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.

Day 3 and 4: Building at last and horizontal rain

Day 3. Building at last!

Hoorah, the first building day has finally arrived! We are all very excited, I can’t wait to get going. It’s an early start with breakfast at 7am which means we get up at 6.15. It is extremely windy outside and quite cold so I decide to take plenty of layers and my pink mac. At the site it is blowing a gale because it is on a hill, much worse than in Beit Sahour. We don our various layers and are issued with building gloves. The concrete that was poured into in the pillars has set and the planks used for the moulds have been taken down. These need to be made ready for the roof, so some of us take out the nails and stack the planks ready for the builders. I learn that there is a knack to taking out the nails: if you use the hammer as a lever it is very easy! While doing this I have this sense of complete happiness, it is totally out of proportion to the task but very real. I suppose I have been waiting a long time to get started, and now we are busy it just feels SO GOOD! I feel like singing but stop myself just in time…..I don’t quite know what the village would make of that! I think they are still a bit bemused by this large group of strangers who have descended on them and want to work. 

After what seems like 10 minutes but is probably about an hour, big pots arrive with tea and coffee. It’s very sugary, but very welcome. In the coming days they get the message that some of us prefer ‘no sugar’ and there is usually a pot of each. The coffee and tea breaks will become a regular thing over the next week with various family members or village neighbours bringing us the drinks. It is a great opportunity to chat with everyone, including Wa’fat, her sister-in-law or others from the family or village. ‘Chat’ in this case is a fluid word, it can mean anything from smiles and gestures to basic English or expert translation via Marwan. In the meantime the first stacks of bricks have arrived (these are big concrete breeze blocks). They need to be taken down from the level of the road to the house. This is accomplished by forming a chain. I think we shift about 800 or 1000  bricks that day. We stop for lunch but it is far too windy outside, so Wa’fat’s sister-in-law kindly receives 25 VERY DUSTY labourers in her nice parlour in the house next door! Marwan’s wife has cooked the lunch. It is delicious (chicken, rice and vegetables, this seems to be standard fare but very welcome!). In the afternoon there are plenty of jokes and songs. We go home about 4pm and are grey with dust which the wind has blown into our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair……..but it was GREAT! The hot shower in the hostel feels wonderful!

We enjoy sharing our experiences over the evening meal and have a chance to talk further in the evening. Same again tomorrow!

Day 4. Horizontal rain

Waking up we see rain splattering against the window and the tree outside is swaying in the wind. We make sure we have rain proofs before setting off for Battir. When we get there we have to brace ourselves against the wind and it is freezing! But the builders are already busy so we get briefed on the next task. Brian from our group acts as foreman, liaising with the builder to find out what needs doing and where extra pairs of hands are useful. This works remarkably well, and the builders are very good at letting us have a go at things.  They have been putting on a ‘roof’ made from the planks we prepared yesterday, which will serve as the mould for the concrete. Today we work in pairs to put in lots of struts to support the weight of the roof, which will consist of breeze blocks, steel bars and concrete. While we are busy, the weather gets worse and the clouds come down on the hill. The valley has completely disappeared and we can only see as far as the road, maybe 10-20 meters. It starts to rain again and the wind drives the rain underneath the shelter of the wooden roof, I swear it is horizontal. We are provided with some very welcome hot tea and coffee, but after another half hour or so it is decided that it is not possible to achieve anything further today. I am very disappointed and would have gone on regardless of the cold and rain, but I can see it’s not wise to continue.

We return briefly to the HLT, which during the two weeks becomes our ‘base camp’. Nive, our leader, is very good at changing plans on the spot and the people from the HLT are great too, quickly helping to find a coach and driver or a guide when we need one. After another tasty chicken and rice lunch we set off with Marwan to see some demolished houses and the impact of the separation wall on local communities. The position of the wall in the village of Al Wallajah is truly heart breaking, with some completely crazy situations where a Palestinian owner who has legal papers for his land refuses to sell out, so the wall is built around property and an underpass created just so Israeli settlers will never need to look at a Palestinian. Each day we pass the big red signs that tell Israelis not to enter Palestinian territory because they are in danger of their lives! These messages continue to foster fear and mistrust.  

Although seeing these difficult situations and hearing the stories is hard, we also do some very positive things. We visit the previous house re-built by Amos and the HLT in Al Wallajah. Ten people from our group were part of that project and are of course particularly delighted to see the owner and his family again. Although this house received a demolition order two weeks after completion, it is still standing. The demolitions are fairly random and it seems the authorities want to keep people in uncertainty and fear. Of the seven homes re-built through the HLT, two have been demolished again. Afterwards we go to the Cremisan monastery just down the road. The separation wall is planned to cut their land in half. There is a legal case ongoing to challenge the positioning of the wall, but as I write this I have heard this has been rejected. The nuns and the school will be on the Palestinian side, the monks have chosen to be on the Israeli side. Every week there is an outdoor ‘protest mass’ against this situation taken by one of the monks, and attended by various people from Bethlehem and the village. We all go and join in the mass, which is a very moving and slightly surreal experience. 

Today even more than the first day we have seen for ourselves the injustice and daily reality of the occupation for Palestinian people.  It is good to have friends to talk to over dinner and later at the pub down the road!

The weather forecast for tomorrow is hot and sunny….hooray!

Links that may interest you after reading this:

http://www.change.org/petitions/save-the-valley-in-cremisan-support-bridges-not-walls

http://www.holylandtrust.org/index.php/home-rebuilding

Here is a video from the first two days

Handing planks to the builders

 

Starting the roof

 

 

A well-deserved rest with Marwan and Diane

Creating a chain to pass the bricks

 

Our group at the home Amos built in 2011

 

A demilished home

 

 The protest communion at Cremisan

 

A settler's road that completely cuts across Palestinian territory. On the left you can see the home of a Palestinian who refuses to sell his land because he has good wonership papers. In retalisation the authorities destroyed his garden and the children's playground he created

The first two days

Day 0

It’s almost time to leave and most things are sorted out. There was a last flurry of activity and the difficult choice of what to take with me, complicated by the fact that I have never packed a suitcase with the aim of building a house before! In the end I settled for ‘old and serviceable’ with additional layers in case it would be cold or wet. (This proved to be a sensible precaution…) The last farewells from friends and family this morning were lovely and moving ‒ with many people praying for me, the team and the project and promising to keep doing this every day……I am driving to Reading to stay  overnight with Lindsey, another member of the team, as it is a very early flight tomorrow.

Day 1

Finally we are here in Bethlehem!  It was great to see all the members of the group again (we haven't seen each other since the briefing day), but of course we had all forgotten each others names. There are 25 of us, so it is going to take a while to get to know everyone. No trouble at the airport, we hope we are below the radar of the authorities. Re-building a home is an illegal activity under Israeli law, but  we would argue it is more than legal under humanitarian or moral law.
We are staying in the Holy Savior seminary in Beit Sahour, a simple but clean and comfortable guesthouse run by the Melkite Church. Tomorrow will be an orientation day where we will visit the Holy Land Trust (HLT, our partner running the project), Battir village and the site of the house. We will also meet the family.

Day 2

We started the day with a lovely breakfast of tomatoes, little cucumbers, pitta bread and yoghurt. It makes a change from my usual fruit bowl! There is a minibus to take us around, supplemented by Marwan’s car. Marwan is the project worker from the HLT. He was our guide for one day on the St. Paul's alternative pilgrimage to Palestine in October 2012. He is an amazing person, full of stories and jokes and with the biggest heart you have ever come across. People are what he cares about and he will always help a friend in need. Everyone in Bethlehem and Beit Sahour knows Marwan! We were shown a short but very moving video with interviews with the home owners Abed and Wa’fat, describing their home demolition and the effect it has had on them and their family (see link below). At least we know why we are here!

We drove to Battir village and had a look around. It is absolutely beautiful with ancient terraces and Roman springs and pools. They are trying to achieve UNESCO protected status, and much work has been done to create paths and places of interest for visitors. We visited one of the springs; I had hurt my thumb earlier and held it in the cold water as it was throbbing. Within minutes somebody from the village appeared with a bandage and antiseptic spray, and my thumb was bandaged with several of the village children looking on. How lovely and kind these people are!
We visited the site of the demolished house, which is high up on a hill looking out over the valley to a large settlement. If the separation wall gets built by the Israelis as intended, it will go across the valley and completely encircle and cut off the village, except for one point of access. We were welcomed formally by the mayor and thanked for our help and our solidarity with the Palestinian people. Wa’fat spoke about her feelings, how she did not believe at first this project would happen and that she had only come back to the site of the house one week ago. It was too difficult for her before that time to face the rubble. Much of it is still there, you can find the odd plastic toy between the stones, but a space has been cleared in the middle and moulds created for the pillars to support the house. We all waited for the ‘elephant’ (see photo below) to come and fill the moulds with cement, which marked the real start of the building and was very exciting and interesting to watch.
We spent some time in the afternoon looking around Bethlehem, visiting Aida refugee camp and the wall. Stark reminders of why we are here…..

It’s been a very good beginning to the project but I can’t wait to get started tomorrow. I have come to build and am very impatient! I hope there is going to be enough work for all 25 of us…

Video showing the interview with Wa’fat and Abed:

Photos:

At the Holy Land Trust:

The site of the house with the pillars in place:

The ‘elephant’ filling the pillar moulds with concrete:

Wa’fat with two of her sons, speaking about the demolition. On the left Marwan, the project worker, on the right some of the village elders.

Part of the separation wall, with a burnt watchtower as a protest.

Aida refugee camp: