Milestones

Monday was an important day for Majd and Fairouz Hammash, my two youngest host sisters. Majd took the final exam for her summer classes and Fairouz left for Seeds of Peace summer camp in the US.

Majd, a Arabic-English Translation major at Bethlehem University, took two courses this summer, Palestinian Literature and English for Translation. This weekend she was essentially inaccessable: she closed the door on salon as the formal living room is known, positioned the fan on her, and reviewed her notes. Not only is the salon the neatest place in the house, but it is one of the coolest becasue its window catches the western breeze. On Sunday afternoon I came in, hot and exhaused from running around in the heat, to read Harry Potter while she studied. At one point, Majd looked up from her notes and said, "Do you want ice cream?"

No, I didn't, dairy had been giving me some problems lately and besides, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows quenched any desire I might have for sweets. Fairouz at that time was getting a haircut--one of the last things she had to do before her 11AM flight to the States the next morning.

The day before, Fairouz and I had gone to pick up her electronic ticket from the local Seeds coordinator, Mai. Seeds of Peace had done a remarkable feat and gotten most of the Palestinian campers from the West Bank tickets to travel from Ben Gurion Airport--inside Israel proper, or 48, as Palestinians call it. Israeli authorities forbid West Bank and Gaza Palestinians from traveling from this more convienent airport, forcing them to travel from Amman and Cairo, respectively. I do not know how Seeds of Peace did this; I can only imagine that it was their prestiege and financial power that made this near-miracle happen. However, an electronic ticket was not enough for the Israeli Army to let fifteen-year-old Fairouz pass through 48 on her way to the airport. She also needed its permission. The permit was made in the illegal Jewish-only settlement of Beit El near Ramallah. When I arrived home on Sunday night after an awesome Nigel Kennedy Quintet concert in Jerusalem, she showed me that fresh precious piece of paper. The Army said that she could be in 48 from 5AM to 3PM on July 23, the day of her flight. Bethlehem Checkpoint, one of the few ways from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, opens at 5AM. In order to make sure that we would cross Bethlehem checkpoint before the crowds of day laborers, we were to be there at 4:45. AM.

At 4AM my alarm rang and as I sat up, hoping that the force of gravity would pull the sleep off me, a sheikh called the refugees of Dheisheh Camp to prayer. His megaphoned voice broke the stillness of the Camp for a few minutes. Twenty minutes later I found myself walking down the alleys of Dheisheh. The cold, moist air felt good on my skin, suntanned from minutes in transit from car to house.The complete quiet made the Camp seem somehow neater; it gave the tangled alleyways the aura of being straighter. This was hte hour Israeli soldiers usually walked the streets of the Camp but all we saw aswa white dog who scared Fairouz and sa sheikh and his two sons, walking to or from the mosque. Fairouz and I followed her father Aziz through the silent darkness. He carried the brown suitcase I had bought for her two days before. Fairouz shouldered her backpack and her Seeds of Peace pouch that held her passport, her e-ticket, Israeli movement permit, and pocket money. I had a purse with my wallet, passport, cellphones, and camera loaded with my fastest film and lens with the widest apperture--an ideal combination for dark settings.

Asil, another camper, and her father picked us up on the main road and drove us to the checkpoint. When I was in Bethlehem in July 2005 the Separation Wall around Bethlehem had been finished and a new, "modern" checkpoint was being built. There is one hole in the Wall for people and another for vehicles. The "Terminal," as Israeli authorities have named it, is a huge, windowless building that ressembles a warehouse. From a catwalk above, Israeli soldiers can view as people pass through the various checks. There are several revolving metal doors. As a strange humanitarian gesture, wheelchair-accessable toilets have been placed right inside the warehouse on the Bethlehem side. Given the fact that anybody crossing the checkpoint on foot must go through several revolving doors, I think that those bathrooms are the only wheelchair-accessable part of the checkpoint.

Asil's father almost drove his Palestinian-licenced car through the vehicle crossing until I quickly directed him down the hill to the pedestrian one. Vehicles with Palestinian licence plates are forbidden to cross chechpoints that lead to Jerusalem. I quickly shouted, "Left! Left!" and directed him to the pedestrian crossing. I was visited by an uncanny feeling of privilage: I was the only one in the car that had ever crossed the new checkpoint. At the pedestrian crossing, we met one other camper and her mother.

In the quarter-to-five gloom, Palestinian day laborers were already clustered around the locked gate at the fenced-in path along the Wall. This path is the way the builders of the checkopoint inteded people to cross it on foot. These were some of the lucky few West Bank Palestinians to get Work Permits in Israel proper (48). Before the Al-Aqusa Intifada Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip filled many unskilled or low-skill jobs in 48. Although many would rather work for other Palestinians, the pay was always much, much better. Through this work, many Palestinians learned Hebrew and developed relationships with Israeli Jews. After September 2000, most of their work permits were revoked or not renewed. Now Israel imports much of its unskilled labor; it is not an uncommon sight to see Pakistanis, Thai or Chineese people working on the roads or building a new development in Israel proper.

It seemed as if we were the only ones from the Seeds group at the gate to the fenced-in path. The fathers then decided to get to the front of the line at the gate and when, a minute later, it seemed like the workers would not let us push to the front, the fathers decided that we should try the vehicle crossing. We climbed back over dusty rocks, carefully avoiding crossing in front of an old man who was praying. He was not using a prayer rug; instead, he put a plack tied-up plastic bag in the direction of Mecca (south) and touched his head down right in front of it during his prostrations.

We clambered into the cars and headed up to the vehcle crossing. The rest of the group was already there: four boys three girls: there were ten campers in all. Claire, one of the Bethlehem coordinators of Seeds of Peace was excited when Fairouz told her that I wanted to go to drop her off at the checkpoint because she thought with my American passport I could make the West Banker campers' passage smoother, perhaps I could keep the soldiers' harrassment to a minimum. So I tried. Seriously, I felt like a camp counsler. First, I told one of the soldiers in English that these kids were campers with Seeds of Peace and they had a flight that morning at 11 from Ben Gurion Airport and so they needed to cross quickly. The soldier just nooded. I have no idea if what I said made any difference or not but afterwards another soldier began motioning the campers to come forward, one by one (wakhad, wakhad, in the soldiers' Arabic). The boys were alert,and went up as soon as the soldiers beconed them but I had to tell the girls, who had started chatting, that it was their turn and they should go forward. One of the last girls was engrossed in conversation with her mother and another camper. She had left the printout of the electronic ticket at home. "Was it ok?" her mother asked me, "Would they let her fly?" I told he probably yes, of course, I had flown sometimes with just a credit card and a drivers' licence, but I called Claire just to make sure and she assured me that it was fine.

"Ta'al, Ta'al," (Come, come), the soldier said testily. The girls went through, and I followed last of all. At the enterance to the "Terminal" I officially introdcuced myself to the group and Mahmood, a camper from Hebron, told me that Claire had given him a list of the campers and that we were ten, not twelve, as she had told me the night before. I did a headcount just to be sure, feeling like a should because that's what chaperones do.

Wonderfully, we were the first in line at one of the four automized metal doors. Two of the guy campers had already gone through that door until its light turned red and it locked. There was nobody there, they told us. We waited. Some of the girls sat on their suitcases and talked. Asil looked a little worried. Fairouz told me that I was her darling and I told he that she was my eyes. Workmen began to arrive. These girls, with the exception of Fairouz, were all from wealthy families, had private school educations, and some of them were even wearing make-up at the checkpoint. They were distinctly not from the same social class as the throng of men behind them. Needles to say, none of them were particularly modestly -dressed or covered their heads. "Why are these girls here?" one of the workmen wanted to know, sounding put out.

"Leave them; they were here first," another one said to them.

Looking fed up, an old man with white hair, barreled his way through the surprised and confounded girls, to the first place in line. I wanted to tell the girls to assert themselves but I did not know how to say that in Arabic. I had no confidence in their English. When I had told them on the passage way to stop talking and dawlding with the the words, "Girls, you will have plenty of time to talk on the plane; it's twelve hours!" I was ignored.

We finally all got through, through the metal detectors, the x-ray machines, and theID check. I did another head count (I asked Mahmood if were all there). and directed the group to a place in the road out of the way of foot and vehicle traffic. Mahmood called Claire who said the bus driver would be there in five minutes. During the time we were in the rat-maze that is Bethlehem "Terminal," the sun had crested the hills of the Jordan Valley and illuminated the road and the olive orchards that were now de facto Israeli territory. The dawn lit the coffee and food vendors by the side of the road I asked the group if they wanted anything: falafel, ka3ik (sesame bread), hummus, hard-boiled eggs, coffee, tea, or juice? They all shyly refused but Fairouz wanted coffee. I got her a cup of coffee and I got myself a ka3ik. All for one shekel.

I made Fairouz eat a little ka3ik. Breakfast, after all, is an essential meal. Eventually, around 6 o'clock, the bus came, the boys loaded the bags into the cargo containers on the bottom. I kissed Fairous three times on her cheeks. "Remember," I told her, " You are precious. And you are strong," I gave her a punch on the arm, "God be with you." I let go of her smiling face, and watched the bus pull away. Then I turned back to the chekcpoint.


I swum up-stream in a current of men flowing to Jerusalem. I was the only woman and the only one going back into the Walled-in lands. All the soldiers at ID-check kiosks were all processing seemingly-never-ending streams of day laborers. As I was practically ignored by the soldier who glanced at my passport, I was visited again by that uncanny feeling of privilage. "law sama7t, law sama7t," I excused myself as I went through about three lines of laborers. They parted for me; I akwardly tried to avoid eye contact with the hundreds of men in line. I crossed the parking lot, passed the sign that says, "Peace Be With You," in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, and the first ID check, went through the metal revolving doors in the Wall and walked down the caged-path. The rising sun covered the houses of Bethlehem with a pink glow. The girly, expectant, breathing color awed me. Although the olive trees intersprerced between many of the houses were lit by the same light, they were not painted pink; instead they seemed greener, more intense, almost defaintly shouting out to the other olive trees, lost accross the Wall.

Once I got home, I got into bed, placed a light cover over me, and read Harry Potter unitl I couldn't keep my book open. And then I slept.