A Day in the Life of an Ecumenical Accompanier
Liz Burroughs, UK (EA from July to October 2006)
4.30 a.m.: the alarm sounds. Reluctantly I crawl out of bed. Outside it is still dark.
Quickly I dress, grab an apple and set off with my companion up the hill towards the checkpoint. Dawn is breaking. We reach the road leading up to the gate. Already there are 1000 men waiting for the gate to open. And it is still only 5am. As we walk up the line the men nod and say, ‘SabaaH ilkheer,’ (Good morning) ‘MarHaba,’ (Hello) ‘ Kiif Haalek?’ (How are you?)
I am in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is surrounded on three sides by a dark grey concrete wall 8 metres high. The wall snakes along keeping as close as possible to the city: there is no room for the city to grow.
There is only one exit from the city: Checkpoint 300. Officially Checkpoint 300 is open 24 hours a day. In reality it never opens before 5am. and often later than that. The men queuing need to be at work in Jerusalem by 7am. – so they start arriving at 2.30 in the morning. Even on a Sunday – because most of these men are Muslim and many of their employers are Jewish, and for both of these groups Sunday is an ordinary working day.
Checkpoint 300 is a bit like the check-in at a major international airport except that there are more gates and turnstiles. Getting through can take a long time: there will be a queue at the turnstile before the metal detector and the X-ray machine and another queue at the counter where the permits are checked.
Every morning is the same – queuing, queuing and more queuing.
Today is easier than most: the gate opens only 10 minutes late, the turnstiles are locked only briefly from time to time and the soldiers at the counters do not spend ages peering at each permit trying to find a flaw. It is not always like this: sometimes the children who need to pass through the checkpoint to get to school arrive whilst there is still a crush outside.
7.30 a.m.: back in the apartment. I go back to bed for a couple of hours before the next appointment of the day. But I don’t always sleep: I see the faces of the men – worn and weary, old before their time; the anxious children; I hear the click click of the gates and the shouts of the soldiers.
10 a.m.: off to church. As I walk down Star Street on my way to the Church of the Nativity (built on the site of the place where Jesus is believed to have been born), I find myself walking alongside a woman – and we get talking. Most people in Bethlehem recognise us Ecumenical Accompaniers because of the vests we wear. They know that we are there to support them and that they can talk to us about their difficulties.
This woman is going to church too. I ask where it is and she points it out. I ask if I may come with her – and she seems pleased. The service is in Arabic – and I understand only a few words – but the singing is nice and there is an atmosphere of worship. After the service I chat to members of the congregation over coffee and bread. I hate Arabic coffee – it is strong and bitter – but I manage to drink it. There are more Christians living in Bethlehem than anywhere else in the Occupied Palestinian Territories but their number is falling all the time. It is important that we support those that remain.
2 p.m.: after lunch I finish my weekly letter and e-mail it to about 90 friends living mainly in the UK. This week I have written about Grace and her family whose olive grove has been seized and destroyed by the Israeli Defence Forces so that another section of the Wall can be built on it. Grace is heartbroken. She had told me about her father and how he had cared for the trees as though they were his children. It is 15 or more years before a young olive tree starts bearing fruit but, if well cared for, it will remain fruitful for more than 2000 years. This olive grove, like most of the others in this land, had been well looked after and many of the trees were hundreds of years old. .
4 p.m.: to Aida, one of the three refugee camps in Bethlehem. A total of 18,000 people live in them, 4,500 in Aida. The people who live in these camps are descendants of Palestinians who were driven out of their villages by the war in 1948. Their villages were either destroyed or taken over by the Israelis. Although they have been refugees for nearly 60 years, there are still many Palestinians who dream of returning home, and the keys to their old houses are still carefully handed down from one generation to the next.
We go to Aida every Sunday afternoon to talk to the young people. It’s a chance for them to practise their English. Most of them want to be able to speak good English as their ambition is to leave their own occupied land and live somewhere where they would be free, such as the USA or the UK.
Today is a bit different from usual because the young people show us their summer holiday project. They have been painting a series of murals along a wall on the edge of the camp, one mural representing each of the 27 villages from which the refugees came. As we walk along the road, the youngsters tell us what they have learnt about their villages and we photograph them in front of them. The village shown in the picture on the left has been incorporated into ‘Greater Jerusalem’ and there is now a zoo, a shopping mall and a football stadium on the site.
7 p.m.: we spend several hours each Sunday evening writing up a detailed log about everything we have done in the past week. It takes ages – and some teams resent having to do it. But we know that at least two people in the office in Jerusalem read our logs carefully and use the information in them. Quaker Peace and Social Witness, our UK sending organisation also finds this information useful.
We also complete a detailed ‘Checkpoint Log’ that we send to (among others) the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the oPt and Machsom Watch.[1] There are still some people who do not believe that human rights abuses take place in the West Bank. Hopefully the information that we carefully compile will help not only to show the world what is really going on but also to help bring it to an end.
I worked for Quaker Peace and Social Witness as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this email are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of QPSW or the WCC.
[1] Machsom Watch is a group of about 400 women who regularly stand at check points to
monitor the behaviour of soldiers and police at checkpoints; to ensure that the human and civil rights of Palestinians attempting to enter Israel are protected; and to record and report their observations to the widest possible audience, from the decision-making level to that of the general public – see coalitionofwomen.org/home/english/organizations/machsom_watch
Liz Burroughs, UK (EA from July to October 2006)
4.30 a.m.: the alarm sounds. Reluctantly I crawl out of bed. Outside it is still dark.
Quickly I dress, grab an apple and set off with my companion up the hill towards the checkpoint. Dawn is breaking. We reach the road leading up to the gate. Already there are 1000 men waiting for the gate to open. And it is still only 5am. As we walk up the line the men nod and say, ‘SabaaH ilkheer,’ (Good morning) ‘MarHaba,’ (Hello) ‘ Kiif Haalek?’ (How are you?)
I am in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is surrounded on three sides by a dark grey concrete wall 8 metres high. The wall snakes along keeping as close as possible to the city: there is no room for the city to grow.
There is only one exit from the city: Checkpoint 300. Officially Checkpoint 300 is open 24 hours a day. In reality it never opens before 5am. and often later than that. The men queuing need to be at work in Jerusalem by 7am. – so they start arriving at 2.30 in the morning. Even on a Sunday – because most of these men are Muslim and many of their employers are Jewish, and for both of these groups Sunday is an ordinary working day.
Checkpoint 300 is a bit like the check-in at a major international airport except that there are more gates and turnstiles. Getting through can take a long time: there will be a queue at the turnstile before the metal detector and the X-ray machine and another queue at the counter where the permits are checked.
Every morning is the same – queuing, queuing and more queuing.
Today is easier than most: the gate opens only 10 minutes late, the turnstiles are locked only briefly from time to time and the soldiers at the counters do not spend ages peering at each permit trying to find a flaw. It is not always like this: sometimes the children who need to pass through the checkpoint to get to school arrive whilst there is still a crush outside.
7.30 a.m.: back in the apartment. I go back to bed for a couple of hours before the next appointment of the day. But I don’t always sleep: I see the faces of the men – worn and weary, old before their time; the anxious children; I hear the click click of the gates and the shouts of the soldiers.
10 a.m.: off to church. As I walk down Star Street on my way to the Church of the Nativity (built on the site of the place where Jesus is believed to have been born), I find myself walking alongside a woman – and we get talking. Most people in Bethlehem recognise us Ecumenical Accompaniers because of the vests we wear. They know that we are there to support them and that they can talk to us about their difficulties.
This woman is going to church too. I ask where it is and she points it out. I ask if I may come with her – and she seems pleased. The service is in Arabic – and I understand only a few words – but the singing is nice and there is an atmosphere of worship. After the service I chat to members of the congregation over coffee and bread. I hate Arabic coffee – it is strong and bitter – but I manage to drink it. There are more Christians living in Bethlehem than anywhere else in the Occupied Palestinian Territories but their number is falling all the time. It is important that we support those that remain.
2 p.m.: after lunch I finish my weekly letter and e-mail it to about 90 friends living mainly in the UK. This week I have written about Grace and her family whose olive grove has been seized and destroyed by the Israeli Defence Forces so that another section of the Wall can be built on it. Grace is heartbroken. She had told me about her father and how he had cared for the trees as though they were his children. It is 15 or more years before a young olive tree starts bearing fruit but, if well cared for, it will remain fruitful for more than 2000 years. This olive grove, like most of the others in this land, had been well looked after and many of the trees were hundreds of years old. .
4 p.m.: to Aida, one of the three refugee camps in Bethlehem. A total of 18,000 people live in them, 4,500 in Aida. The people who live in these camps are descendants of Palestinians who were driven out of their villages by the war in 1948. Their villages were either destroyed or taken over by the Israelis. Although they have been refugees for nearly 60 years, there are still many Palestinians who dream of returning home, and the keys to their old houses are still carefully handed down from one generation to the next.
We go to Aida every Sunday afternoon to talk to the young people. It’s a chance for them to practise their English. Most of them want to be able to speak good English as their ambition is to leave their own occupied land and live somewhere where they would be free, such as the USA or the UK.
Today is a bit different from usual because the young people show us their summer holiday project. They have been painting a series of murals along a wall on the edge of the camp, one mural representing each of the 27 villages from which the refugees came. As we walk along the road, the youngsters tell us what they have learnt about their villages and we photograph them in front of them. The village shown in the picture on the left has been incorporated into ‘Greater Jerusalem’ and there is now a zoo, a shopping mall and a football stadium on the site.
7 p.m.: we spend several hours each Sunday evening writing up a detailed log about everything we have done in the past week. It takes ages – and some teams resent having to do it. But we know that at least two people in the office in Jerusalem read our logs carefully and use the information in them. Quaker Peace and Social Witness, our UK sending organisation also finds this information useful.
We also complete a detailed ‘Checkpoint Log’ that we send to (among others) the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the oPt and Machsom Watch.[1] There are still some people who do not believe that human rights abuses take place in the West Bank. Hopefully the information that we carefully compile will help not only to show the world what is really going on but also to help bring it to an end.
I worked for Quaker Peace and Social Witness as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this email are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of QPSW or the WCC.
[1] Machsom Watch is a group of about 400 women who regularly stand at check points to
monitor the behaviour of soldiers and police at checkpoints; to ensure that the human and civil rights of Palestinians attempting to enter Israel are protected; and to record and report their observations to the widest possible audience, from the decision-making level to that of the general public – see coalitionofwomen.org/home/english/organizations/machsom_watch
