Yummy foods I have been eating in Palestine

Hi kids!

We’ve been awfully busy, with school patrol, a house fire, clashes and a trip out to Firing Zone 918 and you know I don’t have opposable thumbs, so Kathy hasn’t been able to type this very important post about yummy foods we have been eating. Last week we went with some of our friends from EAPPI to have a yummy barbecue dinner Youth Against the Settlements was hosting up at Tel Rumeida:

Kathy wrote up a review of the evening for the TripAdvisor Facebook Page.

After our winter work day we went out with our friend Hamed Qawasme, his daughter Rama, and our EAPPI friends to a restaurant called Falafel Kingdom. Maurice liked it so much, he decided he wanted to go there for his final meal before he left the country and to celebrate his 27 years as an ordained priest. Our friends Sami and Yussuf came too! One night, our teammate Christopher, Kathy and I were the only ones home for dinner. He made stuffed pepper in three pretty colors, and then he found vegetarian jello and put dried apricots and pomegranate seeds in it. Then we put condensed milk on top. Super Duper pretty and super yummy!

Oh also we had a wonderful day off at Kibbutz Harel with Kathy’s friends Aviva and Avner. she forgot to take a picture of the food. But she did take a picture of the nice warm bedroom! And she loved the shower!Well, that’s all for now! Next time, maybe I’ll tell you about some of the fun I had in the South Hebron Hills!

Christmas in Bethlehem 2013

Hi kids!

So a lot of things in Bethlehem were the same as other years in Bethlehem. There were a lot people selling balloons to children.And lots of Santa Clauses and people dressed like Santa Claus everywhere.

When we went to look at the big Creche in Manger Square we saw that a lot of parents wanted to take pictures of their children with Baby Jesus in the Creche.

So I had Kathy and Christopher take pictures of me in the Creche, too!

But for most Palestinian Christians like Christians all over the world Christmas is about remembering the birth of Jesus and spending time with your family, so they go to their churches for special services and then do a LOT of visiting. Sometimes like twelve visits a day! Christopher and Kathy and I went to the Christmas Lutheran Church. Kathy and I really like the services there, which are in German, English and Arabic. This year, they moved to a bigger room in the Fellowship Hall, but dozens of people still ended up having to stand. They did the sending words in a bunch of different languages.Then we all sang “Silent Night” in our own languages and lit candles. I took a picture of Christopher and Kathy after the service.
Christopher went out to dinner with some people who are working for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, but Kathy was tired, so she walked back to the house of her friends, Issa and Diana, where she usually stays over Christmas. The square looked different after dark!

When we got back, some of Issa and Diana’s friends were making some yummy Indian food! We were really hungry and Kathy hadn’t had Indian food for a long time!

Well, we’re back in Hebron now. It’s the third day of Christmas. Where are my three french hens?

Love, Markie

Shoveling with a Squeegee

This is Maurice and me.

Hi kids!

Kathy, Maurice and I worked pretty hard yesterday. The people from EAPPI told us they were going to help clear the snow away from Qurtuba School and the nearby Samidoon kindergarten so the children could get to their classes next day and invited us to help. So Maurice and Kathy and I went over yesterday to do that. Our friend Hamed and his daughter Rama also came.

Like I said in my last post, it doesn’t really snow here, so there weren’t snow shovels for people to buy. Hamed tried to buy some regular shovels, but they had all been bought so he could only buy hoes and pick axes. We cleared a path to the kindergarten and to the toilets behind the kindergarten. It would have been a lot faster with a snow shovel!Then we started cleaning the schoolyard at Qurtuba School. I thought we would never get all the snow in the whole yard cleaned up! We were using brooms and squeegees to push the snow to the sides as well as the hoes and the shovels. Kathy was really glad to take over on a squeegee, because her back was getting sore. She worked on pushing melting snow down a drain as the sun began to melt it. After we were done, the schoolyard looked like this:Then Maurice and Kathy and I all went out to lunch with the EAPPI people and Hamed and Rama to the Royal Kingdom restaurant. It was yummy!

Hurray! We’re in Hebron again!

Hi kids!

Kathy and I got into Jerusalem on Tuesday, but she had a headache on Wednesday, so we didn’t get to Hebron until Thursday. We were sad that we only got to work with Bob Holmes for one day! We worked with Bob during the Second Intifada ten years ago. He is a lot of fun, but he doesn’t like eating fruits or vegetables. He’s really afraid of pomegranates. But we miss him already. Sniff Sniff.

Right before Kathy and I arrived, Winter Storm Alexa hit Israel and Palestine and all the countries around them with a LOT of snow and rain. In Hebron, which is about 3,000 feet up, there was a lot of snow–like there is in Rochester during a couple bad days of blizzards, but no one here has snow plows or snow shovels. So it caused a lot of buildings and parts of buildings to fall down. Kathy and I will take some more pictures of that.

When we got here, several days after the blizzard ended there was still snow on the steps leading up from the women’s apartment to the roof. It keeps melting, so there’s always a little river running down the stairs, and we have to keep squeegeeing the water outside the door down the next flight of stairs because it collects into a little pond about 3″ deep outside our front door.

And it’s pretty cold inside the house. The downstairs apartment where the office is has a gas heater and an electric heater going, so it’s not too bad, but Kathy’s room is really, really cold. The little electric heater doesn’t help a lot. It only warms the part of your body that’s right next it. Kathy is always grateful to her mother-in-law Terri for giving her that black and gray wool dress that is too warm to wear anywhere that has central heating, so it is perfect to wear for winters in Hebron. In fact, she almost never takes it off. She wishes she could wear two pairs of wool socks with her shoes. Unicorns, of course have magic fur, so we’re fine in the cold or the heat, but we try not to be annoying about it.

Ducks, and Dibs and final visits

by Markie

Hi kids!

Kathy and I had to kind of rush away on Saturday, but we spent the last two days visiting with her friends Ya’alah and Netanel. And our friend Laura is ALSO visiting them so we got to visit with her, too! Hurray!

In one picture Laura’s face looked silly and in another Ya’alah was scratching her head, so Kathy cropped them out. In this picture Laura is sharing her sweetie with me. They are a cross between a grapefruit and a pomelo.

One of the things Kathy and I have enjoyed doing most this month is feeding the team’s compost to the ducks and geese from the shop that is the only other building on our street that isn’t locked up. They really like rotten tomatoes and they REALLY think the parts of cauliflower that humans don’t eat are yummy.

On Friday, Kathy, our teammate JoAnn and I went out to the Beqa’a Valley to visit her friends Atta and Rodeina Jaber and their children. Their daughters Dalia and Lara were helping them make dibs. At the end of the grape harvest, all the grapes that aren’t the very best grapes get put in a pot and boiled and boiled into syrup called dibs and it is YUMMMY! Especially when you mix it with tahini. Normally you visit, and then tea comes out and some snacks and maybe a little dinner and then coffee. Well for our visit, tea, thyme bread and coffee all came out in the space of about 20 minutes, and then Atta’s brother called to tell him that soldiers were shutting down the roads because so many Israeli settlers were coming in for a special occasion in Hebron, and JoAnn and Kathy and I had to leave right then. We missed out on a lot of yumminess and a good time with our friends!

Well I guess Kathy and I had better finish packing. I hear there are storms in the Netherlands. Hope they’re gone by the time Kathy and I land. Goodbye Palestine! Goodbye Israel! We will miss you!

I don’t know why Kathy decided to take a picture of this earlier in the month when she was in East Jerusalem. But Kiwi-fried chicken doesn’t really sound all that yummy.

Bouncing, Freekeh, Motorcycles, Homework and More Fun at the Sharabatis!

by Markie

Hi kids!
Every time Kathy and I come to Hebron we always spend at least one evening with the Sharabatis. Hisham Sharabati is the first friend Kathy and CPT made in Hebron. He and his wife Nariman have five children, Abed, Tamer, Wi’am, ShuShu and Adam.

When Kathy saw Adam last time he was a newborn. Now he is almost 2! His favorite toy is his bouncing ball.

He didn’t like it very much when his brothers Wi’am and Tamer tried to get a picture with me and him and his ball.Nariman cooked a yummy dinner. We started with freekeh. It’s a soup made with green wheat. MMMMMM! Then we had roast chicken and potatoes and a salad. YUMMMMY!

Tamer finished his dinner before the rest of us and he asked if I could go play with him and his motorcycle. Then Wi’am joined us. It was fun!

Then ShuShu and I played with Adam’s backpack!
Abed, Tamer and ShuShu got their homework finished, but Wi’am sometimes has a hard time focusing and getting his work done. Kathy helped him a little with his English homework. I helped him with his Arabic homework. Kathy asked him if I spoke Arabic. He said I didn’t, but I could help him erase stuff. Well, that’s all for now. Kathy was tired because she had been up since 5:30 for school patrol and she had to get up early again the next day I guess ShuShu was tired too.

Pictures–Pretty! Apartheid Wall–Yucky!

by Markie

Hi Kids!

Before we left Bethlehem a couple days ago, we visited the wall that Israel built around Bethlehem. Israel said it was going to build it for security between Israel and Palestine, but the wall isn’t built along the border of Israel and the West Bank. It goes inside the West Bank and has confiscated thousands and thousands of acres of Palestinian land. It surrounds Bethlehem on three sides.

Ever since the Wall went up people from all over the world have been painting pictures on it and writing angry or sad or hopeful or happy messages on it. Kathy and I took some pictures. Can you find me in them?

Some artist called Banksy who’s supposed to be a big deal did this.

People who get really angry at the wall throw burning things at it. I got kind of dirty posing on it.

Some mystery CPTer wrote this on the wall and no one knows who! My teammate Cory and I went looking for clues!

We came to a neighborhood that was almost completely surrounded by the wall. A woman whose home had been surrounded by the wall came up to us and asked us to look at her shop. She had designed some really interesting things. One was an olivewood nativity scene with a wall separating the wisemen and shepherds from baby Jesus, Joseph and Mary (you could take it out.)

When we got home, I was really dirty! So Kathy gave me a bath. Now I am all sparkley clean! Hurray!

Meetings in Hebron, Meetings in Bethlehem and Girl stuff

by Markie

Hi kids!

Kathy and I have been going to a LOT of meetings in the last two weeks. It’s so hard to sit still for that much time! Maarten Van der Werf from the Netherlands taught us about Nonviolent Communication for the first week.

Maarten’s on the right, talking.

Then we went to Bethlehem so the team could plan it’s work for the next three years with the help of Gerry O’Sullivan. I like the part where we drew pictures. Gabriel drew the best one. Kathy tried to draw one with two CPTers watching children going through Qitoun checkpoint to get to school and it didn’t come out so well.
I also liked going out to lunch with people. Tarek, the Palestine Project Support coordinator can eat chicken every day!

Tarek is in the white shirt.

But most of the meetings were really confusing. People talked and talked and talked and talked, and broke into small groups and talked some more. Then we thought we had a plan and realized we didn’t and had to talk some some more.

We had a one day off in the middle of the week. Mona was sick of her hair and there is a hair stylist in Bethlehem she really likes so she and Kathy decided to go there. Kathy got her hair cut short.

Mona got her nails done (She says she can do a better job herself at home) and then she got her hair cut and styled.

She was thinking about changing the color, but the stylist convinced her not to .

Finally on the very last day, Gerry was able to organize everyone enough so she could put together Christian Peacemaker Team’s 3 Year Strategic Plan 2013-2016. Hurray!

Well that’s all for now. Next time I’ll write about our trip to the wall in Bethlehem! More pictures!

P.S. The plan ended up being 40 pages, but this is the news release the team is going to put out about it:

CPT Palestine makes plans for new work

CPT’s Palestine team will continue to remain based in Hebron, a microcosm of the Israeli military occupation of Palestine, and make human rights promotion a focus of their work, but plan to expand their work into new peacebuilding enterprises over the next three years.

Most of the full-time CPTers (Israeli authorities had denied Jonathan Brenneman entry into the country three times on September 17, 24 and October 9) and several reservists gathered for a five day retreat in Bethlehem from 9-15 October 2016. Under the guidance of professional facilitator Gerry O’Sullivan, they produced a three-year strategic plan, in effect through the year 2016.

New goals will include

making plans for Palestinian national delegations, with a long-term objective of increasing the number of Palestinians on the team
becoming more deeply connected with Palestinian and Israeli partners and campaigns that are addressing the wider context under which Palestinians live
encouraging the creation of a “City of Nonviolence” in the H-2 area of Hebron that will be a model for other Palestinian regions supporting nonviolence
Working towards the organization of a civil society based on nonviolent principles to prepare for a time when nonviolent actions increase in strength and frequency
providing a forum for Hebronites to discuss common challenges of the occupation
Providing nonviolence trainings for university students and teachers and parents of schoolchildren who pass through the checkpoints CPT monitors
Developing an introductory programme geared toward Hebron’s context to transform how people look at conflict and tools for addressing it
Providing nonviolence training for trainers.
Researching and publicizing Israeli denial of entry for Palestinians and internationals

Tarek Abuata, Palestine Project Support Coordinator notes, “”CPT Hebron continues to be committed to building equal transformative partnerships with our Palestinian partners in Hebron, and we continue to be committed to re-envisioning and giving our work new life through our faith”.

Yummy foods I have been eating in Palestine

by Markie

Hi kids!
I have been at SO MANY MEETINGS with Kathy the last two weeks. The team in Hebron has been learning about Nonviolent Communication and is in Bethlehem this week making plans for its work next year and it’s interesting if you’re human I guess, but I’d rather be out having fun.

So while Kathy’s in meetings I thought I’d talk about some yummy foods I’ve been eating.

About a week ago, some German Mennonites stopped by and Kathy talked to them about Hebron, then they took us out to lunch at our favorite chicken and salad place! Konrad, the leader of the group who’s wearing the shirt with the peace sign worked for Mennonite Voluntary Service in Cincinnati, Ohio. I especially liked the pink salads!

The next night Gabriel, who’s from Santa Catarina in Brazil made some yummy macaroni and cheese for dinner and a special Brazilian dessert called brigadeiro made of cocoa, butter and condensed milk. Then he stuck eight spoons in it and we ate about half of it. Gabriel finished the rest the next day. Here’s a picture of Maarten an JoAnn eating some with me.

Cory had some days off and went to Tel Aviv in Israel and found some custard fruit in a shop there. It was her favorite fruit when she lived in India. This one wasn’t really ripe, but it was still VERY yummy. Cory says when they’re really ripe they taste and feel just like custard in your mouth. I really, really, really want to eat a very ripe custard fruit. Patrick, our teammate from Wales says they look like dragon poop.

Well, that’s all for now. We had a day off from the strategic planning and stuff happened, but Kathy forgot the camera cord for downloading pictures.

Some call it Firing Zone 918, I call them Jinba, Al Fakheit. . .

Some call it Firing Zone 918, I call it Jinba, Al Fakheit, Isfey, al Fakheit, al Majaz, at Tabban, Jinba, Mirkez, Halaweh and Khallet Athaba’

On Saturday evening Kathy, Gabriel and I took a taxi to Yatta to spend the night with the family of Mufid, who usually drives people from Christian Peacemaker Teams, the International Solidarity Movement and The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel to visit schools in an area that Israel calls Firing Zone 918. We had fun with Mufid’s children, especially Leam

Her big sister Leal and brother Odai taught me the Arabic alphabet.

Then the next morning we went out with another driver (not sure why we didn’t go with Mufid) in a car that the Japanese government donated through Unicef to pick up kids to take them to Al-Fakheit School. These kids live in very tiny villages far away from Yatta, so they either had to move to Yatta to stay with relatives to go to school or just not go to school. But now they have schools in Jinba and Al-Fahkheit they can go to. CPT, ISM and EAPPI ride with the driver into the area these villages are because the Israeli military does not want these villages or schools to be there and causes problems for the drivers.

Sunday morning, they were stopping drivers ahead of us, and our driver was nervous. The soldier told all of us to get out of the car. The soldier started asking the driver questions in Hebrew, and the driver said he didn’t speak Hebrew. So they started talking to him REALLY LOUD in Hebrew. I wanted to encourage them to think about rainbows but Kathy said she didn’t think it was appropriate. Gabriel said that the car had diplomatic plates and that Unicef wanted us to accompany the car, so the soldiers finally let us through.

Then we picked up the children–seven for the first trip. The driver makes three trips to get them all to the school. While the children waited for the other children and the teachers to get Al Fakheit, they played soccer. Their ball didn’t have much air in it, and they built their goalposts out of these rocks, but they still had a lot of fun.

GOOOOAL!

When the teachers got to the school, all the students line up according to what grade they were in and did exercises.

Road to Jinba

Then Kathy and Gabriel walked a long way to visit the school at Jinba that was built for younger children. Kathy fell on her face and hurt her knee.

School at Jinba

The school at Jinba is smaller than the one at Al Fakheit, and only younger children go there.

I hope nothing bad happens to Jinba, Al Fakheit, Isfey, al Fakheit, al Majaz, at Tabban, Jinba, Mirkez, Halaweh and Khallet Athaba’. I hope that these schools an the homes and wells and caves and animal pens are not destroyed. I also hope that the Israeli military stops practicing bombing and shooting near these villages, because it’s scary for the children and animals. The Israeli government said one of the reasons that all the people here have to move (except for the Israelis living in the area) is that it is a nature reserve, and the wild animals and plants need to be protected, but how can you protect plants and animals if you’re bombing and shooting? I talked to a gazelle about it and she agreed with me that that’s just silly.

Looking at the South Hebron Hills from the school at Al Fakheit

Well that’s all for now. Back to doing school patrol in Hebron tomorrow!

Markie

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