I hope the readers of my blog are also following the more formal MPT blog which reports our observations and summarizes some research. A critical goal of MPT is to inform people and get them to think about the situation over here in a different light. Friends back stateside have expressed concern for my safety. Well there are times that it can get crazy but those have been few and far between this trip and my first. I suppose those who are thus intimidated will cross Oakland, California, off their list of possible destinations. My Bulgarian teammate was living near San Francisco with her sister who is married to an American. She saw the Oakland news on line and said, “I could have just stayed there to get my first taste of tear gas.”
We were tired after two days in Deir Istiya – read www.mptinpalestine.blogspot.com so are taking today “off”. The washing machine has malfunctioned so I did some laundry by hand, cleaned my room – sort of, cleaned the bathroom, and went shopping. A Palestinian man approached and addressed me in good English asking where I was from. I said, “Michigan”. “Really,” he reply, “I’m from Wisconsin!” and then proceeded to show me his Palestinian and American ID. We talked about the problem of explaining the situation to Americans and came to a mutual agreement that the settlements’ cancerous and vicious growth is just very difficult to comprehend without seeing it. My teammate keeps saying stuff like, “How can the world allow this to happen?”
I then went to another store and met a guy from Connecticut. I told him our mission here not knowing if he was Jewish or what. I still did not learn his reason for being here as he was headed out the door but his final remark to me was, “Keep you head down and then a bunch vicious comments about the nature of settlers.” I try to give folks everywhere the benefit of the doubt. I truly believe that there are settlers who are just trying to make a better life of their family. But then they are not the ones coming down from their hilltops and beating farmers as they work their land or throwing stones at children as they try to go to school.
The harvest starts in Huwwara tomorrow so we will be picking in our “home” town.
Most of today was spent trying to figure out blogger and pictures to post the blog on Deir Istiya – why it shows as a 10-23-11 post instead of 10-27-11 date is beyond me. Well I did spend some time sorting thru some Camp Kinawind pictures that were in my camera. It is time to get some rest tho am hoping to hear SKYPE ring in for a chat with Nancy.
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