Opera and riots, kind off

Next to our house, there is a school’s playground. This Friday, a new wall painting was inaugurated with speeches, wine and food. Our house was also used as a stage for a kind of performance, with children from the school acting on two of our balconies and in the window of our neighbours below. To top it off, an opera singer living on the same street, was singing from the balcony of our neighbours upstairs.

The kids were of course all excited, but everything went well, despite a shower of drizzling rain just afterwards. Although, when the organizers were trying to hand out candy to the children on the playground, the local kids went completely berserk. Sadly, it reminded me more of handing out food to desperate and starving people somewhere in a region hit by draught. Tables and benches were turned over and slightly bigger boys pushed away the smaller ones and the girls.

It was all rather disgraceful, but a good mirror of how many of the boys are fostered without limitations, rules or guidelines, just roaming around on the streets, while the girls are kept on a very tight leash.

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