Catholic Views Radio Show
Transcript
September 8, 2002

KELO/KSDN

Jerry Klein: Good morning, and welcome to Catholic Views. I'm Jerry Klein. Thanks for being with us this morning. We are going all the way to the West Bank to talk to some firsthand witnesses to what's going on there these days. This morning on Catholic Views, we are joined long distance, quite long distance actually, by Elizabeth and Marthame Sanders. They are volunteers working in our sister parish of Zababdeh in the West Bank area of the Holy Land, and great to have you with us this morning.

Marthame Sanders: Morning to you, Jerry.

Elizabeth Sanders: Good morning.

Jerry: We have visited once, excuse me, once before by telephone with Marthame. Our connection was not so good. This morning, actually, we have a pretty good connection, and we're delighted to have the opportunity to kind of get an update on where things are as a new school year begins at the school that you work in Zababdeh, the Visitation school. Many of our listeners will be familiar with the fact that our diocese has tried over the last several years to be of assistance to the Christian school there. And the two of you are volunteers from the United States who have been there, what, is this your third year?

Marthame: This is beginning our third year. Yeah.

Jerry: Beginning your third year there. Let's just set the groundwork now. You were back in the United States over the summer. You've returned just in the last few weeks to the area. How are things as you returned to the area now?

Marthame: Things are Zababdeh are actually kind of quiet, which is nice. But Zababdeh is quiet in that respect. The school year has begun. It began about a week ago, and we draw kids from all over the region because of the quality of the school, kind of a magnet school for the region. So we have kids coming from the city of Jenin, from the nearby city of Tubas to the south. But those cities have been affected by curfews – particularly Jenin – and by military incursions, regular military incursions. What has happened, just about every day, is we just don't know who's going to end up coming to school from the teachers and the students as it may be that the road is closed. It may be that a particular neighborhood in Jenin is closed, and so kids from that neighborhood can't get there. So far we've been actually managing. Most of the kids have been able to come every day. The buses from the other villages come late, but we're getting by.

Jerry: I'm trying to think of a way to help our listeners here think about what that must be like. And the thing that came to my mind, it's sort of like having a perpetual blizzard, and you don't know which roads are going to be closed because of the blizzard. You don't know which way the wind is blowing necessarily, and what's blocked. You just got to live with that.

Marthame: Yeah, I think one of the things that we realized when we were talking in the States this summer is we talk a lot about curfew. And there's this sense from an American context that curfew means that at a certain time of night, you're not allowed to be out if you're a certain age. But what curfew means over here is that when curfew is declared, and it could be any time of day, that means you don't leave your home under risk of life, risk of getting shot in the streets, until the curfew is listed.

Elizabeth: And that's been particularly disturbing when we've talked to our friends, fortunately not in Zababdeh, because Zababdeh hasn't been under this kind of curfew. But our good friends in the city of Nablus, which isn't too far south of us, who have been under a curfew for about two months. And that means you don't leave home, you don't go to work, you don't go to school. You stay and wait, and every few days, perhaps every week, it's lifted for a few hours. People rush out, try to buy bread, buy food. And often it's imposed with very little time for people to go out again. The past this summer has been a horrible summer for people in Nablus. It's something unbelievable to the rest of us who are accustomed to, for the most part, being able to come and go as we like. But having to stay at home in a hot house, not being able to even open a window or stick your head out for cell phone reception, is unbelievable.

Marthame: Like being stuck inside on a snow day.

Jerry: Yeah, exactly.

Elizabeth: Much, much worse.

Jerry: Only much, much worse.

Elizabeth: The blizzard metaphor, and it's unpredictable as you said. I think that's a nice comparison that the blizzard, you don't know exactly when it's going to hit, what's going to be open. It's very difficult for people here to plan, and it has been for a very long time. So people right now are feeling kind of defeated. When you can't make plans, you can't follow through. It's a difficult time.

Jerry: The distances, of course, are small. I mean, we're not talking about a huge amount of geography to deal with here, and yet the obstacles are enormous.

Marthame: Yeah from here to Jenin is about six or seven miles. From here all the way down to Jerusalem, which is now about a five hour journey, it's only about fifty miles. We are talking very small distances.

Jerry: Yeah, yeah. It's hard to imagine. I think, and I'm sure you found this when you were back in the summertime around the country speaking to people, it is very hard for people to grasp exactly how it must be to live that way.

Marthame: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I think there are some monolithic views. And I come out of that experience of growing up in America and having views of the Middle East. That takes time to overcome and to understand the subtleties of the area, and the nuances, and the variety of experiences here. The most obvious one for us being in our experience is the presence of the Christian community. It's a minority community, but they are Arabs. They're Palestinians. They've been in this land in some shape or form as a church for 2000 years since Pentecost.

Jerry: Yeah, they're the founders, really.

Marthame: Yeah, absolutely. The reason that we can come over here and be mission volunteers is because someone was a mission volunteer 2000 years ago from Jerusalem going westward.

Jerry: There's a need for more people like you as well. I know that your term, if you will, as volunteers at the school, we'll come to an end, I think, after this academic year. And there are possibilities for people to become involved in that way, aren't there?

Marthame: Yeah. This village has had, and this school in particular, the Latin Patriarchate School of Zababdeh, has had a history of volunteers, particularly American volunteers, coming to teach English; as well as French volunteers coming to teach French. Because of the changing needs in the area, there was no longer a program in place for that. It used to be that the Mennonite Central Committee provided volunteers and did so for about fifteen years. We came a few years after that program ended, and we've come under the auspices of the Presbyterian church, but it doesn't look like the Presbyterian church will send replacements after we leave. So there is absolutely a need, all over the area, for folks who are willing to volunteer their time. And particularly in this village, which has been a wonderful experience and a very difficult time, to give their gifts and to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

I think one of the amazing things about the school is that it's a school of about 700, and as I said, it draws from all over the region. And because it does that, about half of our students are Muslim, the other half are Christian; and half of the staff is Muslim, and half of the staff is Christian, which is an incredible place of interfaith cooperation. The potential is great for people to learn more about each other, which they do already, and more than we would expect, but to have to work together in an educational setting, and particularly under these circumstances where people are really having to work together really well. It’s been an interesting couple of years to see that.

Elizabeth: I'd add that it's a powerful experience for them to work together and to study together, but more than that, it's been a powerful experience for us to be in that context and being Americans, not being particularly familiar with Islam, and with the Middle East, and how Christians and Muslims here have been living together and working together and getting along together for hundreds and hundreds of years. And I think particularly now, that's an important perspective to be aware of, an important history to learn about, because I think many Americans are under an impression that Christianity and Islam have never been able to live together. And yet, indeed, they have a very good track record.

Jerry: What's it like to be in that setting yourselves – again, coming out of the experience that you come out of as people from the United States, where I'm sure the people there have certain perceptions as well of who you are and what you bring. What has that experience been like?

Elizabeth: Well, I’d say that when we returned after this summer, we shared with some of the teachers at the school that we had been in the States and we had been telling stories, sharing our experiences, and those of the people we work with and live with in Zababdeh. And along with us, we brought a large piece of a large butcher piece of paper with signatures from the people that we spoke with at the many, many, many different churches that we're speaking with, sending good wishes and prayers for Palestine, for Zababdeh, for this region. And when we showed that and told people that there is quite a bit of goodwill and hopes and prayers on their behalf, it was interesting. It was a powerful experience for them. One of the teachers came to me and said, “Thank you.” That she had thought before that, basically, Americans didn't like Palestinians and she felt, she said, “I thought all Americans hated me,” and we helped to change some of that perspective for her. And she said, “Thank you.” It was powerful.

Marthame: And the experience for us, it's been doubly humbling and challenging to be in this context; humbling in that Semitic hospitality is well-known from the time of Abraham, inviting the three guests to come and eat the fatted calf with him. Things haven't changed much. We are well fed here; perhaps a little too well fed, and we are welcomed warmly and unconditionally into people's homes. It's amazing when someone will invite you into their home and after you talk to them for ten minutes and they say, “Now who are you and what are you doing here?”

You assume that they know who you are and what you're doing here, and that's why they invite you in, and then you find out that it's just because you happen to be walking down the street at the time. The challenge of it is that people are suffering here, and to deal with that suffering on a daily basis is hard. A woman came into the school today looking for assistance, and she's a Christian from Jenin, and she had filled out some applications for support from Jerusalem. And watching her break down in the office in front of people, which is not something that is normally done, was very difficult. And it happens regularly, and it's happening to a lot of people who have very real needs, having a very hard time.

Elizabeth: Many people have been out of work for two years now. I think that's also something that's very difficult for us coming from our perspectives as Americans to understand that existence, how to survive. I mean, once this Intifada started, this current crisis began, most of the people in our area used to work in Israel as laborers, as nurses, etc. And they have not been able to, been permitted to, for the most part, go to their jobs. And also, so many people have been dependent on the pilgrimage and tourist industry, and that, of course, has pretty much gone by the wayside. And so, people are very much suffering economically. And the only reason they're surviving is aid, assistance, and the fact that the family structure here is very strong and intact. So if there's one member of an extended family who does still have a job, that person ends up supporting the rest of the family. And so, it's a very difficult situation now. It's wearing very thin. People are also living off their savings. Anything they have saved up is going. I think recently a report was said that in the West Bank, the unemployment level is at 50%. I think in the Gaza Strip it's something like 70%. There was a recent report about malnutrition among children in Gaza is an alarming high rate. Things are getting bad, very bad here now.

Jerry: They're tighter and tighter all the time.

Elizabeth: For people who are accustomed to working and making a living, and they're not able to do that, and they're not able to look forward to a future, particularly for their children. And that's one of the main reasons that people are leaving, are trying to leave, have been leaving for the past several decades. It's generally not a terribly hopeful place for Palestinians, and particularly now. And that's part of the reason when people see that Christians have been leaving the Holy Land. And that now approximately 1.5 – or less – percent of Palestinians living here are Christians. That's down from 15 to 20% in 1948.

In 1948, 15 to 20% of Palestinians living here were Christians. Now it's less than 1.5%. And that's emigration of people leaving, because the chances for a hopeful future are so slim.

Jerry: Well, I know that our listeners have enjoyed this this morning. Unfortunately, we're about out of time. I do want to make sure that you give us the page that people can find more information on the internet. You do a great job of keeping people up to date of what's going on with your diaries and so forth. If you could share that, that would be wonderful.

Marthame: Absolutely. It's www.come.to/zababdeh.

Jerry: Great, and we'll give that again after the interview today at the end of the program so that, in case people don't have a pencil right now, they can grab one and we'll make sure and give that again. Elizabeth and Marthame, thank you so much. Great to hear firsthand some of what you're experiencing, and we'll try and do it again.

Elizabeth: Great. Thank you.

Marthame: Thanks, Jerry.

Jerry: Very helpful for me at least to listen and hear about what's going on today in the West Bank area, in Zababdeh.

Gene: It's always important to know what's happening, keep up to date on that, because, again, it's such a tragic situation what's happening there.

Jerry: And I want to repeat their webpage, because it’s really a great font of information for what's going on day by day. Again, I hope you have your pencil ready. It is www.come.to/zababdeh. And just go to that, and it'll be helpful to people.

Gene: It will.

Jerry: All right.

Gene: I've been there many times.

Jerry: That's our time for this morning on Catholic Views. Thanks for being with us. We'll be back next Sunday.