So I (Aimee, that is) was inspired by Stephen's amazing recount of our time together in the WB, to write a little somethin' somethin' about what happen in the time between when he and Justin ripped out our hearts with their departure, and when Ruthie, Jami and Bryce left me all alone in the crazy city of Jerusalem (Al-Quds) :) Just kidding Ruthie, Jami and Bryce, I was totally fine by myself and enjoyed the day I had to mentally prepare myself for my mom's arrival.
P.S. Jami and Ruthie and Bryce should add to this because I have a bad memory and an even worse journaling skills.
Okay, so the first memorable event after Justin and Stephen left was when we were sitting on the grass outside of what I gather is City Hall. We were talking about what we were going to do for the remaining week or so that we were all going to be together. This huge group of Israeli soldiers walked by and started talking to us in Hebrew. I though they were yelling at us to get off the grass, but as it turns out, they just wanted to give us a ton of extra food. Sweet! We gave a bunch away, but lived on the rest for about a week. We were on a pretty tight budget, so all that akl was really appreciated. And I think we all needed to get a better view of Israeli soldiers and that gave it to us.
And now because I'm lazy and running out of time on my overly expensive internet cafe, I am posting what was already written in an email. It serves the purpose well, however.
Wednesday: We went to Nablus. Saw Belatta refugee camp. Got our pictures taken with Palestinian rebels and their guns (big guns too). Their brother was in Hizbollah and was killed and while we were looking at the grave of these guy's father, brother and friend, they get this call saying "the enemy" (Israel my guess) was near and they ran off to (hopefully) hide. Bryce stayed behind, but you should ask him about that.On the way back, us girls flirted, and acted dumb our way through two checkpoints (not my proudest moment, but hey, I'm a Christian pilgrim wanting to see the Samaritans!)
Thursday: Ruthie and I relaxed while jami and bryce went and explored Ramallah. jami can tell you more about that.
I think from here on its Jami's words...
Friday: Two words. Political Protest. More tear gas, rubber bullets etc. Jami and I were arrested. Well not really, but should've been. Truly, I've never ever thought I was going to be arrested more in my life. (btw, Bryce wasn't there. Important note) Okay, this story really needs to be told in as much detail as possible. Okay, we get to Bil'in, and see that our friend Taka (from the Hebron Hostel, where we've been staying, he's the Japanese reception dude) is there. this is important. the protest starts. We're marching through the village towards the wall, and this adorable little kid is leading the chants with a bull horn on his dad's shouldars. anyway, we get to the path leading to the wall (which is actually a fence at this point--that's what the protest is protesting, the wall) the israeli soldiers had set up this coil of razor wire blocking the path. but you just had to walk two feet off the path to go around it. So Jami, Ruthie and I are on the other side of the wire taking pictures of the Palestinians stopped at the wire. Them and the soldiers are shouting back and forth at each other and they begin to pull the wire out of the way. Promptly, tear gas is fired. We're all hit pretty bad and they fired about 15 canisters all in the middle of a crowd of only about 75 people. Where we're at is in the middle of a field of olive trees, by the way. (I'm going to let Jami take it over for now) We all scatter, the tear gas was ridiculous, istant pain in the eyes and I couldn't see anything. Aimee and I took off in one direction and completely lost Ruthie, I was all cunfuddled and Aimee kept her head and called for me to head up hill to get away from the gas...running through a pot hilly field when you can't see is really hard...after we all spent some time hiding in the trees it was announced that we were going to pull back and regroup to go at the fence form a different direction.
We found Ruthie and she had had a similar experience and we started walking back, it looked like we were leaving all together to the soldiers. We headed down into another valley, really we were walking on the side of a steep hill toward a more intense portion of the fence. Ruthie fell behind Aimee and I but we didn't realize it. This is where Taka is important, we saw him up ahead of us and believed that he wouldn't do anything crazy so he was safe to follow. Aimee and I kept going, believing that we were going to the wall and chant and then leave. Before we knew it we were seperated from the main group, we were with only about 15 others heading down the side of the fence. The fence was on top of a hill, we were below, pressed up against a rock wall with the valley falling below us on the other side. At one point Aimee slipped and almost fell down but about 3 palestinian men grabbed her and kept her from falling the 10 ft, she only lost her water bottle. We couldn't turn back at this point because being alone would be dangerous, so we had to keep following the group. We got down to the valley floor and reached the fence. The men had piled branches on top of the coil and we hopped over to get up in to the fence, which was reached after climbing a small hill. The fence had two sections, on our left next to the valley was a wire roll. On our right was a chain link fence, tall, with wire on the top. At this point we were freaking out, we shouldn't have come this far and we realize that this whole thing was completely stupid. We were also concerned about Ruthie and how angry she must be at us. We thought that we were going to stand there and protest, but instead the Palestinians start walking towards the soldiers who are at the top of the hill shooting tear gas at ruthie's group. They didn't even see our group until we were about 20 ft away, also as we walked we all had to keep our hands up so they wouldn't think we had any weapons. When they saw us they shot some tear gas and Aimee and I took off running instantly trying to get out of the fence at the bottom of the hill. A few people were with us and the soldiers forced us to stop. We all crouched down on the ground for awhile and the men kinda protected us, but we were also protecting them in the fact that we are internationals and they can't hurt the palestinians as much with us there. We are told to stand up and walk forward towards the big group of soldiers, through this fence with no exit where they can do whatever they want to the group of us. We have our hands up and walk for 1/2 mile to the next gate. On this walk Aimee and I realize that, although we have our passports, we shouldn't show them because they have no visas. After awhile things loosen up a bit and the group we are with starts chanting "No, No Wall!" When we reach the gate there is a line of soldiers on either side of the exit. Up ahead of us it looks like they are just letting all the palestinians go.
Aimee and I walk, still crazy nervous. A soldier calls out to us "Hey, come here." First he said something in Hebrew that we didnt understand. We walk over and he asked "What are you doing with them?" Aimee: they are our friends Soldier: come with me, we can be friends. As we walked away, realizing he was just flurting he told us to be careful with them. Ruthie was fine too, she just got a lot of tear gas. Probably one of the most stupid things I have ever done, if Bryce had been there he would have stopped us, which is saying something. The fact that we all got out without any trouble is so suprising. That night we slept with Sarah again.
Okay y'all, this is Aimee again, no need to tell us these was stupid; we know and we regret the actions taken by us that day and rest assured that I don't think that I'll do that again any time soon. PS don't tell any mothers about this, okay?
The "intership in human shield work" was interesting but we're morons.
Saturday: after talking to some friends in Ramallah, and making an unsuccessful journey to Bethlehem we went to Tel-Aviv to stay with Bryce's Uncle. They were really nice and gave us good food and did our laundry.Sunday: hung out at the beach(just us girls) and relaxed at the diplomats house. We had corn on the cob for dinner and went to sleep at a different house, friends of the Bohne's. Monday/Today: Us 3, no Bryce, came back to Jerusalem and went to meet with IBDA, a Palestinian cultural center in a refugee camp in Bethlehem. It was awesome taling to these people, they are doing so much in the community with what little they are given. This camp has 11000 people on a kilometer square piece of land.
And Aimee again
We stayed the last two nights with Ruthie's roommate's mom just outside of Jerusalem. Packed a last noother together on Tuesday (?, I might be wrong) (I discovered that my favorite noother is Diet Coke, I'm wild aren't I? :)) and on Wednesday, after doing some stuff in the Old City, Jami, Ruthie and Bryce left. Sad.
Now my mom's here and we're leaving for Dahab in about half an hour. Boo ya. So ready to be back in Egypt, and out of the Holy Land.
Peace Out y'all
Miss you tons,
--Aimee
PS Jami, Ruthie and Bryce: If I left details out tell me, and if you didn't want our protest story told, I'm sorry and I'll take it off :)
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