Letter from Palestine, 2. Hope in the hopelessness.
10th September 2004
Dear friends!
It is a week since my first letter, so it is time for the second. I have spent the last days at the office of YWCA, sorting digital pictures. There are quite a few of them, and they were saved several places. But now it is a system, and easy to find the right picture if you search in the right folder.
Life has been quiet, because I have mostly been in Jerusalem and not tried to find problems. Anyway, I have had some experience of the West Bank. Two delegates from Norad, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Frøydis and Rikke, visited YWCA, and we had the chance to join them. One from the Norwegian representative office, Anette, and an EAPPI accompanier and committee member of the Middle East Committee in YWCA-YMCA in Norway, Astrid, were also with us.
We first went to Ramallah. On our way from Jerusalem Frøydis and Rikke told about what they had experienced the last day. In the morning they had travelled along a normal road to Ramallah. When they went back in the afternoon, there was a wall in the road! I don’t know what more to say. I will tell more about the wall in a later letter.
It was surprising how easy we passed the checkpoint at Qalandia. We saw the secretary school YWCA runs, and the large, steep property, a challenge for those of you interested in orienteering…
From Ramallah we passed on to Jalazone, a refugee camp where YWCA has a centre. It is only a few minutes drive away, if we could drive directly. But we couldn’t. There is an Israeli settlement (yes, this is in the middle of the West Bank) in between, so we had to drive almost half an hour to get there. In Jalazone there is a kindergarten, with beautiful children. They also have a programme for older children, aiming at giving the children an identity as Palestinians, a feeling of human value and self esteem.
When we continued, we saw several settlements. They are bound together with roads which the Palestinians are not allowed to drive on. We soon found out that hill means settlement. When it is dark, the settlements and the areas around are lightened, and they look like UFOs or other aliens. They are also quite green compared to other places, because they use so much water. (Water will probably also be a subject for a letter.)
Next stop was Jericho, and the centre YWCA has in the refugee camp Aqbet Jaber, again with many sweet children. We passed the checkpoint easily there too. In Jericho there is also a branch, like in Ramallah, where one of the programmes is food production. The lunch was a selection of the day’s production.
Then it was time to go back to Jerusalem, where we were supposed to have a couple of lectures. Abla, the general secretary, told about the work of the YWCA, a little about the background of what we had seen earlier the same day. The board members of the YWCA were also present. We were then to have a lecturer from PENGON to give a speech about the wall, but he was stuck at Qalandia, the checkpoint was closed, and he could not go anywhere. It was though not difficult to make the board members speak. There were several spontaneous stories about travel restrictions, forced moving and oppression. It is unbelievable how they can keep the good mood. As our friends from Norad said; the Palestinians are the most peaceful people we have met! It is not quite the impression from Norwegian or other media. But when you have seen what they have to go through, the popular uprising (the Intifada) is quite humble. A peaceloving people deserves a just peace. It might seem hopeless, with all what we saw a morning on the West Bank. But YWCA gives me hope. The symbol of hope I found in Jalazone, on a drawing made by the children in the identity programme. The drawing showed the wall, barbed wire and tanks, but in a corner a bird came flying, a peace dove with the message of a different time.
Today’s web-tip is the website of YWCA: www.ywca-palestine.org
Optimistic greetings from Hanne.
Dear friends!
It is a week since my first letter, so it is time for the second. I have spent the last days at the office of YWCA, sorting digital pictures. There are quite a few of them, and they were saved several places. But now it is a system, and easy to find the right picture if you search in the right folder.
Life has been quiet, because I have mostly been in Jerusalem and not tried to find problems. Anyway, I have had some experience of the West Bank. Two delegates from Norad, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Frøydis and Rikke, visited YWCA, and we had the chance to join them. One from the Norwegian representative office, Anette, and an EAPPI accompanier and committee member of the Middle East Committee in YWCA-YMCA in Norway, Astrid, were also with us.
We first went to Ramallah. On our way from Jerusalem Frøydis and Rikke told about what they had experienced the last day. In the morning they had travelled along a normal road to Ramallah. When they went back in the afternoon, there was a wall in the road! I don’t know what more to say. I will tell more about the wall in a later letter.
It was surprising how easy we passed the checkpoint at Qalandia. We saw the secretary school YWCA runs, and the large, steep property, a challenge for those of you interested in orienteering…
From Ramallah we passed on to Jalazone, a refugee camp where YWCA has a centre. It is only a few minutes drive away, if we could drive directly. But we couldn’t. There is an Israeli settlement (yes, this is in the middle of the West Bank) in between, so we had to drive almost half an hour to get there. In Jalazone there is a kindergarten, with beautiful children. They also have a programme for older children, aiming at giving the children an identity as Palestinians, a feeling of human value and self esteem.
When we continued, we saw several settlements. They are bound together with roads which the Palestinians are not allowed to drive on. We soon found out that hill means settlement. When it is dark, the settlements and the areas around are lightened, and they look like UFOs or other aliens. They are also quite green compared to other places, because they use so much water. (Water will probably also be a subject for a letter.)
Next stop was Jericho, and the centre YWCA has in the refugee camp Aqbet Jaber, again with many sweet children. We passed the checkpoint easily there too. In Jericho there is also a branch, like in Ramallah, where one of the programmes is food production. The lunch was a selection of the day’s production.
Then it was time to go back to Jerusalem, where we were supposed to have a couple of lectures. Abla, the general secretary, told about the work of the YWCA, a little about the background of what we had seen earlier the same day. The board members of the YWCA were also present. We were then to have a lecturer from PENGON to give a speech about the wall, but he was stuck at Qalandia, the checkpoint was closed, and he could not go anywhere. It was though not difficult to make the board members speak. There were several spontaneous stories about travel restrictions, forced moving and oppression. It is unbelievable how they can keep the good mood. As our friends from Norad said; the Palestinians are the most peaceful people we have met! It is not quite the impression from Norwegian or other media. But when you have seen what they have to go through, the popular uprising (the Intifada) is quite humble. A peaceloving people deserves a just peace. It might seem hopeless, with all what we saw a morning on the West Bank. But YWCA gives me hope. The symbol of hope I found in Jalazone, on a drawing made by the children in the identity programme. The drawing showed the wall, barbed wire and tanks, but in a corner a bird came flying, a peace dove with the message of a different time.
Today’s web-tip is the website of YWCA: www.ywca-palestine.org
Optimistic greetings from Hanne.
posted by Hanne at 6:21 AM
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