CPTnet
12 May 2007
AT-TUWANI BLOG: "We just can't ever be in enough places."

[NOTE: The following blog entries by CPTer Heidi Schramm have been edited
for length. To see her original entries and accompanying photos go to
http://heidischramm.livejournal.com]

24th March 2007

Marco and I spent last night in Tuba. It was a quiet evening. Very quiet
since the family we stayed with doesn't speak "foreigner Arabic" very
well. We drank a lot of tea and smiled at each other. Marco was allowed
to sleep on a mat by himself, but I was put to bed (tucked in and
everything) with the kids. The girl next to me rolls and kicks in her
sleep, and it was a long night.

We spent the morning with shepherds. Settler security arrived and accused
me and Marco of bringing the shepherds onto land that we all know belongs
to the settlers. (Right. Because that's my job. ) The Palestinians
decided to leave.

We met the kids after school patrol and went home with a few of them to
Magayer al-Abeed to visit S's new baby. It was the best visit I've ever
been on. This entire family is fluent in foreigner Arabic. We had great
conversations about things I can rarely talk about with families here. (I
was starting to feel pretty good about my Arabic skills when Marco told me
that even he understood what they were saying --and he really doesn't speak
Arabic at all.) After we had been there awhile, one of their older
daughters came home from school. She went to school in Tuwani last year
and I haven't seen her since May. She came in, shook our hands and started
to walk across the room to see her baby sister. But then she stopped,
turned back and said, "Heidi?!" She jumped on me and knocked me over, but
it was a happy reunion. She was always one of my favorites because she was
tough and bossy and all of the boys were afraid of her. She has really
matured in the last year. She is still loud, but doesn't shout, and
doesn't beat her siblings (at least not too much.)

Unfortunately, while Marco and I were enjoying ourselves in Magayer
al-Abeed, settlers were making threats in Tuba. We just can't ever be in
enough places. We should have enough people to send two to Tuba again next
week.

26th March 2007

There was a settler car accident today near Hebron. A young settler couple
from Suseya was killed. The funeral was tonight, in Suseya. The IDF
decided that the increased flow of settler traffic along Rte 317 warranted
a complete blockade of Palestinian travel. I sat at a checkpoint tonight
with a family who waited for more than an hour just to cross the street in
order to return home. The soldiers were over two hours late in picking the
children up for school patrol this afternoon because they were maintaining
checkpoints. A man from the Palestinian village of Susiya had to spend the
night in At-Tuwani because returning to his village would require that he
pass by the settlement, which he was forbidden to do. All of this because
of the fear that a Palestinian may harm settlers gathered together to mourn.

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