July 2, 2003 — Mudeif Productions

Second day of class, Marthame's class expanding by 300%. The other students are an Italian sociology Ph.D. student at UC-Berkeley researching the comparison between the Palestinian situation and the Native American context and a Cornell MBA Grad who traveled here by way of Tunis and Egypt.

After class, we went to Ramallah. We arrived at the Surda checkpoint, which was here in an on-again off-again fashion during our time here two years ago. Now, it's permanent (though a military presence here isn't). We got out of the taxi on one side, walking through the chaos of taxi traffic and roadside commerce (fresh grapes, plastic toys, cold water) towards the actual road block. After clambering over/around/through the piled dirt, stones, and cement blocks which keep cars from passing, it was a good twenty minute walk in the searing heat to the other side.

Most of the folks were coming the other way, returning from work or errands in Ramallah to their homes in Surda, Abu Qash, Birzeit, and beyond. Donkey and horse carriage rides were being offered for fifteen shekels. Old women in traditional dress, couples carrying newborns, and young men with their cellphones all shared the commute. We passed the roadblock on the other side and negotiated our way through the dusty, honking, always shifting mass of taxis - which somehow manage a kind of order in their chaos.

We got into a taxi headed into the middle of Ramallah, and after a five-minute walk we set ourselves up at the well-air-conditioned Baladna ice cream parlor. We refreshed ourselves and worked on our homework for several hours.

From there, it was off to the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center for a documentary called Bitter Water. It was in Arabic with English subtitles, about life in the Burj al-Burajna Palestinian Refugee Camp in Lebanon. Powerful, if just for the imagery and the squalor of the place. The consensus among those filmed was that the best place to be was anywhere but there - be it back in Palestine or not. People have little work, and the Lebanese won't employ them, part of the systematic discrimination they face there. There's a stigma attached to Palestinians, and popular lore blames them for the Lebanese Civil War. The filmmaker was at the showing, currently seeking ways to distribute it. Powerful as it was, we thought it would benefit from some tightening before wider distribution. It was good for us to get some ideas about what to do and what not to do in our film.

The film finished at 9:30, long after shared taxis would be hanging around the Surda checkpoint. Nonetheless, we found one in the middle of Ramallah waiting for passengers. Eventually, another passenger arrived, but after no one else came, we eventually bailed ship, finding a special taxi that cost twice what we would've paid for the shared taxi, but we're talking only a few shekels here. We waited to arrive to Surda to see if there were any shared taxis waiting on the other side, but all we could see was darkness. We arranged for a Birzeit taxi to meet us on the other side. Periodically, we would pass other "commuters" making the long walk in the dark. The place was quiet and very still.

When we arrived on the other side, we discovered a shared taxi was, indeed, waiting, but by that time our taxi had arrived to take us back to Star Mountain. When we originally planned to study at Birzeit, we though we would stay in Ramallah rather than in Birzeit, so that we could enjoy such things like the documentary and Baladna ice cream, but today's experience underscores that we made the right decision - the Surda walk twice a day in the heat would be too much.