August 26, 2002

The first day of school. The usual chaos of school was compounded by what we anticipated - unpredictability due to the sieges in the area. Usual chaos: for some reason, the school here begins one week earlier than all of the other schools in Palestine. As a result, a few teachers are always absent, as there is teacher training in Tubas, organized by by the Palestinian Ministry of Education. Also, the school schedule and attendance is in flux for the first few days. Plus, the village electrical generator is off from 3 AM to 8 AM - school, and assembly, begins at 7:30. Oh, well. Unpredictability: light student load from Tubas - perhaps just today, perhaps for the rest of the year. Also, the buses from Qabatiya and Jenin arrived late - it's not clear why. The situation in Jenin for the past few weeks has been that the Palestinian police patrol during the day, but at night the Israeli military enters, imposes a curfew at 8:00 PM, and tanks and soldiers begin their patrols. Every night brings shootings and detentions. This means that Sharon is still defying Bush's "I said what I mean and I mean what I said" from April - as well as the UN Security Council Resolution that accompanied it. "We're used to it," said one of the Jenin teachers, with a "what can we do?" shrug. Elizabeth started up with her English classes - grades 7 and 8. Marthame's religion classes haven't begun, but his subbing has - today, grades 3 and 4. On the playground at assembly this morning, one of Elizabeth's students passed out - apparently from the heat, but it was hard to reassure the students. It was two years ago that another young student collapsed on the playground before assembly, a soccer ball hitting him in the chest. Because of the hole in his heart, he quickly died. It's not a moment many of us will soon forget. Fortunately today, there was nothing so frightening; the boy came to and was a bit shaken but fine. In the evening, we visited with Father Thomas, the Orthodox priest, who is our neighbor. We brought him news of our travels - he was most anxious to learn what American Christians think about Eastern Christians. Another opportunity to talk about what we experienced this summer. He and his family shared some of their grapes with us, as well as the usual coffee. Enjoying the cool breeze on his roof (which doubles as their bedroom in the summer), we could hear the distant thuds of tank shells in Jenin. Soon, we also heard the familiar sound of an Israeli jeep on the main road, accompanied by gunfire - both soon passed, thankfully. We learned from them that the Israeli military camp was abandoned as of about a month ago. Since then, people from Qabatiya came in and basically stripped the place - electrical generators, beds, etc. This is the first time since the Jordanians arrived in the 1948 war that the camp has been empty. A church re-opened, a military camp evacuated, could it be that good things are happening here?