I apologize....
I apologize that I haven't been blogging...
I was in america for the past two weeks visiting family.... but not friends, there just wasn't time. i just got back to Palestine two days ago and have been busy moving into my new house and starting back at school. Tonight the landlord is suppose to come and fix the internet so that it is wireless. Right now i have to sit in my roommate's room to get internet which is obviously limiting my internet usage time.
But i wanted to let you know I am home safely and I think i will have more time and energy to blog now.
I finally really feel like things are on the up and up. Going home for Christmas even thought it was a short trip really did the trick and lifted me out of my doldrums.
Happy New Year......
Here's to hoping and praying that 2010 won't be filled with death....
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Monday, November 16, 2009
my first week
I was always one of those dorky kids whose favorite game to play as a child was "school" I would get to be the teacher with imaginary students. Even at school I would pass the time day dreaming about the day I would get to be a teacher at a Catholic School. And despite all the years that I did teach, never did I have the opportunity to teach at a parish school
As overly active as my imagination was there was no way that I would have ever pictured myself finally becoming a Catholic school teacher in Palestine. I had never heard of Palestine. Or that my first stint in a Catholic school would be as an EFL teacher, or even that I would write a blog. I hated writing and couldn't spell (somethings never change) and was horrible in Language Arts and at any attempt at a foreign language. But life is strange and when you are just along for the ride it is amazing the places that you end up and the amazing things you end up doing.
A month ago or even three weeks ago when i got laid off, teaching in Ramallah at a school like mine was never even a possibility in my world. It is really all because of Abu Johnny (my parish priest in Nablus) that I got this job, that this job was created for me. I feel lucky!!!
There is something about the school that really makes me feel at home. It reminds me so much of the schools I went to as a kid. I was sitting outside one of the classrooms next to the drinking fountains the other day waiting for the bell to ring and a high school boy got sent down to wash all the gel out of his hair, it was completely and totally something out of my own school experience. And then later in the day after teaching my most naughty group (fourth grade) one of the kids came up and gave me a cough drop because he was sure my throat hurt after all the yelling i had just done. I had to laugh!!! and take it, cuz my throat really did hurt. Later I had to keep the entire class in during recess to punish them and the principal came down to yell at them for being so disrespectful. She told them to apologize but that I didn't have to accept the apology unless I was sure they were sorry. I told them that they could apologize now but that i wouldn't believe it until the end of 5th period when i taught them again if they really meant it. During 5th period they were perfectly behaved students. They all ran up to me and said, "see we really meant it, we are so sorry". There was something all about it, that i loved. I love that the administration is so supportive of the teachers. The students seem to be happy to be there and the admin keeps telling me how much the students love me.
Maybe it is a lot deeper... Maybe it is that I very much understand how culture shock and adjusting to new environments works. Maybe it is because when i first came to Palestine 8 months ago I was really looking forward to the initial honeymoon stage where nothing gets you down and you love everything about the new country. I was really looking forward to staying in that stage for as long as i could because I know that the next stage is to hate everything. But in the end because of events out of my control I never even got to experience the honeymoon stage. I went straight into grief and there is nothing happy about that. My whole experience in Nablus felt like it was surrounded by death. Not only have the people of Nablus experienced so much death in their lives but there are posters of people who died all over the city. My whole experience of life there was framed in the losses of friends. Dan, Aeryon, and Roxy the dog (who I pretended not to like, but i really loved) at the beginning and then I found out that Brian died my last night there. I wasn't the only one to have lost loved ones during my eight months there. My co-worker Isabel lost a good friend of hers in a helicopter accident back in Scotland. A summer co-worker Mike lost his childhood friend in a car accident and a teacher who came in the fall lost her cousin while here. It is a lot of death to handle in a short time and so far from home. I am praying that there will be no more death in my life in Ramallah. I can't take anymore.
Maybe, inshallah, my move to Ramallah means that I get to start all over again. Ramallah is such a different place than Nablus that it actually does feel like a new country even though it is only about 25 miles away. (imagine going from a tiny town in Louisiana to New York City, rather different. This time I am going to soak in it for all it is worth.... I am going to fall in love with Ramallah and everything it has to offer.
I feel like I am finally teaching, living with, and working for "my people".
As overly active as my imagination was there was no way that I would have ever pictured myself finally becoming a Catholic school teacher in Palestine. I had never heard of Palestine. Or that my first stint in a Catholic school would be as an EFL teacher, or even that I would write a blog. I hated writing and couldn't spell (somethings never change) and was horrible in Language Arts and at any attempt at a foreign language. But life is strange and when you are just along for the ride it is amazing the places that you end up and the amazing things you end up doing.
A month ago or even three weeks ago when i got laid off, teaching in Ramallah at a school like mine was never even a possibility in my world. It is really all because of Abu Johnny (my parish priest in Nablus) that I got this job, that this job was created for me. I feel lucky!!!
There is something about the school that really makes me feel at home. It reminds me so much of the schools I went to as a kid. I was sitting outside one of the classrooms next to the drinking fountains the other day waiting for the bell to ring and a high school boy got sent down to wash all the gel out of his hair, it was completely and totally something out of my own school experience. And then later in the day after teaching my most naughty group (fourth grade) one of the kids came up and gave me a cough drop because he was sure my throat hurt after all the yelling i had just done. I had to laugh!!! and take it, cuz my throat really did hurt. Later I had to keep the entire class in during recess to punish them and the principal came down to yell at them for being so disrespectful. She told them to apologize but that I didn't have to accept the apology unless I was sure they were sorry. I told them that they could apologize now but that i wouldn't believe it until the end of 5th period when i taught them again if they really meant it. During 5th period they were perfectly behaved students. They all ran up to me and said, "see we really meant it, we are so sorry". There was something all about it, that i loved. I love that the administration is so supportive of the teachers. The students seem to be happy to be there and the admin keeps telling me how much the students love me.
Maybe it is a lot deeper... Maybe it is that I very much understand how culture shock and adjusting to new environments works. Maybe it is because when i first came to Palestine 8 months ago I was really looking forward to the initial honeymoon stage where nothing gets you down and you love everything about the new country. I was really looking forward to staying in that stage for as long as i could because I know that the next stage is to hate everything. But in the end because of events out of my control I never even got to experience the honeymoon stage. I went straight into grief and there is nothing happy about that. My whole experience in Nablus felt like it was surrounded by death. Not only have the people of Nablus experienced so much death in their lives but there are posters of people who died all over the city. My whole experience of life there was framed in the losses of friends. Dan, Aeryon, and Roxy the dog (who I pretended not to like, but i really loved) at the beginning and then I found out that Brian died my last night there. I wasn't the only one to have lost loved ones during my eight months there. My co-worker Isabel lost a good friend of hers in a helicopter accident back in Scotland. A summer co-worker Mike lost his childhood friend in a car accident and a teacher who came in the fall lost her cousin while here. It is a lot of death to handle in a short time and so far from home. I am praying that there will be no more death in my life in Ramallah. I can't take anymore.
Maybe, inshallah, my move to Ramallah means that I get to start all over again. Ramallah is such a different place than Nablus that it actually does feel like a new country even though it is only about 25 miles away. (imagine going from a tiny town in Louisiana to New York City, rather different. This time I am going to soak in it for all it is worth.... I am going to fall in love with Ramallah and everything it has to offer.
I feel like I am finally teaching, living with, and working for "my people".
images of Palestine
Every prepared and seasoned English teacher has one of those prepared lessons up their sleeve that almost always works and sets the tone for their first day of class. I have had an outrageous number of first days of classes and this is a well-rehearsed lesson. Last week I added something new.
I like to exploit the fact that on my first day the students are always curious about learning about my life so I start off by telling them through a series of pictures and gestures about my family and who I am.
This year I added something new. It know it is very unPC of me, but when has ESL ever been PC. When you are struggling to communicate at the most basic of levels with someone gross generalizations are going to be made.
I started my lessons by drawing five pictures on the board; A pyramid, a big hat, a bowl of rice with chopsticks, Mickey mouse, and a big clock tower. I then asked the students which countries each picture represented. I was really impressed that for the most part the students really understood and were able to do it. I then asked them which country I was from and why did Mickey Mouse represent my home. With the older kids I took it a step further and asked them what picture could we draw to represent Palestine? Each class seemed to really love that question and they talked about it and thought about it and first each class pretty much came up with the same answer. They said to draw Al-Aqua Mosque (the big famous one in Jerusalem with the gold top), they thought about it some more and decided they should draw a church, after some more thought they decided a Christmas tree and then after even more conversation each class came up with the idea of drawing an olive tree.
Part of me was relieved by their answers. I wasn’t sure where they would take it. In Nablus they might draw a big AK-47 or some rocks to throw at Israeli’s but because I now live in Ramallah things seem a lot more peaceful. Ramallah is definitely still affected every day by the occupation, but it isn’t as much of a moment-to-moment struggle like in Nablus. There are a lot more freedoms here and a much better sense of security.
I really found their answers and drawings fascinating!
Once you are here in Palestine for any amount of time or I guess even just being aware of the issues of this conflict you know that this mosque represents the heart of the issue. It of course is a single component of the drama here but it is the most emotional issue for both the Israeli’s and the Palestinians. Drawing the Temple Mount or the Dome of the Rock is the most obvious picture. Ironically of course it isn’t actually located with in the current lines of Palestine, which makes it all the more emotional. But since it isn’t in the technical current boundary lines, does it best represent Palestine? And because it is such an poignant representation is it the right thing to draw in this type of situation. I didn’t quite say that in those words but the students did and they decided to change the picture.
So we went back to the drawing board, that is when the classes decided to try a church or Christmas tree. I don’t know if I have been in Nablus too long or exactly why this surprised me. But they are totally right. A Christmas tree is a great representation of Palestine. But I actually almost wonder if Palestine is a better representation of Christmas? Maybe what got to me more was the tree part of it.
Last Easter when I was here I had totally forgotten the bunny, candy and egg part of Easter. In my thoughts about Christmas coming had I forgotten the tree and decoration part of the holiday? I have been so focused on trying to decide between spending the day in Bethlehem or at home with my sisters and mom that all the rest had fallen to the side. I guess I was amused that it was the students who reminded me about the whole other side of Christmas.
As we talked about how appropriate the Christmas tree or a church was we had to acknowledge that 75% of the students in the class are Muslim and did this embody them accurately?
The students consulted with each other again and decided that maybe an olive tree was a good representation of Palestine and all Palestinians.
An olive tree is symbolic to me of Palestine because it is what lead to my journey here.
A little over a year ago before I came to Palestine, I was working at One World Market. And they started carrying Palestinian Olive Oil. Every time a new produce came in, especially one so unusual we would research it and the story behind it. It was a combination of researching this oil and knowing that I was going to go on a trip to the Holy Land with my family that got me motivated to learn more and more about Palestine. I had decided to stay longer than the tour and to try and find a group to volunteer with for a few weeks. The first place I looked to was the olive oil people who said they took volunteers in an area between Jenin and Nablus. Neither place I had really ever heard of before…. And the rest is history….
It fascinated me that the students’ images of self matched my own symbols of my journey to Palestine.
I like to exploit the fact that on my first day the students are always curious about learning about my life so I start off by telling them through a series of pictures and gestures about my family and who I am.
This year I added something new. It know it is very unPC of me, but when has ESL ever been PC. When you are struggling to communicate at the most basic of levels with someone gross generalizations are going to be made.
I started my lessons by drawing five pictures on the board; A pyramid, a big hat, a bowl of rice with chopsticks, Mickey mouse, and a big clock tower. I then asked the students which countries each picture represented. I was really impressed that for the most part the students really understood and were able to do it. I then asked them which country I was from and why did Mickey Mouse represent my home. With the older kids I took it a step further and asked them what picture could we draw to represent Palestine? Each class seemed to really love that question and they talked about it and thought about it and first each class pretty much came up with the same answer. They said to draw Al-Aqua Mosque (the big famous one in Jerusalem with the gold top), they thought about it some more and decided they should draw a church, after some more thought they decided a Christmas tree and then after even more conversation each class came up with the idea of drawing an olive tree.
Part of me was relieved by their answers. I wasn’t sure where they would take it. In Nablus they might draw a big AK-47 or some rocks to throw at Israeli’s but because I now live in Ramallah things seem a lot more peaceful. Ramallah is definitely still affected every day by the occupation, but it isn’t as much of a moment-to-moment struggle like in Nablus. There are a lot more freedoms here and a much better sense of security.
I really found their answers and drawings fascinating!
Once you are here in Palestine for any amount of time or I guess even just being aware of the issues of this conflict you know that this mosque represents the heart of the issue. It of course is a single component of the drama here but it is the most emotional issue for both the Israeli’s and the Palestinians. Drawing the Temple Mount or the Dome of the Rock is the most obvious picture. Ironically of course it isn’t actually located with in the current lines of Palestine, which makes it all the more emotional. But since it isn’t in the technical current boundary lines, does it best represent Palestine? And because it is such an poignant representation is it the right thing to draw in this type of situation. I didn’t quite say that in those words but the students did and they decided to change the picture.
So we went back to the drawing board, that is when the classes decided to try a church or Christmas tree. I don’t know if I have been in Nablus too long or exactly why this surprised me. But they are totally right. A Christmas tree is a great representation of Palestine. But I actually almost wonder if Palestine is a better representation of Christmas? Maybe what got to me more was the tree part of it.
Last Easter when I was here I had totally forgotten the bunny, candy and egg part of Easter. In my thoughts about Christmas coming had I forgotten the tree and decoration part of the holiday? I have been so focused on trying to decide between spending the day in Bethlehem or at home with my sisters and mom that all the rest had fallen to the side. I guess I was amused that it was the students who reminded me about the whole other side of Christmas.
As we talked about how appropriate the Christmas tree or a church was we had to acknowledge that 75% of the students in the class are Muslim and did this embody them accurately?
The students consulted with each other again and decided that maybe an olive tree was a good representation of Palestine and all Palestinians.
An olive tree is symbolic to me of Palestine because it is what lead to my journey here.
A little over a year ago before I came to Palestine, I was working at One World Market. And they started carrying Palestinian Olive Oil. Every time a new produce came in, especially one so unusual we would research it and the story behind it. It was a combination of researching this oil and knowing that I was going to go on a trip to the Holy Land with my family that got me motivated to learn more and more about Palestine. I had decided to stay longer than the tour and to try and find a group to volunteer with for a few weeks. The first place I looked to was the olive oil people who said they took volunteers in an area between Jenin and Nablus. Neither place I had really ever heard of before…. And the rest is history….
It fascinated me that the students’ images of self matched my own symbols of my journey to Palestine.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
fleeing to Egypt
These past few months my life has felt like one big survivor reality show. But finally my time was up and my fire was put out. It was time to move on. The vote hadn’t come from the rest of the contestants; instead the producers stepped in had had me removed from the show. I wasn’t done yet, I didn’t feel like my life in reality tv had come to a close. So, I called my agent (God) and found a place on another tv show called, the Amazing race.
When I got laid off, my boss and I talked about my next plans and she said she would get me to the bus or airport when it was time to leave. After all, I had gone WAY beyond the realm of kindness and call of duty in both picking up and dropping other people off these past few months. I even told her I would go to Jerusalem by bus on Wednesday night and spend the night there so that I could catch the Egyptian bus easily. She told me nonsense and that she would take me herself there or find me a driver on Thursday morning.
But when I called her the night before at 9pm to remind her that my bus was leaving the next morning from Jerusalem, she had no memory of any such promise and I was left on my own to figure out a way to get there. It was far too late to go to Jerusalem that night and I was going to have to find a way in the morning to get there.
On average it takes 3 hours to get from Nablus to Jerusalem. There have been times that I have done it in 2.5 hours and then other times where it has taken 4 or 5 hours. Even thought it is less than 60 miles away, the checkpoints, and road blocks add too many variables to play with.
In Nablus the Palestinian Soldiers go home between 12 am to 6 am because it is what I call, Israeli Time. Meaning, that those are the hours that the Israeli soldiers in their armored cars patrol the streets. You don’t want to be out on the streets during that time. So sharply at 6am I was in a shared taxi on my way to the bus station. There we had to wait a bit for a service (bus) to arrive. The first checkpoint was not a problem at all. We got through relatively easily. The next one at Zatair Circle was a monstrosity. We sat there for at least 30 minutes not moving at all when the lady who was sitting in the front seat turned to me in perfect English and asked which nationality my passport was for. When I told her American she asked for it and told the driver to switch into the Israeli only line, which was empty. We drove up there and she showed the guard my passport and her UN id and he miraculously let us through. At that point I begged the driver to take us to Kolandia the checkpoint that separates Ramallah from Jerusalem instead of taking the back way directly into Ramallah. Several other people on the bus were trying to get there too so he lamented. I got through Kolandia faster than I have ever before. And it was only 8am. Now I needed to jump in a city bus, battle J town’s morning traffic and get to the bus stop all in 30 minutes. It was not looking good for me. But somehow we did it. When we got to the arab station I jumped out ran to the taxi stand got a taxi the rest of the way and got on the bus just in the nick of time.
As I sat down I realized that there seemed to be a “tour group” on the bus. I asked one of them what group they were with, and she told me they were missionaries traveling around the world with a group called “the great race”…. Irony at it’s finest.
They were actually really sweet people and the bus ride down to Eilot was peaceful. I slept most of the way, an anomaly in Maggie World. When we got to the Egyptian border we were lead in to the immigration room where we were suppose to pay a border tax and cross over. There was a huge confusion because the company we bought the tickets through told us it was one bus taking us all straight to Cairo and clearly the bus we were on was filling up with people and leaving. In addition we had all paid the tour company the tax for the border, which they said would be paid for us when we got there. No one there knew a thing and the 20 of us from the bus were downright confused.
The immigration manager eventually called the company for us and figured it all out. We were suppose to wait for the bus from Tel Aviv to come down and meet us. Then the people from the Egyptian side would come over and walk us through to the Egyptian bus waiting on the other side of the border.
The whole reason I had used this company and not taken local transit (which would have saved me a bit of money) was that I was coming to Egypt on a visa run. I figured that if I disguised myself with a tourist group it would take away all suspicion of what I really do, work in Palestine. The fact that I came down with a group of missionaries was more then I could have hoped for. I have to admit sitting in immigration for FOUR hours had me sweating. When I looked up to the ceiling I could see random microphones hanging down like they would in a box ring. They were obviously there to “listen in” and find people like me. Plus they had this lady there doing a “survey” who wanted to know where you spent each and every night of your stay while in Israel. How was I suppose to have accounted for my last 90 nights, ALL of which had been spent in the West Bank. I gave her an elaborate detailed (very fictional) account of my whereabouts. She sat there with us making small talk the entire time. It was an interesting act of charades trying to blend.
But in the end, after hours of sitting there, the rest of our group did show up and I stood in the middle of them and got through immigration with out a problem. Now I am just worried about getting back in.
Once we crossed over the border and I walked in to the Egyptian immigration office, I had to hold onto every bit of self control not to turn around and scream out back towards Israel, “I WORK IN PALESTINE”…..
Instead I moved on with the travel agent guides who bribed the Egyptian border guards to get us all Egyptian visas. It was a bit strange to see it happen so obviously right in front of me but it was a good introduction to how things are done here.
Since I have been here the police are constantly asking me if I want them to do things, like stop traffic so I can cross a busy street for a “tip” or at the pyramids to let me climb them for a “tip”. In a way it is amusing and in a strange way liberating because I think I could get away with anything here for a small “tip”. But then on the other hand obviously it would suck to try find justice in a place that obviously doesn’t know the meaning of it.
Back to the new bus….. At this point but the time they bribed a visa for everyone and after waiting for the other group we had spent more time on the border than actually getting to the border. After another short wait an Egyptian bus showed up that was nice but not nearly as nice as the Israeli bus. We all piled in and started off and drove 100 meters down the road to the first checkpoint where it was discovered that the one Israeli on the bus had not paid the border tax and refused to. I didn’t actually understand why or what his justification was but all I knew is that the whole bus sat there for over an hour as he argued with them about paying the 15$ US. That was the point that I started to loose it. 11 hours into the trip and we had only gone 5 hours worth of driving. Eventually he gave in when he realized the rest of the people on the bus were going to turn on him and might physically remove him our selves.
Around 7 pm we were finally on our way up through the mountains of the Sinai. Even by moon light they are intense and barren. We went hundreds of meters worth of switchbacks up and up and up the mountains. There was no vegetation at all. And it looked like one huge rock.
A dear friend Marybeth had made a comment the week before that I was fleeing the holy land to Egypt just like the holy family did 2,000 years ago. As we were winding our way up the mountain I reflected not only on the Holy Families trip but also on Moses’ trip with the Israelites as they were fleeing the Egyptians and parting the red sea which reminded me of my friend Gabriel’s trip. Gabriel is my South Sudanese friend who escaped Egypt and ran to Israel seeking asylum ( go to www.4asylum.com) for his story. Eventually we reached the plateau and stopped several times for dinner in this little desert shack. I thought it was tasty but the missionaries on the bus were freaked out by the lack of cleanliness and bathrooms. What do you expect from mud brick huts?
One of the missionaries lent me her pillow and I was able to get a few hours a sleep as we continued to cross the desert. I assume that at some point we went down, I don’t know. I missed it and woke up as we went through a tunnel under the Suez canal.
Indisputably I was finally in AFRICA!!!!!
I called Lacey, a co-worker from summer camp in Palestine who now lives in Alexandria. She was going to meet me in Cairo and take care of me for the week. My first glimpse and impressions of Cairo was overwhelming. I don’t know why I didn’t realize how huge it was. I had never felt so intimidated by a city before. Maybe it was the exhaustion and lack of sleep or maybe it was the fact that we were pulling in at 1;30am. Either way I was too tired to process it at all and was beyond thrilled that Lacey was going to meet me there. Along the way before I got off the bus, one of the guys on the bus who was not with the missionaries mentioned that he also had lived in Nablus as a teacher a few years before. Since there are less than a dozen teachers in Nablus at any one time, it is a small group of people and the chance of meeting one was highly unlikely. We became instant friends and he decided to hand out with Lacey and I for the next few days.
Lacey met us at the Sheraton Hotel with a couple of her friends who very kindly drove us to the hotel where Lacey had already checked in. I immediately fell into a coma like sleep for 8 hours and only woke up because I was starving and my skin was itching it was so dirty. After a quick shower we headed off to a restaurant that Lacey knew where we met her other international co-workers, Sarah and Kirsty where were also in Cairo for the weekend. The menu had pages and pages of international options and I couldn’t make up my mind, I was so overwhelmed. It reminded me so much of way back when I was in China and would come home for holidays and not be able to make up my mind in restaurants or stores. When the food finally came, it has a huge platter. Someone made a comment about the American portions there… really? That is what we are served? Have I been away that long that this dish could feed 3?
From there we headed over to the world famous Egyptian Museum. One of the girls kept calling it the “British museum” And I had to laugh since really that is where the other half of the museum is.
I personally have been to a LOT of museums in my day but NEVER to one like this. It is HUGE and there are antiquities EVERYWHERE…. You could trip over them they are so jammed in there. Plus they aren’t behind anything and you can touch them!! Well, I don’t think you are suppose to touch them; but there isn’t anyone stopping you and you actually can’t help yourself. At this point. I was still tired from the bus trip and from the past month of Palestine in addition to just in awe of the place. I walked around for hours in a daze. The human mummy room and the animal mummy room were fascinating but gross. I would love to go back and send years exploring that place but never do I need to go back into either of those rooms.
All the history classes I took in college came flooding back. Someday, many somedays I will go back there and spend time really really looking around with a guide book and more focus. The whole time I was there I kept think about the movie, a night in the museum and how they really should have made it about this one. You can’t help but have your imagination run wild there. I also thought that this is the one place every 10 year old should go; or at least a 10 year old with an imagination and any sense of history or culture at all.
There was one other thing that really threw me off, so much so that I actually at one point had to find a bench to sit down and deal with it. I was really thrown off by what the other tourist were wearing. At first I thought it was because I had just come from Palestine where ALL the women (okay, you can find one here or there) wear full head veils and big coats all year round. But these women were wearing clothes appropriate for a beach or pool ONLY. I assumed they were Eastern European, but many of them were American and British. Didn’t they read the guidebooks or didn’t their tour tell them that shorts of any length are inappropriate much less ones where their butt checks are hanging out? Or that they should wear a bra with that itty-bitty tank top? I was uncomfortable and the people I was with were uncomfortable. It really was too much and kinda ruined my museum experience.
We left there and went to Konokolili where the famous bazaars and mosques are. They were everything you imagine. We stopped at the oldest coffee/ tea house for a drink and were just enraptured by everything going on around us. After wondering the bazaar, (I only took pictures, I couldn’t imagine buying another thing) we headed off to the Nile river for a “cruise”.
When I got laid off, my boss and I talked about my next plans and she said she would get me to the bus or airport when it was time to leave. After all, I had gone WAY beyond the realm of kindness and call of duty in both picking up and dropping other people off these past few months. I even told her I would go to Jerusalem by bus on Wednesday night and spend the night there so that I could catch the Egyptian bus easily. She told me nonsense and that she would take me herself there or find me a driver on Thursday morning.
But when I called her the night before at 9pm to remind her that my bus was leaving the next morning from Jerusalem, she had no memory of any such promise and I was left on my own to figure out a way to get there. It was far too late to go to Jerusalem that night and I was going to have to find a way in the morning to get there.
On average it takes 3 hours to get from Nablus to Jerusalem. There have been times that I have done it in 2.5 hours and then other times where it has taken 4 or 5 hours. Even thought it is less than 60 miles away, the checkpoints, and road blocks add too many variables to play with.
In Nablus the Palestinian Soldiers go home between 12 am to 6 am because it is what I call, Israeli Time. Meaning, that those are the hours that the Israeli soldiers in their armored cars patrol the streets. You don’t want to be out on the streets during that time. So sharply at 6am I was in a shared taxi on my way to the bus station. There we had to wait a bit for a service (bus) to arrive. The first checkpoint was not a problem at all. We got through relatively easily. The next one at Zatair Circle was a monstrosity. We sat there for at least 30 minutes not moving at all when the lady who was sitting in the front seat turned to me in perfect English and asked which nationality my passport was for. When I told her American she asked for it and told the driver to switch into the Israeli only line, which was empty. We drove up there and she showed the guard my passport and her UN id and he miraculously let us through. At that point I begged the driver to take us to Kolandia the checkpoint that separates Ramallah from Jerusalem instead of taking the back way directly into Ramallah. Several other people on the bus were trying to get there too so he lamented. I got through Kolandia faster than I have ever before. And it was only 8am. Now I needed to jump in a city bus, battle J town’s morning traffic and get to the bus stop all in 30 minutes. It was not looking good for me. But somehow we did it. When we got to the arab station I jumped out ran to the taxi stand got a taxi the rest of the way and got on the bus just in the nick of time.
As I sat down I realized that there seemed to be a “tour group” on the bus. I asked one of them what group they were with, and she told me they were missionaries traveling around the world with a group called “the great race”…. Irony at it’s finest.
They were actually really sweet people and the bus ride down to Eilot was peaceful. I slept most of the way, an anomaly in Maggie World. When we got to the Egyptian border we were lead in to the immigration room where we were suppose to pay a border tax and cross over. There was a huge confusion because the company we bought the tickets through told us it was one bus taking us all straight to Cairo and clearly the bus we were on was filling up with people and leaving. In addition we had all paid the tour company the tax for the border, which they said would be paid for us when we got there. No one there knew a thing and the 20 of us from the bus were downright confused.
The immigration manager eventually called the company for us and figured it all out. We were suppose to wait for the bus from Tel Aviv to come down and meet us. Then the people from the Egyptian side would come over and walk us through to the Egyptian bus waiting on the other side of the border.
The whole reason I had used this company and not taken local transit (which would have saved me a bit of money) was that I was coming to Egypt on a visa run. I figured that if I disguised myself with a tourist group it would take away all suspicion of what I really do, work in Palestine. The fact that I came down with a group of missionaries was more then I could have hoped for. I have to admit sitting in immigration for FOUR hours had me sweating. When I looked up to the ceiling I could see random microphones hanging down like they would in a box ring. They were obviously there to “listen in” and find people like me. Plus they had this lady there doing a “survey” who wanted to know where you spent each and every night of your stay while in Israel. How was I suppose to have accounted for my last 90 nights, ALL of which had been spent in the West Bank. I gave her an elaborate detailed (very fictional) account of my whereabouts. She sat there with us making small talk the entire time. It was an interesting act of charades trying to blend.
But in the end, after hours of sitting there, the rest of our group did show up and I stood in the middle of them and got through immigration with out a problem. Now I am just worried about getting back in.
Once we crossed over the border and I walked in to the Egyptian immigration office, I had to hold onto every bit of self control not to turn around and scream out back towards Israel, “I WORK IN PALESTINE”…..
Instead I moved on with the travel agent guides who bribed the Egyptian border guards to get us all Egyptian visas. It was a bit strange to see it happen so obviously right in front of me but it was a good introduction to how things are done here.
Since I have been here the police are constantly asking me if I want them to do things, like stop traffic so I can cross a busy street for a “tip” or at the pyramids to let me climb them for a “tip”. In a way it is amusing and in a strange way liberating because I think I could get away with anything here for a small “tip”. But then on the other hand obviously it would suck to try find justice in a place that obviously doesn’t know the meaning of it.
Back to the new bus….. At this point but the time they bribed a visa for everyone and after waiting for the other group we had spent more time on the border than actually getting to the border. After another short wait an Egyptian bus showed up that was nice but not nearly as nice as the Israeli bus. We all piled in and started off and drove 100 meters down the road to the first checkpoint where it was discovered that the one Israeli on the bus had not paid the border tax and refused to. I didn’t actually understand why or what his justification was but all I knew is that the whole bus sat there for over an hour as he argued with them about paying the 15$ US. That was the point that I started to loose it. 11 hours into the trip and we had only gone 5 hours worth of driving. Eventually he gave in when he realized the rest of the people on the bus were going to turn on him and might physically remove him our selves.
Around 7 pm we were finally on our way up through the mountains of the Sinai. Even by moon light they are intense and barren. We went hundreds of meters worth of switchbacks up and up and up the mountains. There was no vegetation at all. And it looked like one huge rock.
A dear friend Marybeth had made a comment the week before that I was fleeing the holy land to Egypt just like the holy family did 2,000 years ago. As we were winding our way up the mountain I reflected not only on the Holy Families trip but also on Moses’ trip with the Israelites as they were fleeing the Egyptians and parting the red sea which reminded me of my friend Gabriel’s trip. Gabriel is my South Sudanese friend who escaped Egypt and ran to Israel seeking asylum ( go to www.4asylum.com) for his story. Eventually we reached the plateau and stopped several times for dinner in this little desert shack. I thought it was tasty but the missionaries on the bus were freaked out by the lack of cleanliness and bathrooms. What do you expect from mud brick huts?
One of the missionaries lent me her pillow and I was able to get a few hours a sleep as we continued to cross the desert. I assume that at some point we went down, I don’t know. I missed it and woke up as we went through a tunnel under the Suez canal.
Indisputably I was finally in AFRICA!!!!!
I called Lacey, a co-worker from summer camp in Palestine who now lives in Alexandria. She was going to meet me in Cairo and take care of me for the week. My first glimpse and impressions of Cairo was overwhelming. I don’t know why I didn’t realize how huge it was. I had never felt so intimidated by a city before. Maybe it was the exhaustion and lack of sleep or maybe it was the fact that we were pulling in at 1;30am. Either way I was too tired to process it at all and was beyond thrilled that Lacey was going to meet me there. Along the way before I got off the bus, one of the guys on the bus who was not with the missionaries mentioned that he also had lived in Nablus as a teacher a few years before. Since there are less than a dozen teachers in Nablus at any one time, it is a small group of people and the chance of meeting one was highly unlikely. We became instant friends and he decided to hand out with Lacey and I for the next few days.
Lacey met us at the Sheraton Hotel with a couple of her friends who very kindly drove us to the hotel where Lacey had already checked in. I immediately fell into a coma like sleep for 8 hours and only woke up because I was starving and my skin was itching it was so dirty. After a quick shower we headed off to a restaurant that Lacey knew where we met her other international co-workers, Sarah and Kirsty where were also in Cairo for the weekend. The menu had pages and pages of international options and I couldn’t make up my mind, I was so overwhelmed. It reminded me so much of way back when I was in China and would come home for holidays and not be able to make up my mind in restaurants or stores. When the food finally came, it has a huge platter. Someone made a comment about the American portions there… really? That is what we are served? Have I been away that long that this dish could feed 3?
From there we headed over to the world famous Egyptian Museum. One of the girls kept calling it the “British museum” And I had to laugh since really that is where the other half of the museum is.
I personally have been to a LOT of museums in my day but NEVER to one like this. It is HUGE and there are antiquities EVERYWHERE…. You could trip over them they are so jammed in there. Plus they aren’t behind anything and you can touch them!! Well, I don’t think you are suppose to touch them; but there isn’t anyone stopping you and you actually can’t help yourself. At this point. I was still tired from the bus trip and from the past month of Palestine in addition to just in awe of the place. I walked around for hours in a daze. The human mummy room and the animal mummy room were fascinating but gross. I would love to go back and send years exploring that place but never do I need to go back into either of those rooms.
All the history classes I took in college came flooding back. Someday, many somedays I will go back there and spend time really really looking around with a guide book and more focus. The whole time I was there I kept think about the movie, a night in the museum and how they really should have made it about this one. You can’t help but have your imagination run wild there. I also thought that this is the one place every 10 year old should go; or at least a 10 year old with an imagination and any sense of history or culture at all.
There was one other thing that really threw me off, so much so that I actually at one point had to find a bench to sit down and deal with it. I was really thrown off by what the other tourist were wearing. At first I thought it was because I had just come from Palestine where ALL the women (okay, you can find one here or there) wear full head veils and big coats all year round. But these women were wearing clothes appropriate for a beach or pool ONLY. I assumed they were Eastern European, but many of them were American and British. Didn’t they read the guidebooks or didn’t their tour tell them that shorts of any length are inappropriate much less ones where their butt checks are hanging out? Or that they should wear a bra with that itty-bitty tank top? I was uncomfortable and the people I was with were uncomfortable. It really was too much and kinda ruined my museum experience.
We left there and went to Konokolili where the famous bazaars and mosques are. They were everything you imagine. We stopped at the oldest coffee/ tea house for a drink and were just enraptured by everything going on around us. After wondering the bazaar, (I only took pictures, I couldn’t imagine buying another thing) we headed off to the Nile river for a “cruise”.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
all packed and ready to go
I got the job in Ramallah!!!!
and with my new principal's help, I found housing there too!!! For the first month at least, I am going to be living in the Anglican Church's home for their missionaries. From what I could tell today, it is a guest house that is also used as a hotel... It should be interesting. I kinda think it just might be my kind of place, where there are always random people passing through for me to socialize with!
I feel good about staying here in Palestine for now. My main motivation to stay is Safwan, but i also feel like i have gotten very figuratively beat up here and I don't want to give up on it yet. I am not down for the count, inshallah.
So first things first I am off to Egypt tomorrow. My bus leaves from Jerusalem at 8:30AM and i have not a clue how i am going to get there. I don't know if buses around here run at 6am or if i can even find a taxi to go there. It was suppose to be figured out for me by the school but, well...... it wasn't.
the other thing they were suppose to figure out was my pay, which they did. but they forgot to reimburse me the 140 shekels for the expenses in dealing with Jared, the teacher we had to take to the mental hospital. So now i have several hundred dollars in US dollars and only 16 shekels to my name, which obviously isn't enough.
just one more drama to add to the list.....
then the next hurdle is getting over the boarder. Israel has the hardest exit immigration in the world. I am going to have to start working on my story to why i have been here for so long. I am absolutely not allowed to mention the real work that I do... Usually I tell them i am here to study to become a nun. They ask me about all the convents I have visited and I start listing them. Of course i visited them in my first two weeks here with the tour that I was on with my grandparents. but no one needs to know that.
then getting into egypt should be a problem, but i need to get my passport renewed, and that might be a challenge. One of my least favorite places in the world to have to go to are the American embassies. They are always swarming with people and it takes hours to even be seen.
and then the drama will be getting back into Israel....
i need to got sleep and worry about these things in the morning.
good night for now!
knowing that I should be back in Palestine in a week, and that my coworkers Jess, Kaitlin and Curtis, whom I adore, are letting me keep my things here till i return made packing a million times easier!
and with my new principal's help, I found housing there too!!! For the first month at least, I am going to be living in the Anglican Church's home for their missionaries. From what I could tell today, it is a guest house that is also used as a hotel... It should be interesting. I kinda think it just might be my kind of place, where there are always random people passing through for me to socialize with!
I feel good about staying here in Palestine for now. My main motivation to stay is Safwan, but i also feel like i have gotten very figuratively beat up here and I don't want to give up on it yet. I am not down for the count, inshallah.
So first things first I am off to Egypt tomorrow. My bus leaves from Jerusalem at 8:30AM and i have not a clue how i am going to get there. I don't know if buses around here run at 6am or if i can even find a taxi to go there. It was suppose to be figured out for me by the school but, well...... it wasn't.
the other thing they were suppose to figure out was my pay, which they did. but they forgot to reimburse me the 140 shekels for the expenses in dealing with Jared, the teacher we had to take to the mental hospital. So now i have several hundred dollars in US dollars and only 16 shekels to my name, which obviously isn't enough.
just one more drama to add to the list.....
then the next hurdle is getting over the boarder. Israel has the hardest exit immigration in the world. I am going to have to start working on my story to why i have been here for so long. I am absolutely not allowed to mention the real work that I do... Usually I tell them i am here to study to become a nun. They ask me about all the convents I have visited and I start listing them. Of course i visited them in my first two weeks here with the tour that I was on with my grandparents. but no one needs to know that.
then getting into egypt should be a problem, but i need to get my passport renewed, and that might be a challenge. One of my least favorite places in the world to have to go to are the American embassies. They are always swarming with people and it takes hours to even be seen.
and then the drama will be getting back into Israel....
i need to got sleep and worry about these things in the morning.
good night for now!
knowing that I should be back in Palestine in a week, and that my coworkers Jess, Kaitlin and Curtis, whom I adore, are letting me keep my things here till i return made packing a million times easier!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Maggie's world changes
Last Saturday I was laid off... the timing was good in that my visa runs on Thursday. I am taking a bus on Thursday to Cairo where my friend Lacey will meet me and then we will progress to Alexandria where she works.
I am trying to figure out what comes next and have been applying several different positions around the world and have gotten a few offers...
Through several connections here in Palestine, I am going back tomorrow to a second interview at a Catholic school in Ramallah. It isn't nablus but it is only a one hour bus ride away from Safwan. So for the moment it is my top choice... But for now it is just a dream and a prayer.
No matter what, i have to go to egypt to get a new visa for Israel and to renew my passport that is about to expire, well in June. But most countries won't let you in if there is less than six months left on your passport.
I need to go and finish packing (i have no idea what i am packing for right now) and to prepare this lesson!!!
And thus begins the next phase of Miss Maggie's adventure.
I am trying to figure out what comes next and have been applying several different positions around the world and have gotten a few offers...
Through several connections here in Palestine, I am going back tomorrow to a second interview at a Catholic school in Ramallah. It isn't nablus but it is only a one hour bus ride away from Safwan. So for the moment it is my top choice... But for now it is just a dream and a prayer.
No matter what, i have to go to egypt to get a new visa for Israel and to renew my passport that is about to expire, well in June. But most countries won't let you in if there is less than six months left on your passport.
I need to go and finish packing (i have no idea what i am packing for right now) and to prepare this lesson!!!
And thus begins the next phase of Miss Maggie's adventure.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
the impossible task
The reality show that continues on…..
In every reality show contestants are given impossible tasks to carry out. Their entire future as part of the game depends on if they are able to complete the task and the grace that they exude as they do so.. Last week I was told that there were to teachers arriving to the airport in Tel Aviv at 2:20am on Sunday morning and Tuesday morning. Not only was I being asked to go and get them but then to come home sleep for an hour and teach a couple full days of class.
Usually if we want to go to tel aviv there are two ways to do it. Either take a series of buses to Jerusalem. Then walk across the city (or take a taxi) and then take a bus from the central station there to the central station in Tel Aviv and then take a bus from there to where we want to go in Tel Aviv. This route takes 4-5 hours.
OR you can take a bus to Ramallah from Nablus and after the second checkpoint make the bus stop and get out. At this point everyone on the bus will be horrified and very angry with you because it is obvious that you are switching loyalties. When you get off the bus you go and stand with all the settlers and try to hitchhike up to Ariel Settlement or hope and pray a settlement bus eventually comes. When you get up to the settlement you go and stand with all the other hitch hikers and again try and find a ride into town or hope and wait for the bus to eventually come. Depending on the rides and buses it can take between 1-3 hours to get to tel aviv this way. Hitch hiking on the settlements or between them is the normal way of life. When doing this route it is extremely important not to mention to anyone that we are living and working in Nablus. In Tel Aviv people look at you a little funny when we tell that we work and live in Palestine, specifically Nablus, but you would have serious problems if you were to tell a settler that the same. There is an absolute war going on and the settlers and Palestinians are the foot soldiers of each side.
But since I was going to the airport in the middle of the night, I needed to drive there. I needed to find an Israeli car to borrow from someone. There are two kinds of cars here in Nablus. The most common variety is a Palestinian car, these have green and white plates. The much less common car is an Israeli car, their license plates are yellow and black. Only the very rich and people with multiple passports have these cars. Palestinian cars are not allowed in Israel and Palestinians are not allowed to own these cars. I barrowed my bosses husbands car that is owned by a Samaritan, this is the easiest way to get around this law.
I had spent the day at an Oktoberfest in the town of Taibei, a Christian town with a brewery. Christians here are allowed to drink. Ten years ago a few Christian Palestinians had the great idea to start their own microbrewery in Palestine… making it Palestine’s one and only brewery. They have an annual festival and I had been planning to go for months now only to find out it was the same day as the first teacher’s arrival. So I decided to still go but to only go for a few hours and only have one beer. (very very sad)
Despite not spending the whole day and night there, I was exhausted. My plan was to go and come back and then sleep for a few hours before getting up at 1:30AM to leave for the airport. I don’t know that this was the best laid plan or not.
On the way home from the Oktoberfest I noticed that the street leading into Nablus was lined with Israeli soldiers. This is NOT the norm. It meant something had happened while I was at the Oktoberfest. And on the way into the last checkpoint to get into the city, they stopped our bus and questioned us for a few moments. Things had been better at the checkpoints for a few months now and this was a sign that things were back to being bad. I also noticed that there was a huge line of cars trying to get out of the city. Again a few months ago this would have normal but lately this hadn’t been happening.
As soon as I got home I went and looked on line at www.maannews.net , this is a great local news source in English with up to the moment information. They stated that a Palestinian had gotten beat up at the second checkpoint a few hours before. This in combination of the Jewish Holiday and all the drama going on in Jerusalem was leading me to feel very freaked out about the trip.
I went to bed and slept for three hours before starting on this crazy journey. It had be suggested earlier in the evening before that we keep a Kafia (palestian scarf) with us to put on the dash board while driving through the Palestinian portion of the drive and then just take it down while going through checkpoints and in Tel Aviv.
Over the Summer when we borrowed this car we would keep an “emergency hajab” (head covering) in the glove compartment. That way if we went through an area that we didn’t feel completely secure in, we would look more Palestinian or at least Muslim. However we no longer had this spare Hejab lying around, so after some thought, we realized the hoods on a sweatshirt would do. Jess (the most amazing co-worker) and I set off on the trip.
At this point some of you might be wondering why it was the two of us girls going out. Neither of us are the boss, we are both girls, and we both had full days of classes ahead of us. When I asked why us, I was told we were the only two they thought responsible and mature enough to handle this task.
Before we got to the first checkpoint we could see that the flags that indicate the brigade manning the checkpoint had changed. Usually they had red and white flags, but tonight it was a black and orange flag. This wasn’t a good sign. This is a checkpoint that has been recently declared “open”. However, I usually still get asked a dozen questions before they let me through and have been often turned back and not allowed through.
We got to the first checkpoint and were ordered to stop. One of the soldiers had, what I later learned to be a M-32 pointed directly at my face. He was standing maybe two feet away from my window. While he was “guarding me” with the gun the other soldiers searched the car briefly. Usually they ask me a ton of questions at this point. And usually I have to lie and make up a story. They must have noticed the absolute look of terror on my face. The soldier asked me, “are you okay?” I was so busy staring the down the barrel of that gun, that all I could do was nod. In the past seven months, I have had a lot of guns pointed at me and in my general direction, but this was the first time that I had a gun pointed directly at my head before in such close proximity.
They asked me where I was going, and I whispered, “tel aviv”
They wanted to know why I had come to Nablus, a city well known for it’s terrorist. I told them I was there for “Jacobs Well”, that we were Christians and just wanted to go back to Tel Aviv. At that they let us go and a hundred feet down the road up went the Kafia and on when the hoods of our hoodies until we got to our next checkpoint. This was the checkpoint, where the incident occurred earlier in the day. Because there are several settlements between this checkpoint and the last one, they just let cars with Israeli plates go through a separate line and never stop them. This night they actually stopped our car and did a quick search of it before letting us go. From here all we had to do was take another Palestinian road that lead to a settler road to Tel Aviv. There was only one more checkpoint and that one should have been an easy one. When we got there they had closed it down to one lane. And the car in front of me was being fully searched. They were taking everything out of it and had made the driver get out.. I started freaking again because this checkpoint was should be the easiest. The only people who can be on this road are Israeli citizens or tourist. The guy looked very Israeli, and I had not a clue to why they were giving him a hard time. Just as I thought there was no way for us to get out of our car being searched and all the Palestinian stuff in the car being found, another lane opened up and we were waved right through.
There was still an hour and a half to burn before it would be time to get to the airport. So we headed off to Jaffa to explore (at 1:30 am) and find some food. I hadn’t eaten dinner and only had a small lunch much earlier in the day. Usually when teachers come in, it is at a more reasonable hour and we are able to go the Magical Grocery Store. It is a large store even by American standards and unlike every other store in Israeli and Palestine, the prices are kind of reasonable. I think this might have been the part of the trip that Jess and I resented the most, that we were forced to go to Tel Aviv when the store wasn’t open. How down right unfair.
Jaffa is actually an amazing little place just a few blocks south of Tel Aviv on the ocean. The old section of town is a huge fort on the sea that feels very European and French because of it’s crusader history. It was really too late to walk around and explore the fort so we just had fresh juice and I had the most amazing bagel combination ever. We did drive around for a few minutes and then we were off to the airport.
The drive home was rather uneventful besides the on going rambling of Jared the new teacher… he deserves his own posting…. Which I will get to another day……
We made it back safely to our apartment at 5am only to have to be at school at 7am to teach all day.
This was all repeated again a few days later on Tuesday night… This time we insisted on getting the car right after school and making a night of it. Not only is it a million times safer to drive in the day light around here but if we are going to have to be up all night we should at least be able to have fun with it.
Except for getting home at 5 am and having to get up and teach all day again…… the second trip was less stressful in everyway AND…. It brought us a fantastic new teacher, Kaitlin! She is a great addition to the team.
In every reality show contestants are given impossible tasks to carry out. Their entire future as part of the game depends on if they are able to complete the task and the grace that they exude as they do so.. Last week I was told that there were to teachers arriving to the airport in Tel Aviv at 2:20am on Sunday morning and Tuesday morning. Not only was I being asked to go and get them but then to come home sleep for an hour and teach a couple full days of class.
Usually if we want to go to tel aviv there are two ways to do it. Either take a series of buses to Jerusalem. Then walk across the city (or take a taxi) and then take a bus from the central station there to the central station in Tel Aviv and then take a bus from there to where we want to go in Tel Aviv. This route takes 4-5 hours.
OR you can take a bus to Ramallah from Nablus and after the second checkpoint make the bus stop and get out. At this point everyone on the bus will be horrified and very angry with you because it is obvious that you are switching loyalties. When you get off the bus you go and stand with all the settlers and try to hitchhike up to Ariel Settlement or hope and pray a settlement bus eventually comes. When you get up to the settlement you go and stand with all the other hitch hikers and again try and find a ride into town or hope and wait for the bus to eventually come. Depending on the rides and buses it can take between 1-3 hours to get to tel aviv this way. Hitch hiking on the settlements or between them is the normal way of life. When doing this route it is extremely important not to mention to anyone that we are living and working in Nablus. In Tel Aviv people look at you a little funny when we tell that we work and live in Palestine, specifically Nablus, but you would have serious problems if you were to tell a settler that the same. There is an absolute war going on and the settlers and Palestinians are the foot soldiers of each side.
But since I was going to the airport in the middle of the night, I needed to drive there. I needed to find an Israeli car to borrow from someone. There are two kinds of cars here in Nablus. The most common variety is a Palestinian car, these have green and white plates. The much less common car is an Israeli car, their license plates are yellow and black. Only the very rich and people with multiple passports have these cars. Palestinian cars are not allowed in Israel and Palestinians are not allowed to own these cars. I barrowed my bosses husbands car that is owned by a Samaritan, this is the easiest way to get around this law.
I had spent the day at an Oktoberfest in the town of Taibei, a Christian town with a brewery. Christians here are allowed to drink. Ten years ago a few Christian Palestinians had the great idea to start their own microbrewery in Palestine… making it Palestine’s one and only brewery. They have an annual festival and I had been planning to go for months now only to find out it was the same day as the first teacher’s arrival. So I decided to still go but to only go for a few hours and only have one beer. (very very sad)
Despite not spending the whole day and night there, I was exhausted. My plan was to go and come back and then sleep for a few hours before getting up at 1:30AM to leave for the airport. I don’t know that this was the best laid plan or not.
On the way home from the Oktoberfest I noticed that the street leading into Nablus was lined with Israeli soldiers. This is NOT the norm. It meant something had happened while I was at the Oktoberfest. And on the way into the last checkpoint to get into the city, they stopped our bus and questioned us for a few moments. Things had been better at the checkpoints for a few months now and this was a sign that things were back to being bad. I also noticed that there was a huge line of cars trying to get out of the city. Again a few months ago this would have normal but lately this hadn’t been happening.
As soon as I got home I went and looked on line at www.maannews.net , this is a great local news source in English with up to the moment information. They stated that a Palestinian had gotten beat up at the second checkpoint a few hours before. This in combination of the Jewish Holiday and all the drama going on in Jerusalem was leading me to feel very freaked out about the trip.
I went to bed and slept for three hours before starting on this crazy journey. It had be suggested earlier in the evening before that we keep a Kafia (palestian scarf) with us to put on the dash board while driving through the Palestinian portion of the drive and then just take it down while going through checkpoints and in Tel Aviv.
Over the Summer when we borrowed this car we would keep an “emergency hajab” (head covering) in the glove compartment. That way if we went through an area that we didn’t feel completely secure in, we would look more Palestinian or at least Muslim. However we no longer had this spare Hejab lying around, so after some thought, we realized the hoods on a sweatshirt would do. Jess (the most amazing co-worker) and I set off on the trip.
At this point some of you might be wondering why it was the two of us girls going out. Neither of us are the boss, we are both girls, and we both had full days of classes ahead of us. When I asked why us, I was told we were the only two they thought responsible and mature enough to handle this task.
Before we got to the first checkpoint we could see that the flags that indicate the brigade manning the checkpoint had changed. Usually they had red and white flags, but tonight it was a black and orange flag. This wasn’t a good sign. This is a checkpoint that has been recently declared “open”. However, I usually still get asked a dozen questions before they let me through and have been often turned back and not allowed through.
We got to the first checkpoint and were ordered to stop. One of the soldiers had, what I later learned to be a M-32 pointed directly at my face. He was standing maybe two feet away from my window. While he was “guarding me” with the gun the other soldiers searched the car briefly. Usually they ask me a ton of questions at this point. And usually I have to lie and make up a story. They must have noticed the absolute look of terror on my face. The soldier asked me, “are you okay?” I was so busy staring the down the barrel of that gun, that all I could do was nod. In the past seven months, I have had a lot of guns pointed at me and in my general direction, but this was the first time that I had a gun pointed directly at my head before in such close proximity.
They asked me where I was going, and I whispered, “tel aviv”
They wanted to know why I had come to Nablus, a city well known for it’s terrorist. I told them I was there for “Jacobs Well”, that we were Christians and just wanted to go back to Tel Aviv. At that they let us go and a hundred feet down the road up went the Kafia and on when the hoods of our hoodies until we got to our next checkpoint. This was the checkpoint, where the incident occurred earlier in the day. Because there are several settlements between this checkpoint and the last one, they just let cars with Israeli plates go through a separate line and never stop them. This night they actually stopped our car and did a quick search of it before letting us go. From here all we had to do was take another Palestinian road that lead to a settler road to Tel Aviv. There was only one more checkpoint and that one should have been an easy one. When we got there they had closed it down to one lane. And the car in front of me was being fully searched. They were taking everything out of it and had made the driver get out.. I started freaking again because this checkpoint was should be the easiest. The only people who can be on this road are Israeli citizens or tourist. The guy looked very Israeli, and I had not a clue to why they were giving him a hard time. Just as I thought there was no way for us to get out of our car being searched and all the Palestinian stuff in the car being found, another lane opened up and we were waved right through.
There was still an hour and a half to burn before it would be time to get to the airport. So we headed off to Jaffa to explore (at 1:30 am) and find some food. I hadn’t eaten dinner and only had a small lunch much earlier in the day. Usually when teachers come in, it is at a more reasonable hour and we are able to go the Magical Grocery Store. It is a large store even by American standards and unlike every other store in Israeli and Palestine, the prices are kind of reasonable. I think this might have been the part of the trip that Jess and I resented the most, that we were forced to go to Tel Aviv when the store wasn’t open. How down right unfair.
Jaffa is actually an amazing little place just a few blocks south of Tel Aviv on the ocean. The old section of town is a huge fort on the sea that feels very European and French because of it’s crusader history. It was really too late to walk around and explore the fort so we just had fresh juice and I had the most amazing bagel combination ever. We did drive around for a few minutes and then we were off to the airport.
The drive home was rather uneventful besides the on going rambling of Jared the new teacher… he deserves his own posting…. Which I will get to another day……
We made it back safely to our apartment at 5am only to have to be at school at 7am to teach all day.
This was all repeated again a few days later on Tuesday night… This time we insisted on getting the car right after school and making a night of it. Not only is it a million times safer to drive in the day light around here but if we are going to have to be up all night we should at least be able to have fun with it.
Except for getting home at 5 am and having to get up and teach all day again…… the second trip was less stressful in everyway AND…. It brought us a fantastic new teacher, Kaitlin! She is a great addition to the team.
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