Ruth Marx RS/PSHE
Lusi in the Middle East
In August 2004, August 2006 and April-July 2007 I travelled to Nablus (The West Bank, Palestine) to volunteer with Project Hope as a teacher. I wrote a blog for the last trip I made- Which can be found here:
The textual entries are below. v
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April 10th 2007
I forgot the camera so here is the Dead Sea in words.
So yesterday. I woke up, Jo went to work, I was babysat by Jo`s lovely friend Alia (the youngest of 13 children in the grand tribe of Jordan, Abu Nowar) pottering around the shops looking for a cross that would make me look deeply Christian, the only ones we could find were huge and sparkly, so settled for small plastic earrings... rush back to the house. grab my bikini, sunglasses and book.
Panicky taxi ride to the Marriot Hotel, airconditioned luxurious bus ride (just the two of us to the whole bus) through Amman, out to the Dead Sea. Very near the King Hussein Bridge (shiver fear fear oh crap...) crossing to Israel. slight arguments with the reception desk at this palatial hotel (where of course Joanna has been a guest) about costs and prices and "look of course we want to go to the dead sea but we`re not paying an extra 20 jd" sneaky action with the towels ensures later that yes, we do manage to have a day at the spa, and go to the dead sea, and swim in the pools without paying double.
Its amazing how far you can get in life if you just look like you have every right to do that very thing that you know you shouldnt. A determined walk and a posh voice can get you anywhere it seems. Well at least Joanna can. A lovely long bubble away in the Jacuzzi surrounded by Chinese Relax me music, posh Jordanians, and tea lights. A hot hot ten minutes in the sauna and back into the air.
I feel my senses slipping from me, just manage to sit down before, oh shes out. I regain conciousness a few moments later with said posh Jordanians splashing water on my face and Joanna Goshing away, and twittering around. So. Not to let a little blacking out ruin my day at the Marriot, off we go to the mineral indoor pool full of horny couples away on honeymoon.
Quick exit from there down even further below sea level, down down, swap the towels swap the slippers, cover ourselves in mud glorious mud. Two brown people now floating like poosticks on the Dead Sea (which actually has some living microbiotic creatures at the bottom in the middle) but a drop of it in your mouth makes you realise they must be hard little bastards.
Float float float crack crack goes the mud mask. "oh wow I cant, wow this is wow..." very wierd sensation floating away... out we get wash off clean our mouths out. Up to the pool. Swim swim swim, remember I fainted earlier and havent eaten, no lifeguard, Joanna asleep. Stop swimming get out of the pool.
So fully intending on getting dressed and stopping all this watery nonsense, we find our selves in the hammam steamy steamy hot turkish bath. But alas no fat Turkish women to soap me down and I didnt want to ask Joanna to don a fat suit for it, seeing as she is supposed to be relaxing too.
Finally we make it to the shower. Scrubbing pink grapefruit all over us. Long sleek brown hair with a fluffy fringe. Off to wear sunglasses, read books and stroke cats whilst drinking wine and margheritas watching the sun set across the sea and rolling horizons of the Jordan valley. Italian dinner, rich dark red wine. Polite conversation, analysing friends and relationships, making plans for the future, moving in, very romantic. Walking through the "grounds" one last time we spot a belly dancer, I try to memorize each move, children copy her effortlessly, posh Jordanian men video and photograph her, loving her dance, but refuse to give her any money for fear of supporting this trade... and with our full tummies, pefectly make uped faces, and long sleek hair, we jump back into the Jacuzzi and indoor pools for one last bit of watery bliss- before getting back onto our luzury minibus, being driven back home to bed. Ahhh. the life of a charity aid worker in a war zone eh?
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April 14th 2007
Travelling
I should write a little about travelling. the Dead Sea day was certainly about being stranded in one place, with really only one thing to do. And since then? I've had the other side of that "holiday" coin. So, a fingernail biting, nervous, nauseous, taxi journey along to the Allenby Bridge crossing between Jordan and the West Bank.
A chaos of luggage and people as each item and person is put through a security screening, air puffing, electro prodding experience, of course. and when a mother's bag is missing, and she asks the guard "sorry, its just that I'm a bit scared of my bag getting muddled-" "scared" he interrupts her "you are in Israel now {well on a piece of sand with a flag in it and guns around it...} there's no need to be scared, in Palestine you should be scared".
I'm not going to argue with a man with a gun in his hands, and the power to send me away but... I didn't like it. I hand my passport to the teenage, highlights in her hair, coke can in her hand, Visa stamp holder. "Oh. You're going to have to sit down". Right. I'm glad i bought a good long book with me. This might last a while.
Over the next two hours I'm moved from one seat to another. A different tanned youth comes along every half hour or so, looks at me, Ruth Hannah? Yes. OK someone will deal with you soon. OK. questions questions.
In my head I'm working out how to contact Joanna to say I need to stay with her till i can find a flight home. Thinking through the pubs and cafes where I could work for the summer. Wondering if I need to re do my CV...
"We'll give you a visa for two weeks" I'm finally told. Now perhaps i should have argued with them? But then what use would that have done. Maybe they would have re asserted what they had decided, maybe they would deny me entry full stop. I don't think I could have argued my way into a longer visa.
And so now i am in a kind of limbo. I had thought it would be "sorted" by this week, in Nablus, got visa, working hard. But- a night in Jerusalem, two nights in Ramallah, two hours in Nablus and I'm back awaiting the opening of the Ministry of Interior. Each person I speak to has a different solution, and story about how to stay longer, I will try this way. And so tomorrow, I will get up and walk the fingernail biting, nervous, nauseous, walk to the entrance wondering if I'll have to call Joanna soon.
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April 20th 2007
On Being a Woman
In Israeli prisons there are 380 child prisoners (many for throwing stones at the tanks that attack their homes nightly) There are over one hundred female political prisoners- 500 women so far in the intifada have been arrested. 68 women have been forced to give birth at checkpoints- when they have been on their way to the medical facilities for the birth of their child.
Seeing as Cat Power's "Good Woman" is my sing along flavor of the month, I thought I should write a bit on being a woman in Palestine. It seems I have finally reached the ripe old age where instead of "oh we can find you a husband here " it has become "oh dear, well 25 is a bit old for getting married it would be much better if you were 20. You can`t possibly wait till you are 30?" With howls of laughter from children depicting a haggard old spinster .
When asked about my experience as a woman in Palestine, I have always said that apart from knowing your Haram from your Halal, (long sleeve tops, no sunbathing, no bike riding ) I have had hardly any harassment. I have felt mostly protected by the people of Nablus. I feel eyes watching me as I walk down the road, of course, but I wouldnt class that as harassment. It's just a combination of curiosity and checking-you-are-ok.
If anything were to happen to me I have felt that at least 15 pairs of eyes would see it and would deliver justice the Palestinian way. International people in Nablus are here to help at the university, see what the Israelis are doing and to volunteer with Project Hope. I use this to encourage and reassure women who are thinking of coming to Nablus, yes it's chauvinistic for men to think they should "protect" you but, at least you feel safe and unthreatened.
A few things in recent days have made me see how Nablus has changed (beyond me realizing my free "no strings attached" backlava treats from a local sweet shop were actually tied by the string of "so you can take me back to England with you" from the owner). Walking down the road with a teenage boy following on a bike practicing his favourite English phrase beginning with F and ending with uckyou. Over and over.
Shabab (young men) crossing the road just to whistle, stare and manage to say marhaba (hello) in a surprisingly sleazy manner, a teenage Palestinian boy staring at me through the sight of a machine gun with a cocky smile on his face.
Perhaps this isnt new for Nablus, but because I thought it would be a good idea to get some exercise (30 min walk) and save some money (25p) by walking the route I would normally travel by car. But at the end of that walk I thought for the first time, it really would be easier here if I was a man.
Whilst the vast majority of the political prisoners from Palestine held in Israeli jails are men, and the deaths and injuries are of men, women certainly feel the brunt of this injustice. Most of the men are leaving a family fatherless, the 300 or so children detained are often denied visiting rights from their worried mothers. The hospital staff, under paid for over a year, striking causes one mother to have to bring home a premature baby, earlier than is healthy.
At the moment, I have deep concerns about the pain of childbirth, but to contemplate the trauma of giving birth at a checkpoint because a teenager with a gun will not allow you to pass is physically and psychologically repulsive to me. 68 women across the west bank will know with each moment they look at their child they are a miracle of Palestinian resistance, as well as a symbol of the harsh, cruelty of this inhumane occupation.
But as a woman here, I get to see a side of Nablus that is not necessarily out in the market place shouting, doesn't harass you as you walk down the street. Holding a sleeping one month old baby, surrounded by its cooing aunts and cousins, a heavy cuddly toddler sleeping in my arms in the back of a car women talking frankly with me about their lazy husbands, teaching me key skills for survival (how to make good tea, mecklobe, and key control-and-understanding-of-children-phrases). So I will continue to sing Cat Power, and pondering about how I can be a good woman in Palestine.
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May 3rd 2007
What do I say at a party, in the corner of the kitchen?
Up early with ready boiled eggs and a jar of hot sweet coffee to the contrasting side of the city. Huge beautiful houses with automatic gates, green gardens and huge Alsatian dogs. The road ends and we walk up a track to the rocks. The view before us is a lush terraced valley with olive trees and dotted with "shoats" and grazing donkeys. We're on the edge of the city, the end of the mountain.
As we eat breakfast, play the guitar and climb on satisfyingly grippy rocks we watch across Palestine as the day warms up. An afternoon of drinking tea and perfecting Arabic letters under the shade of a tree. Surrounded by giggling children and chattering aunts. A dreamy, breezy few hours. A conveyor belt BBQ stretching on. Chicken on skewer, skewer on heat, chicken off skewer into mouth, chicken on skewer, onto heat 20 pairs of hands keeping the machine moving until more hot sweet chai arrives and everyone is stuffed, sleepy and satisfied.
But I thought she was working really hard- facing dilemmas and danger on every corner? This is one of the most powerful things I feel here. That life goes on. People get up, get on with their day, find things to laugh, argue and cry over the same as anywhere else. But all of this "normal living" is constrained within the occupation and what that means for life.
It means that to go for breakfast on the hill side, we have to carefully check before we settle that there is no sign of the soldiers in the countryside. Conversation dominated with tales of students walking hours to get to class because the road is blocked by the Israeli Soldiers, of walking hours in the rain with older parents, younger children, across rocky terrain because all roads in and out of Nablus were shut off.
As we look out across the view that at sunset, reveals the high rise buildings of Tel Aviv and the horizontal slice through the sun of the Mediterranean sea, remembering that from this end of the mountain a Nablusi person can see the sea, and from the other end of the mountain they can see the hills of Jordan. And yet the city is surrounded the full circumference by checkpoints, settlements and "closed military zones".
Sitting under the shady trees, feeling the breeze in the afternoon, looking out across the countryside. you know you are at the edge of a city surrounded. On the top of the hill and spreading downwards towards the villages the illegal settlement is plain to see. A settlement that is itself surrounded by soldiers. Supported by the Israeli state, encouraged ideologically and financially.
No one knows exactly how many illegal settlements there are in the West Bank. The effects of them go beyond changing the view from a garden. Palestinians who live near to settlements, are denied access to their crops (by the army or attacks from the settlers themselves) and are regularly harrassed. Water resources are re-directed to them (80% of the water resources for the West bank are re-directed for use in Israel and the settlements).
Travel throughout the West Bank is arduous and long for a Palestinian, but with their own well kept roads and no checkpoints, settlers are made to feel very much a part of Israel. An afternoon's family BBQ is cut off short to allow for one member, who lives in Ramallah to begin the journey home. A journey that should take 45 mins door to door now involving pot holed roads which the army "do not allow us" to repair, an hour's wait at a checkpoint (holding your bags and sleeping toddler) waking your sleeping toddler to put her on the ground as you open each of your bags to have the contents poked at with a gun, perhaps emptied out onto the dust walking through to find another taxi the other side.
Waiting for it to fill again, waiting again, at each of the checkpoints that may or may not appear along the roadside. The family gets on with tidying up from the feast, in the back of their minds waiting for the phone call that, mother and child are safe and back at home. I have passed through Huwwarra checkpoint many times but coming near to it to drop her off still shocked me. I had spent the day in Palestine and yet, put a flag in the air, block a road with guns and tanks, and it becomes Israel? The next time I am introduced to someone's friend as "oh this is Ruth she's into Palestine" and I get into the inevitable conversation, "but why arent they happy with the West Bank, why don't they just get on with living there, left alone" and I again, am left wondering how I can possibly convey the occupation and its reality to them, in the corner of a kitchen of a house party, perhaps it will be this.
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May 21st 2007
Away from Nablus Part 1
A collection of houses are nestled into the side of a mountain. Joined together by shoats, cockerels, playing children and a windy tarmac road. The women are making bread and milking goats. The men are thrashing in the fields, boys sit upon donkeys herding sheep to graze. The sound of village life gently wafting through the window competing with the whirr of the fan inside.
One house in this tiny village, is international house. There has been, since October 2003 an international presence in this village. The time I spent there would rival easily any other holiday destination for relaxation, peace, quiet, time to think, but international house (thankfully) has not become a high profile holiday destination waiting to be ruined by apartment blocks and sunbathers.
The presence of internationals in the village is to ensure that life can continue, that the village can continue to exist. Merely a couple of hundred meters away from Yanoun is an illegal (by both international and Israeli law) settlement. The settlement surrounds Yanoun, from above. Not only has the settlement stolen land from the villagers, polluted the night sky with glaring spot lights 24hours, it is a physical and constant reminder that this is an occupied land.
Yanoun is a place where the tactic "imagine two countries on top of each other" in a conversation is most poignant. I have taken the account below from the journal of a previous ecumenical accompanier at yanoun: http://www.quaker.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=93564
"On the ridge above the valley is an outpost of the Itamar Israeli settlement. An "outpost" means anything from a caravan or an aerial to a whole town, which may or may not have been officially sanctioned by the Israeli government. This one was initially built without permission from the Israeli government but it later obtained official recognition. From what we can see from the valley the outpost on the ridge includes spotlights, lookout towers, aerials, at least one large house, some caravans and two long chicken sheds. The main Itamar settlement is 10 km away. Trouble in Yanoun began as soon as the outpost appeared. One day in 1996 Ahmed Sobih was tending his sheep on the hillside in Upper Yanoun. He mistook a stranger for some one from a neighbouring Arab village and went over to greet him. But the man was a settler, who used Ahmed`s own shepherd`s crook to beat him, breaking several bones in his body and blinding his left eye. This was the first of many incidents of settler violence inflicted on Yanoun villagers. Since then men have been beaten up in front of their children. Women and children have been threatened with weapons. Armed strangers have entered houses to smash things up and steal. Land and olive trees have been taken over. The number and intensity of incidents increased from September 2000. It would bore you to list all the incidents from then through to spring 2002, there were so many. On 17th April 2002 the settlers came at night, burnt down the electricity generator donated by the United Nations development programme, and damaged three large water tanks damaged. From then on the villagers were without water or electricity. They had to go down to the spring to fill jerry cans with water. It was made clear to the villagers that any new generator would also be destroyed. The violence continued as groups of masked and unmasked settlers entered the village, coming day and night often with dogs and sometimes riding horses. Saturdays were especially bad. At the end of July the settlers again upturned the water tanks that were formerly connected to the ruined generator. Of the 150 inhabitants only half remained. On 6 October settlers opened fire on people picking olives near Lower Yanoun. On Saturday 12 October the settlers again raided the villages. This time the message was clear: "We do not want to see you here next Saturday. Leave the village. Go". The following Thursday the headmaster of the school and the last six families left Upper Yanoun. Only two brothers remained". Yanoun was the only Palestinian village to be abandoned since the 1967 war. Israeli Peace groups and international groups became very involved with saving the village, and gradually the villagers have returned. This was not without retribution, several international peace workers have been harmed by the settlers for being with the people of Yanoun. But justice is served more swiftly to those who harm internationals, and so these attacks have ceased. We stayed in Yanoun for a few days, covering the time until a new group of ecumenical accompaniers arrived. Our daily task was to walk 30mins to a hill, so it was clear to the settlers that internationals are present in the village and therefore think twice about choosing today as a day to come and terrorize the villagers. There has never been any violence towards the settlers from the villagers of Yanoun. I am reminded of that classic quote "a people without a land for a land without a people".
Wondering if my classes are fun enough for the children in Nablus or if I will be able to get my student to manage a C# minor chord on the guitar can make me loose sight of the importance of being here. Spending time in Yanoun was a concrete, unquestionable, good, useful thing to do. Which is always refreshing to experience when so often I`ve been stood at the front of a class of 30 teenagers who just dont care about what I have to say on X religion`s views on Y. I hope that passing the message of Yanoun on to you is also continuing this concrete help. away from Nablus part 2 coming soon inshallah!
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May 29th 2007
Away from Nablus Part 2
An Arab look to your house in west Jerusalem fetches it a higher price than without. It is a good selling point. Not many people in the "west" of the world would pass on the chance to live somewhere with an authentic, rustic, oldy-worldy feel to it.
But rather like the feel of mahogany furniture, a fur coat or even playing ivory piano keys an "Arab house" in West Jerusalem should also come with it the guilty stab in your conscience about what you have now and the route it took to coming into your possession. At what point does it become OK to live in a house knowing its inhabitants were forced out and live stateless, landless, jobless, hopeless lives elsewhere- with the key to your rustic Arab look house hanging on the wall?
I traveled to Haifa on a sunny afternoon's train. Up the coast of the Mediterranean from Tel Aviv. Any time spent on public transport shows you the extent to which the conscription of youth in the army effects the demographic. At bus stops and on train platforms you do not see students chatting about to go home but when you turn hearing young voices chatting on mobile phones and to each other, they are soldiers in green uniform with guns slung over their shoulders.
At present approximately 10% of the Israeli population are in the army. On my carriage of the train 5 passengers were soldiers. The 18-20 year old opposite me was a soldier, sleeping with his head against the window, mouth open and a gun between his legs pointing at me. Looking at the gun, stories and pictures I have collected over the past three or four years flick through my mind. To collect some of your own look at the soldier testimonials on http://www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp
In May 1948 it took less than a week to `clear" Haifa of almost 60,000 Palestinians. This was achieved by a combination of bombardment by Israeli offensives, Palestinian fear about massacres they had heard about already happening and British refusal to assist and protect the Palestinian population. The British army not only detained and arrested Arab forces sent to help the Palestinians, it went as far as to prevent ambulances evacuating the wounded out of Haifa.
The three thousand Palestinians left in Haifa were forced to leave their properties and made to live in ghetto-like sections of the town. Now the four percent of Haifa's residents who are of Palestinian descent live in two areas. I found myself in one of these by chance. Glad for the chance to offer a Marhaba (hello) and receive an Ahlan in return (welcome) I wandered along a yellow footprinted "co-existence" walk through the area. It is so called because here the Palestinians are managing to exist within the Israeli state.
Less chirpy was my wander through Wadi Salib. I walked through streets of empty run down houses. Beautiful window detail, balconies and brick work were coupled with the NO ENTRY signs and barbed wire. Windows were bricked up. Ornate furniture was left, overturned as it had been in 1948.
Trees and bushes grew inside rooms. The only living thing able to have these buildings as homes the birds nesting in the wrecks. These buildings were shells, witnessing to the life that once was inside. Occasionally a building had been confiscated, and re-occupied. One was a home for veteran Israeli soldiers. Another a children's centre for children requiring special care.
The mosque that once served the community, now obsolete, with Hebrew menued cafes in its rooms. A beautiful Turkish bath, now a great Arab-rustic-old worldy bar. With the finishing touch of a Heiniken neon sign attached to the side. Advertised as a great place to hang out.
Back to Nablus. I stand on the ruins of the ancient Canaanite city. Surrounding me, the city of Nablus scooping the valley's sides between two mountains. The top of the mountains show military watch towers, communication aerials, edges of settlement houses. Washing was blowing dry. The settlers of Itamar and other illegal settlements (by the fourth Geneva convention) make it quite clear that they too want a city cleared for their inhabitance. And this is the sickening fear, that it too will become a shell witnessing to the living city that once was.
An Itamar resident writes on their website: "At times, life on the yishuv seems like that of a hermit, with the stillness of the night sometimes so out of the ordinary. But, all of the time you can feel the overshadowed existence of the local natives, much like the Canaani, the Perizzi and the Chitti, running parallel with your own but on a completely different plane. You can`t help but wonder, when will this end?" http://www.shechem.org/itamar/eindex.html
The Palestinians of Nablus wonder this too perpetually. My nightmare is one day on the housing market I will see "lovely, arab looking house, rustic and old worldy yours for a bargain". But it wont be the owner offering it to you, they will be looking at the key on the wall in a refugee camp elsewhere.