A beautiful sunny greated us for the second last day of our Pilgrimage. As has become our custom we started the morning with scripture. This morning it was the parable of the woman and the unjust judge. This was followed by the scripture in which Jesus rebukes his disciples for keeping the children away from him. This fit so well with our day as it unfolded.
We travelled to Hebron where we were dropped off at the corner of a market. We then moved down a street to a checkpoint. This was the dividing line between Hebron 1 and Hebron 2 or in other words the dividing point between the Palestinian controlled part of Hebron and the Israeli controlled part. In the early 90's a terrorist killed two Jewish settlers on this road, so the Israeli military shut down all the shops along the street and restricted all Palestinians from going down the street, past a certain point guarded by a single soldier.
Just before we arrived at the soldier's position we turned up the steep stairs towards a kindergarten run by young Palestinian volunteers. Here we learned about the challenges faced by these young people, including the orders to destroy a second bathroom for the children because they did not have a permit.
After our visit we proceeded with our journey into the occupied territory. We had to wait for 10 minutes until Omar got clearance from the guard. Next we proceeded along the deserted street of closed shops until we reached the point where our Hebron guide could join us. He had to take a different route as he was not allowed to walk on that street. Once we met him we were taken through another security gate back onto the Palestinian side. We wandered through a shopping district by Palestinian merchants. One interesting note, the merchants have put up netting as the settlers who live above the market have a bad habit of dropping their rubbish down on the market below. While we were taking pictures up through the netting, tourist with a Jewish tour group were taking pictures of us down through the netting.
At the exit from the market we found ourselves back were we started and got back on our bus for the next and possibly the most memorable part of our Pilgrimage.
We drove about 30 minutes to the refugee camp that was set up by the U.N.65 years ago. Here we divided into two groups and visited two homes. We were each fed a delightful lunch of a beans and rice dish with wonderful bread cooked over a fire and a wonderful tomato salad. During our visit we learned a great deal more about the challenges of life in a refugee camp. It is not a camp with tents, but rather many stone houses built very close together and 3 stories high to accommodate multi generations . One group then went to the home of two women who had both been married to the same man. The man had married the younger woman first, and when they were unsuccessful at having children they decided to add another woman, who was 20 years older. They never had children and now these two elderly ladies ages 83 and 100 Sophia and Zena are living together, cared for by the community. They were really neat to talk with. The younger one still has the key to they house that she was forced to vacate 65 years ago. There is now a Jewish settlement on the former site of her 25 acres of land.
The other group got to meet a young,man who spent 5 months in a military prison for writing graffiti on a wall.
As we were leaving the camp we saw the soldiers gathering for their nightly raid. We journeyed back to our safe hotel with a better understanding of the life of Palestinians living in the Occupied territory of the West Bank.
We travelled to Hebron where we were dropped off at the corner of a market. We then moved down a street to a checkpoint. This was the dividing line between Hebron 1 and Hebron 2 or in other words the dividing point between the Palestinian controlled part of Hebron and the Israeli controlled part. In the early 90's a terrorist killed two Jewish settlers on this road, so the Israeli military shut down all the shops along the street and restricted all Palestinians from going down the street, past a certain point guarded by a single soldier.
Just before we arrived at the soldier's position we turned up the steep stairs towards a kindergarten run by young Palestinian volunteers. Here we learned about the challenges faced by these young people, including the orders to destroy a second bathroom for the children because they did not have a permit.
After our visit we proceeded with our journey into the occupied territory. We had to wait for 10 minutes until Omar got clearance from the guard. Next we proceeded along the deserted street of closed shops until we reached the point where our Hebron guide could join us. He had to take a different route as he was not allowed to walk on that street. Once we met him we were taken through another security gate back onto the Palestinian side. We wandered through a shopping district by Palestinian merchants. One interesting note, the merchants have put up netting as the settlers who live above the market have a bad habit of dropping their rubbish down on the market below. While we were taking pictures up through the netting, tourist with a Jewish tour group were taking pictures of us down through the netting. 
At the exit from the market we found ourselves back were we started and got back on our bus for the next and possibly the most memorable part of our Pilgrimage.
We drove about 30 minutes to the refugee camp that was set up by the U.N.65 years ago. Here we divided into two groups and visited two homes. We were each fed a delightful lunch of a beans and rice dish with wonderful bread cooked over a fire and a wonderful tomato salad. During our visit we learned a great deal more about the challenges of life in a refugee camp. It is not a camp with tents, but rather many stone houses built very close together and 3 stories high to accommodate multi generations . One group then went to the home of two women who had both been married to the same man. The man had married the younger woman first, and when they were unsuccessful at having children they decided to add another woman, who was 20 years older. They never had children and now these two elderly ladies ages 83 and 100 Sophia and Zena are living together, cared for by the community. They were really neat to talk with. The younger one still has the key to they house that she was forced to vacate 65 years ago. There is now a Jewish settlement on the former site of her 25 acres of land. 
The other group got to meet a young,man who spent 5 months in a military prison for writing graffiti on a wall.
As we were leaving the camp we saw the soldiers gathering for their nightly raid. We journeyed back to our safe hotel with a better understanding of the life of Palestinians living in the Occupied territory of the West Bank. 
No comments:
Post a Comment