Sabah el Kheir

Sabah el Kheir! I may not have spelled it right, but this is Arabic for "Good Morning," or "Morning of Well-Being." It's not morning here, but it is morning in the US, so, "Sabah el Kheir." =)

We returned to Jerusalem last night and I had my first real shower in 8 days. It was WONDERFUL!

I am still processing the days we spent in At-Tuwani, a small village in the Hebron Hills where CPT has a full-time presence. The more I learn about CPT, the more I appreciate the work they do. They do not plan actions or lead events in At-Tuwani, they work with and follow the lead of the Palestinian people who live in Tuwani. They have been asked by the villagers to be there and they listen closely to their Palestinian partners in an effort to support their non-violent resistance.

Tuwani has no public water system.There is no electricity. The village has a generator, so the power comes on for a couple of hours each night, but that's it. Thanks to the joint efforts of the people in Tuwani and various NGOs, Tuwani has a clinic and a school. Located on the hill right above Tuwani is the Jewish settlement, Ma'On. Ma'On looks like a Californian suburb, complete with large homes (paid for in large part by YOUR tax dollars, my friends), cherry orchards, and swimming pools. It is hard to wrap your brain around.

Thursday night, five of us went with some of the full-time CPT staff to Tuba. Tuba is an even smaller village than Tuwani--there is no water, no electricity, and no road. Because the walk from Tuwani to Tuba goes past the settlement, we had to stay off the main road and hike up and down the hills. It was physically exhausting. Not to mention the fact that we had to constantly look over our shoulders in case there were settlers with baseball bats.

We split up in Tuba and Greta and I stayed with Omar's family. Omar and his wife have 10 children and they live in a cave. They used to store feed in the cave, but when their house was burned down by settlers, they moved into the cave and use it as their home.

Omar's family raises sheep, goats, chickens, and doves. They also have a donkey and LOTS of dogs. We had a blast playing with their kids. They didn't speak any English and we didn''t speak Arabic, so they mostly pushed us and pulled us to get us to do what they wanted!

Omar's family was SO hospitable. They fed us dinner in the cave and served us tea. Once the kids fell asleep, Omar began talking (our CPT person translated) about life in Tuba and how hard it is. He told us "Thank You" for coming to dinner with Arabs and we assured him that the pleasure was ours.

They sleep outside in the summer so we did too. I can't wait to put the pictures on the blog--we woke up in the morning and there were sheep at the bottom of our mats!

Friday morning we went with Ahmed, Omar's 16-year-old son, and Redwan, his 19-year-old nephew to the hills with their flocks. When I pictured Palestinian shepherds, I did not picture teenage boys! Ahmed and Redwan are actually the oldest of the shepherds, the other boys are around 10 years old. I was totally amazed by their skill in shepherding hundreds of sheep!

We had been walking for about an hour and a half when they stopped to rest near the settlement. While we were sitting there, we saw 4 army soldiers on the hill across from us. I asked Jessica (our CPT person) what we should do and she said, "We wait to see what the shepherds want us to do. If they want to leave, we will leave. If they want to stay, we will stay with them."

They decided to stay and my heart started to pound. It wasn't too much longer before the army jeep came rolling over the hill, along with the police, the settler security, and a crazed settler named Jehosophat. I wasn't sure whether I was more afraid of being arrested by the army or beaten up by the settlers.

Two of the soldiers came down to where we were and there was an exchange in Arabic. Ahmed, the 16-year-old, had received one of B'tselem's video cameras in their "Shooting Back" campaign and he immediately started filming. (The idea is that soldiers are less likely to commit violence against Palestinians if they know they are being filmed) They told the boys they were on "State land" and could not be there. The boys said they had every right to be there and refused to leave.

It was agreed that the younger boys would take the sheep and go home, but Ahmed and Redwan stayed. The army asked for identification and took all of our passports.

There was a lot of confusion. The army made a lot of phone calls. We were told that we had to wait until the DCO (the civil administration) came because they would bring official maps and could determine whether or not the shepherds had a right to be there. When the DCO finally showed up, they had no maps and instead relied on the maps that the settlers had, which showed the land belonged to the settlement.

Three hours later, they decided to let us (the internationals) go AFTER we signed a form in Hebrew. We had to sign it in order to get our passports back, but CPT instructed us to make sure we wrote "I do not understand Hebrew" next to our signature. They called us to the police car one by one to sign and I know they were trying to intimidate us.

They let Ahmed go, but put Redwan in the police car. They told us they were taking him to the police station in order to "help him figure out" which land he could be on. I will never forget what it felt like to look at Redwan as they shut the police car door. He looked right at me and, knowing no Arabic, I gave him a thumb's up. It felt dumb as soon as I did it, but he smiled and gave me a thumb's up back. I believe he felt like he was doing what he had to do--he had chosen not to leave and this was the consequence. He's 19 years old--a year younger than my brother--and he was taken to the police station because he took his family's sheep to a hill on their own land. It's total bullshit. Absolute and total bullshit.

The walk back to Tuwani was pretty quiet and everyone was glad when we returned. I hadn't cried while were being detained (a small miracle!) but it felt good to cry when we got back to Tuwani. We still don't know what happened to Redwan, but, knowing Redwan and his family, it is likely they will continue taking their sheep to the same place. We aren't there anymore, but the resistance continues...