This one mercifully covers more time in a shorter space. It has the last two days of the delegation and the first two weeks on the farm. Most tragically, I lost all the rest of the pictures I took from this period in an incident in South Africa at the start of January that I’ll of course write more about when I get to that point. I was able to save a couple pictures from the last two days of the delegation and get some from my friends, and hopefully I’ll soon get some pictures from other volunteers on the farm. A couple pictures from my visit with my family were also saved, and thankfully there are thousands of pictures of Petra and other sites in Jordan online to sample.
State-sponsored gentrification. Wednesday 11/7—Bethlehem, Hebron/al-Khalil, al-Araqib, and Jerusalem
This next day is probably the toughest single day emotionally, even though everything we’ve seen over the past week has been rough. We wake up and have a quick breakfast with Murad’s family and meet his baby before thanking them graciously for their hospitality and heading out to rendezvous at Laylac. The whole group thanks Murad once again before getting on the bus and starting the drive south to Hebron, a little over half an hour. We begin in the center of H2, one of the most militarized parts of the city. The street is nearly empty except for several older Arab men hanging around a barber shop. Most once-flourishing Palestinian shops are completely shuttered with the same faded green metal doors, though there is also an open souvenir shop. Every couple hundred meters some Israeli soldiers are stationed, and a few settlers walk past. Small stickers of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Mendel Schneerson (whose tomb I’ve seen in Brooklyn) dot the walls. Some sort of central community building for the settlers stands in the center square across from the souvenir place, blaring klezmer and Jewish folk music that echoes through the streets. I honestly never thought I would be not happy to hear klezmer playing in my life, but here I am. The place feels like an empty movie set with most of the crew and actors off on lunch break.
Our guide is Izzat, who works with Youth Against Settlements (YAS). He tells us some of the history, that there were Jews living in Hebron for centuries before Zionism, and that even during the 1929 riots many Christians and Muslims protected Jews in their homes, though the British authorities pulled out most Jews during the 1936 Arab uprising. The state of Israel began to build the modern settlements after taking the West Bank in ‘67. Negotiations in the 1990s divided the city into H1 area, Palestinian controlled, and H2, Israeli controlled. We visit the Cave of the Patriarchs, and see the tombs of Abraham, Sara, and Isaac, holy for Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike, and site of the 1994 massacre of 30 Palestinians by Brooklyn-born Baruch Goldstein. The mosque and synagogue were only divided after the attack. Even as most Israeli leaders verbally condemned the massacre, the military tightened restrictions on Palestinians in H2, and settlements continued to grow. Many of the descendants of the Jewish survivors of the 1929 riots have actually called for the settlements to be removed.
Conditions are the hardest for the Palestinians living in the H2 area. In the center of the city just some several hundred Jewish settlers live in the midst of thousands of Palestinians. 70% of the Palestinians are unemployed. Izzat tells us that over half the shops have closed since the ‘90s, and those still open struggle with drastically less business. Merchants and vendors are much more aggressive (they have to be), sometimes following us down whole streets, pleading with us to buy something to support them. This is not some accidental poverty—this is the direct effect of military occupation. In alleys under settlement buildings, we look up and see fences and nets weighed down by trash and stones thrown by the settlers. Sometimes they pour urine and even acid down on the Palestinians, usually with impunity from the soldiers. On one street we see what I’m pretty sure are the remains of a sukkah. Izzat tells us that just a couple weeks ago, soldiers shot a Palestinian accused of having a knife, and let his body lie in the street for an hour as he died, not letting an Arab ambulance through to pick him up.
At one point Charlie and I wander for a few minutes into the stones tunnels of and old bathhouse from Ottoman times. The site curator shows us that one of the entrances was blocked off by Israeli soldiers. We return to the group and soon emerge from one of the remaining Arab market streets in H2 into H1, which has the feel of most of the other Palestinian cities we’ve been to. I see a boy try to squeeze his bike through a revolving iron gate for a couple minutes, then turn around to find another way. Izzat walks us up a big hill to YAS’s building overlooking much of the city. It was occupied by the soldiers for a few years from 2003 to 2006, and they had to fight in the Supreme Court to get the building back. Issa Amro’s brother joins us briefly, though Issa himself is currently away. Over a nice lunch of makloubeh, Izzat tells us more about YAS’s nonviolent approach and how they believe that there’s been enough violence already. He is fine with Jews who want to live here, acknowledging their history, just not as occupiers. Most of people with YAS are volunteers–he works as a blacksmith. The organization works with Breaking the Silence to give people tours of the reality in Hebron, and runs a campaign to reopen Shuhada street. Izzat says other Palestinians used to laugh at YAS’s belief that nonviolence could work against the Israeli army, but they’ve gotten more support over the years as they’ve generated more publicity with their activity. You can support the work Youth Against Settlements does by donating at https://www.hebronfreedomfund.org/donate.
We thank Izzat and the other YAS folks present before walking down to the bus and riding back into Israel over the Green Line to the Bedouin village of al-Araqib, in the northern Negev (Naqab) desert, one of about 45 such unrecognized villages, of the al-Turi tribe. The government has been trying to get the nomadic Bedouins to move into towns for years. Israelis forces regularly come to demolish structures in the villages, even if they are all citizens (20% are in the IDF themselves). We meet with al-Araqib’s Sheik Sayeh Abu Madi’am. Almost 70 years old, about as old as the Israeli state itself, he tells the crisis Bedouins face with a blunt outrage, from living in constant uncertainty for so many years, that reminds me of when Ruchama Marton spoke to us. Marwan from Adalah, the legal support group for Palestinian citizens of Israel, translates for Madi’am (Madi’am knows quite a bit of Hebrew, too). The sheikh doesn’t begin until we’ve all accepted coffee or tea. He tells us the people of al-Araqib are actually only semi-nomadic, as the village’s extensive cemetery (and three stone buildings & water system they used to have) attests; they historically have moved around with their animals for grazing, but always return to the same spot. They also show us large prints of the papers documenting their presence on the land going back to 1905, under the Ottomans.
Still, al-Araqib is not able to connect to electricity and sewage. Israeli authorities–soldiers, commandos, police–have demolished its structures some 130 times now over the past decade. They destroyed olive and Carib trees, confiscated tractors and agricultural equipment, a generator, water tanks, and sheep, camels, and chickens. In some earlier demolitions trucks took away the rubble so pictures couldn’t be taken and distributed internationally. The village has been fined some 2 millions shekels (over 500,000 USD) to pay the bill for the demolitions. The sheikh demonstrates great political and historical awareness. He says how Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews in Israel feel pressure to prove their loyalty to Ashkenazi. He too emphasizes that he has no problems with the Jewish people living anywhere in the land, Gaza or Hebron, just with its leaders. He and some other Bedouin do vote, but there aren’t enough Knesset members with the will to take action against the demolitions. He does not align himself with any specific party.
We return to Jerusalem from al-Araqib as the sun sets, back to the Holy Land Hotel. In December, an Israeli court sentenced Sheikh Madi’am 10 months in prison by Israel for trespassing on state land by remaining in his village. You can donate to Adalah at https://donate.adalah.org/.
Daring to hope. Thursday 11/8–Jerusalem, Nabi Saleh, Bil’in
Thankfully, today ends the delegation on a comparatively uplifting note. Some of us wake up extra early for a visit the Dome of the Rock in the Old City with Said. It’s Thursday, a day for Torah-reading in Judaism, so we hear a crowd of men singing for a boy on his bar mitzvah as we pass on a bridge next to the Western Wall. The building is truly magnificent in the sunrise. Most of the material on the outside is not original, and Said tells us how over the years many different people have contributed to its construction and adornment–the Mameluks, Saladin, Sultan Suleiman, even some Irish and Italian groups recently donated to the maintenance of parts of it, including the golden dome. Prior to the start of the intifada in 2000 over Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit, access was not restricted for Jews. We see a few Jews escorted by soldiers cross the plaza while we’re there. Most interestingly, traditional Talmudic law actually prohibits Jews from walking around the Temple Mount–we might accidentally step on the site of the inner Holiest of Holies from the original temple, which the Torah says is forbidden for non-Levite priests. A sign in English and Hebrew at the entrance says as much.
We have breakfast (I’m delighted to be reunited with my all-you-can-eat halva) and get into the bus for one more foray into the West Bank. Adnan drives us north to the village of Nabi Saleh, site of some of the most publicized demonstrations against the occupation. We enter the house of the Tamimi family, the living embodiment of sumoud. We first meet the father Bassem Tamimi, who has been a leader of the weekly protests in the village since 2009. He starts off by reiterating that he and others don’t just want sympathy and tears (they already shed enough tears themselves from the teargas, he jokes stoically), they want solidarity. Some 60% of their land is in Area C, restricting their access to their water spring. He shows us some footage of protests and Israeli repression in the village, as we obviously won’t just hang around and watch one ourselves in person. Some army trucks launch rapid-fire rounds of tear gas not just as people but into their houses. The soldiers also spray the infamous skunk water into houses. Oftentimes people leave their houses through windows when doors are blocked. Mustafa Tamimi was killed some years back by a direct hit to the head from a tear gas canister fired from a moving van, and Mohamed is currently being treated for his eyes in South Africa; he might lose his eyesight. More villagers have been disabled by kneecap ping the past few years. Bassem emphasizes the role of women in joining the resistance, and we see some of them have their hijabs ripped off by soldiers. The whole family–Bassem, his wife, their children, cousins–has had their house raided and been arrested dozens of times. He tells us that they desire their protests to be nonviolent, but they feel fully justified in throwing stones when the soldiers attack. He too acknowledges the Holocaust and historical suffering of Jews.
As Bassem finishes, his now famous daughter Ahed walks in–of course, it’s her own house. We are also joined by Lana from Addameer, an organization advocating for the rights of Palestinian prisoners, of whom there are 6,000 at any given time. Lana gives us more context on their situation before Ahed begins. Many of them are not given their charges, though it is often for anything as vague as “incitement,” throwing stones, political party affiliation. 12 is the youngest age they can be sentenced under Israeli military law–any younger than that and they can only be held for a number of hours, up to a day. The courts gain money through the trial processes. The military courts regularly try 14 year-olds as adults. The Israeli government officially stopped using “torture” in prisons in 1999, but still allows what they term “moderate physical pressure.”
Lana translates for Ahed as she welcomes us and tells her story. The time of her arrest and incarceration is one of the more personal and detailed accounts we’ve heard, but she believes it important that we hear and tell others, and various news outlets have already reported on it as well. Last year, when she was 16, she slapped and kicked two Israeli soldiers outside her house, and a video of it went viral. They did not arrest her then and there–they waited til the next morning at 3 AM to raid her house. She was quickly taken and not allowed to say goodbye to her family, who did not know when they would see her again. She was first questioned by police in a main room, then further in her cell, which is illegal without cameras. Her interrogation period was extended to 8 days. She was sleep deprived and verbally sexually harassed, and they threatened to kill her family. No lawyer or parent was present even though she was a minor. She says it was better for her than many others because she knew to use her right to not talk, and she demanded that the interrogation room be filmed. During the 8 months she was sentenced, her parents could only visit her 3 times. Before any hearings she was strip searched. Some basic hygiene products, like pads, were unavailable. Her mother was arrested a few days after Ahed’s arrest for incitement due to posting the video of the encounter. Her brother has been sentenced for a year since May, and they have not been able to visit him. Ahed of course appreciates the public support she has received in Palestine and globally for standing up to military occupation of her land, but as she speaks it is clear that she and her family are just ordinary people who would much rather not have to be going through all this every day. She loves soccer and wanted to play on a team when she grew up, but ever since she was first unable to visit her father in prison she has wanted to pursue human rights law to dedicate herself fully to the struggle for freedom.
We thanked the Tamimi family for having us and for their resilience, and promised to share their story back in the US, as we’ve promised everyone we’ve met. We then went to one more village to the west, Bil’in, right near the Wall. As we drive, we pass too many settlements to take pictures of. The one closest to Bil’in is Modi’in. We park some ways from the Om Suleiman farm and walk past the Wall to the farm. On the way we can see sound grenades, tear gas canisters, and rubber bullets among the foliage on the ground. As we enter the gate, we run into Justin from Pittsburgh again! He’s been making his way through a couple farms since Tent of Nations; he’s returning to the US next week. We meet Iyad Burnat, one of the main leaders of the nonviolent protests featured in the documentary Five Broken Cameras, filmed by his brother Emad, and Muher, one of the main drivers of the farm. We have lunch together, talking over the noise of the constant construction in Modi’in echoing from less than a mile away on the other side of the Wall. Many of its residents have come from New York, not Israel.
Iyad and Muher tells us more about Bil’in’s situation and give us a tour around the farm. Way back in the day the my even had olive trees where Modi’in is now. Israel confiscated 60% of Bil’in’s land in 2004 to build the Wall on. After protests and legal battles, they got the Supreme Court to give back 30% of it. There’s the other routine assortment of obstacles we’ve learned face all farmers in Area C–not getting permits to connect to build, not being allowed to connect to electricity and water and having to buy drinking water. Just last week some settlers damaged 30 of their trees. And on top of occupation problems are environmental problems–the bee population is noticeably declining. They have come up with creative ways to resist through demonstration. They have used cranes to put sheds over the other side of the Wall, set up puppets which the soldiers mistakenly attacked, even painted themselves blue like the Na’vi from Avatar. Iyad says that nonviolence further shows the contrasting face of the military’s violence. Even still, one of his sons is being treated now in Istanbul for hand and chest injuries from soldiers during a protest. Another son is in prison for a year, accused of damaging an Israeli fence and fined 18,000 shekels. They also teach local kids about farming, much like at Tent of Nations. Many of their buildings can be quickly dissembled and packed before soldiers come to demolish them, and they are growing their own bamboo to build more such structures. Iyad believes that the farm will be completely destroyed at some point–they have 44 standing demolition orders, it’s just a matter of time, but it’s still worth fighting instead of running.
And that’s it. We give Iyad and the farm one more goodbye in solidarity, get back to the bus, drive south past Ramallah and back to Jerusalem for our last night together. We thank Said and Adnan one more time and tip them as a group. After dinner and our final debriefing, I quickly do some laundry with the hotel’s water, as I don’t want to use so much water right when I arrive at the Tent of Nations farm again. I then join most of the younger delegates on the rooftop bar overlooking the night-lit Old City one more time for some drinks and shishah (the older folks have called it in since everyone’s got to be up early for the airport).
Shukran, Samer. Friday, 11/9—Jerusalem, Bethlehem (Beit Jala), and Nahallin
I get up 5:30 AM to say goodbye to most of the delegates as they get on the bus for the airport. The sun is starting to rise, but I go to grab another hour or so of sleep. After waking again and having breakfast with some of the remaining delegates, I realize most of my bathroom sink laundry from the night before still hasn’t dried, and the front desk tells me that I won’t be able to find an operating dryer since it’s Friday. I frantically dry most of the shirts with the bathroom’s hairdryer, while I fold the underwear and socks into plastic bags, before running downstairs to check out. Jordan, Ajamu, and Desmera are still there; they’re going to be staying in Bethlehem for another few days. After I grab a bite at a nearby market, we walk to the Damascus Gate together to take the bus to Bethlehem. We pass Hubert and his wife Nancy, also staying through next week, heading back to the hotel, and say our final farewells. The four of us reflect on the delegation once more on the way to Bethlehem. I mention that although Said said something to me about Beit Jala, according to the Tent of Nations website, I have to get off at Bab-iz-Qaq in Bethlehem, and from there take a sherut cab, a kind of mini-bus down the highway towards the farm, near the village of Nahallin and the Neve Daniel settlement. Jordan laughs and says it sounds like I’m saying “Bobby’s cock.”
As soon as I start seeing signs for Beit Jala, which I assume is kind of part of Bethlehem, I grab my backpack, say goodbye to the three of them one last time real quick, and jump out, not wanting to miss Bab-iz-Qaq. I look around for a few seconds and realize I’m most definitely not close to any such major transit hub; I must have got out too early. Turns out that Beit Jala is really its own town next to Bethlehem. I feel like Harry Potter when the Dursleys drop him off at King’s Cross in the first book and he has no idea how to get to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. In the back of my mind I start thinking about finding a hostel for the night if I can’t find a way to the farm in the next 2 hours. I don’t see any big yellow sheruts. I ask a couple of people about them, they say their English isn’t that good–Beit Jala probably doesn’t get that many tourists. I go for it and hail a passing regular taxi, and show him the “60” I’ve written down for the highway, and tell him “Kilo Sabat-ashara” (kilometer 17), near Nahallin. He doesn’t speak much English either but takes me in and calls his daughter who speaks English to translate over the phone between us. We start moving, though he has to call her a couple more times to really get an idea of where he’s going. “Shu ismak?” I ask. His name is Samer. After some 15 minutes, I realize we’re going down a valley into Nahallin–I remember when we came by bus last week we just came south directly from Bethlehem and passed around Nahallin. Realizing neither of us know where this farm is, he pulls over and asks a sherut driver to pull over, who soon realizes exactly which farm I’m going to–“[something something in Arabic] Daoud Nasser?” the other driver asks me. I don’t realize what he’s saying at first, then am relieved to recognize Daoud’s name. The driver must have taken other volunteers there before. He directs Samer through some roads in Nahallin, and I shout “shukran!” as Samer and I run back into the taxi through a drizzle.
Samer drives through the town and starts going up a steep hill on the other side, impressively winding his way through the roads driving stick. He understandably still isn’t quite sure where to turn, and he calmly rolls down his window every couple minutes asking people if they know the way, including a boy on his bike and a couple guys in a mechanic shop. “[something something in Arabic] Daoud Nasser?” As we climb higher, the buildings start to thin, and I can feel us getting closer. Soon, I recognize the dirt road, the view of the valley, some of the fencing around the farm, and then the gate. We’ve made it. I get out and thank Samer profusely, pay and tip him, finishing with a last “Shukran Samer, ma salama” (goodbye, literally “stay safe”). “Welcome in Palestine,” he smiles.
I get into the gate after realizing it’s unlocked, and soon run into Daher Nasser. He’s overjoyed to see me again. He first directs me to the kitchen, where his mother Meladeh gives me tea and some damn good leftovers from lunch. I watch the sun begin to set west toward the Mediterranean, the first of many, and sigh in relief, pleased with not only myself but especially with Samer, his daughter, all the other nameless Palestinians who helped give him directions, and God; the metaphorical Weasleys who have helped me get to Hogwarts. Daher joins me, and we catch up on where my fellow travelers and went over the past week. Daoud is away for two weeks in the US, mostly around the DC area. It starts to rain again. “Ah, you bring the rain!” Daher exclaims. It’s a good omen indeed for a place that only gets rain in the winter. My first task is then to quickly take drying laundry off the lines and bring them to finish drying from the rafters in a cabin. I also briefly meet Midori, a Japanese woman volunteering a bit older than myself. It takes me some time to catch her name, her spoken English isn’t that great–Daher himself isn’t entirely sure how to pronounce it and often just refers to her as “Japanese.” She’s the only other volunteer there, for 2 weeks–the harvest season has just ended and winter is approaching, so they don’t need as many.
As dusk falls, Meladeh gives me some more food in a pot to bring to my home. Daher brings me to his tractor and we load the back with jugs of drinking water. He then nonchalantly tells me to throw my backpack in and hop in the back for the ride, saying that I should sit leaning in the edge. I’m down until I realize just how steep and rock the terrain is. I soon settle with squatting in a corner on the floor of the back, clutching the pot of food between my knees, so I don’t fall out. By the end of the ride I’m completely sitting with my legs spread out on the floor. At one point we’re definitely going down at a 7-degree angle. As I bounce around back there, keeping my mouth slack so I don’t bite my tongue on any bumps, I still grin to myself, looking around at the dark hills and the lights of Nahallin and al-Khader amidst the lights of the settlements.
It’s a little more than a five-minute walk from the center of the farm down to my “cave.” It’s a half-underground hideaway, with stone and cement extending outside. It’s kind of like a hobbit hole. It does a pretty good job of staying cool during the day and warm at night. It can house about ten people on the bunk beds, though I’m the only resident for now. There’s a little bathroom and a kitchen in the main room, with a gas stove, sink, and a minifridge. Water flows from a large tank Daher occasionally fills above the cave with collected rainwater. There’s another tank in the kitchen that we fill with the jugs of drinking water (bought). Electricity comes from a couple solar panels up top that charge batteries during the day. Daher grabs a pickaxe and quickly shows me how to dig the soil around the surrounding trees so it becomes fresh and absorbs water better for when it next rains; I’ll start with that after breakfast tomorrow morning. He also shows me a small chicken coop, where just a couple live, and the food to feed them in the morning. There used to be some rabbits there too, but someone left the fence open and the dogs got in and ate them. Guess I won’t be able to channel my inner Lenny Smalls and tend to them rabbits with the alfalfa. Come to think of it, this whole farm traveling thing I’m doing kind of is like what George and Lenny do in Of Mice and Men, except I’m thankfully not fleeing from the desolation of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. I also don’t have a Lenny to worry about and look after. Or maybe I’m Lenny, and I need a George to look after me. Anyway, lastly, Daher gives me keys for the cave, its fence, and the gate we passed between here and the center of the farm. He gives me a joyous goodnight, I thank him for everything, and he returns up the hill. I settle in to my new home, unpack, and sleep soundly.
European guests. Saturday 11/10 through 11/13–Tent of Nations Farm, Nahallin
I can take more of a look around the next morning. I’ve got a nice sheltered outdoor area with a table. I feed the two chickens and hang up my wet laundry from the hotel to dry. Most of the trees down here are grapevines, the vineyard. There are some olive, fig, and almond trees, though most of those are further up in the center of the farm. There are some tomato plants as well that Daher told me to pick from as I please to cook with. The valley overlooking the towns of al-Khader and Husan is beautiful, though the hill directly opposite just a few hundred meters away is occupied by the Neve Daniel settlement. While the mostly Muslim towns have minarets, the settlement’s defining feature is a security tower with a painted Israeli flag on it. A couple army jets roar high overhead every other day or so. I can hear the Israeli school children playing outside most days, and wonder how much they know about the threatened farm just a sniper’s shot across the valley from them.
There are outdoor compost toilets around the farm that I use most of the time, but Daher told me if it’s the middle of the night to just use the indoor one in my cave (if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down). The compost toilets save water and air nicely in the breeze, and the payloads one deposits in them get reused as fertilizer for the soil. I think to myself that one of the greatest acts of solidarity with farmers living under a military occupation is providing your own manure to nourish the crops. It sounds like a shitty joke (sorry) to be making, but I do completely mean it. I get to work turning the dirt around some of the trees. I get into a pretty relaxing rhythm while working, pausing to stretch my bent back every so often. Daher comes down mid-morning, and is delighted to see my work. “You are farmer now!” he pronounces. That was quick. He gives some constructive feedback for improvement, demonstrating that it’s not as much of a narrow ditch around the base of the trunk, but a wider ring in more of the dirt surrounding the tree, above the roots. He then takes me up to the main farm. We have lunch with Midori. I learn that she’s a Christian, from a northern part of Japan, I forget exactly where.
In the afternoon, Daher introduces me to the animals and shows me the feeding process, to be done first thing in the morning and late afternoon before sunset. There’s a coop of chickens (hens and roosters kept separate most of the time), a bunch of ducks (cuter and less noisy than the chickens, but quite messier due to the trays of water for bathing), a flock of pigeons, and a donkey, Vicky. She sounds like Chewbacca passing a kidney stone whenever she honks out in distress. They all get their water refilled and eat mostly seeds, sometimes kitchen scraps, and Vicky often gets hay and the leaves of branches pruned from olive trees. I ask Daher what feeding the pigeons is for–”Peace!” he answers. I presume that it’s so they don’t try to eat any other crops. There are also a bunch of dogs to feed–three of them are usually kept in an enclosure, though Labras is the chillest dog ever and gets free reign, along with a couple strays who wander around. There also is an extremely extra stray cat who comes around every couple days for food, meowing literally every second he’s not eating or being scratched. I christen him Sumoud. As part of the feeding process, Daher shows me how to turn on the hoses for the greenhouse (7 minutes exactly) for the lettuce recently planted by Midori. Some of the plants in the back I have to water myself though since there’s not enough pressure from the ground hoses to reach them.
Tomorrow’s Sunday, so Daher and his family will be off for church and some R&R. Midori will be in Bethlehem too. I’ll be holding the fort down myself–I’ll feed the animals and do some more digging around trees. And at around 4, there’s a group of volunteers coming from Europe for a couple days, so I’ll be letting them in before Daher gets back in the evening, and Daher says I’ll be leading them while they help work. I’ve already been given quite some responsibility here, but Daher says he trusts me especially since I’m staying a month.
Next morning I start getting to know the animals as I feed them for the first time. The day is pretty uneventful, except the three dogs somehow break loose from their cage and start running all over, ecstatic with their new freedom. Thankfully all the other animals are locked up, so it’s not a huge problem, and I quickly establish dominance and they follow me to the gate. There are six volunteers staying for two days–Yulius, Martze, Janet, Matheus, Alisa, and Ule (Oo-leh) , all from the Netherlands and Germany. I lead them down towards our cave and learn more about them. Most of them are around 20, starting university or work, though Janet is in her 50s. All of them are volunteering for several months at a program in a town near Haifa within Israel that does peacebuilding between Jews and Palestinians there. As they don’t speak much Arabic or Hebrew, they work mostly as housekeepers. The program occasionally has them take some short trips like this one throughout the land to learn more. They’re a pretty merry bunch, and it’s good to have company. I try not to play into stereotypes, but within a few minutes of their arrival as they’re unpacking, I open the fridge and find that a bottle of Jaegermeister has already found its way there.
Daher calls the phone line to the cave that he’s back, so we all go back up so he can meet them. He says I’ll take them up in the morning to feed the animals, and he’ll show us what we’ll be doing during the day. Meladeh gives us all food to take down–a tub of hummus, pita bread, cheese, eggs, leftover pasta and tomato sauce from one of the visitor groups. We all have a feast on our patio outside. We talk more about our lives, our countries, and our experiences, especially the differences in the education systems in the US and Germany, the latter of which does tracking for students in fields early on. Janet is gifted with making solid food from sparse ingredients and also has the genius idea of using the cheese, pita, and tomato sauce to make mini pizzas.
The next morning I introduce them to the animals, even though I haven’t known them for that long myself, and they help bring branches and leaves for Vicky. We’re also delighted to see that Labras has had puppies–she carries a squealing one in her mouth to the other six, all moaning and rolling around in top of each other in a little pit. I guess I will be able to embrace some of my inner Lenny Smalls after all, hopefully I don’t kill any of them by petting them too vigorously. Daher then provides us with shovels and pitchforks and shows us we’ll start by turning the soil all around the greenhouse, for future planting. That takes us til about lunch. We then spend a couple hours further down the valley by the cave in the afternoon digging holes for more fruit trees to be planted. I mark the holes a meter apart with a stick Daher gave me, and the rest of them follow digging the holes deeper. We catch the sunset and have another feast.
The next morning we finish digging in the rows down the valley, and they do a nice job cleaning up before leaving early afternoon. I probably won’t have time to catch them in Haifa off the farm, but I exchange contacts with Yulius and Janet to potentially meet up with them in future travels–Yulius might be in South Africa around the same time I am, and Janet is planning a massive road trip from the US down through South America next year.
Getting into the routine. Wednesday 11/14 through Monday 11/26–Tent of Nations and Bethlehem
I quickly fall into a nice routine in the days after the Europeans depart. I’ve told people that farming is really just intense gardening and having a lot of pets. Even though it’s not too cognitively difficult, it can still get pretty physically tiring. I usually go to sleep at 10, sometimes as early as 9, to wake up by 6 AM, sometimes earlier to watch the sun rise. It really is quite nice going to bed early so often. I make myself some breakfast, usually whipping up some eggs and heating pita with cheese and jam, read, feed the two chickens by the cave, then head up to the main farm to feed the rest of the animals and water the greenhouse. I then start the day’s work–digging, planting, cleaning, helping Daher with an odd job like repairing something, ploughing, or working on his tractor. Later in the first week Daher has me start my own entire garden in a fenced area by my cave. I clear the rocks that have gathered on the ground since the last season, plough some small trenches for planting, and arrange the larger rocks around the perimeter of each planting area. I plant peas, fava beans, and little onions that start shooting up scallions pretty quickly as it rains more over the next couple weeks.
There’s usually a break for tea and a snack around 10 or 11, followed by more work, then lunch is around 1-2 (usually I eat down in my cave, though sometimes it’s at the communal kitchen up in the farm’s center), then I squeeze in a little more work before feeding the animals again a little past 4 before sundown. Mostly it’s just me, Daher, Midori, the animals, and the plants. A few times a week there are visiting groups around noon, and Meladeh comes on those days to make lunch for them. Most of the groups are older Christians from France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, though some are younger and there are a couple groups from the US, and I chat with them all. Daher (and later Daoud when he returns) meets with them to tell them more about the farm’s predicament and give them a tour. I usually back to my cave by 5, carrying more food even though I insist to Meladeh and Daher that I already have enough and can’t fit it into my minifridge. Usually I can use the limited WiFi connection for simple things. I make sure to charge my phone and the backup lamps during the day; sometimes the solar-charged battery runs out in the evening, especially if it was a more cloudy or rainy day. Even still I can use my phones radio to listen to the local stations–as I flip between them I catch Hebrew and Arabic, and some English. There’s also a small library of books people have left behind–the compilations of essays by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe on Palestinians and Zionism, a biography on Arafat, and a poetic memoir by the writer Mourid Barghouti (I Was Born There, I Was Born Here). Lunch and dinner are usually the plentiful leftovers from the salads and delicious large stews & rice Meladeh makes for the guests–a lot of peas, carrots, eggplant, tomatoes, etc. There’s also this great kind of sesame and grape syrup cake she bakes. Living on the farm, I can only really shower twice a week due to the limited water access (I knew this going into it). Thankfully I don’t sweat a disgusting amount since the wind up in the hills keeps things pretty cool even when the sun is hot, and I don’t get too dirty as I’m usually wearing pants and long sleeves. No one else is usually around to smell me anyway. Some of the water from the shower gets collected to be used for watering plants (just like the water from the sinks), and there’s an organic soap to use so chemicals don’t harm them.
I only really take one day off each week. I get to relax enough the days I work, and some days pretty much become days off by default when it rains. On rainy mornings or afternoons I still feed the animals, though if it’s really windy Daher tells me to just stay inside. I pick the leaves of dried herbs like rosemary and sage off their stalks and put them into packets sold at the farm’s shop. I take my first day on Tuesday the 20th and go into Bethlehem, mostly so I can meet my friend Phantina. Daher this time gives me instructions on taking those sherut shared taxis to and from the city. He tells me they all stop at Bab-iz-Qaq (the Gate of the Arches). It’s also pronounced more like “Bab’z Qaq,” with not much of a vowel before the z, so it’s more like “Bob’s Cock” as opposed to “Bobby’s Cock,” as fellow delegate Jordan had said on the bus from Jerusalem. I walk down the dirt path towards Highway 60, where our bus with the delegation came from the first time a few weeks ago. I climb over the Israeli roadblock still there, walk past the Neve Daniel settlement, and wait at the road on the side going into Bethlehem. I’m waiting there for well over a half hour for one of them to pull over as I wave them down–most are full, coming up from the south Hebron. Just as I’m thinking of giving up, I’m saved.
Although the Wall encircles most of Bethlehem, it has still not been entirely finished, and it is quite easy for Palestinians to pass from Bethlehem to the other side of the Wall’s route to the south, further showing that the Wall does not absolutely stop any Palestinian from attacking Israelis if they want to, as Israel claims. The driver directs me up the hill towards the old city. It is pretty easy to walk to most major sites in the city–it’s not very large, though it’s densely populated in tall apartments especially as we saw in the refugee camps. I make my way back up toward the bustling Manger Square, where our group was in our first stop in Bethlehem at the end of October. They’re already setting up a giant Christmas tree and other lights and decorations. Bethlehem actually has three different Christmas celebrations–the Catholic one on the 25th, and the Eastern Orthodox and Armenian ones with different calendars in January. I grab some kebab for lunch at the Peace Center’s restaurant and hang out in the square for a bit, making use of their WiFi and people-watching.
I haven’t said much about observing the average Palestinian on the street until now, mostly because I’m cautious of generalizing peoples and cultures (and I was squeezing in so much info from the delegation), but there are some patterns especially in fashion I’ve noticed. Many of the older men wear some kind of traditional plain-colored gown, with a cloth headcovering, whether some skullcap or a black/white or red keffiyeh. Most older women wear a full gown with their hijab as well, and even women without hijabs (Christian?) have a traditional gown. Men more in the middle sport more modern Western dress, often a leather jacket, and often a mustache. The young men and women have the most hip modern clothes, with Muslim girls wearing just the hijab wrapped in more stylish ways, and the boys wearing skinny jeans and rocking fades from their hair into immaculately maintained beards. I’ve noticed these patterns especially in the cities, though they appeared in some of the towns and villages we visited on the delegation as well. I also see much of this when I’m in Jordan later (indeed many Arabs in Jordan are Palestinian, either directly refugees from ‘48 or ‘67 or indirectly leaving the poor Palestinian economy under Israel’s occupation), and have been told my various Arabs that the issue of Westernization is prominent across all of the Middle East, as it is throughout much of the world outside North America and Europe, though the specifics of course differ from culture to culture. It’s an interesting phenomenon, especially as so many people criticize the Western politicians and leaders that have historically helped destabilize their countries. I’ve heard that the love affair with a Western culture is most intense in Lebanon, where many people dye their hair blonde and lighter skin is more valued (such internalized racism has grown a lot in the past few hundred years of European colonization & domination around the world).
In the cities most Palestinians speak pretty good English, especially in the touristy parts of Jerusalem and Bethlehem like I’ve already noted, though there is no “p” sound in Arabic–it usually turns into “b,” so they’ll say “beoble” instead of “people,” and they often make fun of themselves for it. One comedian of an Israeli politician recently argued that the Palestinian people don’t exist because they don’t have a “p” sound in their own language (their own name for Palestine is Falisteen). Sometimes they just make a “p” into an “f”–I once heard Daher cleverly refer to a sponge as a “sfonge,” to save himself further embarrassment by trying to say “sbonge.” I mention all of this not to judge fashion trends as good or bad, or to laugh at them–just to pass on my own small observations on cultural differences and similarities. And like I said these are just overall patterns–I still see some younger people in more traditional religious/cultural dress, and some older folks in more Western modern dress (though I didn’t see too many old men with skinny jeans and side-fades on their hair). And I do hear several of them pronounce the “p” sound just fine. Lord knows they all speak English better than I can speak Arabic.
Anyway, back to my day in Bethlehem. After lunch I take a stroll to the nearest Jawwal phone center to get a SIM card that Daher gave me for a small flip phone to work, so he can call me wherever I am on the farm. Street names aren’t always clearly labeled, but by downloading a map from Google before on WiFi, and by asking people for directions just by saying “Jawwal,” I find my way there and get it to work. It’s got very limited minutes, and I find when I get back to the farm that night that it doesn’t get reception by my cave, but at least Daher can contact me more easily now. I call Phantina–she’ll be free for a bit in a couple hours. In the meantime I check out the Church of the Nativity, which I didn’t have the chance to last time I was here. The main doorway in is tiny–the Cruasader’s Door–the European crusaders who captured the city at one point in the medieval ages made it so the enemy couldn’t ride horses through it; you have to squat down. There are people from all over the world inside–the US, the Caribbean, Europe, Japan, the Philippines. The cathedral, stained glass, and mosaics inside are magnificent, even though some of the structure is being renovated.
I meet up with Phantina–she’s from Ramallah but was in Bethlehem for a couple days. We met some four years ago when she and another student came to my college to talk about the experience of education under the occupation–the toured many other campuses across the US with several other Palestinian students. We catch up for just an hour or so before she gets a bus back to Ramallah. Phantina’s been doing some cool stuff since graduating, working in local radio and outreach with children. We walk around and she shows me the Milk Grotto chapel, a lesser-known site for tourists, where Mary is said to have weaned Jesus. It’s a little underground, and there are some nuns chanting. After seeing her off at the bus station, I head back to Bab-z-Qaq as the sun sets, to catch one of the sheruts heading toward Hebron. It takes a while to get one with space–it seems like a pretty busy time for commuters. Everyone waiting at the corner keeps asking “al-Khalil? al-Khalil?” to the drivers (the Arabic name for Hebron). Eventually one pulls up, the driver sticks his head out the window to announce “al-Khalil,” and I clamber in with everyone else. The driver is a bit confused about me getting off at Kilo 17, but I tell him I’m just walking toward Nahallin, and he understands. 10 minutes later he lets me off and I walk back to the farm past Neve Daniel.
That Thursday, Midori returns to Japan, and then I’m the only long-ish term volunteer left. That Sunday the 25th, when Daher is in town, I see literally no other human being all day for the first time in a while, perhaps in my whole life. I can hear others down in Nahallin and over in Neve Daniel, but on the whole farm it’s just me. I’m not a 100% introvert, but it was quite relaxing and nice, just getting to do my own thing and not having to interact with others for once. Monday late afternoon another volunteer arrives for a few days, Rachel from France. We don’t get to know each other much yet, and the next day I have another day off.
Foreign Fields 