The first of December
For the first time in my life, I woke up on the first of December and ate breakfast at a picnic table in the sun. In the early morning hours the air had not yet warmed from the desert night, but our sweet tea, warm bread and spread of vegetables kept us warm as we feasted and chatted about our plans for the day. Friday is a holiday here, yet each week the village is bustling with activities on that day - debka lessons, art projects, visitors coming in and out, renovation projects that develop into theatrical performances audienced by the entire village.
The first day of advent marked the annual tree-lighting ceremony, of sorts. All but six of us in the village are Muslim, and yet Christmas is celebrated with the enthusiasm and excitement of a good Irish Catholic family. After breakfast, a huge cherry-picker backed into the driveway and we all watched as he methodically draped the blinking lights around the closest thing we have to a pine tree. At first we were just a few - myself, my host mother, and a few children who had dropped their footballs at the sight of the huge machine. Gradually, though, more and more children poured out of the houses to watch, administrators took a fifteen minute break to witness the commotion, and suddenly I had a cup of coffee in my hand and was sitting comfortably on our balcony, "the best seat in the house". The novelty of the project, as well as the shared excitement of the coming holiday, was fascinating to me, and in some ways made me think of our North Wayne Carol Sing or Columbia's Tree-Lighting Ceremony (minus PrezBo and Kenneth Jackson waxing poetic about Expansion and the Christmas Spirit). I left the village yesterday feeling truly excited about Christmas almost a full month early - I haven't felt that in a while.
After the Christmas spectacle I met up with some European friends in the hopes of visiting Jericho, the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world (how's that for a claim to fame?). As usual, we planned to meet up at the checkpoint - its crazy how normal that phrase has begun to sound for us, but realistically it makes the most sense. Anyone living in Bethlehem or Beit Sahour who wants to get to Jerusalem has to go through the same checkpoint, from which he can take a bus to the Old City in Jerusalem, and from there travel almost anywhere in the West Bank, provided he has the right papers.
I haven't yet described in detail what it's like to move through an Israeli checkpoint, so I'll try to be as detailed as possible today. First, the road to the checkpoint, called Hebron Road because for centuries it was the main connection between Jerusalem and Hebron, is abruptly interrupted by a 28 foot cement wall that surrounds the West Bank. Graffiti art and messages cover the lowest six feet of the wall, scrolled in different languages but all generally sending the same messages of desperation, anger, and a call for peace. One stencil makes me stop and think everytime I see it. It reads: "Warsaw: 1939, Compton: 1992, Bethlehem: 2004" The parallels are interesting to me on a number of levels, but particularly because the categorization of Warsaw and Compton as "ghettos" is pretty much universally agreed upon; the categorization of Bethlehem as such is not. In fact, that is exactly what Bethlehem has become: an enclosed, overcrowded area in and out of which residents cannot freely move, and which cannot sustain any real economic activity.
We enter the checkpoint through a long narrow metal cage, after which we pass through a door in the wall and enter a large, clean, neon-lit building. We wait in line to pass through the first turnstile with anywhere from 2 to 30 other people, depending on the day. Today, it is just us, a Palestinian man and two Palestinian women, so we move through more quickly than usual. At the metal detector, the women remove all of their jewelry, keys, coins, and shoes. The man takes off his belt as well and steps through the detector. It beeps. The soldier sitting in the booth instructs him to turn around, re-check for metal items, and go through again. Meanwhile, I place my bookbag on the conveyor belt and walk through. I also set off the detector, but I show her my passport and point to my watch, and she waves me through. I leave three others behind me, retying their shoes.
We then pass through another turnstile which is locked until the next soldier presses a button to open it for us. Again, I flash my passport, she smiles, and I walk out of the building back into the fresh air. I turn around and see the same wall from the other side - this face is clean and bright, and adorned with a huge banner that reads "Peace Be With You" in three languages. Where Hebron Road has been cut off, a neat little circle and garden have replaced it, giving the impression that you're looking at some circle in San Francisco.
And that's the checkpoint. I've written a lot now, so I'll save my account of Jericho, the 10,000 year old city, for another day.
The first day of advent marked the annual tree-lighting ceremony, of sorts. All but six of us in the village are Muslim, and yet Christmas is celebrated with the enthusiasm and excitement of a good Irish Catholic family. After breakfast, a huge cherry-picker backed into the driveway and we all watched as he methodically draped the blinking lights around the closest thing we have to a pine tree. At first we were just a few - myself, my host mother, and a few children who had dropped their footballs at the sight of the huge machine. Gradually, though, more and more children poured out of the houses to watch, administrators took a fifteen minute break to witness the commotion, and suddenly I had a cup of coffee in my hand and was sitting comfortably on our balcony, "the best seat in the house". The novelty of the project, as well as the shared excitement of the coming holiday, was fascinating to me, and in some ways made me think of our North Wayne Carol Sing or Columbia's Tree-Lighting Ceremony (minus PrezBo and Kenneth Jackson waxing poetic about Expansion and the Christmas Spirit). I left the village yesterday feeling truly excited about Christmas almost a full month early - I haven't felt that in a while.
After the Christmas spectacle I met up with some European friends in the hopes of visiting Jericho, the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world (how's that for a claim to fame?). As usual, we planned to meet up at the checkpoint - its crazy how normal that phrase has begun to sound for us, but realistically it makes the most sense. Anyone living in Bethlehem or Beit Sahour who wants to get to Jerusalem has to go through the same checkpoint, from which he can take a bus to the Old City in Jerusalem, and from there travel almost anywhere in the West Bank, provided he has the right papers.
I haven't yet described in detail what it's like to move through an Israeli checkpoint, so I'll try to be as detailed as possible today. First, the road to the checkpoint, called Hebron Road because for centuries it was the main connection between Jerusalem and Hebron, is abruptly interrupted by a 28 foot cement wall that surrounds the West Bank. Graffiti art and messages cover the lowest six feet of the wall, scrolled in different languages but all generally sending the same messages of desperation, anger, and a call for peace. One stencil makes me stop and think everytime I see it. It reads: "Warsaw: 1939, Compton: 1992, Bethlehem: 2004" The parallels are interesting to me on a number of levels, but particularly because the categorization of Warsaw and Compton as "ghettos" is pretty much universally agreed upon; the categorization of Bethlehem as such is not. In fact, that is exactly what Bethlehem has become: an enclosed, overcrowded area in and out of which residents cannot freely move, and which cannot sustain any real economic activity.
We enter the checkpoint through a long narrow metal cage, after which we pass through a door in the wall and enter a large, clean, neon-lit building. We wait in line to pass through the first turnstile with anywhere from 2 to 30 other people, depending on the day. Today, it is just us, a Palestinian man and two Palestinian women, so we move through more quickly than usual. At the metal detector, the women remove all of their jewelry, keys, coins, and shoes. The man takes off his belt as well and steps through the detector. It beeps. The soldier sitting in the booth instructs him to turn around, re-check for metal items, and go through again. Meanwhile, I place my bookbag on the conveyor belt and walk through. I also set off the detector, but I show her my passport and point to my watch, and she waves me through. I leave three others behind me, retying their shoes.
We then pass through another turnstile which is locked until the next soldier presses a button to open it for us. Again, I flash my passport, she smiles, and I walk out of the building back into the fresh air. I turn around and see the same wall from the other side - this face is clean and bright, and adorned with a huge banner that reads "Peace Be With You" in three languages. Where Hebron Road has been cut off, a neat little circle and garden have replaced it, giving the impression that you're looking at some circle in San Francisco.
And that's the checkpoint. I've written a lot now, so I'll save my account of Jericho, the 10,000 year old city, for another day.
posted by kate at 11:27 PM
1 Comments:
Kate, fascinating! Keep writing! We look forward to reading more.
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