SATURDAY, 22 JULY 2006

Angela, from Deir Ballut, Occupied West Bank

Checkpoints and Taxi Driving

For the past week I've been staying in a small village called Deir Ballut with a family of eight daughters and two sons. I've slept on the floor in the same room with them, ate with them, gone to weddings and high school graduations with them and gone through checkpoints with them.

I watched while their father stayed home several days because they would not allow him to pass through the checkpoint to go to work.

Deir Ballut consists mainly of farmers. It has been reported that the Israeli army has, in the past, brought in snakes and wild pigs and released them into the fields to eat the crops and bother the farmers.

Every Palestinian I've met wants nothing but peace. There is a big checkpoint right outside the village and the injustices that have been committed there are unbelievable. A pregnant woman in labor was denied to pass through because the checkpoint's "hours of operation" are from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.   Another man, with a heart condition, was left to die there. There is nothing these Palestinians can do because a teenager with an AK47 has power over them and can deny them access at his own discretion.

For one week, I worked in a summer camp for girls aged 8-12.   Though the camp has very little money, they try to provide classes in art, geography, dance, and drama. In art class they have very little supplies and so I watched many art projects done by teachers only; the students only got to observe. During the "field trip" the girls were taken to a neighboring village to swim. The pool was a 10 ft x 25 ft hole dug in the ground and cemented up. They had filled the hole with about one and a half feet of water. The place was supposed to be a resort-like area with fountains and a small tent where functions could take place. The tent was made out of an old tarp from a McDonald's billboard sign. Despite the conditions the children were ecstatic. They never get to leave their village, much less go swimming.

Once I saw the smile on these girls' faces, I realized that my vision of this place was wrong. The summer camp is so important for the children because it temporarily allows them to forget that they live in a war zone. The teachers want them to come out of their houses so they don't watch television, which only shows war on every channel (and they don't try to hide things as American media do). This is no life for these children.

Even going to college is incredibly difficult. One of the girls in my home-stay missed three exams last semester because she was not allowed to go through the checkpoint.

One day I decided to travel with two women to Nablus to buy gifts for the girls who had recently graduated from high school – what should have been a simple shopping trip.   However, on the way there, we had to go through three checkpoints. On the way back, we also ran into up a “flying checkpoint.”   (This means the military stops their truck and closes off a section of the road for no apparent reason.)   This is collective punishment, and a crime.   Sometimes they allow people to go through after their IDs have been checked, but this checkpoint was not letting anyone through.   I was there for three and a half hours.   When the Israeli military finally opened the passage, only women and children were allowed through.   The army would not tell anyone why or when this would be over with.   Some people could see their village just on the other side of the checkpoint. Women with small children and babies were forced to sit in 95-degree weather with no way to get water. In the taxi with me an elderly woman, around 65 or 70 years old, was returning from a hospital and not feeling well. When I tried to explain this to one soldier he simply replied, “Life is diverse.”   As the number of people not allowed to pass grew larger and larger, the army brought in more trucks, one of which delivered popsicles to the soldiers. With all this, a trip that previously had taken me one and a half hours now took me five and a half hours. And this is a “normal” daily experience for the Palestinians.   Two generations have grown up in this 38-year-long military occupation of the West Bank.   I cry about the privilege of being able to walk away from all of this.

On an adventurous note:   One morning I was traveling with two of the girls I was staying with and their cousin (a boy) to Ramallah, one of the largest cities in the West Bank.   We got into a taxi around 6 a.m. and reached the checkpoint about half an hour later.   The soldiers, who arrived late, were two young boys, neither of them over 18 years old.   Each care was stopped by one of the soldiers.   Palestinian men were ordered to get out of the cars and hand over their IDs. After staring at each ID for a few minutes, the soldier would then make a motion of either approval or rejection as to whether each man could pass through the checkpoint. These men just wanted to go to work so that they could feed their families.   Sometimes the soldier would refuse passage to an entire carload of people.   There was no security rationale for this process.   These are not dangerous people.   They are ordinary Palestinian workers trying to move within the West Bank to get to work!   The soldiers were not protecting anyone.   This was only to make Palestinian lives harder for no reason.

At 8:30, when our taxi finally made it to the gate, a soldier there first refused passage to one man in the taxi and then refused passage to our driver.   The driver backed the taxi away from the checkpoint.   How can they say everyone else in the taxi can go but not the driver?!!?   A few minutes earlier one of the girls had asked me if we (Americans) had any other IDs besides our passports, so I showed her my driver's license.   After we sat for a few minutes wondering how to get through, the girl asked me if I could drive to Ramallah.   “Sure,” I said.   The driver agreed.   So I got out of the taxi and walked up to the soldier with my driver's license to ask if I could drive.   The soldier said yes, but then he made me stop the taxi to inspect my luggage in the back.   He made me pull all of my clothes out of both of my bags, looking for any reason not to let us go through. Luckily, the soldier gave up and said that I could drive through.   Once I pulled away, I began to wonder what I would do in Ramallah in his taxi... But as soon as I reached a gas station in the closest village, the driver called and said that he had snuck around the checkpoint, through the olive trees, and that I could drive back and pick him up.

I feel like I made history being the first woman taxi driver in Palestine.