We are now settling into a routine....the dynamics of the group is quite heartwarming. Participants in this group really care about other's well-being and there is harmony that you can really feel.
We had previously journeyed to Bethlehem on our second day of the tour to visit the Shepherds Field where the Angels announced the birth of Jesus and The Church of the Nativity where Jesus was said to have been born in the cave underneath. This church is divided into three areas for differing religious traditions - Greek Orthodox and Armenians, while connected on the other side is St. Catherine's which is Roman Catholic.
We experienced such Jewish warmth and hospitality in the West Jerusalem residential area that we stayed in on Shivtei Yisrael for the first few days before our tour started. We have now been in Israel for 9 days and I am enthralled with the landscape,history, tradition and mostly the people of this magnificent land. I do not in any way or form want to give anyone the impression that I am either judging or making opinions about people of any place/region/religion. It is government who I would perhaps evaluate in the way of criticism but alas I am not qualified in that department either and my observations are only on a personal level as a human being and this is the understanding I would like my readers to keep in mind. I do feel however that those who have experienced the restriction of personal freedom and movement should have the freedom to express their opinions and thus it is the following part of my blog.
Going into the Palestinian area through the separation wall into Bethlehem really had an impact on me. I felt a pain in my heart driving past the Separation Wall into Bethlehem. The wall is obvious, as it is 8 metres high, but my feelings went beyond what I could visually see and in my heart it felt like an estrangement......a ruptured severance of humanity.
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| Houses line the dirt path |
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| A normal day |
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| The temperature is quite hot outside on this day |
The drive today into Bethlehem is roughly 15 minutes. The purpose of our visit now is to visit the Dheisheh Palestine settlement camp which was established in 1948. Bethlehem is now surrounded by 22 settlements. We meet Hamza who is a young man of 25 and educated in social work in psychology. He is a vibrant young man who is passionate about his cause for restoring freedom and peace to all in Palestine. We are seated in a room in the Cultural Centre where we learn about his hopes and dreams. He speaks of the time in 1948 where 700,000 people from over 450 villages were forced to move.....into Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, The West Bank and Gaza. Many villages were destroyed and people killed. He was born during a 14 day curfew and his father tried to reach the midwife but he was stopped by the police and there was no emergency care. That was a very traumatic time for his parents. He stresses that although he was born here, he does not want to die here. Life is very restrictive here. and people must learn to live in a different type of environment, where there is limited personal space. There are ethics to live by such as never walking past someone without acknowledgement, which would be a personal insult. Living as a child in a 27 sq m home with 11 people in his family was extremely difficult. His grandfather would tell him 10 times a day of how he was forced to leave his property and belongings, until Hamza would want to scream and beg him to stop but his grandfather insisted that this story must be retold again and again. (As Hamza is talking, a phone rings in a woman's handbag in the corner of the room. We all laugh as a young head-scarfed woman who owns the phone rushes into the room and Hamza quickly passes her the bag.) Hamza reminds us that the young must mature earlier here. He also tells of the time that it was snowing and the Red Cross tents fell down without any help. Tents were later replaced by one-storey buildings, and now up to three-storey buildings. Because things never seem to change in a situation of dependency on the UN, some locals refer to the United Nations as the United Nothing. Yet Hamza maintains his hope and positive spirit.
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| Creating a unique style of personalized neighbourhood beauty |
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| These children were so very curious towards us and so sweet. We wanted to be able to communicate with them but the only word we mutually knew was the greeting salaam, which also means peace in Arabic. The little girl on the right kept trying to communicate with us. |
Water meters serve the purpose of rationing.
We were allowed to tour the Settlement Camp. I have included a photo of the water meters that ration the weekly rations of water from barrels on the roof. It is my hope that the photos will speak for themselves.
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| Krista is part of our group. She has so very thoughtfully brought along varieties of different organic seeds to give to Hamza's mother who has a love of gardening. |
He tells us if they want to go to Gaza, they first must go to Jordan, Egypt and then Gaza - they cannot go directly through Israel. It has been 12 years since he went to Jerusalem (it is only 15 minutes by car) and even then, the costly permit approval was for five hours between 5 and 10 PM. Children go to school from Kindergarden to Grade 9 in the camp and afterwards into Bethlehem for high school.
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| I took this pic to show how close the dwellings are to each other |
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| Andy and Hamza talk about the idea of a day when their table tennis teams might compete against each other |
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