Rocks and Walls!

Alright. Since people have been all over me and wants me to write in english, ill give it a try, and we'll see how it goes.

Day 10 in Ramallah/BirZeit and still everything is under control. My arabic hasn't improved that much yet, mostly because I'm a bit confused by the different rules in Arabic Fussha (standard arabic) and Arabic Aamia (palestinan dialect). Like last night, i sat up really too late, doing homework, trying to learn present and past tense in standard arabic, but today, in Colloquial (as Aamia is called in English) class there were completely different words for the same thing. But, I must confess, I've strayed into the international student bubble as well, and have not been talking enough Arabic. It's hard to resist, but at least my English has improved.

Today I actually had my first English teaching job. I'm hopefully going to teach English to a group of Palestinian girls. That was pretty fun, and it also kind of helped me with my Arabic cause they would give me the Arabic translation for the English words that I wanted to explain to them. But, still, it has just been one week, and most likely my Arabic will improve, and hopefully I'll get a conversation partner, and the people studying with me will know more Arabic so we'll talk more Arabic to each other too.

Well, Since last time I've seen a bit more of the occupation and joined one of the weekly demonstrations at Bil'een village (north west of Ramallah). It wasn't that easy of a decision to make, whether to join the demonstration or not. You hear all the crazy stuff the Israelis do and might do, and little of what you hear is what you want to experience. Our "guide" to Bil'een, a BirZeit local, refused to take us to a place called Nil'een, where the Israelis assumably shoot with real bullets, and not only rubber bullets. But a small group decided to head off to Bil'een, a half hour drive from Ramallah.

Because of Ramadan it wasn't that huge of a demonstration but I had my first experience with tear gas. I mostly stood in the back but still some of the tear gas shells reached me, and I don't recommend anyone to stand in the middle of it. Basically it becomes very painful and difficult to breath as your throat constricts and your eyes burn and tear up often so much that it is near impossible to see. The effects last for several painful minutes the only relief available being the smell of onions handed out by more experienced demonstators. The demonstration wasn't, as i said, that big, and that was okay with me.

Even though we knew the Israeli soldiers at the other side could shoot with rubber bullets, they never did, but you are alarmed and frightened every time you hear the sound of a shot. The problem was that the Israelis weren't just in front of us, but also around us. So they could, and they did, attack us both from the front and from the flanks. Imagine hearing a bang sound, and all you see above you is a teargas shells flying at you, and you don't know where they'll land. One of my friends actually got hit by a teargas grenade, causing severe bruising and four days later still painful.

The "funniest" part with the whole demonstration was this huge truck the Israelis had. From time to time, when the soldiers didn't throw or shoot tear gas grenades at us, this truck came towards us and sprayed toilet water (!) on the demonstrators (pic. to the right). The ones getting wet by it, including a Scottish friend of mine, had their clothes colored blue and scented like shit the rest of the day. During the whole demonstration, as we've often seen on the television, the Palestinians shouted their anger at the Israelis and attacked armored Israelis trucks and soldiers with rocks.

You may say the reaction from the Israelis wasn't that bad, but think about it. For me it was an exotic tourist attraction, but for the people living there, it's hard facts. Israeli occupation forces put up their fences (and, of course, walls) wherever it suits them, call it their land, and there is nothing people actually living there can do about it. Well, except protesting, shouting, throwing rocks and hoping for more internationals to see their fight, and hopefully support them. Sadly, they dont. People like me come to Palestine, see their situation, blog about it, but the countries we're from don't bother making Israel obey their international obligations. On the contrary, they blame the Palestinians for putting up a resistance. Terrorism, is the magical word. We don't respect their fair elections, block their economy and as we all know put the Palestinian territories under further troubles. While, at the same time, we invite Israel into whatever is going on in Europe, be it EuroVision, European championship in Football and so on. That's the way we protest and punish Israel. Hmm. Go figure!

Well. That's it for this time. Other than this, I've been enjoying my days here in BirZeit with a huge birthday party at a local restaurant. So it's not just occupation and resistance. Life goes on, for me, and the Palestinians as well. To end this blog with something nice; Here's a nice picture of the birthday cake the restaurant made for me: