Ramallah Diary

Last night, I sat talking in a popular bar,'Sangrias' with a lecturer from Bir Zeit. He told me that his lecture, that morning, had started late because there had been shooting on the checkpoint coming from Bir Zeit village, one student had been wounded. The students had discussed having a strike, but were persuaded it would be counter-productive.

He also told me about a student of his, who was not doing very well. When he discussed his problems with him he found that his mother had cancer, and the only treatment centre in the whole of Palestine, they are not allowed to go to Israel, is in Beit Jahour, near Bethlehem. But this student lives north of Bir Zeit village, so to take her for treatment they have to go through several checkpoints, getting out of one vehicle sometimes, walking through the checkpoint, and getting in another vehicle. Not only can't they afford this, but the Palestinian roads are heavily potholed , so the journey is painful. The consequence is that she only gets occasional treatment. He is having to do the housework, and his dying mother is feeling guilty. Of course if they had lived in one of the settlements, one of which overlooks part of Ramallah, they would have been sped on beautiful settler roads to hospital in Jerusalem, and would have had daycare as well.

The other point the lecturer made to me was that I should not take this bar as normal. Ramallah contains many of the richer Palestinians, and so much of what I am learning is even worse in most of the country, and in the refugee camps, one of which is right next to Ramallah. The lecturer himself lives on the Ramallah side of Qualandia checkpoint, but his area is considered a part of Jerusalem District, and he pays taxes to that municipality, but gets no services.

Fridays are a holiday for many people here, so only a few of the shops are open, and there obviously aren't any tourists. This creates a problem for my meeting people, so I take a chance to look around.

The tanks have taken a toll on the roads, curbs are broken and there are potholes, as well as rubble in the roads from the confrontations. So apart from dodging other cars, and pedestrians they face a kind of obstacle race. The pedestrians, have similar problems, and often have to walk in the road. But considering there is no police force,, the solidarity of their predicament keeps things functioning, no looting here.

The Palestinians are friendly at all levels, I keep finding myself starting conversations with people who only speak about three words of English, which is three more than my Arabic. When we went earlier in the week to Vera Tamaris house, in a wealthy district, we got the wrong house. We had been inside, and talking for 15 minutes, had a glass of water, and started a cup of coffee before our host, or us realised our mistake, I am sure he would have offered us a bed for the night if we had asked.

Sitting in the cafes, has given me the chance to think about the Oxford Ramallah twinning project. The response is so good here that it is becoming clear that people are grasping for the opportunity to break their isolation. They have great difficulty travelling abroad, Israel controls all borders, and therefore all the issuing of travel documents. People I have talked to about coming to Oxford have explained their difficulties. One of them had an Israeli Arab identity card, and even he would have to start queueing at the office in Jerusalem, if he could get there, 12 hours before they opened, in the hope that he would be one of the people they saw. Even then there could be problems coming back, Jordan is even making things more difficult.

So to relate to people, and take them away from their immediate problems Palestinians are really grateful, for this opportunity. But it can go even further as Hasan Barghouti, from the Democracy and Workers Rights centre said, "twinning people to people could be a model for our relationships all over the world" he said that he was going to talk to his friends in Oslo about a similar thing.

Tony Richardson

RAMALLAH DIARY

Children in a public garden