restrained force' http://www.addameer.org/resources/reports/torture-eng.pdf


then I came to Beit Sahour and I'm staying with a family that wants me off the computer because I've been on it too long!

Chiao

more to come:
The wall and checkpoints
prisons + human rights
resources, water + agriculture
the settlements
demgographics
the right to resist and the occupation + international law
education in the west bank gaza and jerusalem
healthcare in the west bank gaza and jerusalem
aid and the economics of palestine and israel
the cost of the occupation
economic dependance and Oslo
the peace processes
the settlements
the history of resistance
hope for the future and successful campaigns.
Refugees and their right to return.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep these interesting and readable!