Day 8: More walls

 Day 8: more walls!

This will be the last day of building. We continue much as the day before, building walls. The difference is that it is FREEZING cold with a lot of wind. Maryam appears as usual, and Marwan decides we cannot ask her to sit in this cold weather, so she comes down to the ‘house’ (it’s beginning to look like one!), and we all find pieces of scrap wood to make a fire.  It’s a lovely idea, the makeshift fireplace acts as a focus for talks and tea breaks all day. Marwan suddenly tells us a lot about his times in prison. His stories are very hard-hitting, but he tells them as part of any conversation, suddenly he will just switch to a prison story. The treatment from the Israeli soldiers at times was very harsh indeed and he was tortured, but Marwan did not give in. He cannot have been an easy prisoner to handle!

I graduate to ‘bricklayers assistant’. I work with Mohammed and have lots of fun, handing him bricks and new buckets of cement and so on. It’s a great job. But we are both very cold….. You can see what it was like in the video and pictures below.

The next two days we will not be at Battir, as there is work to be done here where the 23 extra pairs of hands will not be of much help. So instead we will go to the Tent of Nations (to be told in the next post).

In the evening we have a lovely dinner in Bethlehem with all our friends from the Holy Land Trust. They have been great in supporting us, not just Marwan who has been the lynchpin of the whole project, but also many of the others, helping out whenever we needed a bus, lunch, a place to rest etc. 

Lia as a bricklayers assistant:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UHJv0b6pEI

 Marwan making a fire

Maryam by the fire

 The house is progressing....

 Working on the walls with Mohammed

Day 7: Building the walls

Day 7. Building the walls (Monday)

It’s turning colder again and windy but at least it’s dry. The ‘Khamsin’ has started, a dry and dusty wind that traditionally lasts 50 days. When we arrive at the build the valley is shrouded in dust. More bricks need transporting from the level of the road down to the house. We are getting very good and efficient at forming chains. We also transport buckets of water and sand, to make cement for the walls. I have a go at mixing cement (with a spade, not in one of those nice turning machines unfortunately), it is very hard work but I enjoy it a lot. 

I spend some time with the grandmother of the family, Maryam. She has been to visit the build every single day without fail. She appears down the road at about 9am, walking very slowly with her walking stick. Someone helps her down the slope and finds a chair, out of the sun or wind if possible. It’s a school day, so the older children are at school, but the little ones are around and Wendy and I spend some time playing with them at Maryam’s feet. We sing nursery rhymes and I use some of the empty water bottles to collect stones, which we put inside to make rattles. They love this activity and keep taking the stones in and out, then rattling some more. Maryam and I smile a lot. I ask her about her dress, which is black with beautiful embroidery down the front and sides. The dress was made by Maryam for her wedding. It took four weeks, which I thought was quick considering the amount of embroidery, but she says it was very slow and one of her daughters did one in a week! She has had it all her life and will wear it till she dies. Then she reaches inside her pocket and gives me a string of prayer beads. I need Marwan to translate again to make sure they are a gift, which they are. It is a really special thing to receive and I will treasure these beads always. They are now next to my bed, together with a small olive wood cross that we were given recently at our church. Both are used as aids to prayer, but in different faiths…

I find the crossing of religions in this project very interesting, and it is changing me inside. Mostly the people we mix with are Muslims, but I am learning a lot from them. They see the hand of God in everything and frequently use words like ‘Insha’Allah (God willing) and Alhamdulillah (thank/praise God). These words seem so close to what we use as Christians, and they are indeed also used by Arab speaking Christians. I think we all worship the same God, in a different way of course and I do not agree with everything Islam teaches by any means, but there is a bond here that is very real. 

In the afternoon we go for a guided walk around the fields of Battir. Battir is a very ancient village with beautiful agricultural terraces watered by a unique Roman era irrigation system. There are also ancient graves and many caves. The village has been nominated for UNESCO World Heritage status, but the separation wall and nearby settlements threaten the terraces and the ancient way of agriculture. The walk is one of the nicest I have ever done. We scramble through fields of scented plants such as thyme, oregano and za’tar. Every step brings up their scent. We see a very old cave, a roman grave and many terraces and olive groves. Our guides are two of the Nema sons and two of the builders, who are all very gallant and helpful if one of us needs a hand coming down a steep slope. It’s a wonderful way to get closer to them and we form a bond with our guides that is still kept going through Facebook links. (All the young Palestinian people seem to be on Facebook and have smartphones).

In the evening we visit Marwan’s family. We have a wonderful time seeing his menagerie (goats and lots of birds), and meeting his wife and children. They are very welcoming and we get served with lots of fruit and drinks, after which Marwan has a gift for everyone: prayer beads or key rings. They are such generous and kind people, and so unlike the stereotype ‘Palestinian terrorist’ portrayed in the media. You never get told about this side of Palestine, which is of course the common, ordinary side of this country full of kind, ordinary families. Nevertheless Marwan has been in prison countless times and has been tortured frequently, although he has not been part of any violence and since getting to know the Holy Land Trust is a fervent advocate of non-violent resistance. All these people want is to have their own state, to be able to decide their own affairs and be able to get about without restrictions. Marwan’s children cannot travel outside Palestine, and even travelling outside Bethlehem is problematic. They have never seen the sea, even though it is so close, and their education will be restricted to what is available in Bethlehem.

Everything we do, however nice and positive , has this darker underside of restrictions, oppression and lack of liberty. It is really hard for all of us in the group to come to terms with this; and we are only ‘outsiders’, while they live with this constantly. Having said that, one of the most amazing things about this trip is that by our actions and interactions with this community we are becoming part of them, at least a little. For the first time I feel I am not just looking on from the outside, but experiencing in some small way what they are going through. 

Some more pictures and videos:

Here we are all given certificates by the mayor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCyOYu8uunc 

Maryam giving me the prayer beads, and below making rattles from plastic bottles with the children

 

 The Nema family with Wa'fat, their four sons, the grandmother Maryam and the brother and sister-in-law

 We are all given a certificate saying 'With thanks from the Palestinian people'

 An example of the beautiful ancient terraces surrounding Battir

 A helping hand from Anas, one of the builders

 A well-deserved rest by an ancient grave

 Lia, Alison and Anas

 

Days 5 and 6: A perfect building day and a roof party

Day 5. Perfect building day. (Saturday)

We wake up to see the sun streaming in through the windows. A great start. I can’t wait to get going again after yesterday. When we get there the builders are already at work. We start with shifting more bricks, and stop for the usual tea and coffee breaks. After a while I get up on the roof and help with the steel bars that need tying together (see photo). It’s interesting to learn how a building is put together here in Palestine, I am learning a lot! It’s warm and sunny on the roof and there are lots of steel bars that need doing, very satisfying. In the afternoon the bricks for the roof arrive and we put them all in the spaces between the bars. There are jokes and laughter, lots of cake and fruit and plenty of time for talking and getting to know the family and builders a bit better. The Nema family turn up in droves, uncles and aunties and grandfather and lots of children. I spend some time in the afternoon chatting to the children, together with Wendy (who is one of the vicars in our team). Wendy has young children so she is still very much in the swing of it all, with songs and nursery rhymes. The children teach us a bit of Arabic (a fairly hopeless task….although Wendy is doing better than I am) and we teach them some English. I go back to the hostel in Marwan’s car, an interesting experience as we keep stopping along the way, paying a bill, dropping off some papers and so on. We get offered coffee here and there, and arrive about an hour later than the bus! In the evening we go to a nearby café for a drink. We are really getting to know each other better, which is very good. It has been a perfect day, and I feel very privileged to be part of this experience.


Day 6. The roof party.

Today is an important day as the concrete for the roof will arrive at 11.30am. It means we have to have everything ready! We all get going on the roof, tying more bars together. It seems there are ‘minor’ thin bars that go in between the heavier ones we did yesterday. We all work hard and manage to get it all done in plenty of time. During one of the breaks for tea we spend time writing prayers, wishes or blessings on pieces of paper. Marwan threads these into a rubber tube which we will bury inside the concrete on the roof. Alison (another of our vicars) together with Brian goes up on the roof to insert the tube, and say a few prayers. It’s a very moving moment. We don’t really know what will happen to this house, but it is becoming a very important symbol of hope, and also of unity between us and the family and village.
It’s another nice day, sunny and dry. Someone has rigged up a shelter in a corner of the site, and this is now needed to provide shade. I want to sit in the sun of course, veteran sun lover that I am. Two Palestinian flags arrive and Wa’fat, Marwan and one or two from our group put these on the corners of the house.
Then the ‘elephant’ turns up again and the builders get going to direct the concrete to the right places. It’s fascinating to see how this happens. The builders just wade through the concrete in wellies and carefully distribute it via the big ‘trunk’ of the elephant.
After the concrete has been poured and the builders finish off the roof, it is party time!  The village elders arrive and there are speeches, journalists, interviews and films. The whole village seems to have turned up. The women sing a traditional song and then we join in with ‘We shall overcome’. One of the verses is ‘Palestine shall be free’. We all get presented with beautiful certificates which say ‘Thank you from the Palestinian people’. I never expected anything quite like this; it is completely amazing and a bit overwhelming. They seem to be so grateful for what we are doing, it is clear it is not just about the house but also about the solidarity we are displaying. They feel forgotten and oppressed, and it is so important that people ‘outside’ (i.e. on the other side of this horrible wall….) realise what is happening and stand shoulder to shoulder with them. After more lovely food (chicken and rice….) a large cake turns up which says ‘Welcome home’. It’s enough to make anyone cry, but instead we sing more songs and keep smiling, because this is what hope looks like……
We come home to another meal (I am eating far too much…) and it is good we are able to share some of our experiences. It is amazing to have been part of this day, completely outside anything I have ever experienced before and immensely satisfying, a real privilege. But it is also hard, because everything is at the same time so good and so very sad. This juxtaposition of hope and despair, a roof that has been completed but the reality of a house that may be pulled down again by an occupying power, is very difficult to come to terms with. These people are so brave and inspiring with incredible staying power and resilience. But when you look at the children, and realise they can’t even have a day at the seaside, and are always going to be restricted in what they can achieve inside Palestine, it is heart breaking.

Here are a few videos of days 5 and 6:

This shows some of the early work on the roof and Wa’fat helping to move the bricks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS63UAdZNuA

This is the day the roof was completed and we get presented with the certificates

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yygsqyAgtto

Abed and John passing bricks along the chain

The finished roof, before the concrete is added. It’s a satisfying sight!

This is what the ties look like. I did a lot of those!

Marwan is adding prayers to the tube, before it will be embedded in the roof

Here I am trying a traditional water pipe (nargile). It is apple flavour….very interesting!

Alison is saying more prayers when we embed the tube in the roof

 Lia and Marwan watching the proceedings

Wa’fat cuts the cake, which says ‘Welcome to our home’

 
The elephant is adding the concrete to the roof. At the same time Wa’fat and Marwan are raising a Palestinian flag.