Along the Mediterranean Coast: To learn photography

Excerpts from my journal during a recent 6 week journey to Gaza—now back home in the United States.

PHOTOS

Have you ever heard of the hour of the wolf? … It’s the time between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. You can’t sleep, and all you can see is the troubles and the problems and the ways that your life should’ve gone but didn’t. All you can hear is the sound of your own heart.

(Commander Susan Ivanova in an episode of the science fiction television show Babylon 5 entitled “The Hour of the Wolf” and from Swedish and Finnish folk religion, also the title of a horror film by Ingmar Bergman where I first learned the term and phenomenon.)

(Click here for an enlargement)

November 23, 2010, Tuesday, Gaza city, my apartment in Rimal

I’m nervous this morning, for a variety of reasons. 1. I teach the first session of the photographic workshop tomorrow [November 24, 2010]. Altho I feel very prepared and confident enough I always feel nervous beginning a workshop series. I focus more on past failures than successes, on my problems at Birzeit University and with the Haifa Israeli Arab youth when I taught at both sites, rather than the long string of successes at the Quaker Palestine Youth Program (QPYP), Cambridge Center for Adult Education and Harvard University. 2. My computer problems. 3. My flashlight’s bulb seems to have burned out, not a big deal but precipitating a return of my Hour of the Wolf syndrome, keeping me awake with flooding thoughts, visions, worries. 4. Where in Gaza can I find an ATM for cash? 5. The money transfer question. All of these swamped me last night as I struggled to return to blissful sleep—and eventually did.

I am befuddled by the weekly schedule here. Week begins on Sunday, Friday is a holiday. I have to shift my thinking from Monday begins the week, Saturday and Sunday are holidays.

A dream despite or inspired by the problems of the night: true to my habit (and I’m thankful for this one) I was preparing to teach a photo workshop, not in Gaza but at home. Working around my wife, a stand-in for my former wife, I gathered materials including an old digital camera that I’d dismantled, blank film, cords, and other paraphernalia that if I were actually home and about to teach I’d collect. A bulb had burned out. My wife provided me one. I inserted it and I could see better what I was collecting. Last night I devoted myself mainly to preparing for the workshop tomorrow and I’m certain the dream was an offshoot of that. Unlike at home, I don’t have the materials I dreamt about gathering.

The second dream was about gathering a woman to me—another sort of gathering—inviting her into my intimate circle. She was young, desirable, available. I’d arranged for her to sit with others in a sort of pit. The pit began enclosing her and others. I jumped in. Some in the pit became food. She finally agreed to be with me intimately. I felt mutual love. Patricia Watson, an old dear Quaker friend and mentor, entered the story somehow; maybe it referred to her without her actual presence. How strange this one was. Unlike any dream I can recall having and definitely unlike any known courtship procedure.

November 24, 2010, Wednesday, Gaza city, my apartment in Rimal

What provoked last night’s episode of the Hour of the Wolf was the following extremely vivid dream: I was meeting my workshop group for the first time. It was set in Gaza, large, around 15, the usual mix of people. For some reason a pole or column separated them into 2 smaller groups, which made seeing them at one time difficult. One of the students rudely and demonstratively played the piano loudly in the back of the room. I asked her to stop. Sullenly, she complied.

I was using my seminar approach, asking questions in the Socratic manner, mostly about photographic design. As an illustration I used  the element of repetition. I didn’t have actual pictures to look at, a major omission. At first I thought this was going very well, not plunging directly into the nuts and bolts of making photos but delving into some of the deeper topics—I love doing this. I felt I was doing it expertly. Gradually I noticed some of the students shaking heads at each other, a condemnatory shake, expressing, this sucks. This guy is a total shit. I do not like being in this workshop. I knew I was on the wrong path, not sure how to find the right one. I awoke with a sudden thud. Oh, oh, I said to myself, don’t take that road today when you teach, anything but that road.

On my morning walk a few minutes ago I realized I should begin the workshop by thanking everyone for the opportunity to work with them, for their choosing to enroll, do the work, and share my passion for photography, to give me a chance to learn from them. Yes, be very thankful and humble. To confess my gratitude, dependence on them, willingness to learn. Then to ask them to introduce themselves, with specific reference to photography. Tell us what you’d like to learn and why. The take away, the payoff. This will be challenging because of language barriers. (I’m hoping for good translation, which I had last year, making a huge difference.) Then maybe look at their photos, if they brought them as I asked Islam to invite them to do. At least look at my prints.

Then maybe a how to see deeply exercise, a guided meditation, and run thru the camera settings (how do this without the AV camera cable?). Concentrate on providing them many opportunities to actually photograph and later review their photos. To state this at the outset: make and comment on photos, the spine of the workshop. That usually works in most settings.

The QPYP staff were surprised to see me show up so early yesterday, ready to teach. Then I realized my mistake—I was one day early, one more night to suffer thru, the Hour of the Wolf will come again. I confided to Amal, the director of the program, how nervous I am. She is my mother in absentia. The moon, recently full, is waning. On the next full moon night I may either be preparing to leave Gaza or preparing to leave Yaffa and Israel, homeward bound.

Ibrahem Shatali and Amal Sabawai, program officer and director, respectively

November 25, 2010, Thursday, Gaza city, my apartment in Rimal

~~Electricity just went kaput as I was beginning this entry. Last night in an adjoining neighborhood near the sea, the power was out. Off at 7:20 pm, we’ll see how long before the generator kicks in.~~

The workshop yesterday, in my preliminary and self-interested perspective, went surprisingly well. 10 of the 12 enrolled attended, about half arrived on time, the others within 10 minutes of start time. They seemed engaged for the most part, those without English struggling to keep up. Rana and Hesham shared translation duties. All but one had cameras and that one used his mobile phone camera which apparently is fairly sophisticated. I lectured about a few basic digital principles like the difference between a photograph, a print, a file, and an image. For a later session we’ll discuss bits, bytes, and pix, color space, calibration, etc, rudimentary concepts that I find fascinating and vital to understand. Will they?

Because I lacked my AV cable allowing me to show camera settings, I lectured on the topic and had them follow with their cameras: auto, P for program, A for aperture priority, etc, leaving for later when and why these different settings are useful. All basic stuff. The students are less advanced than I’d assumed after talking with Amal and Islam. I thought they said these would mostly be practicing photographers who wished to upgrade their skills. Not so—some entry level, a few more advanced.

I’d laid out prints I brought of family and the coast, had them observe, comment on what they noticed, discuss how to improve certain photos, much like what I do at home. (No one else brought photos, even tho I’d requested it.) I also showed the slide show of photos from last year’s photo workshop, Starting Point, commending the photos and hoping to raise a standard. So that—and I tried to lay this out provisionally, not a promise or commitment—that if their photos are good enough we can have an exhibition at the Windows from Gaza gallery.

Maybe the hit of the 3-hour session was actually making photos, first in the room we worked in, and then the roof where I’d been several times with other groups. [A sampling of student photos from the entire workshop is at the end of this blog.] On the roof I challenged them to effectively show a vista and to make use of the high roof position. I’m saving my schema for making a good photo—be aware, observe the light, choose a camera position and shutter release moment, etc—for later. Returning down the stairs, I pointed out the viewpoint someone previously had discovered for making an abstract photo: straight down the stairwell. They all tried it, I photographed them trying it.

~~7:30, power returned a mere 10 minutes later, thanks to a local generator I’m certain. Last year the generator was nearly outside my door, loud and smelly, small also. It remains but is not used. I have no idea where the working generator is, probably on the rooftop. I’ve never heard or seen it. [Later I learned the building's owner has tied into another neighborhood’s power lines so that when that neighborhood has electricity our building is powered.]~~

I introduced myself, very personally—grandpa, divorced, love Gaza, photographing since my dad gave me my first camera at age 7, etc—and they did the same. They are young, perhaps between about 18 and 25, most are college students, a few in business administration, a few in media. Some work for partner agencies. Hesham works with the guy I’ll probably hire as cameraman, Yousef.

So I’m relieved, greatly relieved. From time to time during the session, silently I compared the nightmare vision I’d had the 2 nights before to what was transpiring in front of me: night and day, night and day. I slept very well last night.

At times I’m frightened by the situation here. I read reports from the Gaza NGO Safety Office, GANSO, such as:

At approximately 1550 hrs on 7 October 2010, an IAF [Israeli Air Force]  drone fired a missile targeting a private vehicle carrying Palestinian militants affiliated to Al Nasser Salah Ad Din Brigades on Al Mughraqa Bridge, between Al Nuseirat and Al Zahra, North West of Al Nuseirat. However, the missile failed to hit its intended target, and instead exploded in front of a passing vehicle, injuring 5 civilian passengers, and 1 seriously. Similarly, at 1130 hrs on 3 November 2010, a private vehicle was targeted by the IAF in the vicinity of the de facto security services headquarters in Gaza City, N of Al Azhar University, killing an Army of Islam operative driving the vehicle, with injuries sustained by a passerby. And just last week (17 November) at 1640 hrs, a private vehicle was again targeted by the IAF on Al Wihda Street in Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of 2 Army of Islam operatives.

The central concern with respect to these attacks is that they occurred during daylight hours and, most particularly with respect to the two most recent incidents, in built up areas. In the previous Bi-Weekly Safety Report (17 – 30 October) GANSO highlighted the danger of internal hazards and their unpredictability. Much of the advice imparted on that occasion can also apply in this context, though tempered perhaps by an even greater degree of unpredictability. At this juncture, the most effective mitigation measure that GANSO can suggest is that NGO’s clearly mark their vehicles (particularly from an aerial perspective) when travelling throughout the Gaza Strip, while organisations are also strongly encouraged to keep a First Aid Kit and fire extinguisher within their vehicles at all times (and ensure staff are aware of how to safely and effectively use the equipment).

This bothers me—first aid kit and fire extinguisher, big help, forget it! Reminds me that if I happen to be out walking or with someone driving, at exactly the wrong moment and place, I could be hit, hurt, killed. Damned luck. I’m not sure my muses can do much about this. I’m not sure how cognizant they are about either the Israeli military or the Palestinian militants. The OP’s, Palestinian Operatives, to use the language of GANSO.

From Prof. Abdelwahed, published July 18, 2009:

“Gaza war in child’s memory (True story),”

Raid Fattouh is a Palestinian. He is married to Natasha, a Ukrainian woman. They live in Gaza with their four children: Karma 13, Jabr 10, Diana 6 and Hakeem 1. Two weeks ago, Raid and his Natasha wanted to travel to Ukraine after 13 years stay in Gaza. It was so hard for the parents to convince their children that traveling by airplane is comfortable and safe! Children could not sleep well for long nights before their land trip to Amman. They were scared of the airplane! Their persistent question was on their situation if the airplane bombed somewhere and killed innocent people like what it did in Gaza during the war! The image of the airplane was an image of a machine to kill the people in the streets and at homes! It was enormously difficult for the parents to convince the kids to step up into the airplane at Amman airport. The nightmare remained, and children were really horrified; they cried until they were on board. Their father told me that the most pathetic moments where those when kids were going upstairs the airplane! Once they were in they believed their parents.

—Prof. Abdelwahed, Department of English, Faculty of Arts & Humanities,Al-Azhar University of Gaza, Gaza is phoenix in burning flame

TO BE CONTINUED

STUDENT PHOTOS (click photo for enlargement):

Photos by Samah Ahmad

Photos by Rana Baker

       

Photos by Omar Shala

     

Photos by Meslah Ashram

Photos by Lina Abd Latif

      

Photos by Khaled El Rayyes

     

Photos by Hesham Mhanna

        

Photos by Abd Nassla

LINKS

Quaker Palestine Youth Program in Gaza

My photo workshops in the United States

My teaching philosophy

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Along the Mediterranean Coast: El Mina, The Old Port—2

TODAY: I dedicate this blog entry to the release of colleague, Vittorio Arrigoni, a journalist and human rights defender working in the Gaza Strip, who was kidnapped by Salafists, members of a very small extremist group in Gaza.

Information

UPDATE: He’s been murdered, allegedly by members of a Palestinian Islamic splinter group in Gaza. However, questions remain: who benefits from his death, why was he killed hours before the deadline, and why Vittorio?

Testimonial from Jeff Halper

Vittorio on the right, with Adie Mormech of the International Solidarity Movement, during a meeting with farmers in the eastern buffer zone

Excerpts from my journal during a recent 6 week journey to Gaza—now back home in the United States.

PHOTOS

The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: “There is the surface. Now think—or rather feel, intuit—what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way.”

—Susan Sontag

December 7, 2010, Tuesday, Gaza City, my apartment in Rimal

Yesterday people were very late to the photo workshop, #4 in the 8 part series, despite our new policy [We look only at the photos of those who show up first. Late? Too bad, can’t review your photos.]. 10 AM, start time, no one there. I looked out the window and saw one young man languidly entering the lower entryway, slowly making his way to class. He arrived at about 10:10. He was not one of those with adequate English. This could be a problem. Let’s start, I said, what do you have to show us? Student #2 walked in at about 10:15, another without much English. Luckily student #1 had some good photos from our trip last week to the crafts village, but wished to show us something else, some location, also very good architectural photos. I commented but without translation so there is no knowing how much came or went thru.

~~There were to be 2 more paragraphs continuing this story but MS Word froze, as it’s been doing off and on during this trip. I lost the paragraphs. Are they recoverable thru my personal memory? Let’s give it a whirl. But remember: save more often!~~

By 10:30 all of the 7 of the regulars (out of the initial 12) eventually appeared. Including Ahmed and M, 2 of the more involved and vocal students, along with R. No H today: can’t make it in, sorry, he texted me.

Despite the upsetting beginning—I had begun ruminating, has the workshop collapsed? How are we to make the movie about me teaching if I have no students?—the session turned out very well indeed. R said later, this session was amazing. We discussed beauty along with beauty and horror mixed, depth of focus (only a beginning, more on this next time), backlighting (ditto), showing one’s political and social reality, independent projects, portraiture (the main theme of the morning), exemplary portraits from Dorothea Lange (Migrant Mother with the story of Dorothea’s persistence which resulted in making her fine iconic photo—which none present had ever seen or heard about, a completely different cultural context) and W. Eugene Smith (from his Minimata series, mother and daughter in a tub, resembling the pieta which also was new to my students), and other related matters. Much energy this morning, I felt, even tho all were tardy.

Later from Islam I learned about cases of absentees—Sharek Youth Forum closed by Hamas, schedule conflicts, illness, without anyone admitting the workshop was not to their tastes, or too hard, or too soft, or just not right thing at the right moment. This is the first time I’ve gotten such feedback. And it is because of the Quaker Palestine Youth Program’s IT officer Islam’s devotion to the program. A stellar man.

To the mina, or port, which seemed to excite everyone. Rain had fallen that morning, the first rain of the season. I’d tried photographing and videoing it outside on the my home plaza. Stills failed, motion worked. And I showed both to the students, with the challenge of how can you show rain with stills, and, beyond that, show the first rain of the season? Key questions, I believe, that shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of the photographic medium. These themes, water, rain, challenges, might have helped inspire the field trip. 2 exercises (or 3 if I count the awareness exercise): cardinal direction awareness, in place, one of the 4 directions at a time, scan from low to high, repeat; followed by find a location, make at least 10 different photos from that one spot (I chose the new construction, showing lots of cement and a crane, very unusual for Gaza), and one frame, multiple moments for an emphasis on time (I chose flapping fabric as an illustration, doing this in 2 different locations).

New fishers’ shacks

The sky added to the thrill of the trip, large, roiling, scurrying clouds covered the entire sky. And receded as we worked, always varied, always wondrous. We were well positioned—coastal—to view the entire sky.

We concluded at the breakwater where other students had discovered the huge breaking waves. Here we romped, as if kids, playing, having fun, dodging the water (several were doused). We photographed each other photographing each other and the sea. The port is archetypal for Gazans—its freedom primarily, and the blockage of freedom, knowing the fishing industry, once thriving, is for now dormant, ruined. A complex mixture of joy and sorrow.

Skip Schiel, photo by Mesleh Al Ashram

A personal gain was discovering two men in one of the fisher shacks. I’d noticed a cat eating the remains of a fish dinner. Thinking I was alone—I’d seen no one else in this extensive series of shacks, thought they were all abandoned, perhaps people waiting for the opening of a new set which I also photographed—I spoke gently to the cat. Then I heard soft talking from the other side of the wall. Someone was there. They probably heard me. I looked around, said marhaba, continued on, heard one man say, chai?

Initially I declined, walked on, then thought, hey guy, this is an invite, not only for tea but possibly for photos. So I sat with them a while, drank the tea (la sukkar-no sugar), and was surprised when the host pointed at his friend and my camera, indicating, make a photo of him. Friend demurred, so, miming, I asked the host if he’d allow a photo of himself and off we went. Merrily along with the fishers.

At the end of this session I felt relieved, energized, happy. Truly mubsut-happy. If only they’d show up on time, if only everyone would attend, if only they’d do the assignments, if only, if only. Why worry, revel in the moment instead.

A powerful update from Y about life in Oakland, filled with trauma—and I thought I had a hard life in Gaza!—and the beginning of winter. Plus one dream that I can recall, in a night of solid dreaming:

I was lecturing a group of Gazans, young adults, maybe in a university setting. Our main theme was cross cultural differences, or intercultural understanding. I used the idea of meals as a reference point, breakfast in particular. I joked with them about the words in English and Arabic that describe the same items. The lecture was extremely interactive. It was going well until I noticed a young man, resembling Ibrahem G who in real life I’d met a few days ago while walking to the souk (market), who’s been incessantly phoning me and then because of our language differences discovers I am not very communicative with him, nor warm to meeting him again. He asks me, in the most broken English, where are you, at the katiba (parade grounds)? Where are you!? I tell him I’m home working and busy. I am sure he wants to meet—but to what point? I hate being so distant but it reflects our painful reality. I believe my dream last night reflects my dilemma about Ibrahem, wishing to be close, finding it impossible. Unless of course one of us studied the language of the other.

So an “Ibrahem” type character was in my dream, joking with a male friend, and visibly not paying attention to the lecture and dialog. He was rattling me, distracting me from the event. I just wish you’d go away, is what I thought—and didn’t utter.

Despite his interruption, I carried on. The dream ended as we produced a form of chorus, not using words, but sighs. All together now, sigh.

~~Power off. Kaput. Just off. Computer continues for awhile on battery power, but because my battery is old and feeble I doubt if I have even 2 hours remaining. Plus Internet is gone, since the router is off and there is no neighborhood network I can access. Woe is me. Let’s see how long until power resumes. It is now 7:12 AM. I will open my shutters and let in the faint light of the cloudy morning. Yesterday at the office power was also out. But the generator worked immediately this time and my workshop was not impeded.~~

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKS

As an example of the work done by people such as Vittorio Arrigoni and other International Solidarity Movement workers under the direction of local Palestinian leaders, my blog about a buffer zone demonstration in Gaza

Blog: El Mina—part 1

Photos: El Mina—part 1

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Along the Mediterranean Coast :: El Mina, The Old Port–1

Ban Al Ghussain

Excerpts from my journal during a recent 6 week journey to Gaza—now back home in the United States.

PHOTOS

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven’t experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Robert Bly

December 4, 2010, Saturday, Gaza city, my apartment in Rimal

That day again, when I contemplate my origins in my father (a tradition I learned from Japanese friends, honoring one’s parents and other ancestors), my mother, my grandparents, my uncles and aunts, my earliest friends and teachers—all to whom I owe my life, character, history, destiny, meaning, problems, not entirely but mostly. I begin my 8^th decade, my 70^th year, looking and usually feeling maybe 15 years younger. Feeling my age and beyond only when ill, even slightly ill as I seem to have been a few days ago, perhaps with flu. Now I am sturdy.

What are my worries, what keeps me from deep sleep thru the night (as happened again last night from 4 until I arose at 5:15)?

the photo workshop, students dropping out, not liking it, feeling they’re not learning enough to continue

losing my flash memory device and wondering about possible consequences because of my disclosures concerning my hidden sexual proclivities

mushies, i.e., shits

dying in my sleep

never finding another true love

broken or lost or malfunctioning equipment

doing a lousy job making photos and the movie

for a few of many.

Islam Madhoun & Ban
(betrothed after meeting thru one of my photo workshops in 2009)

What sustains me, helps me sleep despite the occasional short hours, keeps me fresh thru the day, cheerful despite the odds against me?

walking

meditating

photographing

preaching

friendships

prospects for love and understanding gradually more and more about vexing thrilling topic

excitement at being in Gaza

reading

playing with computer-based tools like software and the internet

my illustrious circle of honorable elders

family

hopes for when I return home.

But let’s not forget last night’s dreams, once again profuse:

With others I was either actually on or watching others on a high narrow rope ladder cross a raging river. A man fell in. I could see beneath the water, magically, that he was quickly dropping to the bottom. Another man decided to rescue him. He tore off his shoes, his pants, stating, my clothing would drown me. He dove or dropped in. I again saw beneath the water as he dove deep and grabbed the victim.

Another: talking with a man who understood about the Wounded Knee Massacre and the commemorative ride in 1990 that I participated in. He quizzed me, how did you gain the trust of the riders? referring to my photography of the ride and location. To answer I elaborated about my father, claiming he was an expert printer of flyers, posters, booklets and the like. How this related to the question escaped me but in the dream it seemed relevant. As I explained my close relations with native people, I experienced again being with them—I was actually with them. One American Indian demonstrated shooting a rifle, as if at the Wounded Knee Massacre 100 years ago himself, or at the siege in 1972 or 1973.

These dreams seem unique, unlike previous dreams altho some themes, like Wounded Knee and photography, recur . I suspect one reason I’m dreaming and remembering dreams so well is that I awaken early with my Hour of the Wolf Syndrome [insomnia for about one hour when my thought governor takes a break and numerous streams of thought, memory, strategy, reverie all mix crazily together, a notion based on a Swedish belief in the Hour of the Wolf when magic and tragedy ensue.] This usually damnable periodic sleeplessness might be turning into a gift.

Hesham Mhanna

The outing yesterday to the quay or pier or boat area or port or mina—with Hesham and Rana from the current photo workshop, Ban and Sharif from last year’s workshop, and Islam. We quickly agreed this is the place to go, safer they felt. [I’m uncertain about why they felt this way, perhaps safe from Israeli incursions and shelling, safe from factional violence, and safe from the watching waiting eyes of Hamas.] Islam drove us out to the point where I’d never been before. Someone found a boat and driver for us to wildly ride in. And after about 1.5 hours of photography they were ready to declare, we’re finished. I replied, Oh, I feel we are just beginning. Well, some have Muslim prayers, Sharif claimed.

Language plays a major role in my teaching in Gaza. In a separate workshop that I teach thru the American Friends Service Committee, we are finding adequate translation nearly impossible to do. It requires extra time, a large vocabulary about technology and esthetics, and patience on everyone’s part. One consequence of not having English fluency is not being able or willing to press me for further exercises or lessons. For instance, yesterday at El mina with my group, after one exercise (design with the principle of light on dark, dark on light), Hesham asked me for a more advanced exercise. I offered him the backlight challenge. Choose a subject brightly lit from behind. Use flash to fill in the shadows. Without English he might not have asked me, nor have understood me when I gave it to him. Similarly, Ban asked for instruction in Adobe’s photo software, Lightroom.

I discovered another group of photo students who wanted to have their photos made with me surrounded by the students. They all had single lens reflex cameras; one man was one of my students, either former or current; they seemed to be playing rather than laboring, photographing each other mostly. They delighted in showing me their photos on their camera screens. They asked to join our group and did for a fraction of a second.

I also discovered a family eating along the pier. I snuck a few photos before asking permission. Father said no, waved his finger and smiled. I nodded ok, turned to walk away when he called me back to join them for hummus and fuul, the delicious Middle Eastern fava bean, lemon juice, and garlic dish. No photos but plenty of good food.

Our group agreed to meet again on Wednesday at 1 PM after my workshop to see results. Ban and Sharif will present their work to the workshop group that morning. All this is intended to foster a photographic team that persists after I’ve departed. Good plan, now let’s see if it works. [It seems to not have.]

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKS

My spring 2011 teaching in Cambridge Massachusetts

Photography as a tool for political transformation, a workshop

My Teaching Philosophy

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Soon Gaza

Well, now the good news, provisionally:

Israel has granted me a permit to enter Gaza—for 6 months. And the international organization I will volunteer at and who applied for the permit, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is now registered. Furthermore, the Israeli District Coordinating Office (DCO) tells us they’d granted the permit 2 weeks ago.

What happened? We may never know.

I speculate: the bureaucracy is impossibly complicated, the gargantuan bureaucracy of running an occupation. Israel risks an implosion much like what happened to South African apartheid, partially because the system became unsustainable, chaotic, absurd, and repugnant. I’ve encountered Israeli procedures before that became damaging to Israel. Perhaps I’d been permitted all along and the AFSC registered for the entire time but no one knew exactly.

Or: someone exerted pressure on the Israelis to at least in this case ease the entry restrictions. I’ve asked people to contact their Congressional legislators and perhaps a word zinged from someone in the Congress to someone in the Israeli administration and Walla, results. But doubtful. Yet I don’t wish to rule out kindly pressure.

Or: it’s part of a general relaxation of restrictions as is happening in the West Bank. I’ve read that Gaza border crossings, mostly those thru which commercial materials pass, are now open more regularly. A new policy? And if so, why now? Has international pressure been a factor?

Or: prayer. I pray, people pray with and for me and for my loved ones. Can consequences be proved? Obviously not. Are they possible? I believe so.

Or: other reasons unfathomable to me at the moment.

However, I am not yet in Gaza. I’ve heard stories of permitted people held at the main personnel crossing, Erez, which I’ll use in a few days, for up to 9 hours before final admission—and some are denied entry, even with the permit. On my last entry two years ago (my 3rd), tho permitted, the security officer at Erez questioned me for nearly one hour with the usual intimidating queries. What will you do, who will you see, where will you stay? Oh, a photographer, what are you going to photograph? Only the suffering? Why 2 weeks, you only need a few days. Etc. I do not look forward to this, but simply expect it and will treat the officer with respect while insisting on my right to enter.

Finally, I raise again questions I’ve stated before: what right does Israel have to control who enters Gaza, especially when they systematically prohibit humanitarian workers like myself? Yes, maybe they have a right to bar weapons and fighters, altho this could be debated. (A population has the right to defend itself, as is claimed frequently in justification for Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza. Who controls the import of weapons to Israel, especially the lethal ones used my infamously on Gaza last winter? What’s become of the US Arms Import and Control Act denying weapons to countries that use them on civilian populations?) And yes,  of course, Israel surely has the right to control entry from Gaza into Israel.

Suppose Canada or Mexico fortified its border with the United States and unilaterally decided who could enter the US and who would be prohibited. There would be an outcry against this shocking use of power—silence concerning Israel. Why?

Where else in the world is behavior like this tolerated, even supported and advocated as the United States does by supplying weapons like the Apache helicopter, F-16 fighter jet, white phosphorus bombs, and other elements of control such as Motorola’s surveillance and communication gear and Caterpillar’s huge militarized D9 bulldozers?

So the question is not simply about entry of people like me, it is also about entry of humanitarian materials like cement, metal, plastic, and other materials vital for reconstruction. And it is about accountability and justice. Who is responsible for the carnage and suffering? Who pays for the reconstruction, the international community once again enabling the occupation to continue? Should Israel be required to pay damages, open the borders, end the siege and the suffering, respect international law and United Nations resolutions?

Thanks to all of you who helped in your various ways resolve my minor dilemma. Soon Gaza and my dispatches from the hallowed ground there. I expect to be there for 3-4 weeks.

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The rising of the light: Gaza and Me, via Israel

All photos made in January 2008

Complete set

Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza, January 2008

Gaza City

To enter Gaza one needs a permit from the Israeli authorities, the District Coordination Office (DCO) for Gaza. And one needs to apply thru an international non-governmental organization, a NGO. Since 2004, I’ve gotten a permit thru the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and only once, in 2008, did I experience difficulties—nearly one hour of sharp interrogation at the Erez crossing.

Planning my work in Gaza to begin on July 20, 2009, I wrote the director of the AFSC’s Quaker Youth Program in Gaza. She began the application process more than one month ago. Ordinarily the process takes no more than 2 weeks. However, after the devastating violence by Israel on Gaza for 22 days beginning on December 27, 2008, including possible war crimes on the parts of several parties, the process has become more complicated. In fact, Israel prevented  the UN team investigating alleged war crimes from entering, so they had to go thru the Egyptian crossing at Rafah.

When Amal, the director in Gaza, phoned the DCO to learn about the application, either no one in the office answered the phone, or they told her, call back, we’ll let you know tomorrow. Frustrated after repeated tries, she asked me to call. Same response. Then two days ago they informed me that the AFSC was not registered, not accredited with the privilege of applying for a permit. This was the first either of us heard. Why, we wondered, hadn’t they told us that earlier?

This strikes me as deceitful, unjust, wrong, and suspicious.

Ibrahem Shatali, program officer

Furthermore, let us ask: what right does Israel have to control who enters Gaza, especially when they systematically prohibit humanitarian workers like myself? Yes, maybe they have a right to prohibit weapons and fighters, altho this could be debated. A population has the right to defend itself, as is claimed frequently in justification for Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza. And yes, Israel surely has the right to control entry from Gaza.

Suppose Canada or Mexico fortified its border with the United States and unilaterally decided who could enter the US and who would be prohibited. There would be an outcry against this shocking use of power—silence concerning Israel. Why?

My case is a microcosm of the larger situation: vast injustice, to the point of breaking international laws and contravening UN resolutions.

I suffer minimally. I am not stranded at the Egyptian border with thousands of other Gazans pleading to be allowed home, stranded without amenities in the heat or cold, without water, some of us dying. Egypt colludes with the US and Israel in maintaining its border. Nor am I stuck inside Gaza as were some 25 Fulbright scholars last year who Israel prevented from leaving. Nor am I lethally afflicted with injury or disease, untreatable inside Gaza by the limited hospital facilities, often without medicines and equipment in repair, qualified to leave for medical care in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or even Israel, but blocked at Erez.

Skip Schiel, volunteer photographer and photography teacher

My suffering is minor. I live in a flat in Ramallah, with food, water,  shelter from the sun, and with friends and colleagues. I can continue my photographic work. I’m only prevented from serving in Gaza, making photographs for various organizations about their humanitarian work—the AFSC Youth Program, the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, and the Palestine Water Authority struggling valiantly to purify the polluted saline aquifer water and treat at least partially the vast sewage created by 1.5 million human beings in one of the most congested, poverty stricken regions of the world. And I might not be able to offer photographic training thru the Youth Program and a university.

Unlike most Gazans, I might be able to communicate with a few people in the global community, touch them with a story, a photograph, a message, a plea. Not just for me to enter Gaza but for Gaza to be free, for acts of violence to stop and be adjudicated, responsibility taken, and reparations made by the responsible parties. This is my hope, my prayer, my request.

If you’d like to help, please consider contacting your Congress people (if you’re a US citizen, or the equivalent if you’re outside the US), best if in person with a group, but by phone, email or some other means, to demand: 1. remove the restrictions on entering humanitarian workers, 2. open the borders for humanitarian aid, 3. hold all parties accountable for violence and breaking international laws, and 4. end the siege, free Gaza.

Please feel free to forward this widely.

A minor update about the permit.

As of today, July 27, 2009, there is still no progress. But I just learned that the Middle East regional coordinator of the AFSC youth programs, Thuqan Qishawi, is also prohibited from entering Gaza, as is an American intern, Grace. This exacerbates the problem and allows me to claim that the entire program is jeopardized by this closure. If any wish to add that to messages to the legislators, please do. Other NGO’s report similar problems.

Of course, for years, the AFSC staff in Gaza is usually prevented from leaving. So this is a gigantic problem for any Palestinian programs with branches in the West Bank and Gaza. How can they coordinate?

Links:

Free Gaza

Alice Walker: Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters “the horror” in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel

AFSC in Gaza

Expanded Vision: Our Trip to Rafah (honoring Rachel Corrie), January 2008

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The rising of the light: Burquin & Jenin

The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.

—Lorraine Hansberry

Jenin

Burquin

Jenin

Excerpts from my journal during a three month journey of photographic discovery in the Land of Troubles

Photos

July 17, 2009, Friday, Jenin Creative Cultural Center:

Home again, in the Ramallah Friends School apartment, and truly it feels like home: privacy, quiet, comfortable, secure, friendly, compatible, a suitable mattress, set up for me and me alone. How I love it. A good stroke, to rent the place, and now if only I could swing it thru the end of this tour of duty and not have to struggle to find a new place and move there.

With the return to home, possibly the return of dreams, a bunch of them, and some of them significant:

I was setting up to make a large-scale photo presentation to an odd assortment of college age youth. They’d returned from a study trip to Central America and had options for attending various presentations and seminars. They were free to join me or not. The set up was elaborate: audio, video, a TV production of my show, a large room that gradually shrunk as more and more gear appeared. A few students straggled in, one told me I’d be lucky to attract more than a handful because of their many options.

I did something to the installed computer so it had to reboot, and I wasn’t sure it would open properly, the usual problem. Workers stuck partitions thru the space, shrinking it even further. The room felt stuffy so I opened windows. A young man caught my eye and engaged me in a game of catch with a small rubber ball. I excelled in being able to catch it with my left hand (tho right handed), even when my back was turned. I was a wizard. A little boy joined us.

The only photos I brought with me—and I don’t now know the topic—were 8 by 10 prints. So I wasn’t sure how well they could be viewed.

Second dream: I watched as a family fled terrible bombing (might relate to Gaza), over and over again, the bombs, and the family returning and then leaving. They used a small rowboat; they had to flee over water. Something exploded under the boat and threw the father into the air. Someone explained, that was a dum dum, not meant to hit anyone directly but to explode near and cause big troubles.

Ah, having and remembering so many rich dreams is very nourishing. And raises the question: why so few in Jenin and so many on this 1st night home?

After reading an article sent me by Sue from last year’s Friends General Conference gathering Palestine/Israel workshop, about the new dispensation in the territories, the newly relaxed mood, expanding normalcy, and reading about a shopping center in Jenin for home furnishings, I discovered from Charley where it was, and a few evenings ago set out to explore it. About 5 stories tall, with the owner’s name prominently lit in red on the roof, Herbawi, it sprawls. One floor for bedroom furnishings, one floor for kitchen, etc. I counted maybe 15 people shopping, max, but then it was after 9 pm. One woman in traditional black clothing languidly dusted the merchandise. She eyed me as I photographed, walked over to me, and seemed to nod me in the direction of a very young man sitting at a desk. I approached him, held up my camera, put a quizzical look on my face, and asked, OK? He seemed to signal OK back.

But then why did he follow me around for about 5 minutes? I glanced back at him, smiled, and continued. He went away. I found an elevator, pushed the button to the top floor, 6, door opened, lazily with a grating sound, and before me appeared a semi darkened cavern filled with packing crates and other debris. Same at floor 5. I didn’t have the gumption to exit. I was also nervous about the elevator stranding me somewhere between floors in this vast emporium.

With deep regret I realized I had only my 50 mm Nikon lens, no wide angle. This would have been a perfect setting for the wide. How can I improvise with what I have? What I lost in focal length I gained in speed because this is a f/1.8 lens, the wide is about f/3.5.

Outside I had to back way up, across the street, down a gravel road, smelling sheep, past some rough square little buildings, maybe where the sheep live, to find a proper position for my camera. Moving like this, rather than zooming, is an old experience that I’d forgotten how to do.

Trying to find my way back to the Center, temporarily lost (I make occasional useful discoveries while lost) I stumbled onto a children’s entertainment-play area, jammed with brightly colored plastic climbing and sliding devices that require air to expand and become more or less stable (what happens during power outage?). The kids screamed, romped, some cried, the little ones especially, and no one seemed to mind me photographing. I’d asked permission to enter and use my camera, the attendant brought me to the manager who told me he also was a photographer, Saif Dahlah, and worked for the French press agency (AFP), and sure, he cheerily said, no problem.

I delighted. After about 30 minutes of this, clicking furiously, marveling at the access— state-side I’d probably have to get every parent’s signed permission, and this would be granted only after a criminal background check—3 adult men carrying two way radios and one younger looking sweaty fellow stopped me. None had any English, I couldn’t understand any of their Arabic, but I understood their gesture—hands out front, passing quickly over each other, to mean we want you to finish and be out of here. You’ve been here long enough!

I argued, but the manager gave me permission. They weren’t convinced. Maybe the word boss would work. Ah ha, it did.

Come with me, the sweaty boy gestured, and he brought me to the boss. Oh, the boss explained, you didn’t understand, we want you to drink a coffee and then you can get back to photographing.

Which I did. Another 10 minutes and I ran out of camera memory, not bringing my bag with extra memory, thinking, it’s evening, dark, I won’t do much photographing. Wrong. This should teach me: bring the camera bag, bring the extra memory, bring the extra battery, and lug that heavy wide-angle lens.

My last day in Jenin included the last of the 4 photo sessions. As usual, I showed up at noon, the start time, Abdullah was there, no one else, I asked him to find the others. He disappeared. About 15 minutes later we found Mays and Touleen but they begged for a delay of 1/2 hr so they could go to lunch with Sophie.

OK, but what about the others? No answer. We finally began at around 1, providentially. Shortly before noon the power went off. All my plans depended on the computer. Now what? I asked Ala what she would suggest. Well, she said, you’ve been to the roof, you’ve been to the tunnel, how about photographing around the Center for the website and displays?

Not a bad idea, but what is happening around the Center that might be photographable? This silenced us. Nothing. Ah well, we’ll find something. Luckily the power returned. But the idea had been planted: photograph around the Center.

And then just a few minutes before we began I noticed Sophie teaching a drawing workshop. We could begin there. And we did. The 3 of us (2 absent) with Yusef’s brother Mohammed, aka Ahmed, taking the turns on the various cameras.

Returning to our chaotic room (the German language class was still running, and boys had entered the computer space and were loudly chatting) we inched our way thru their photos, constantly beset with computer problems, but surmountable, and then we barely approached what I’d hoped would be the main topic, editing, and with that beginning work on the exhibit Yousef requested. Mays had brought previously made portraits, and she didn’t want us edit them. I thought this would have been a good exercise—to make selections and talk about why we were doing that. Not to be. We viewed Abdullah’s video that I’d helped him put up on YouTube. That was a hit. Others gathered around to watch and congratulate.

Sophie Furse, photo by Mays

So the workshop ended reasonably successfully. As did my entire 2 week journey there, or so I thought. Yousef gave me a bar of olive oil soap in thanks, he posed me with others in the obligatory group photo, and best of all, Abdullah walked me to the taxi station carrying my black shoulder bag. He is a dear, I gave him one of the hospital photos, and wished him good luck and much success. I hope to see him again. Mays also wished me goodbye, as did Yousef’s nephew Mohammed and brother Ahmed. I did not see or seek out the Gang, happy to be away from them.

I leave with them a partially completed website, hoping Yousef will continue the design and assure the maintenance. I’m done.

Jenin Creative Cultural Center

The trip back to Ramallah was relatively pleasant, thru winding valleys, many of them cultivated tho brown, not much traffic, a reasonably caution driver, plenty of leg room despite my pack on the floor in front of me. 2 hours, 1 major checkpoint that caused only minimal delay, I should find out if we passed thru the old Huwarra. Soldiers checked a few taxis perfunctorily. Some soldiers wore heavy battle gear, others were more casually dressed. When one peered into our taxi I peered back, trying to efface any hint of smile, and just slightly nod in recognition of him and his humanity. This is a delicate manner: how to treat the soldiers?

Checkpoint south of Nablus, temporarily unstaffed

While attempting to nap—I’d also been photographing, mostly the fields—I remembered to make a few important calls. Fareed about the water person today (not available). Jerusalem Studies for the Nablus tour (signed up, but it costs 140 NIS and I learned later I can join another one led by Jan’s friend, Adel, on Monday, which will probably be cheaper and more oriented to history and archeology than the Saturday tour which is about shopping, tho that also could be photographable). And most important the permit people. I reached a few officers directly, lost connections, and tried again. With the result:

I wrote Tom this:

tom,

the latest is slimly encouraging: the officer i spoke with in the permit office knew my case. after first saying the permit was granted, he retracted and asked me to call back. i phoned several times and finally heard him say, can’t seem to find a definitive answer in the computer, the answer is probably on my co’s desk, call back sunday.

when i told amal about this she sounded furious. they say that every time, or something like it, she exclaimed. call them tomorrow (fri).

so i’ll do that. the officer, polite and civil with very good english—the face of oppression can be very gracious—, told me also there was confusion about the different applicants thru the afsc. which might be partly true. but here also amal dissented, saying, i applied for each one separately, there should be no confusion.

so at least you and i are not yet declared forbidden…

i have no idea whether senator john kerry’s office is intervening. they don’t reply to me or my quaker friends back home. so annoying.

but let’s keep trying.

good luck and let’s hope to be together over here soon,

Having the mobile is a great convenience. In this case, while finishing the long taxi ride, 2 hours, I had my office with me. And despite using the Israeli Orange network, I usually have coverage.

Arriving in Ramallah, I bought 2 falafels, 2 beers, showered, and relaxed. Then I napped, then I ate, and then I did my email, now having a connection, not a reliable one but enough to bring me a letter from Y…

In N, she is pursuing finding housing, talking with realtors, finally reifying her long quest to live on the West Coast. Good for her—a fear of mine since we met now finally is no longer a fear, not such a big one. I’ll miss her when she moves permanently there, but know, somehow or other, or so I wish, we will stay in touch. However, she does get busy, as she admitted in her letter, and lacunae might grow, resulting in a total detachment. As with Kathleen.

Ah well, impermanence, why worry about it? It’s part of the teaching, part of the practice. The hardest part: detachment.

Last night I felt a corresponding closeness with X, wondering where and how she is. I listened to the music she gave me, finding it fresh and inspiring reminiscence and reverie, and I searched for info about volunteering medical services in Guatemala which is what she’s doing.

So run the ramblings of a lost and lonely soul, on the road in the Land of Troubles, the land of light, the land of romance.

In the evening I felt mellow, and turned to one of my favorite pursuits, web surfing. I just meandered about, aimlessly, or serendipitously, depending on one’s attitude. The weather in various parts of the world, organizing my browser’s bookmarks, viewing photos of others, this and that. A sheer joy. One of the best aspects of 21st century experience. How can anyone feel lonely with all this potential interaction? Easily. Look at me.

Gaza is the main question: will Israel grant me a permit? If yes, I’m heading there next week; if no, I make other plans, including appealing to the Israelis (if such an appeal process exists, which I doubt) and writing my Congress people for assistance. I’m mixed about going to Gaza. Amal tells me, everyone’s waiting for you. Which is attractive. And I long to see friends and offer services and make new photos. Yet, it will be hot, at times dangerous, I may lose my privacy if they insist on having an accompanier with me at all times. So, 2 months from now, September 13, back in Boston, or earlier, I’ll know the answer to this question: Gaza yes or no?

The question itself adds drama to my story. Some, those few who might ponder my fate, might ask, where is Skip now, did he ever get into Gaza?

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The rising of the light: Old & New

800 year old mosque in the center of Jenin

Office of The Freedom Theater in Jenin refugee camp

Excerpts from my journal during a three month journey of photographic discovery in the Land of Troubles

Photos

Shop (Jenin), a video

July 14, 2009, Tuesday, Jenin Creative Cultural Center:

No dreams—dreadful. But a spectacular lilting cloud filled morning sky, and I was in just the right situation to photograph it: on my back, fuzzy, merging into wakefulness.

Why no dreams? Always a question, a mystery. How I miss them. As if the night were wasted, might have been effectively skipped without significant loss.

To Khirbet Belameh, a ruins near the northwestern entrance to the city, suggested by either Yousef or Ala’a, I forget which, as a photo field trip site. Very good choice. Partly because it generated a lot of interest from a wide assortment of people, including Mohammed, Yousef’s nephew, the entire class of 5, a few of their friends, Husam who was our informal leader, and the Gang. The ruins feature a large tunnel, at its height some 5 meters, equally wide, extending far back past the current and temporary gate and allegedly up the hill. This is thought to be for people to carry water from the spring or pool at the lower end up to their city on the heights. Pockmarks of about 1 m wide and high decorate one section of the tunnel, said by the guide (who was on only his 2nd day of the job and seemed untrained) to hold food for horses. Needless to say, this archeological attraction requires much research.

Archeologists date it to the Bronze Age with proof of habitation extending from the Bronze thru the Iron, Roman, and Byzantine and into the Islamic eras. Ruins are on top of a high hill, we didn’t visit them. From another document: … one of the major Bronze Age sites of the West Bank. It sits in a commanding position over the pass of the Wadi Belameh, which leads to the Jezreel Plain. The site is identified with the city of Ibleam, which is mentioned in the Egyptian Royal Archive in the 15th century BC. This site was occupied through the Medieval period.

Not only is this site being developed for its intrinsic intellectual interest but for its touristic potential. It would be one of the few such sites in Jenin.

Photographically it offered odd lighting, curvaceous forms, mystery—and the bodies of other humans, ourselves, as we explored. Students tended to be much more interested in photographing each other than the site itself. We emerged outside on a high platform looking over the complex. As we leaned over the railing I noticed our shadows on the ruins, and added them to my designs. I might mention this to my students as an object of awareness: who else noticed and made use of the shadows?

The stones are memory, mute for the most part. They lay there, containing stories, and we wonder: how to decipher them? Stones fascinate me.

Sadly—and a mark of the occupation—the interpretive panels stand empty. The bright metal reflects light but little else. For how long have they remained in this dormant condition? When will they contain information?

I asked the affable dark skinned guide how many visitors had he on his first day, the day before? None. And today, before us? One.

The saga of getting to this site warrants a few words. The plan kept shifting, as happens regularly here—Tuesday, no today, Monday, noon, no 1 pm, and finally we left at 2. Then the Gang straggled off for food. Our nominal guide Husam said we’ll wait. I exploded. Wait!? We’ve been waiting for 2 hours and now they go off for food and we’re to wait longer? Not a minute longer! I relented, we agreed to 5 minutes, the Gang dutifully reported back within the time frame. Meanwhile, Husam and I discussed the conflict between eastern and western concepts of time, loose and tight, agreeing that both have their virtues, both their problems.

I was excited going with this group of enthusiastic souls. While waiting with Touleen and Mays, my only 2 female students, I improvised a portrait lesson, since their homework had been to make portraits. We shared the computer room with Lucas who was teaching German. After showing Touleen how I was able to fix her camera’s over exposure problem (with the assistance of Mustafa at the Freedom Theater) and download (using my Canon) I gave them my Canon camera and asked them to photograph each other. I took a turn. We downloaded the photos and examined them, deciding what worked, what didn’t, and why. A sterling lesson, one of my best. I used Mustafa’s technique of drawing directly on the computer screen to demonstrate the effect of cropping. I noticed that when Touleen set up a view of Mays she initially posed her at the window, then saw the backlight problem and moved her. We’d discussed backlighting earlier.

Two of my photo students at the Jenin Creative Cultural Center watching a video of refugee camp children in a photographic workshop at the Freedom Theater

In the evening Yousef invited us to his home in Burquin, a small village west of Jenin, about 8 km. It is in the hills, and he and his brother, Ahmed (aka Mohammed) and his nephew Mohammed guided us up the hill behind his home to a plateau. We overlooked much of the surrounding terrain, including Jenin with its lights on, Nazareth, the Jordan River valley and Jordan beyond, and toward the coast, not so far away. This reminded me again how small Israel-Palestine is. He pointed out where the Israeli army had constructed a base during the Battle of Jenin in 2002, firing artillery and cannon into the refugee camp. We waded thru thick olive groves, including some “Roman” trees, gnarled and shriveled, full of lacunae, indicating their great age. He brought us to his “castle” where he’d like to build some sort of international center for transformation of the political scene. Seemed a bit vague to me, but then dreams often are.

Photographically this was a gold mine, if only I set my camera properly and chose the position and moment astutely. Shall see today.

He had stories. About a tank sited across from him, firing his way in 2002. Snipers killing innocents. A checkpoint between Burquin and Jenin blocking access. This contrasted with what he had told some of us earlier, that the Jenin valley had long been a breadbasket of sorts, rich in produce, and with it water. After the Israelis built settlements nearby and dug deep wells, deeper than allowed the Palestinians, the water dried up. It is now a water-starved region.

And weaving into this some history of the region: Jenin comes from the Arabic word for paradise or garden (from some promotional literature he lent me: Jenin and its environs have been inhabited almost as long as Jericho, making it one of the most ancient areas in Palestine, and the world. Its history dates to 2450 BC, when it was built by the Canaanites and named “Ein  Ganeem,” meaning Garden Spring.)

Mustafa, photography instructor at The FreedomTheater

Two of his students

The Romans called it Jinae, Jesus is thought to have passed thru here going between Nazareth and Jerusalem, healing a group of lepers in this village at a site now marked by a Greek Orthodox church (I visited it in 2006 when Yousef and I met).

Walking thru briars in the dark, over mounds of ancient limestone, not sure about snakes or poisonous plants, in my Tiva sandals, was unsettling. I didn’t trip, I didn’t slip, I didn’t catch myself on thorns, and as far as I know I wasn’t bitten or infected in any way. For such small wonders, I am grateful.

Hearing A’s story the day before, and noticing her rare beauty and how well she wears her suffering, I’ve been drawn to photograph her. To avoid possibly embarrassing her if  I directly asked her for permission to make her portrait (she’d asked me to delete another I’d made in demonstrating to the class) I waited for an unguarded moment. It occurred. A group of us were sitting about, as we often do, waiting, waiting, waiting, when I thought, this is the moment. Not to sneak it but to appear to be making portraits of the group, one at a time. So I began with Sophie, moved left and finally alighted on A sitting nearly beside me. First a profile, then a more full-face view. She smiled, did not demur, I might have achieved some limited success.

Ala Khalf

Will this portrait reveal what I’ve written about her—a long-suffering young woman, hoping to break free from her restricted life as a woman living thru occupation?

Yousef seemed excited by my progress on the Center’s website. We sat together, me at the end of my working day, hot and tired, wishing only to shower and nap. I began a training for him because he will be the manager once I’ve exited. I showed him how to add and edit pages, add images, and we struggled with changing the language to Arabic. He brought a folder of images and texts that I can use for the site.

Yousef Shalabi, co-founder and director of the Jenin Creative Cultural Center

So far I take some limited pride in this site, despite the apparent bugs in the template and my clumsiness with managing it. It is not nearly as simple and sweet as is my blog template.

Sara wrote that American Friends Service Committee is closing Peacework. This is big, ominous, disturbing. The closure is a response to the demand by management for a 50% reduction in budget. Y wrote in with condolences and as is her way with brilliant suggestions about how to close it out: a form of party with a display of previous issues and those who guest edited or made contributions standing by their issue.

I wrote and phoned various people yesterday including Amal and Erez about my Gaza permit, which is yet to be approved. No word from Chris at Kerry’s office or from anyone else, other than Amal who seems to be putting the follow-up in my lap.

The night seemed cooler than previous nights, the morning less heated. Maybe the clouds had some effect.

Yousef clinched the windmill story, I think and for now: it is left over from an era of many windmills, during Jenin’s more productive period. It has nothing to do with the refugee camp, contrary to what Abdullah told me. A rich family probably owns it with the house at its base. The play gear I discovered there probablly is for the family’s children.

He also told us the army had made an incursion into Jenin the night before. I heard or saw nothing of it. The Israelis can be swift and silent in their night prowling. Who did they snare, for what reasons, and where is that person now, and for how long?

The night before, that same night—coincidence?—the entire city experienced a power outage. Charley thought this might have been associated with our own lack of electricity, but later we discovered that indeed it was due to not paying the account.

Making my life with the Gang somewhat harder are their accents, all different, and except for Lucas, barely resembling the English I’m familiar with. Scottish (speaking in a rapid clipped manner) and two forms of British.

Researching the archeological site I discovered my own site, and realize now I was here in April 2006, just a little over 3 years ago. (Photos here)

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The rising of the light: In and around Jenin

Excerpts from my journal during a three month journey of photographic discovery in the Land of Troubles

Photos

July 11, 2009, Friday, Jenin Creative Cultural Center:

Plans yesterday shifted moment to moment, as happened on the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage when it disturbed me so much, but now, aging, mellowing, I seem not to mind as much as I did 10 years ago. At one point Sophie said Yusef might drive us to the country for a rural walk. Or that we, the Gang, would go out together in the evening for a rural stroll. Neither materialized. So I followed my muses and waited till the sun began setting, the air cooling, and went sauntering not knowing where or for how long. Knowing why however—to discover. That seems to be a main quest of my life, to discover, and with that to photograph. To be surprised. And then to surprise others. (I am simply a story machine, engaging in activities that generate stories.)

Last evening as I reached the end of one of the main streets, crossing to look for shuwarma or falafel, I noticed the video crew from German TV. Hello, fancy this, meeting each other.

They recognized me. We sat down for tea outside the noisy coffee house. And here’s part of what I discovered:

They, V and B, work for one of the 2 independent German channels, with broadcast of their show about the Freedom Theater scheduled for late August. This is their first time in the region. They seem to have been together for at least 3 years, telling me stories of other projects, including one in Cuba which landed them in some hot water after they’d been noticed videoing in a jail. They claim Israel can not confiscate tapes or any other materials, they can only look at them. They sent out their tapes with their soundman, straight thru the airport, no problems. She also said there is little coverage of news from Israel-Palestine in Germany, which surprised me, since I’d thought Europe to be more enlightened. In fact, V said, the commercial channels carry very little news of any sort, let alone investigative reporting.

They’d not heard of Edward R Murrow, but they had seen the film, Good Night and Good Luck, about him. So I guess they are somewhat tuned to their counterparts’ experiences in the USA.

He incessantly videos, breaking from the conversation to leap up and tape: across the street, the coffee house, playing cards; a horse on a trailer; etc. He left without bidding me goodbye, his friend apologized.

I learned that the light on my first day of photographing at the theater was unusual: the main lights had gone out, they only had the natural light passing thru the single open side door. He said this was far better lighting than on other days with the stage lights on. For me, the photos assume a special quality because of this natural light.

They’ve not been able to tape an interview with the man who allegedly Juliano hired as theater director. They explained, he is more a protector to intervene with Hamas and other radical groups who oppose the theater and Juliano, who is threatened partly because of his mixed Arab-Jewish background. A report I found on the web reminded me that the theater had been firebombed in April, apparently a result of resistance by elements of the resistance. Life is not easy for the political artist anywhere, but especially in Israel-Palestine if your politics do not come up to certain heavily enforced standards. What a pity.

Freedom Theater

Apparently the article I linked to, about the new director, has errors. The publication corrected them, but only in Arabic. She pushed him on his statements about using a gun. He did not retract them, but went somewhat further by saying, if a settler appeared within shooting distance and someone decided to shoot, I would not get in the way.

B and V told me Juliano is flamboyant, especially at checkpoints, and especially when the camera is running. He taunts the soldiers, yells at them. I asked, let’s assume he’s acting, he is an actor, was there consonance between his true feeling and his appearance? They gave mixed responses to this question. They don’t know. They felt he was reacting to the camera, which led to a discussion about gaining permission to photograph and tape and what to do when people seem to be playing roles other than themselves.

Juliano is a person of fierce opinions. I told them about Peter Schumann, the director of Break and Puppet Theater, his strong opinions, and about Gertrude Stein’s remark to Picasso after he’d shown her some of his poems. Pablo, you are an extraordinary person, and you are extraordinarily  limited.

Their main camera broke down, just quit working. They thought maybe a crucial component had melted in the sun and heat. Juliano confirmed that the same exact thing happened to one of their cameras. This warns me to keep my cameras shielded form the sun and as cool as possible.

They also told me about the photography instructor, Mustafa, his recent experience in Bil’in during a non violent demonstration against the Apartheid Fence: doused with a chemical the odor of shit. Hard to see coming, hard to wash off, maybe mixed with tear gas, the more potent and dangerous kind. And I want to visit Bil’in and photograph? I should wear a wet suit, or at least send for my bicycle rain gear, or carry an extra set of clothing sealed in a plastic bag, or remain far from the action—the latter not an option.

On a very personal level I was curious about how the couple works together, collaborates, and how this seams into their personal lives. But I didn’t ask, I didn’t pry, I only observed. And also imagined what I’d be like with such a partner, whether in truth I wish this for myself. I fantasize about it; am I capable and willing?

We were together 2 hours, the evening flew by, we were like local people just sitting around sipping tea.

We noted the noise. They told me their soundman who had to listen to everything thru headphones was deeply disturbed by the ambient noise here. As we sat outside, hoping to find a quiet spot, sirens wailed, people yelled, cars roared, kids shouted. It was cacophony. And rarely stops. One of my reasons for loving walking in the morning is that most people are sleeping, thus quiet reigns, wondrous silence.

This morning for my ritual walk I headed south, on a main road out of town. Past the fire station; past the “cliff houses” amidst limestone outcroppings; past the billboards with their ubiquitous image of a woman folding laundry, smiling contentedly; past two boys riding donkeys; past men sitting together or alone doing nothing, the endless doing of nothing, the doing of endless nothing; past people waiting for service taxis to fill up; past a cemetery with hundreds of stones, all facing east, Mecca; past trash; past closed shops, some of them slowly opening for the day; and past history that I can not easily access.

Some of this I photographed.

Nearing home—I can barely get the word home out, it is so unhomey—I stopped for hummus in the local shop, met the shop owner, a portly gentleman wearing a dress shirt, tie, and suspenders, very regal, especially for a shop owner. He spoke English. We chatted. Friends of his from the US visited a few years ago and all wept when they departed. They are part of an international Palestinian support group, I wasn’t familiar with the name. He concurred with the general observation that life on the ground has improved considerably. Security is better, that is, the security provided by the Palestinians themselves, the Palestinian Authority trained and armed by the US. As we spoke a contingent jogged by, chanting.

The day I’m sad to say was mostly putting up another subsite, my 2^nd from Jenin, and the accompanying blog, mostly about the theater. All day on this, which helps me escape the sun and heat, but diminishes my experience among Palestinians. What to do about this dilemma?

I asked Katy how to convert a WordPress blog into a website, so I can make some tangible progress at the Center on their site. She responded instantaneously, thanks to Google Chat, pointing me to a template that worked for her. (I’d seen she was on line, so I barged in, 6:30 AM her time.)

I also renewed my experimentation with noise reduction, since this has been such a big problem for me and generally for digital photography. Downloading and installing Noise Ninja, one of the more highly recommended programs, I made a test on 2 images. Neither showed much improvement. I intend to try 2 other programs recommended by Tim Gray and decide, yes or no on any program, and if yes, which one.

I talked with Rob with the group of young people sharing the Center with me, the Gang, tall and slender Rob from the UK, yesterday. For a career path he hopes to work with the British Council, maybe teach. I complemented him on his teaching of French. After this gig he will intern with the Irish Council to see if this might be his true calling. Like Sophie and like Charley, also I presume Lucas, all are budding internationalists. A good sign. I offered to put him in touch with Robin Twite, formerly of the British Council, now with IPCRI and helping me with my water theme.

This morning, unable as usual to resist the temptation to open email before journaling, hoping for a love letter, at minimum a note, or a grant confirmation, I’m not sure which I desire more, I found this hefty remark to an earlier blog:

I would love to comment about several things you have noted but would first like to ask: How many times have you been to the region? How much time did you spend amongst people with a different viewpoint?

Your initial labeling of a “Settlement” as “illegal” betrays your inherent bias. There has never, ever been a nation called “Palestine,” nor has ANY Arab Nation ever existed on one iota of land there. Ergo, labeling a Jewish Community sitting atop land that has only ever held Jewish Nations as an “Illegal settlement” is fantasy at best, ignorance or malice more probablly.

My name is Rachamim Ralanan Ben Ami and my ancestral home is in Hebron. My family lived there from the Biblical Era until 1929 when my grandfather, Rabbi Slonim Dwek was butchered on the front steps of our home. My eldest uncle, in his arms at age 3, was but into pieces and discarded as rubbish.

The British expelled my father (several months old) and the rest of my family for “our safety” and from 1929 until 1967 noone in my family could even eneter the city.

Today Jews LIKE ME living there are called, by people LIKE YOU, “illegal settlers.” This despite Arabs now having 22 nations of their own to call home. This despite Arabs being native only to al Hajaz, a tiny reagion in what is today Saudi Arabia.

Settlers DO live on the land but they are NOT Jews. You like taking pocitures? Next time you take a vacation to my country let me know, I will make sure you get to take photos of the doorstep where my grandfather and uncle were butchered…

All you foreigners do is make things worse, you have np understanding of even the most basic facts, associating with hard-leftist groups like Machshon (beautiful thing they did with the “Violin Scandal” among aothers) and do not stop for a second to realise that were Israel even 10% as oppressive as these groups claim, they could not be taking you around on tours!

THINK.

Nasty, I’d claim, but inviting. I will respond at some length later, I enjoy such dialog, even if painful.

Today: meet with Yusef about the site, try to make some progress before that meeting, visit the theater again, this time to photograph a photo training, something I missed doing last week, and as usual, expect surprises.

Max and Jane Carter were scheduled to arrive yesterday with their work camp group from Guilford. I hope to eventually meet them.

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The rising of the light: Jenin and environs

Excerpts from my journal during a three month journey of photographic discovery in the Land of Troubles

Photos

July 10, 2009, Friday, Jenin Creative Cultural Center:

One dream that I can recall: I was driving a large bus, not expertly, and had to turn around in a narrow spot filled with cars. As always the outcome remains unknown. Perhaps someday I will be transported to the repository of my unfinished dreams and can restart them to learn the results.

My sleeping place on the roof of the Jenin Creative Arts Center

The night was tranquil, for a change. The Italians are gone, apparently, if Charley is to be believed, after an argument, so the 2 plus the late coming woman have disappeared and I have the roof to myself. No more chatting and smoking thru the night. I can take care of my nightly needs, groan and fart just like at home. Bliss. And Charley and I coordinated the keys so that I was not locked out of the Center, or into the building. I went for another early morning walk. I’ve yet to try sleeping in the computer room because it’s been blocked—the gang of 4, Charley from Scotland, Lucas from Germany, Sophie from Scotland, and Rob from the UK, usually commandeer it for webwork and, as Charley says, watching “stupid Arab videos.”

The walk this morning brought me to new parts of Jenin. Thru another part of the old city, up and down main roads, shops of course closed this being Friday, the holy day, a few men out, usually older, one woman sitting by herself looking downcast, roosters crowing, cats prowling, cool breezes blowing, and I made a few photos. I appreciate this time of day, free of people, so fewer stare at me.

Abdullah, the young man who’s just graduated high school and wishes to study medicine outside the country, told me his plan is to visit Ramallah where organizations can help find him placements. He is one of the more diligent students in my photo workshop, which met joyfully with full attendance plus one yesterday for the 2^nd time. Afterwards he offered to escort me to what I thought he called a castle, and I thought he said it was nearby, walking distance. The reality was somewhat different: we walked about 2 km to the taxi stand, which would have been a 1/2 km walk if not for him wanting to visit a friend in a social center. So what, more to see and show, but it was virtually the same path I’d taken that morning alone. Taxi about 5 km north, Abdullah insisting on paying—this is characteristic of Palestinians, despite their poverty, the chasm between their resources and mine, everyone treats the visitor. The taxi ride, then later, walking home from the Freedom Theater performance, another friend bought me a fruit drink and falafel, and then the entire lot of boys including Abdullah walked me around the city as I did errands. You’re a visitor, our guest, and you might get lost. I would rather walk alone, but I couldn’t tactfully convey this to them.

So, to the “castle,” which in fact, thanks to Abdullah reading the plaque above the main door, was a Jordanian prison or jail built in 1954, 13 years before the 1967 war brought the territories under Israeli occupation. Had I been on my own I would have called this structure either a crusader castle dating back 1000 years or an Ottoman period castle, once housing the very rich, maybe 500 years old. So much for my perceptive powers while lacking Arabi.

The structure, made of limestone blocks, cemented, was 2 story, had turrets and windows that resembled gun ports, a ditch around it that fighters could use, several wells inside and outside the building, the one inside now supporting a vast fig tree empire. No stairs, so the 2^nd level could be reached only by adroitly climbing up ruined walls. No thanks, not at my age and in my condition, a fact of my life which I bemoan. Abdullah had made photos here recently, mostly of him and his friends, which he showed me and the students at the workshop. I may have them on my computer since we downloaded them from his mobile phone.

The jail—it might also have served as a fort, especially during the Six-day War—was on a hill spectacularly overlooking rolling hills, all planted and some fields harvested. Most everything looked very brown; I’m not sure what grows during this dry season. Abdullah told me the fields run all the way to Haifa, maybe 30 miles away but infinitely distant because of the Apartheid Wall. The plants I photographed on one of my first romps around Jenin turn out to be tobacco, thanks to Abdullah’s local knowledge. I walked with him to the edge of the plateau the jail sits on for a decent photo vantage point. To reach there I had to walk thru briars and thistle and climb over limestone chunks—in my Tiva sandals, which might have been close to walking barefoot. Robert Capa famously and dangerously said if the photo isn’t good enough, the photographer wasn’t close enough. For a landscape photo one might say if not good enough, the photographer was not in the right position–and maybe should have walked thru the Valley of the Shadow of Death to get there.

Once again, at the end of a trip, I was scorched, depleted, hot beyond measure, sweaty, tired. To relieve my insignificant suffering I doused myself with hot water from the shower (who among The Gang heats up the water in this season?), followed by a sweet sleep. And then…

Irises

At the entrance of Jenin refugee camp, this horse, constructed in 2003 by a German artist, is made from parts of an ambulance (and two cars) ridden in by a Jenin doctor when he was killed by Israeli forces, the ambulance exploded, al -Hisan, the horse

Off to the Freedom Theater for a children’s play, The Swing, as part of the month long fest. Little did I know Abdullah and his friends also planned to see the play, so we went together. Because of the heat they insisted we taxi there; they paid, as is the custom. Then a long wait before the show began, which gave me an opportunity to observe a German TV film crew interviewing one of the staff, a robustly handsome young man who smoked incessantly and spoke about the importance of providing alternatives for youth, other than hate and vengeance. I chatted briefly with Jenny again, my former student from Haifa. She’s not only been working here for 3 years, taking the job shortly after we met in Haifa, and is the chief fundraiser, along with doing graphic design and photography, but she married the director, Juliano, son of the founder. Is this dumb luck on my part, to have this potential link? Is it the working of my ever loving, ever reliable, ever resourceful muses?

The play, of course in Arabi, played to a packed house sitting in air-conditioned comfort. 3 men (from the Hebron based troupe, Yes) pretended to be boys, then young adults, then middle agers, then the aged, then they died, but not before fostering sons who replaced them. Very clever. Curious there were no women in the play, except for off stage characters. A swing hung mid stage, the main prop. It allowed us to see how the men aged, how they used the swing. The audience, young and old, loved the play, and despite not understanding more than a few words, I felt resonance with my condition, one mark of good art. When the 3 were aged, decrepit, exaggerating their infirmities, I felt for them, I identified with them. And thought: ah, this is me, this is how I might look now, or could look in a few years—hobbled, groaning, twisted, about to keel over.

Juliano Mer Khamis, director of the Freedom Theater

Why, I wondered, did the theater offer a raffle prize of 100 NIS to the lucky ticket holder? Tickets were free, altho limited. A pre-show video advertised their upcoming adult presentation, the one we’d earlier observed in rehearsal.

I photographed, and hope to return to photograph more, not so much the plays but the ambiance of the theater complex. Which brings me back to what I’m supposed to be doing in Jenin, helping Yusef with the website while teaching photography.

The teaching seems to be going well. Full participation, lots of fun, people seem to be learning and interested, convinced I know what I’m talking about (one of the primary questions: does the teacher know much about her subject?). My ploys might be effective for dealing with tardiness and poor preparation. I’ve had to scold those who arrive late (one boy 1 hour late, just as we were ending) and who “forget” to bring cameras. What! You forgot to bring your camera to a photo workshop? Suppose this was a French class and you forgot to bring your voice? How do you expect to learn the language if you have no voice? Or a violin lesson and you left our violin at home? Or a piano lesson and the piano were broken? How do you expect to learn photography if you don’t bring your camera? By now, with my years of experience teaching in Palestine/Israel, I have regrettably come to be unsurprised by this sloppy and laggardly performance—from some, gratefully not from all. My response? I yell, lovingly. I scold, respectfully. I cajole, while expressing compassion. Let’s hope it works. (And is not symptomatic of  Palestinian destiny)

Ala’a, as is her way, disappeared from the class, despite what I thought was her role, to assist me and translate. She said, asking forgiveness, I was too busy translating for the Italians. Yusef looked outraged when I told him this. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?

At Ala’a’s suggestion, after viewing what we could of their photos—the criticism of prints worked especially well—we climbed to the roof to photograph. Once I’d made a few, I asked, anyone want to use my camera? And one girl did, I think this is Mays, one of the brightest students, who, when I saw what she made with my Nikon, I feel has a good eye.

I’m trying to learn their names: Abdullah, my personal tour guide, his chubby, giggly friend, Yahia, Mays who I think is the talented girl, her friend Haya, and the little girl who accompanies them, Somar. Who is Toluene, written in my notebook? Most names are new to me and as always I have a tough time pronouncing and remembering them.

Yusef, the Center founder and director, and I have a huge problem. To design, store and maintain a website requires money. He has none, apparently. So we’re trying to do it free. I will donate my services, such as they are, but who provides the domain name, the server, and the maintenance? To surmount this problem I’m experimenting using WordPress, designed for blogs but possibly bendable to a website. Katy uses it; I’ve found online info about how to do it. And yesterday I signed up for a blog, but I had to use his email address. Which means, for now, unless I can change the address, all communication between me and WordPress goes thru Yusef. Not very expeditious. In fact, insane and possibly dooming our enterprise to failure.

M, the recent college grad without a direction, who tells me there is nothing to do here, no jobs, little hope, hangs around the Center, seeming isolated by his slightly older age. He asks me, when are you going to pick up the CD with the new software on it, what’s it called? Dreamweaver? So after the play I told the boys that I had to pick up some software specially ordered for me. They took me to a different shop which had Dreamweaver, so I bought it: 5 NIS and it included: Flash 8, Fireworks 8, Homesite 5.5, Freehand MX 11, Coldfusion 7, Contribute 3, and Captivate 1, most of which I’ve never heard of. 5 shekels! One dollar and 25 cents.

As I’ve done before, I marveled at the cheap price. Of course this is ripped off material, not fully reliable and incapable of upgrading or support. Do you know how much just Dreamweaver along would cost in my country? I asked. $400? No, more like $700.

I intend to install it on the PC I use at the center, and possibly work with it to design the Center site. But if I do, how will it be maintained?

Talking with Jenny at the Freedom Theater I learned who does their website and might meet with him to gather insights. Plus I can hope to justify my fascination and respect of the Theater to yusef by mentioning this avenue of concern.

Ok, it is hot here, and dry, and sunny, and water deprived. What did I expect? I am living my anti dream. I chose to come here in the summer, knowing the conditions, and now the conditions are upon me and I have to survive. And thrive, make the most of them photographically. For instance, on my morning walk yesterday I came upon a water tanker and  2 men with a hose. They were watering the landscaped traffic circles and squares. Most unusual. I photographed. When I tried to close in on the main man, show his face, he waved me off. Now, learning how to handle this rejection, I smiled, said ok, masallam, shukron, and trotted merrily off.

To live with this heat I follow this routine: sleep in a cool spot, the roof for now, tho I might prefer the computer room for its coziness and privacy, but never again in the sleeping area which is hot beyond belief. While indoors and not during the day when it is open to clients, I wear shorts and a tank top according to the latest Palestinian dress code. Avoid being outside during the heat of the day. Shower late in the afternoon, followed by a nap. Outside for part of the evening. And so forth. Seems to work. I’m not abjectly suffering.

However, I worry slightly about what is probably merely a mole on my right lower arm, near my wrist. It is about 1/3 inch in diameter, uniformly red, with sharp edges, not itchy or bleeding or pussy. Looking up skin cancer on the web, struggling to find a site with photos—you’d think skin cancer symptoms require visuals, but I found few)—I learned that my “object” or “issue” is most likely a mole. I’ll monitor it. And try harder to use sunscreen. Since I can’t always anticipate where I’m going and how long I’ll be under the sun, perhaps I should just carry sunscreen wherever I go.

I’m also mildly concerned about my heart. Occasionally I feel some discomfort—I wouldn’t call it pain—in my left chest area. Is this my heart giving signs of distress? Or merely gas or muscle twitches? How would I know?

One contrast between the way I’m living now, constantly on the road, new location regularly, and when I’m home is predictability. Now virtually nothing is predictable, other than my morning routine which includes a smattering of yoga, meditation, journal writing, walking, email, and my photo work including making, selecting, processing, arranging , and showing.

Whereas at home, my life becomes entirely predictable, a dreadful bore. Same routine every day: same eating time, same meals, virtually, the same people, same bed, everything, even the walk and bike routes. Once a week with Ella. Sundays with Quakers. Teach on Tuesday evenings. Quaker Youth Program committee every 2^nd Sunday. Agape steering council every quarter. Etc. This is fine, for a while, and then becomes deadening. I don’t know how others can survive such tedium endlessly. So I conclude, one big reason I travel is to relieve the boredom.

Once on the road, I long for the end of the road—home at last, thank god almighty, home at last. Back to my comfortable routines…for a short while, and then…

Bullet hole in a mural, presumably from the Battle of Jenin, April 2002

Today: day off more or less, being Friday. Webwork to include a new subsite and new blog entry. Play around perhaps with the new Center website. Walk somewhere, but not midday. Read. See what develops if anything with the local Gang. Avoid them at times, join with them at times. They are reasonably thoughtful, trying hard, given their age—college. Maybe catch up with my notes from Bethlehem to add to my journal. Maybe try to reach Sabastia, the Roman city not too far from here, but not during midday.

It is now 8:12 AM, and no one is stirring, not even a cockroach. I’ve just chatted with Dotty via Google chat. She promised to follow up with Kerry’s office. Who else can I drop in on? Or wake up? Little devil that I am, awake, while most of my family and friends back home, 7 hours time difference, are sleeping or about to hit the sack.

…It is now 9:30 AM, I’ve revised my entry, attempted to enter the toilet to pee, realized someone was in there, stood to the side ready to say, good morning, hoping to not scare whoever was making his or her morning toilet. But in fact I scared Sophie, she jumped, I apologized, she asked me how I am, I pronounced myself alive.

“Famed militant (Zakariya Zubeidi) tries new tack as Jenin theater director,” by Avi Issacharoff , published in Haaretz  on April 22, 2009

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The rising of the light: This is Not Disney Land

Excerpts from my journal during a three month journey of photographic discovery in the Land of Troubles

Photos

June 27, 2009, Saturday, Al Rowwad, Aida refugee camp, Bethlehem

A remarkable set of dreams about ME: I saw her from a distance, she was as usual lovely and irresistible, but this time she sat next to a young man about her age, resembling her. Might have been her brother but more likely I thought it might be her beau. The setting was a Quaker meeting, I’m not sure she noticed me.

The scene shifted abruptly. We were together; I was peering into her face, drawn irrevocably to her beauty and tenderness. I loved her fully and wished to join with her carnally. I’m not sure about her reaction.

In the meeting there was much talk just in the introductory section. A few windbags went on and on. ME sat in on all this. When my turn came I had only 2 words to express my being: joy and despair. I added that joy was multi colored and despair was a dull shade of gray. I threw in a rant about people talking too much. ME faded in importance in this part of the dream.

Next I was with family at some sort of military demonstration. The soldiers may have been US or Israeli. They shot thru a metal door, making a loud noise. And then everything turned into a festival for African tribal kings in their regalia. I brought my grandson into the massive toilet facility to pee. My credit card and other important papers fell from my pockets, and in the confusion picking them up I lost him. So when I joined with his mother later in her broken down truck I realized, no C.

In panic mode I told J we didn’t have C and we turned around. Night had fallen. We were lost. I was to meet ME for dinner at a place and time we’d not yet decided. I had no way to contact her, or her me. My only thought was she might try to reach me at my home phone but I wouldn’t be home. I was out of the country. Oh shit, disaster, a chance to link with ME and I’d blown it.

J seemed relatively unperturbed, whereas I was close to falling apart.

Yesterday, being Friday, was a day off. I wrote and downloaded, then edited my photos for most of the morning. The facilities are decent at the Al Rowwad Center, Ahmed installed Photoshop CS 4 so I could work with my raw files, I installed software from Nikon so I could review thumbnails of the raw files. I’m pleased with what I’ve done here so far. Contrasting with the urbanity and pleasantries of Ramallah, these photos show scenes that are gritty, confined, dusty, horrible, yet with their own beauty—the refugee camp that is, and the little I’ve photographed so far.

I read, at times having little else to do (without my personal computer and not having easy access to the Center’s computer center). So far: an excellent book about Maha Ghosananda, Supreme Buddhist Patriarch of Cambodia, which brings back much of my Cambodian experience of 1995, Jean Zaru’s powerful book, Occupied with Nonviolence, summarizing and giving spiritual context for resistance and survival, and now a book I found in my room by Edward Said, Peace and its Discontents, mostly about the Oslo period. He is a true visionary, way out in front of his peers and excoriated for it by all parties. Now Palestinians and many others revere him. I hope to emulate him.

Poster to Palestinian martyrs

How? By declaring the two state option dead, by advocating a one state option, by portraying facts on the ground honestly, by chiding all parties when needed, including my own movement at home, and by pushing for international accountability for all actors in this tragedy-comedy.

After the computer work yesterday, and reading at home, eating late lunch of yet more delicious falafel (costing about 2 NIS each, 50 cents), I rested and then set out around 5 pm for Bethlehem. I am much more confident now about finding my way thru the camp, out to the wider Bethlehem, and around parts of the small city. I discovered that the camp, northwest of the main city, is relatively near the nativity church. Stopping inside an entryway to a home to quell the noise of the street so I could phone Yusef in Jenin, 2 young men and a boy invited me to stay for tea. This is common, the traditional Arab hospitality, with the added lure of This is a foreigner, let’s find out about him and tell him about our situation. I rarely feel endangered by these overtures.

(However, yesterday afternoon, leaving the camp for Beth, 2 girls aged about 10 years grabbed my arms and led me into a house where another girl, slightly older, maybe 12, harangued me in Arabic. I thought she might have been high on drugs or insane; I felt threatened and hassled; I pulled my arm from someone’s grasp and fled.)

One young man is in the security force of the Palestinian Authority, protecting the president, Abu Mazen. He works and lives at the Muqata presidential compound in Ramallah  for about 2 weeks and then is home for 1 week. His cousin, Awad Abu  Shaereh, works for a sort of counseling agency, Connect-Middle East. Because of the language differences, my lousy, virtually nonexistent Arabic, and their limited English, nuances were lost. I understand that they told me that Hamas is definitely bad, wishes to kill Palestinians, and works with Israel because Israel also wishes to kill Palestinians. Trying to learn what they felt about the Gaza invasion, I could only elicit more of this attitude.

The young men live in separate flats in a large building housing their extended family. Their parents are related in different ways—brothers, sisters, cousins. I understand that there might be a great deal of close family relations leading to in grown marriages. (Although this might be a faulty conclusion.)

Walking further I bumped into a handsome boy who pointed out to me a kitten near a pylon base, to photograph it. Then him. For some reason I never thought of photographing the cousins. Is this failure on my part, or just responding to my muses?

This morning early I decided to walk around the camp, hoping I could find my way home. No problem: up past the Center, and out to the Apartheid Wall and back. I like this time of day for photographing—cool air, soft light, no one out other than a boy and his father moving a bed frame. And a few wandering sauntering women covered head to foot in the Muslim costume.

I discovered a huge Italian Franciscan church and convent, heavily walled in, a sort palace in the midst of poverty. Not a good showing for the Catholic Church. Not exactly one with the people. But perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps they are very linked to camp life. Their site is opposite the wall, which I leisurely photographed this morning. The graffiti is spectacular: a supine male figure, stretching out over about 20 cement panels; a docile looking bulbous face; steps leading up and over; 2 African American boxers, one maybe Mohammed Ali; and a portrait of Mickey Mouse with the words, This is Not Disney Land; among a few.

This morning also I found an email about the Al Rowwad tour coming to Boston in mid July. I added some words about being in Bethlehem now with Al Rowwad and photographing the rehearsal yesterday and then forwarded to the list and my own Boston list.

Photographing the rehearsal I noticed the children seemed fully engaged, very expert, lively, having fun, whereas Abed, the director and possibly the author of the play, looked sorrowful, not having much fun, distracted, worried. Perhaps he’s thinking, These kids are not ready for an international tour. They’ll embarrass me and the Center. Or worried about funding for the Center. He confided to me that space is an issue—not enough.

And finally a very personal note: yesterday morning trying to fit the pot lid into the pot I accidentally pushed it thru and spilled boiling water on my left hand, scalding myself. Luckily this is not serious. I don’t even show a scar. Moreover, I’ve had migraines on both mornings here, this morning as I prepared to leave the house, that vibrating pattern that sometimes occurs, and yesterday, a fuzzy center of my vision. In both cases, I found a place to rest, closed my eyes, meditated, and within 15 minutes all that remained was a headache.

The coach for this session

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