December 17, 2001

Shepherd children in their winter grounds outside Zababdeh

Goat grazing in the hills above Zababdeh

Today we continued making 'Eid visits, heading out into the hills to share in fellowship with our shepherd friend. Not long ago, he and his family were evicted from their summer camping lands. They departed for their usual winter area on the other side of the mountain in the valley. We caught up with him in the hills - we could hear his familiar call to his sheep ("The sheep know the shepherd's voice"). There are four families there, meaning several dozen people living somewhat-communally. One family used to live in Jenin and run a shop. The shop went out of business in this Intifada so they sold everything, bought some sheep, and headed for the hills. During the winter, it does get cold, but living in the valley means being somewhat out of the elements - at least, the wind (which can be the worst of it all).

An ancient coin found in the hills outside Zababdeh

We shared in a meal from a common plate, eating fresh-baked bread and cooked eggplant, all topped off with several rounds of tea. He also showed us some of his treasures which he has found in the hills and fields - we're certainly no experts, but the stuff is old. A pipe and coins from several eras are part of his collection. We also got to play with the children and the new (still wet!) baby goats - Mabrouk (congratulations).

The whole time we were there, we could hear the sound of various weapons swirling around the area - tanks, airplanes, etc. But life was calm in the hills.

Poor service means sending texts in lieu of phone calls

We returned back to the village to find that there were still no telephones, so we continued using the cellphone. Even that was unreliable, because the system was so overloaded, so we communicated with most of our friends by sending cellphone text-messages. Perhaps we will have to resort to this for our email updates.