August 17, 2001

A typical traffic snarl due to the Israeli checkpoints.

Normally (i.e. before October last year), we'd be able to catch a bus or shared taxi that goes straight from the center of Ramallah to Zababdeh. The bus quit running the route with the closures of the siege, but a couple drivers still make the now long and bumpy trip. Although both Zababdeh and Ramallah are under "full" Palestinian control (that doesn't include the ground below or the sky above), they are not connected, which means the path between them is largely through areas B and C. With the current siege, entire stretches of the roads in areas B and C are dug up or riddled with checkpoints, boulders and cement blocks barring travel. Because of the circuitous route required now to get around, we had to go towards Jerusalem (the opposite direction from Zababdeh) to meet our driver from Zababdeh.

With our big backpacks and luggage, we took an extra taxi from Ramallah to the Qalandiya checkpoint and walk across along with the rest of the taxi's passengers. We met him, happily put down our stuff and then headed down to the Jordan Valley Road (the same route we took two days ago in our car with Israeli plates). When we got to the same checkpoint, the cars were lined up and waiting. After forty minutes or so in the sun, the two of us decided to walk up to the checkpoint and see what the hold up was. We were held off by about one hundred yards and so raised our passports into the air. They still wouldn't let us approach, but at least deigned to answer us that we'd be moving in ten minutes. After ten minutes (OK, maybe twelve), we did indeed move. The soldier stopped our taxi and gave Marthame his word of advice: "Be patient." Such is the whimsy of the Occupation. The taxis were waiting to pass from one side of the roadblock to the other. In between is a road that heads off to a settlement. No traffic was headed off to the settlement, and yet every car had to wait. It's possible that we would've waited another few hours (as we had before) if we hadn't pushed a little bit.

We had lunch with our driver and his family once we arrived, which was really nice--they had one of our favorite dishes, maqlube, which means "upside-down." (It was his home that was hit in December by an 800mm shell that shattered a window and went through the family's kitchen and through two concrete walls into their bathroom.) He and his family are digging a water-reservoir by their house, as are most of the homes in Zababdeh - there has been little and often no water coming through the pipes this summer.