Peas in the north

I wish I could have had the headline Peace in the north, but peas will have to do.
Today I drove to two villages outside Jenin to take photos of snow peas being cultivated in green houses there. This is all part of ANERA’s Food Security Program, where we train farmers in producing high quality vegetables, and help their cooperatives to set up contacts for export. They also receive the actual green houses.
I went with our colleague Naser, and luckily, Femke could join too. It was a nice day out in the field.

Bean seedling in a nursery

Pea flower in a green house

A happy farmer, benefitting from the program.

Mother on visit

The last few days, my Mother has been here, visiting us. It is nice to see here again! We have been walking in the Old City, visiting museums and doing excursions. She joined me when I went up to the little village Bardala in the Northern Jordan Valley. ANERA is building a girls school there, and I went up to take some photos. While I was working, my Mother was invited to drink coffee with the local women.

We also drove down to the Dead Sea, and walked in the little nature reserve Ein Gedi. Here, we saw lots of ibex (a kind of desert-mountain goat/gazelle) and hyrax (think huge guinea-pigs). All very cute. I will try to upload some photos later.

We have also enjoyed some nice meals together, both at home, and at restaurants like Mona’s and the sushi place.

Bush, school and tomatoes

I have been busy this week, so not been able to update earlier. Sorry for that.
Here, everything is affected by the US President George Bush’s visit. Streets are closed off all over Jerusalem, and also in Ramallah. For many people, it is close to impossible to go to their work, including several of our own colleagues at ANERA. Luckily, we can walk to the office and many other places, so we are OK.

Yesterday, I was down in the Jordan Valley, in a little village called Al Auj’a, where ANERA is building a new school. I took some photos, and enjoyed the much warmer climate that the Jordan Valley is blessed with (summertime is of course not that pleasant there). Here in Jerusalem, it was 6°C this morning. Brrr. And raining. To make things worse, our warm water heater broke down two days ago, the same day as we ran out of gas for our general heater (unfortunately, we have no central heating, it is not so common here). But the electrician came by yesterday morning, as did the gas guy, so now everything is working again.

Monday, I was up in the Tulkarem area in the northern part of the West Bank to take photos of the first harvest of cherry tomatoes in green houses that were sponsored by ANERA. The project trains farmers to produce higher quality vegetables for export, and also helps with green houses. It is always nice to visit successful projects and see the joy of people involved. Often, there are not so many reasons for happiness for them otherwise. When leaving Tulkarem, I passed a several kilometer long line of cars and truck that were stuck at a closed checkpoint. Even if the checkpoint would open immediately (it did not look very probably) it would take them many hours to pass. I, on the other hand, being a foreigner working for an American NGO, could overtake them all and just pass the checkpoint. This is how things work here, sadly.

Building a new school in Al Auj'a

Harvesting the first cherry tomatoes

Calamares at the beach

While reading on the Internet that there is snow chaos in Southern Sweden, were I come from, we have a somewhat different climate here. There is much to be said about living in Israel, but you cannot complain on the winter weather. Yesterday, we drove to Netanya on the Mediterranean coast for a long relaxing walk on the beach. But first we sat down on one of our favorite restaurants, the Sina fish restaurant just by the beach. Sitting on an outdoor restaurant in January, eating calamares and sipping Sauvignon Blanc white wine – now that is a treat. In the sun, the temperature must have been close to 20°C, although it was not more than 15 in the shade.

Tomorrow, our new boss at ANERA will have his first day at work. That is going to be interesting.

New bosses and successful glögg party

Sara, Michelle, Aida, Liz and Wakako chatting away

Ruby and Femke dancing to the Turkish "kiss" song

Surprisingly, it was nice to come back to Jerusalem from India. We have a beautiful home, and home is always home, wherever it is. This week has also been exciting work wise – ANERA finally has a new Middle East Representative (read: big boss in the field) and he arrived to the region this week. With him came the new Communications Director, who is base in Washington and is my boss. She has been working for ANERA for a few months, but this was the first chance for me to meet her.
They started off in Lebanon, then came to Jordan for a regional meeting (that Femke attended when I was still in India). This Friday, they arrived to Jerusalem. So far so good – I have a good hope that we can work well together. Liz, the media boss, came over to our place Friday afternoon for some work. She stayed for dinner and we had a nice time.

Yesterday, we had our Swedish glögg party. The first guests arrived at eight, and soon we had a full house with close to 30 persons (and more than ten nationalities) mingling, chatting and sipping glögg. It is such a pleasant thing to have your house full of friends and colleagues. In the end, some of us danced to the wee hours, and when Femke and I dealt with the worst mess and gone to bed, it was 02.30. Sorry Jenny (our neighbor), for playing loud music late! Luckily, she was also at the party, although she did not stay until the end.

Tulkarem, a lost car and Mr Arafat

A long workday is nearing its end. We (Anders joined me) started 07.40 from Jerusalem. In Ramallah, we met up with Naser, ANERA’s agronomist and headed north to Tulkarem. Here, ANERA is supporting farmers with green houses, and help them to produce higher quality vegetables for export. I was there to take photos of the farmers and their new green houses.

In Jerusalem, the sun was shining from a blue sky, but in Tulkarem, heaven opened for the first serious rain this winter. We became muddy but all the farmers smiled happily – water is a scarce and valuable commodity in this part of the world.

Farmer Essam Masarwi tending his tomato plants
in one of the green houses provided by ANERA

The members of the local farmer's cooperative listen
attentively to an expert brought in by our program.
We drank yet another cup of coffee.

Late afternoon, we were back in Ramallah. We parked the car downtown and took a little stroll. Anders plays backgammon just like me, so we stopped at a simple yet nice café for a glass of tea with fresh mint and a few games. Nice!

Backgammon and tea in Ramallah

When we walked back to the car again, it was not there. Blimey! Was it stolen? We were in the middle of Ramallah, it was pouring down, and getting dark. What to do? I spotted a few Palestinian police officers in the vicinity and approached them, explaining that my car gone missing.
“What brand and color?”
“A white Isuzu)”
“Ah. We took it away, you are not allowed to park here”

It turns out that lawless Ramallah turned into something very much less lawless overnight, and the cops were towing away droves of cars from the streets. For years, you just parked where you found some space, but lately, it seems that they have been painting the curb stones red&white or black&white to signal where you can park or not. Big surprise for all of us!

Now, it should be said that I have always found the Palestinian police very reasonable. After explaining my situation and that I am working for an aid organization, that I have parked here for the last year, just like everybody else, that I saw no sign forbidding parking and that there was a lot of cars already parked there (and implicating that I am a somewhat stupid but nonetheless kind and good-hearted foreigner) they arranged a lift to the car disposal place, and wrote me a recommendation letter in Arabic. When we came there, I got a warm feeling inside, seeing our car again. I once again told my story for the three policemen in charge and gave them the letter. Ten minutes later we shook hands and drove away, no fine, just smiles ☺

I have been at Yassir Arafat’s grave inside the president compound (the Muqatta) several times, but then they were still building the mausoleum. Now it is ready and we went there to have a look. It is a surprisingly stylish and impressing setup in white stone and strict minimalistic style. If you are in town anyway, don’t miss it.

The mausoleum in the Muqatta.
Yassir Arafat is the one in the middle.

Back in Jerusalem, we picked up Femke at the office and then had smoked salmon and Swedish gravad lax-sauce for dinner, together with dill-boiled potatoes and some boiled egg.
After that, Femke and me worked with a report for two hours while Anders took a nap in the sofa.
Unfortunately, Femke is still working. We wee planning to go to our local Russian jazz bar for a Czech beer, but I don’t know if we still have the energy for it…

Troubles in Gaza City

I am writing this, sitting in ANERA’s office in Gaza City. I crossed over into Gaza this morning without any problem. Driving through the Gaza Strip with taxi driver Yusef, I saw more people than usual on the streets, many of them waving yellow Fatah flags. Today is the memorial day for Yassir Arafat’s death, and therefore Fatah, the party that Arafat was the chairman for, and that the present president Abbas is now chairing, called for the biggest demonstrations in Gaza since Hamas took over.

I ended up in the middle of one of them, still rather small since it was in the morning (see photo).
This is the first time I have seen people, even school children, carrying Fatah flags openly here in Gaza after Hamas took over. I did see Hamas police/soldiers everywhere, but they were passive. At least then.

For the last hour or so, I have been hearing sporadic shootings here in Gaza City. I do not know if this is wedding-style shootings in the air (which is nowadays forbidden here) or if people are shooting at each other. Whatever way, we decided not to go out in the field to take photos, as earlier planned.

Hopefully, things are quieter tomorrow, so that I can do what I came to do.
That is, visiting pre-schools where ANERA provides vitamin-enriched milk and biscuits to all the children, and take photos there. I am also hoping to visit places where ANERA renovated or extended the water and sewage systems, to take photos of people living there and benefiting from this.

Meanwhile, I am discussing our PR work with my Gazan colleague Rania. Which is also interesting and needed.

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