February 12, 2001

The view of Zababdeh from the hills.

The beautiful greenery.

Marthame got to do more walking in the hills after school, while Elizabeth continued her basketball coaching of the junior high girls. On the walk, Marthame met a shepherd, who chose his profession because he gets to be his own boss. He had one hundred in the herd, but Marthame's Arabic was too limited to ask what would happen if one of them were to wander off - would he leave the ninety-nine?

Shooting continued in the afternoon today - it isn't every day, and it isn't always at the same time like it once was. But unlike what we recently saw in Ramallah (and Beit Jala and Beit Sahour), the shooting rarely is in the direction of the village, and still no one in Zababdeh has been hurt and very few homes have been hit, and so we are thankful.

We also went up to the Arab-American University to visit with friends - an easy trip with our car! Unfortunately, though, the neighbor children have decided that our car makes a good chalkboard (or shall we say rockboard) and have scratched their names into the side. Thirteen years without a scratch, in all parts of Palestine, and one day in Zababdeh...there seem to be more and more parallels with life on Chicago's South Side.