In the name of the father
Somewhere in the Jenin's Refugee Camp, Palestine
January 2011
January 2011
This chapter it's not gonna be so funny like the others of my blog, but I hope you enjoy it.
Sadness, astonishment, despair, surprise, curiosity and endless feelings are what I feel at this moment. Not that I'm depressed, but I'm just in a refugee camp in northern Palestine, in fact in the city of Jenin. In this area live, as if just one was not enough, in a state of 2 wars simultaneously and not by sensation, but officially, in an international between Syria and Israel (with the ghost at times loose, at times intense of a regional escalation) that is on a ceasefire and also the debilitating and exhausting civil war.
Different from how I imagined (and probably you too) but with the same objective and feelings, this place has streets and houses (rebuilt several times due to total or partial destruction, sometimes with people inside, from the multi-meaning and pejoratively called "Israel Defense Forces") of cement and many unfinished, lacking some roof, windows... and are not tents because is built for more than 40 years the camp. While this construction to which we would call home (with all the hidden meanings such as security, shelter, rest, tranquility ...) they can not feel it as such and so they name it as housing. They know they can lose it that night, or the children or siblings may be killed in this place that night.
Here i'll tell a situation which i experienced yesterday, it really hited me a lot.
The “city” is only 35,000 habitants and in the camp survive about 15,000 refugees (if someone dares to call it live, I must say that he is an unhappy). In a small theater inside the camp runs an NGO dedicated to convey something to the kids through the interpretation of theatrical works (this surprised me how well made was and the adaptation despite its limitations) and help of the red cross or red moon. I was lucky enough to attend the show "Alice in Wonderland", ironic name by the way, and when it finished I decided to go for a walk in the streets of the campment. Suddenly by chances of life, school finishes at a school in the UNRWA (UN agency that is dedicated to help displaced Palestinians) and i got a flood of kids as if they were bees in a hive. Excited to see someone different and wanting to practice English acquired, I am surrounded by about at least 200 of them of different ages (I was told that there were 1200 attending school, so I was lucky with that number), they asked my name and some wanted to shake my hand and take a picture, like if through it they could escape to the reality they face every day. That's when some of them get exscited and others start throwing stones (some activists told me that is normal). I honestly do not know how to respond, but luckily when the situation was getting dense , appears a man of great physonomi and about 45 years, with a scarred face, no hair and mustache, who start kicking and succesfully telling them to leave as only smoke can do with bees.
Suddenly we stop at one of the alleys of the camp and he point me at his home, which should be an invitation to take a "Chai" (tea), out of curiosity to see how they were on the inside, I accept. The house is (God knows for how long) 2 floors, partially built or destroyed, mattresses on the floor and rooms shared by most of the family, with a wide view of the neighborhood and strategic location, from its visual field includes all directions and even a far distance. It is no coincidence that in the walls can be seen sad covered bullets holes and other uncovered as living reminders .
In the middle of the talk , in which he was playrolling the stories (he didn't speak a word of English and I didn't in Arabic,so therefore was an entirely pragmatic interpretation) gives me to understand that one of his sons died walking around the city. Obviously I thought he did something, but he called his wife and she appears with several photos that undeterred and he told with astonishing ease,what they show: I was horrified, you can see a boy of no more than 9 years amputee in 2 of his limbs, with burns in his face and body parts, a hand in the side and detached console next to his father but with a strength I can not yet understand, the following photos were once assisted and bandaged before he died ... the other 2 mounts in holy places of Islam.
I will not enter into the discussion of religion in conflict, is a matter that must be addressed in a holistic way (I mean a comprehensive manner and not separate conflicts), as this issue is not religious, they are not Jews who enter the city to kill civilians and aren't Muslims who enter to the city and sacrifice themselves, the one who kill are the people who manage them. He told me that another son died when the Israelis went into one house, as I confirmed here the monthly or every 3 weeks resulting interventions to camp or excused by the fact that Al-Aqsa Brigades (a terrorist arm of the Palestinian national movement) were able to have their bases in this city, so these nocturnal visits are usually a couple of trucks with troops backed by tanks (2 weeks ago they did this whole operation just to recover a stolen car) are received with rocks or shot by same people and this is where it closed the curtain on his son. Highlighting the disorganized and impulsive act of the Palestinian and the Israelis organized, he told me that his son was shooting everywhere as the professional Israelis soldiers were quickly making a hole in the wall to surprise him with a bullet in the middle of the forehead. In the same situation other son was arrested and is currently serving a sentence of 7 years in prison while he (the father invited me for the tea) is responsible for the children of the same, resulting in the same house to live at least 4 adults and 7 children.
I had so many stories for 2 days, anyone has information needed to write more than one book, but I am going to synthesize or summarize below some concepts of "national security": some parts of the Gaza Strip, about 2 or 3 years ago, civilians and UN offices were bombed by shamelessly missiles of phosphorus gas, which apart from giving a painful death by volatilization of the skin and flesh, are prohibited by various international covenants detached from the different conventions of ginebra; is another case the one of poisoning suffered by people through sterilizing water(although that happens in Gaza, as Israel uses the water that passes through the West Bank, which is where i'm now), murder and abuse caused permanent by the armies of occupation. But victims do their stuff, for example they "allow" Palestinian soldiers to hide or storing weapons in hospitals, schools and other protected buildings, resulting in a constant abuse of the two parts, ¡here the only one with homage is death!
On another part are NGOs, governments and other organizations helping these people. I am now visiting a German project that is building a cinema, bah, they are now trying to organize in order to leave, asking about why they do this (volunteers), they responded and made it clear they are people like you and like me, doing it for the possibility of growth in one area, through experience in this type of situation and obviously on the side to help someone through them. But there was something common in most, and is that they are assured they can escape this reality and leave it behind with a single airflight, contrasting with the people they are helping.
As you will see is a fairly broad, but I wanted to transmit some feelings i have right now and trying to show that there are people "living" worse than us, that we are giving back. I agree with Alcuin of York and his vision of the vox populi.
I do not want to get you into an NGO, neither to establish a conformity.It's not bad to give you back, but at least you have to be aware of what can happen when hatred and greed take over us. We live in God's name, we kill in the name of religion but we can not forgive on behalf of the Faith. We can be worse than we think, we can suffer more than we suffer, we can help more than we think, we can enjoy more of our life.
