make sure they don't register you

I know its a bit old now, but I recently came across this video documenting the recent cuts in Canada to the health coverage for refugee claimants. In one of the segments, a Toronto doctor advises one of her patients not to register at the clinic reception because the authorities would find out the clinic was treating under-insured people and revoke clinic privileges. The idea that a government is to be feared, that service providers need to warn clients to avoid and not formally receive care is simply unbelievable to me.


This summer, while I was away, the Conservative government passed legislation to dramatically cut back the services available for newcomers to Canada.

I have lived and worked with people fleeing Rwanda, Slovakia, Colombia and Mexico. I have seen them at their worst, their most worn out, their lowest points. But I have also seen their immense strength, the life and courage that courses through their veins and the joys they bring to those around them about life and what it means to put in days in wait and uncertainty.

People are resilient, and even in the hardest circumstances find ways to survive. As a country as wealthy, materially and socially, as Canada, we can help enhance and build that resilience and recovery for people who have arrived in our country as refugees. The real number of people applying for refugee status in Canada is less than 30,000. According to the UNHCR, more than 900,000 people officially filed for refugee status, which if you simply consider Syria or Congo right now, is obviously a gross under-estimate.

Some principled doctors here in Toronto spoke out against cutbacks to services we provide to the 30,000 people who come to our country. (Incidentally, that number comes out to .08% of people living within our borders at any given time.) Here is the link to illustrate what I'm talking about:
Doctors against cuts
And for a quick change of pace, a satirical look at the cuts:
 http://youtu.be/FC9EUhuiWfA

I am writing this today, being the International Day of the Girl. Yesterday was Global Mental Health Day. Women's health and mental health are issues dear to my heart, and both are intertwined in the outrageous policy choices the Harper government has taken regarding the Interim Federal Health program. Having fled from their homeland, refugee claimants experience significant mental trauma and psychosocial isolation coming to a new country. Being a woman, we know, compacts that. More often than not, the women who come to Canada as refugees come alone, or with their young children, having fled abusive situations in their home countries. In the denial of primary health care, psychosocial counseling and community supports, Canada is letting these women down, and by extension weakening all of our national well-being.

If you've read all this, and are rightfully out-raged, there are things you can do.
You can counter the overt racism in many conversations being had in this country about refugee claimants.
You can write to your political representatives.
You can read more.
You can write more.

And reflect on what has made this country great, and what needs to be done to ensure the gains for the health of all in our country over the past 50 years are not irreversibly lost. 

My work in Palestine

too many airports

Is there a point when you see too much to make anything really stand out?

In the past month, I have been to 15 countries and stayed and met people from all walks of life.

It has been exceptionally interesting, yet also schizoprehenic.

I signed up for, much like I have signed up for a job and lifestyle that involves foreign travel and residence for the long-term.

I sat in my room this morning, in a bed and breakfast in Reykajvik, and I looked out the window (it was pouring rain exceptionally hard) and I cried.

I don’t really know why.

Something just didn’t feel right.

I was alone. But that was nothing new.

Was this what a modern woman does?

Is it healthy for someone to travel into peoples’ lives, across the world from her own, and meet them and make them like her, and learn about their lives and worlds, and then leave?

With no real control or agency to promise any material assistance or support.

Is that normal?

I ask myself, what am I waiting for?

This summer I went to a photo exhibit on Srebrenica in Sarajevo, a Holocaust museum in the old Jewish quarter in Krakow and little gallery in Bethlehem. In all three, Edmund Burke was quoted;

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”

any place, any time, any language, this is confrontationally true.

This is to say, I suppose you leave any place where conflict and discrimination are daily practice feeling inadequate and potentially harmful.

While I’ve spent most of the past four months in the West Bank, I recently had a chance to go to the Gaza Strip. I wanted to go because I thought it would be more ‘black and white’. Life and death. Not as much political posturing bullshit.

You hear, if you follow media from the U.S. or Canada, that Gaza is a hot-bed of terrorism, and the poor civilians who find themselves locked there live in misery, poverty and destitution.

But it wasn’t like that.

It was actually awesome.

I should I guess preface that with letting you know that I like mid-sized, semi-rural cities, where people use donkeys and fruit stands outnumber ATMs.

Gaza is a complex place. Life is not easy. Living there requires defiance, hope and perseverance. We can’t say life is unequivocally better in one place or another. Obviously there are standards, limits and markers. Basic rights we all need to live full lives and realize our potential.

But I could not help but feel that in this discourse of indicators (economic, medical or otherwise) we lose the ability to talk about certain intangible things that make life in Gaza what it is.

This posting comes at the end of an amazing and confounding journey. I don’t want my reflections and writings to end once I return to Toronto.

My learning certainly will not.

I suppose the implications of this for those of us working in the global health field are that we are in great need of being grounded, whether that is in our spiritual faith, personal relationships, or physical retreat. Places like Gaza can easily become buzzwords for all things dangerous and exciting, if we are only able to see them from afar and scurry away to write about them for our colleagues.

how do we accommodate?

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently. Maybe more thinking than actually 'doing'
I finished my official business here, and I've been waiting for more projects, cues, and calls to action.
and I have waited for what seemed like forever.

Most of this thinking and waiting happened in an apartment, in Ramallah, overlooking a valley littered with minarets and cacti. A lot of the thinking was provoked by turkish coffee, and very little wine.
I didn't want to go out during certain times of the day - I was tired of being harassed on the streets by hoards of men and even the thought of it was enough to send me either to the gym or Jerusalem.
Which in some ways I think speaks a lot about life here for lots of Palestinians.

They are trapped. They are waiting. We don't really know for what. We have an idea of what they/we want, but who knows how its delivered or achieved.

So I got a bit depressed and began going to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv more often (ie. every 2nd day).
I just couldn't stand being alone in my apartment, knowing the loud throngs of people were outside and likely to yell and stare at me as soon as I stepped foot on the main street. I donned my headphones and walked hastily to the bus station, eyes on the prize.
I crossed the checkpoints many times, as if I was holding my breath, almost gasping for fresh air.
And I got it.
and it was great.
and then I had to go back.

I hate saying that Ramallah is an unlivable place.
It is not.
It is a perfectly fine place if you have a car, close family and friends, and meaningful work.
I don't have all of those things.
which makes it less than ideal to live here sometimes.

That said- I heard some interesting things today.
I had the pleasure of conducting a focus group about my research today in a camp near my house where I have been working a lot during my stay.
15 women showed up and we talked about what it was like to live in a camp and the challenges of building community.
Most of the women (especially the younger ones) were born in the camp.
To me, and it seemed to them, the camp was like any other village.
Except for basic things, like sanitation services, public schools, employment opportunities or access to agricultural land.
As our conversations became more candid, I just asked them "how can I explain to people back home how you live under occupation? what would you say to them?"
"Its our everyday. Its normal. If you are strong, and you have a purpose, you can live through anything."


Later on at a bbq with co-workers, I heard similar thoughts to the same question.
"We are used to it. I've gone to Jordan and Turkey, but after a week, I want to come back here. Even if there are many many problems, we know it and we love it. We have accommodated ourselves to it."
And it was true. Sitting out in this beautiful valley, smoking shisha and watching the stars, life was good.

I suppose in the end its not really where you live, but with whom and how you live.
I have realized a lot of things about myself in these past 3 months. And I've seen a lot of things I probably would have rather not seen. But that's life.

and who am I to say someone else is unhappy under circumstances that I couldn't handle?
Occupation is horrible, petty, dehumanizing and inhumane.
I am not for a minute saying that it is simple or understandable how people can be 'happy' under such conditions.
but its not impossible.
and people are pretty dynamic, resilient creatures.

Rilke wrote that "the world is still full of roles which we play as long as we make sure, that, like it or not, Death plays, too, although he does not please us."
There are many roles and many lives we live, and I think we all do "play Life rapturously, not thinking of any applause" from time to time, in our own special ways.

Health and Peace Promotion

Hello dear friends,

I am in Egypt.
It is a lovely place.
Some similarities to the West Bank (similar language, crazy driving, desert vistas) but also lots of differences (no checkpoints, freedom of mobility, somewhat certainty that you will arrive where you said you would arrive, trees, no fear of IDF).

I am here on vacation for a week. As soon as I left Ramallah, and started the journey towards Amman, and then Cairo, I was struck by an odd sensation.
I felt free. like I had taken off a heavy wool jacket or removed uncomfortable shoes.
It seemed I could run forever and not have to look left and right, worry about encountering a wall, or worse.
It hit me again that truly the West Bank has become a prison.
a large psychological, and physical holding cell.
and for most people living there, a permanent daily reality.

I have the luxury of leaving.
But I don't want to dampen the mood so much right now.

In the fall, I will find myself again in Toronto, working (and completing!) my Masters in Public Health at the University of Toronto.
One of the best parts of my first year was my introduction to Interchange, which is an international organization of peacebuilders, based at OISE, University of Toronto.

For a long time, I have seen the similarities between health promotion and peace promotion.
I have always believed health is a vehicle to peace. My experiences in Palestine so far have both re-affirmed and further confused my feelings on this, but nonetheless I think it is important to make these linkages and build better programs and policies that recognize the interconnectedness of people's health to their community participation and functioning.

So, I've been writing for the Interchange blog and interviewing organizations around the West Bank that I feel exemplify how we can bridge the two sectors.
Here is the link to the blog: http://interchange4peace.org/?page_id=2185
I hope to be putting up my interview with Physicians for Human Rights, an Israeli medical organization that works for non-status and Palestinian refugees, within and outside the 1967 borders.

Let me know what you think!

how can it possibly not...

cause significant anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders.
"It" being the environment of occupation.

I set out to do an interview in Jaffa (next door to Tel Aviv) on Monday, for a peacebuilding organization I am involved with called Interchange.

In a series of blog posts and invitations to other practitioners to share their stories, I am trying to make a forum that describes the overlapping work of peacebuilding and health promotion. As someone who has experience in international development and community peacebuilding, and is currently working towards a Masters of Public Health, the topic interests me greatly and allows me to give more shape and  weight to how I view good public health work. ie. raising health literacy, improving access to resources, encouraging involvement in community groups and bringing people from different sectors and walks of life together to see the social determinants of health, and how they can best provide them.

so. without going into further detail (that is what the other blog is all about!), I am interviewing organizations that I feel embody this marriage between health and peace promotion.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of meeting with Physicians for Human Rights, which is an Israeli NGO that works toward making the right to health a reality for all people living in this region. They have an open clinic in Jaffa which serves about 40 people a day, as well as mobile clinics that go into the West Bank on a weekly basis and provide health services to refugees, stateless people, and anyone else who lacks access to primary health services.

The reason I tell you this is because of my mental state once I finally arrived at their office.

I left my house in Ramallah at 1pm, to begin the journey which I knew could last 3 hours typically, even through Tel Aviv is less than 50 km away.

I got on the first bus, got out at the Kalandia check-point, waited... waited... waited for probably 30 minutes, walked through and got on another bus to Damascus Gate (or the "Arab bus station" in Jerusalem). For this portion of the journey, everyone around me is speaking Arabic, people look like they may be going to university or coming home from work. Its calm, but its sweltering. I can't imagine doing this everyday, just to attend class or go to work.

If you are foreign, or have a Jerusalem ID, you can then get on the public transit system that goes through West Jerusalem, and will take you to the Central Bus Station, where again, you must take another bus to Tel Aviv.
The duration for all of this (up to the Central Bus station) is about 2 hours. and remember one can see Ramallah from Jerusalem easily. they are close neighbors, that have become very far apart because of the apartheid wall.

I digress.

So now its 3:45. I've got my ticket to Tel Aviv. I think "no worries, shouldn't take more than an hour max" My appointment was at 5pm in Jaffa. Tons of time.
No. it was not tons of time. We took a different route, some national holiday, major traffic. I arrive in Jaffa, after another two buses, at 7pm.
I felt so helpless and inept. I couldn't call the organization I was going to meet because Palestinian phone companies have no coverage in Israel, even though cities are minutes apart. I couldn't really complain either, because I don't speak Hebrew, and few people I met in the Israeli transit system spoke English.

So in short, I came away feeling incredibly anxious, irritated and worn down. Why did that need to take sooo long?
This brings me back to my opening remark. How can this system - one of perpetual checkpoints, segregated transportation companies, and monopoly of force - not lead to depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue and a whole host of other psychological problems.

After that experience yesterday, this morning I visited Palestine's only psychiatric hospital.
It has been around since 1922, and currently serves 150 patients, 90 of which are chronic in-patients.
The building was beautiful. Old early 20th century architecture, typical of the British presence here at the turn of the century. I asked about the most common illnesses they treat. "Schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder... in some cases heavy depression."

What is the incidence of schizophrenia here in the population? "about 1%, normal, global average"

What about depression? "Way more. probably 3 or 4 times more. Its different now too. During the 1st Intifada, Israel didn't close all the borders. there was fighting, but you were still to walk around. That changed in the 2nd Intifada. They closed all the borders. Now we live in a cage. At the hospital, and mostly at our community clinics, we see so much more anxiety and depression and PTSD now, because of the Wall.

There is was again.
The physical embodiment of people's daily struggles and small tortures in this environment. The occupation penetrates one's psyche. Even if you have freedom within a jail, you are still in a jail.

I see lots of UNRWA and other NGO agencies working in psychosocial counselling and trauma therapy, but today I learned that the Palestinian Authority Mental Health Community Centres rarely have group therapists, rehabilitation services, or family therapists.
"It simply doesn't exist here. Its not taught in schools. Even if you want to become a group therapist, you cannot in Palestine right now"

I do not understand how the World Health Organization, or numerous other health monitoring bodies has not been more incriminatory against the wall. Against all that is stands for, and all that it will effect in the future health of Palestinians. They recently published an atlas on the availability, governance, financing and structure of mental heath services internationally. Palestine, or the West Bank and Gaza Strip, were not included in this Atlas. I find this hard to take.

If you have thoughts on why, please let me know.

Two stories

This Friday I went to Cremizan and Welji, two small villages outside of Bethlehem.

I took part in a hike with 30 other Palestinians and internationals.

The group organizing takes people to hike on land that is under threat of occupation by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Residents regularly receive demolition orders and threats. Most of the land we were walking through is in Area C, which falls under direct Israeli control within the West Bank.

I still get confused about the Areas A, B, and C. Area A is supposedly full Palestinian Control, B mixed ownership, and C under the supervision of Israel. “Your house can be in Area A, and your front step in Area C. Its soo arbitrary” says my friend. I don’t feel so bad about my inability to get them straight.

So we walked and walked, throughout an 19^th century winery owned by the Vatican, and by the world’s oldest olive tree (estimates range from 2000-5000yrs). It was dry, thorny, penetrating and punishing heat. The group was boisterous and would regularly break out into song. Songs from the 1^st intifada, songs from Egypt.

We went to see a house that has been the subject of years of threats and negotiation.

The owner has received multiple offers from the Israeli government for his land: compensation with money, other land inside the West Bank, anything he wanted essentially in return for leaving his house.

I saw his house.

We heard his story outside it, for 30 minutes in the 40 degree heat.

I thought to myself ‘why all the fuss?’ It was a small place, pretty, but hardly qualification for high level Israeli government officials to hem and haw over. But then he told us about the entire annexation plan the Israelis have for the winery, his house, and the village on the mountain.

They want it all.

They have already destroyed an entire mountain with explosives, to make way for more settlements and services for their residents.

The Israeli government wants the mountain because it wants the view.

It wants the mountain because it wants to control the entire area.

I should mention that all of this is taking place approximately 10 min by car from the centre of Bethlehem. The Nativity church, the Shepherd’s field, the entire Christian historical pilgrimage.

The land is under threat

Which one can think about and sort of make sense of. It’s a geopolitical and tourist tactic. I get it.

But what I didn’t get was what happened next.

We were walking down the other side of the mountain towards a field to have a bbq, and all of a sudden 7 IDF come up and wave us away.

Why?

Because right down below, in a public spring (in Area B), there were a group of Israeli settlers enjoying the water.

No problem I thought. We aren’t going anywhere near them.

It apparently was a huge problem. Our group, was told to walk further into the bush, and forbade from getting within 100 yards of the settler group.

Hmm. Alright

So we went and waited. We bbq’d. We talked. We waited.

For 3 hours.

While the Israelis enjoyed the spring and we sat in the blaring sun.

At about 6pm, we started to walk back down. Thinking it was Shabbat (it was Friday, and most observant Jewish families mark the Sabbath with a meal at sundown). It should have been time for them to go.

One Swiss woman in our group walked toward a smaller spring to get some water. No problem. IDF did nothing. One Palestinian man followed just behind her to do the same, and he was greeted with angry shouts and shoving.

I couldn’t really believe my eyes.

Such overt and blatant racism.

Is getting water on your own land a crime, especially after you have been made to endure 4 hours of needless waiting in the mid-day sun?

I guess so.

I again am plagued and confused by this apartheid state. But more than anything, the settlers, or colonists as some call them, confuse me.

Who can stand back and watch police forces actively segregate and restrict the movement of people who are simply having a picnic?

I am blessed to have grown up in a time and place where racial segregation was not tolerated officially, and while there may have been minority ghettoes in Vancouver in the 1990s, there were never cases of the RCMP actively telling one group of people to leave the premises while another group preferentially enjoyed the services.

I added some photos of two things I’ve seen here in the past two days.

The second is described above.

The first is the Festival of Lights in the Old City in Jerusalem. A beautiful night of performance art and light exhibitions throughout the ancient streets. Jews, Arabs, Christians and seemingly everyone else in the city was there walking around and admiring the quiet beauty.

It was such a perfect example of what can happen here. There can be cooperation and mutual understanding. It does happen. I hope to tell you about more of it soon.

this all happened with the same 20km

how to not h*te

I just got back from a weekend spent in Hebron, or in arabic El Khalil.
My roommate in Ramallah is from Khalil, and she invited me to see her town.

Hebron was the only city in Palestine I couldn't get Canadian insurance coverage to go to.
well. and the Gaza Strip.

I had heard a lot of friends tell me about the direct confrontation and violence that happens there between Palestinian and Israeli settlers. Throughout the Second Intifada here (2004-2006 approx), this area was heavily affected, with hundreds dying in the old streets and day-to-day life disrupted for years as the fighting went on. There are bullet holes in buildings throughout the city. Local men, about my age, will laugh and point to them when tourists walk through. I was thinking 'you were 14 or 15 during all this and now its a tourist sight' How does that make me feel?

I had also heard a great deal about the richness of the area. My roommate lives in a town close by called Tarqumiyah. It has human history going back 4000 years. It is surrounded by olive groves on all sides, likely planted by any number of past residents: Canaanites, Crusaders, Ottomans, British, Jordanians, Israelis or Palestinians. I was struck by how fertile the place was.
I saw gardens with mangos, apples, apricots, figs, hazelnuts, pomegranates, cherries, oranges, limes and pears.

Hebron is a holy city.
It is home to the Abraham Mosque.
It is here that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah and Rebecca (the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Jewish people) are said to be buried.
It is also considered the fourth holiest site in Islam, as Abraham and Isaac are also Muslim prophets, and Islamic tradition holds that Mohammad visited the site on his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem.

So.

Needless to say, it is central to both faith systems and an important part of both groups of believers' spiritual lives. It is believed to date to 1500 BC, and after much violence and discrimination towards both Palestinians and Israelis, is now separated into two sections: Muslim and Jewish.

One is shocked, therefore, when you walk through the Old City towards to the Mosque and see heavy fencing and barrier walls dividing the Old City from an Israeli settlement.
I walked by and overhead were young Israeli children, watching out at me from behind barbed wire.
As I walked further in, I realized the streets were covered with a wire mesh overhead.

Why is that? it is to prevent the Palestinians who walk through heading to the Mosque, or simply moving throughout to their homes or shops, from being hit by objects thrown by the neighboring Israeli settlers. I am cautious as I write this that it could sound hateful.

I felt hatred.

I felt indignant and profoundly jarred. Why are children raised to believe it is alright to throw bags of vomit and feces at their neighbours? How do you reconcile daily armed militia taking American settlers through the streets, telling them in English that all the land they are walking on is Israeli, and the Palestinians are dirty thiefs?

I know that Jewish people have historically been horribly wronged in this very city. They were not allowed to enter to pray or organize in the area. One has to think about vengeance and question its long-term outcomes. The more I travel around this part of the world, the more I am completely convinced about the apartheid state that Israel actively promotes.

Separate roads, requirements to hold documents at all times, obligations to apply for travel permits, removal from strategic natural resource-related lands.
You see it everyday here.

What I saw this weekend was perhaps just more blatant. or no, it was more cruel.
Humiliating.

In my research, I am continually inspired.
Tomorrow I will return to a camp outside of Bethlehem, to sit with women and learn to make bread.
It is a local women's centre that has started a hair salon and bakery in the refugee camp.
I am sure I will see empowering and dignifying things going on.

I hope I see lots more of them.

tolerance

today I visited the Nativity church in Bethlehem.

Leaving from Ramallah, I took a taxi van to the Kalandia checkpoint.
then I went through the checkpoint on another bus, just me and one other Palestinian women. We surprisingly weren't hassled and went right through.
Then I got to Jerusalem and took another bus to another checkpoint, then had to take a ride from a random stranger, then finally got to the Bethlehem checkpoint leaving Israel.

the trip took about 2 hours, but the distance couldn't have been more than 40 km.

I walked around the Wall. It is covered with graffiti.
words like 'Viva Palestina"
 "This is not a wall, This is apartheid"
"The maker of this wall is human. The breaker of this wall is human"
 "A country is not only what is does. It is also what it tolerates"
"Love wins"
"For He himself is our peace who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility"
when you walk around the wall, you come across a Palestinian cemetery. The Wall cuts right through it.
It cuts right through peoples' lives and histories and doesn't make sense.
It cuts right through decency.


after that walk, I went to the church of the Nativity. Sort of a surreal experience for one who has grown up with very Western ideas and images of Jesus' birthplace and the whole Bethlehem narrative.
I had images of a very rustic old farm-like manger scene, maybe some goats walking around, and perhaps a holy plaque or something.
but no.

Its really quite the opposite of what I imagined.
Its a huge almost empty cathedral with loads of Polish and Italian tourists taking pictures of a small hole in a marble inlay. lots of chandeliers.
there are no goats.
 
and next door is a beautiful renovated Italian chapel.

But what I was struck with in general, with all of this was that The holy site for Christians, the place where their Saviour was supposedly born, is right in the heart of what many Westerners, and all too many Western media outlets, deem terrorist territory. How calm and respectful and peaceful the whole scene was. and it was in an area that normally gets portrayed as suicide-bomber riddled mayhem.

Who is telling the official story?
I think most people reading this know who.
But why are so many others silent?

I was just amazed when I realized that this would definitely not be the case in many other parts of the world.
But here is was, and I wanted to tell you about it.

the peace of wild things

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


Written by Wendell Berry.

empower me, alone?

One does not necessarily achieve empowerment, but rather it is a process of growth and change, continual throughout our lives. So says Paolo Friere (1973).

Rather than being a specific state, it is instead a way of interacting with the world (Gutierrez, L.M., 1994).

interviewing women in refugee camps, camps that have been around for 60 years, makes one reflect on freedom, power, control and value.
today I am going to Jalazone refugee camp in Ramallah. I will talk to women there about their communities, and hopefully gain some understanding about how they flourish and what it means to make a life there.
these are not what most people think of as refugee camps. they are indeed villages unto themselves. they have camp leaders and councils, schools and hospitals - provided by UNRWA.

I want to see how women see themselves. I have met many very confident, powerful female leaders in similar circumstances in Honduras and Colombia. They were the heart of the community, knew who did what and how to get anywhere.

I'm doing research on community resilience. why are some communities able to thrive in extremely adverse situations? how do they retain cohesion and internal commitment when the individuals within the communities are pressured by so many external factors that could lead to depression, hatred, anxiety or apathy?

my hypothesis is that people are stronger when they are together. we know this is true. it is intrinsic and not controversial. I struggle sometimes, however, with the self-directed and self-involved and self-validated nature of my daily life and modern daily life in Canada, and throughout the West.
we are taught to be independent, to go what we wish, and only rely on ourselves at the end of the day.

where has that left us?
why do we have such high rates of environmental destruction, substance abuse, domestic abuse and chronic disease?

I think we've lost something, something human and vital in our belief, our false belief that we can go it alone. maybe today I can put some words to that.
just some thoughts.

today I went to a baby shower and a funeral.

“we eat dates and drink coffee”

 “We come and sit and listen to the Koran in silence. We show our respects this way”

“Every time there is a new life, a new baby, all the women come and celebrate. Women only. We drink many nice things and eat sweets. Babies are sweet”

“you don’t pray- you just sit and listen and be”

“In Palestine, women keep community together. We have very important roles.”

 “Allah al-akbar”

I was struck again by how rich religious societies are. I was in a beautiful open courtyard, at sunset, surrounded by only women, covered in dark scarves, listening to the Koran sung in the background. The whole community had come to be there. Not just family. But everyone. The deceased, a 75-yr old man, probably knew everyone there. He never met me. But because I was visiting, and because you invite visitors into your home and into your life, I was there.

I definitely felt mixed feelings today regarding the headscarf. As soon as we got to Rania’s house, she took all her elaborate coverings off and was wearing normal clothes- sweat pants and a t-shirt.

She and her extended family live in a nice part of Qualqilya. Right next to an Israeli settlement though. The Israeli’s are creating a wall around parts of Qualquilya.

On the drive here today, we drove past a couple soldiers entering a Palestinian farm, and as we passed by, felt the tear gas that had been used to push the farmers back in the attack.

I asked the women at the baby shower what they teach their kids about the Israeli settlers. They said “they see them everywhere. They used to come into our homes, they know they walk around town with weapons. They are scared. Our kids see us talking with them, arguing with them. They know what is happening.”

This, as usual, is a little scattered. But so is life. And the situation here.

I saw such elegance and flashiness in one house and then ramshackle roads and horse-drawn carriages leading to another.

Many contrasts within this country. But the feeling of being a prisoner, being under siege is a constant.

 

peaceful protests

Yesterday, all throughout Palestine and farther, there were protests in support of the political prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli hospitals.

It seems like unequivocal that Israel's refusal to transfer the young men, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla, could lead to their death. Doctors in prison are employees of the Israeli Ministry of Public Security and "their "loyalty to their employer sometimes conflicts with the needs of their patients," says the organization Physicians for Human Rights. The group reports alleged violations of medical ethics by prison doctors, such as forced treatment on shackled detainees.

To me, it sounds like the pre-cursor condition to torture. Which, if it is, needs to be documented, decried, and addressed.

Everyone in the protest knew this. Everyone knew that 12,500 of their fathers, sons, daughters and best friends had been illegally detained without reason for in some cases more than 10 years.

Young kids, no more than 6 years old, walked beside me and waved the Palestinian flag, chanting in support of the prisoners and for peace.

Older women walked with priests and young grand-kids in what seemed to be a regular part of life here in Ramallah.

I suppose I am writing this to say that I have never seen such a beautiful, and confusion demonstration before. It is outrageous that these 12,500 prisoners have been detained on administrative charges. Often these charges stem from questioning the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) why they are confiscating Palestinian land, or challenging the presence of the IDF in Palestinian villages. The prisoners are simply being human, and demanding their dignity.

I was touched by the march, because it so clearly mattered to the women and men walking with me.

I felt it and knew.

state politics

I awoke today, with the sounds of the call to prayer in the background.

And then the news of Francois Hollande's victory in France. A socialist-minded politician who says he wants to return to the "earnest postwar years of government-mandated employment and central-planned projects. Those seem to be increasingly rare today, in these times of debt crises and paranoia of state-supported services.

This conversation seems like it is from a different world than the one I woke up in.

What would it be like for politicians here to say these words? Today I am going to meet with staff at OneVoice, which is an international Palestinian-Israeli youth organization dedicated to lobbying politicians on both sides to begin negotiations and push for a two-state solution.
I am interested to see their views on how much state activity will be permitted here?

So far, I've seen the Israeli state flex its muscles in serious ways. I am excited and intrigued to see what Palestinian authorities are doing...

my first day in Palestine

I crossed the checkpoint yesterday, from Jerusalem to Ramallah.
I'd heard 'you'll be taken and searched, you'll be interrogated and questioned, you'll have to wait for hours.'
We drove in the taxi, right through. No questions asked. No passports checked.

I am moving to Ramallah for the summer. So far, my journey has been terrific, but filled with so many complex emotions.

I spent a couple days in Israel, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, before crossing into Palestine.
I entered hesitantly. I have come with a sort of hatred for the Israeli state. For its gross violations of Palestinian and Israeli human rights, and for its international grand-standing that takes exception to any probe or question about its actions. I felt I would say something wrong at every turn. Flip out on an unsuspecting coffee shop owner - 'do you know what your country is doing! Do you have any idea what is being done in your name?!'
But I didn't.

Instead, I was completely awe-struck by the place.
It was beautiful, people invited us to drink and dance with them, they drove us around and let us stay in their homes. They were incredibly kind and human. Just like anyone else.

I am starting this blog to put up words and experiences I think capture the situation, or at least my situation (a Canadian women working in Palestine) today.
I want to show how there is real dissent from within the country, how there are amazing people and how confounding all this is.


I woke up this morning, in my new flat in Ramallah, and started reading Haaretz. One of the editorials, from this ultra-Zionist newspaper, said "Israel is becoming a pariah state because the extreme right has taken it over almost entirely. The army has undergone an extreme turnabout and does not distinguish between anti-Semitism and the abhorrence the enlightened world feels toward it as a settler and an occupier."

Rachel Neiman, in Haaretz, wrote "I would like to be happy with my Israeliness - I have no other tongue. But I feel like a stranger in this country that has walls and fences in its heart, and I can find neither joy nor pride in my own heart."

I am here to spend four months working in community health programs and doing research on women's participation in local society. I want to know how people on this side of the Green Line feel, and if or how weary they have become. Comments like those above suggest to me that the settlements in the West Bank, and the "myths about the pioneers and the draining of the swamps" have had their time, and are not sustainable for much longer.

Thanks for reading so far, and I hope I can bring some more words and thoughts up soon.