November 24, 2002 — Mudeif Productions

*Candlelight worship at the Orthodox Church of Zababdeh.*

Marthame went to church at St. George's Orthodox Church this morning. It was a beautiful service, if a bit dark - electricity was out all morning, so the normally darkened cave of a church was even darker, lit merely by candlelight.

People are beginning to get frustrated with the new electricity situation, and rightly so. The generator offered lots of noise, as well as electricity that was more expensive. But it was easier to plan for the power outages, since they were regular and planned (and daily). Now, when the power goes out, it is cut off at the main switch, beyond the Israeli checkpoint at Tayasir. As a result, correcting the problem requires the coordination of the Palestinians and the Israelis - thus power outages are unpredictable and require divine intervention.

The situation for the Palestinian cellphone company is not much better, as we have experienced through repeated problems (busy messages, system overload messages, calls cut off, service temporarily down, etc.). However, this situation seems to be far more intentional - a report released today reveals that the Israeli authorities have impounded 7.5 tons of imported towers for the Palestinian network. This was after destroying fourteen towers and allowing Israeli cellphone companies to operate freely, without paying any taxes or licensing fees, in the West Bank. It's amazing that we get to make phone calls at all.

Elizabeth, still in Jerusalem, went back to Hadassah for a vision test and then on to Qalandia. She took a special (i.e. not shared) taxi from the hospital directly to the checkpoint. Traffic, usually a mass of honking, piled up cars, was very light on the way out (although there was already a long line of cars waiting to enter Jerusalem).

Elizabeth found a shared taxi headed toward Jenin. As she went toward it, she heard "Elizabeth!" and turned to see a journalist friend of ours. He was working on a story about the difficulties of traveling in the West Bank. At first, it seemed that he'd get all he wanted; to avoid a notorious checkpoint, the taxi pulled off the road and through a landfill, where we got a flat tire. The driver and another passenger helped to put on the spare as we got out and tried to find a place that didn't stink terribly. After that picturesque pause, we went on our way, ironically passing the following checkpoints without trouble. Elizabeth and the woman next to her gasped with delight as we were allowed through a main checkpoint at the entrance to the Jordan Valley road - neither of us had ever been in a taxi allowed to pass there. It seemed that a fistful of Western passports made quite a difference.

As we traveled, the journalist asked passengers questions about their travels and their work. One woman said she and several other passengers once had to stay overnight in a taxi at Hamra checkpoint, not allowed to pass until the next morning. Another passenger talked about being a maternity nurse in Ramallah, and described a newborn baby which arrived dead at the hospital. His mother was not allowed through a checkpoint in time; he was born and died there.