September 17, 2001

Students milling around before the morning assembly.

As we gathered for morning assembly, the students stood for the national anthem and for the Lord's Prayer - as usual - before receiving general instructions for the day from the principal and vice-principal. As they were waiting, several busses pulled up. Everyone waited in anticipation to see who was coming off of the busses - would it be the students who have been gone for so long? Yes - but not all. The students from Jenin itself came, but not from beyond (meaning Marthame is still subbing for a teacher who lives next to the Green Line, now declared a "military buffer zone"). But there was general excitement as kids were able to catch up with each other for the first time in almost a week.

On the same bus were teachers and students from Qabatiya, who had endured little sleep the previous night - further incursions by the IDF have come into their village, too. The situation just seems to move from one bad to another worse. The Jenin bus had to come by yet another bypass route - not the road they took when we first arrived, nor the one through Qabatiya when the siege started, not even the one through Qabatiya and then Misilye when it worsened. Now it's Burqin, Qabatiya, Misilye. Over an hour to get from Jenin to Zababdeh - a year ago, it would've been fifteen minutes, tops.