flyingears

flyingears

I had a really good time yesterday. I had a photography class in New Askar (one of the refugee camps). We didn't work on any photography yet, that will begin tomorrow, but we had a great time talking, drawing pictures, and playing hackey sack. Just hanging out. They are great kids and were laughing and smiling and we were all having a great time. Then I went to Old Askar for an english class. It's an all male class of people about 16 to 25 years old. Sometimes people in their thirties and forties come as well. It was a really good class; we have a lot of fun and I think the students are learning, so it feels good. We usually talk about grammar and structure, with various exercises, for part of the class and then have a small discussion or read a poem or song lyrics.
After class I went with a couple of the students (friends from the last time I was here) to Nazee's family's home. Nazee is a great person, he is always smiling and making sure his friends are doing okay. We hung out, drank coffee and tea, and talked. I interviewed his mother and father; I asked questions about what it is like to be a refugee, to live in Askar, to raise children in the occupation. Nazee's father was seven years old when his family was forced from their 10 dunums of land by the sea in 1948. The family were farmers and lived in village near what was then Yaffa. As refugees the family came to the camp, which was then just tents. They are so kind and warm and sincere. Then we just talked and had a great time. Some of Nazee's friends came over to join in the talking. One of his friends, a young man I met a week ago, found out a few months ago that he has leukemia. There are no adequate facilities to treat it here, and travel is so difficult even if there was something in another city in the West Bank. So, he is hoping to find a way to go somewhere, maybe Italy he said, that can help him. I hope so.
I will try to write more later.

flyingears

flyingears

I just learned how to publish photographs on this blog and I'm really excited about it. So here is one: a photo of two children on their way home from school during a rainy afternoon.
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This is a photo taken when the soldiers pointed the laser at me and held it there. The people I was with told me to run, so I quickly took a picture and then ran into the alley.
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The laser again, shooting into the street.
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Here is a photograph of the green laser being shot into Askar Camp.
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flyingears

flyingears

green laser

I was in Askar camp two nights ago, staying with friends. We went to a small store to buy some bread and hummus to eat back at my friend’s house. It was late in the evening, maybe 10:00, and very dark. As we began to leave the store, a very large beam of green light shot into the street of the camp. I could see its origin on a hilltop above the camp and quite a ways away. The Israeli military was shooting an intense green laser into the camp; sometimes the laser erratically jumped through the streets and other times it seemed to probe an area or go up and down the street. I hurried back to my friend’s place and got my camera. When I returned to the street, the laser was still being shot into the camp. I got behind a crate of oranges, so that I could steady my camera on something solid to help get a clear photograph in the darkness. I took a few photos and then the laser was pointed directly at me and held there. Those with me yelled at me to move. Everyone jumped into the street and ran into the alley. It was really sickening. This is psychological war. Just totally fucking with people’s minds, saying ‘we have total and complete power here; we can see your every movement, we can target you at any time, and we can kill you at any moment we want.’ The military could obviously see me and see what I was doing. And it was from a long distance and from above. Like people say here, it is a prison. Total observation and power; fear and anxiety are constant.
I asked today in a class I had in Askar about the laser, if it happened every night. Everyone in the class said that yes, it happened every night. I asked if bullets ever accompanied the laser, I was told yes; for example, if the soldiers see a ‘wanted’ person they shoot them.
I really can’t imagine what it would be like to live under these kinds of conditions. Can you understand this? Can you imagine what it would be likely to be living constantly and with no choice with this? And this, the laser, is just one of many, many things that happen every single day here. It is like a prison.
I mentioned earlier about the two men killed about a week ago. I learned more about the circumstances. From what I hear, including statements from the medics who were on the scene and an international who saw and photographed the bodies, the two men were chased down and killed unarmed in an abandoned building in the village. One was shot three times in the chest with an M-16 and probably was killed almost instantly. The other bled to death. He was shot in the foot and leg. And, at some point, was stabbed with bayonets. He was stabbed in the anus with a bayonet. A large chunk of flesh had been cut off of his shoulder as well. After the men were shot in the house, the bodies were taken by the Israeli military into the mountains beneath a settlement. The army then called the medics and told them were to find the bodies. Everyone here knows that the military operation began at about 7:00 pm; there was a tank in the village backing up the soldiers. The men were killed between about 7:30 and 8:00. The bodies were picked up by the medics at about 11:00 pm, after the soldiers kept them and did what they did. Then the military released a statement that the men had been killed in the mountains on their way to attack a settlement.

flyingears

flyingears

I guess I haven’t written for awhile. There have been so many things I wanted to get down in words but I haven’t sat down and written them. Now I don’t really know where to begin. I had a class in Askar camp this evening. It went pretty well; we discussed a poem by M. Scott Momaday and I think that, by the end of the class, people had a pretty good understanding of it.
After class I went with some friends and we sat and drank coffee and talked about the world and about music and a bunch of stuff. It was good.
A few days ago I was in Askar and ended up going with some friends from the class over to one of the student’s homes. We watched parts of some movies up in this very small cinderblock bedroom on the roof. We watched some Clint Eastwood, I think maybe The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. And talked and drank coffee. It was really fun. At one point we heard a single gunshot, very loud and near. I looked around and then at Saed (whose room we were in—the room is just big enough for a bed with about two feet of space paralleling the bed) who said “arab.” So, no problem, he meant. Then there was a loud burst of automatic fire. Saed looked up and said “not arab!”
I left late that night, about midnight. The streets were empty and silent. The people I was with were calling around, trying to find a ride or taxi when we saw lights coming down the street. It was a taxi and it pulled over to us. They knew the people in the car and spoke for a few minutes and then I got in and took off. The man in the backseat had an AK-47. They were “wanted men,” wanted by Israel. We talked as we drove, about each other, about Nablus, about the Israeli military, about America, about people volunteering in Palestine, and about Askar camp. They were looking out for any signs of the military and then were going to go to bed. They dropped me off, after refusing to accept any money for the ride, and I went up to the apartment where I am staying.
A couple of nights ago two Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military. They were members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. They were “wanted men” and the Israeli military targeted and executed them. I was told that they were killed in a village near Nablus; their bodies were found in the mountains nearby, after the military called the ambulances. Apparently, the soldiers killed them and dropped the bodies there. Meanwhile, Israel declares that it is observing a ceasefire and has decided to end selective killings. Someone told me that the military had been calling the cellphone of one of the wanted men, telling him things like ‘we know where you are and one night we will kill you.’
A boy was killed the same day, also near Nablus. He was involved in a demonstration against the wall. The Israeli military said he was throwing stones at military jeeps. Another boy was wounded.
I looked for mention of the above incidents in the mass media but found nothing. No CNN, no New York Times, no Reuters. I did find articles describing how Israel has decided to suspend targeted executions.
Several days ago, some fighters in Gaza launched some homemade rockets into an Israeli community. I heard that this was breaking the ceasefire. What many news sources failed to mention (although some did, briefly) was that a Palestinian man was killed hours before. Hamas claimed that the rockets were in retaliation.
I have been having a really good time hanging out with people here. I have been able to see some friends in Askar from last year, as well as meet and get to know some other very kind people. Said and Saed, whose family’s place we watched the movie at, are really cool people. I guess I don’t have a way to really talk about it in this medium but friends know what I mean, I think. Just really sincere, warm people.
I want to say more but it is late and I really could use some sleep.

raining in the city

flyingears

Today the rain has eased up a little, although it has still been raining most of the day. I have started teaching a few classes, although several have been cancelled because of the weather. With the rain and cold has come a couple of short bursts of hail. Weather….people talk about it everywhere in the world, I think.
I hope to get a few photography classes started soon. The idea is for people in Askar and Balata camps to use some cameras I brought with to take photographs. Very straight-forward. I did this when I was here last year and it worked well, I think, and the individuals involved really seemed to enjoy it. This time I have brought with reusable cameras (whereas last time the cameras were single-use, disposable cameras) so that the kids and adults involved can take more than one roll of photographs, view the developed pictures, and hopefully, after looking at and discussing their photographs, learn more about what they think works well in photography. And then go out and take another roll and see how this process affects their pictures.
Other than a few things like that, I have been busy eating pita bread and hummus. And falafel. And avocadoes. And trying to learn a little more Arabic ('a little more' shouldn't be difficult because I know almost nothing anyway).
Project Hope has, just a couple days ago, opened an office in a building near the city center. This is also where I am staying. So, the volunteers, both local and international, have been busy getting things ready there.
Two nights ago, I went with Jeremy, another international, to visit a family he is friends with who live in the old city. The rain was torrential. Once we reached the more enclosed old city, we were more sheltered from the cold rain, although it still poured down in waterfalls over the edges of the various roof structures covering the narrow, winding, maze-like streets. After walking through the city streets, ancient and solid, we climbed some stone stairs and arrived at the house of our destination. It was a beautiful snug house, perched above the cobblestones of the streets below. I met the missus and, later, the mister of the house and their youngest boy. Their two elder boys were both in Israeli prisons, serving five and twenty year sentences. We drank coffee and tea and ate delicious mamoul and a freshly made, very wonderful dish, the name of which I don't remember. It was made with bread stuffed with spinach. Olive oil glistened on my fingertips after eating several of them. And fresh fruit, too. It is hard to describe the kindness and sincerity of the hospitality I encounter from so many people here, strangers in the beginning.
A few nights ago, when I was still staying in the previous apartment before I moved into the new space, I awoke at about three a.m. to the sound of gunshots outside. Israeli military vehicles passed on the road beneath the windows and I could see the light from the headlights on the wall of the bedroom. The gunfire lasted, sporadically, for about an hour (at least this is when I fell back asleep). From what I have been told, the military comes into the city almost every night. This seems to be the case; most nights there is gunfire. So far, I haven't seen tanks invading in daylight like last time but I guess this is still basically the norm. Apparently there was a large invasion about two weeks ago.
From talking with people on the street, it seems that many are wary of Abbas; they fear that he will do whatever Israel and the United States say. I met a doctor in Askar camp a couple days ago. He had spent about seven years in India studying and he is the only person in the West Bank who practices alternative medicine. He had an offer and opportunity to go to the U.S. for his work, were he would have made a lot of money, but he declined. He told me that he is needed here. 'The situation here,' he said, 'is shit.' He invited me up to his place and we drank tea and talked. He brought his three children, all very young girls, in to meet me. They were so shy, smiling and ducking their faces behind their father's back. Finally one of them, the oldest—maybe seven, said hello and told me her name.
We talked about all kinds of things—medicine, traveling, religion, the occupation, world politics, family. We talked about the war in Iraq, about hatred of America. He told me that Palestine is not just struggling against Israel, he said the fight is against America. And we talked about humanity and the inherent sameness of all people. He told me about an Indian proverb that he had learned. It was something like 'whether you are against it or you support it you are in the game. play it.' He told me that if I ever was sad or lonely while I was here that I should come back over and we'll have tea.
And it continues to rain. People keep telling me that it might snow this night or that, but so far it hasn't happened.