| Picking in Nablus |
[Nov. 7th, 2006|10:34 am] |
After spending one morning picking in Haris because Nablus was too wet five of us set off for the village of Iraq Burin, West of Nablus. After meeting with our co ordinator, drinking lots of tea and a short tour of this beautiful vilage nestled in the Nablus mountains (not great for vertigo sufferers) we set off for a neighbouring village, Sarra who had been having problems with both army and the local settlers.
The nearest settlement, Quedemin, is large and expanding all the time, the surrounding outposts are, as usual, populated by fairly violent settlers who have been reguarly chasing farmers off their land. This year the Israeli high court passed a verdict stating that farmers had the right to utilised their land witout fear of initmidation from solidiers or settlers and that the soldiers had to provide security for those under attack from settlers, and that removing Palestinian farmers from the land did not constitute providing security. It also stated that farmers did not need permits to pick on their land unless it was a closed military zone, which had to be decided in advance, with clear reasons and in writing.
Although few of us have much faith that the army would actually comply with the law, we went armed with paper copies of the law in Hebrew, English and Arabic to give to farmers, soldiers and others who may not have that information. The general reaction of farmers was that they didn't feel they could use it, but it might help us to negotiate. After all it is difficult to discuss poiunts of law with people who are pointing guns at you, bashing you round the head or emptying your olive bags out.
We were picking with the family of Abu A, more specifically with his son, daughters, daughter in laws and grandchildren in a small grove that lay just down the hill from a watchtower and near a military road - which used to be the main Palestinian road to Nablus until the roads onto it were blocked and palestinians told not to use it. We spent the night before at their house as we had to be up and ready to go by six. We spent a lovely evening with family, although Cathi had to work hard translating as the gfamily didn't speak English. After dinner I really needed a cigarette so in the end asked quietly if there was somewhere I could go to smoke. Which led to lots of assurances that I could smoke anywhere and in the end the mother joined me for a cigarette - which seemed to suprised Abu Achmed when he got home!.
After playing with the kids we retired for an early night and just as we were off to bed Cathi and myself got dragged off by two of the duaghters into their bedroom. One asked if I had a spare cigarette, but I explained I had run out. At wich point she retrived a packet from her bra and handed them round, explaining that as a woman living at home she couldn't smoke, but her and her sister smoked out the window of their bedroom. This led to an hour more of smoking and gossiping about their love lives. Its definately an advantage to be a woman here - otherwise we would never get to do this!!
The road closure means that getting to the land requires a somewhat hairy taxi drive up the side of the mountain through the olive groves. Still we got there in one peice and had a lovely day picking. Although the family were jumpy everytime a jeep went past we had no problems in the end and got all the trees picked by 3.30.
Then it was back to the house for dinner. Half way through an old woman arrived to ask us for her help. We had to wait for our coordinator to arrive so he could translate what shewanted but we did get then settlers had been on her land and she wanted us to help her. Later we found out that the settlers from one of the new outposts had come and burt down her trees, which normally would provide her with 30 gallons of oil. She wanted to go to the land to clear ut the damaged trees and plant some more but was too scared. Last time she had been the settlers had shot at her. We agreed to try to help her, but given the obvious mental instabiliy of these crazty settlers we couldn't just leave the next day as 5 woman from England are unlikely to deter them. Although against our principles in general we asked if she would like to have police escort and she said she would. So we phoned the Rabbis for Human Rigts, and Israeli organisation which does deal with the Israeli security forces to see if they could arrange a day where we could be acompanied by the police. As the police are basically concerend only with te security of Israelis it still requires accompaniement to ensure they actually turn up and deal with the problems if they arise so we hope that we can arrange for this to happen next week and that we can accompany her and her family and help salvage what we can from this mess.
By the time we left to Iraq Burin for the next days picking we were pretty exhausted already, but spent a really nice evening gossiping with our coordinators daughters, again about there love lives and secretly smoking! |
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