Sleep

As nothing much in particular is happening in my life at the moment (I finished a bunch of writing I had to do yesterday), I thought I would write a little bit about my sleep routine.

The nights here are very cold at the moment. Although the temperature rarely gets below freezing, there's no such thing as central heating in Palestine, and my suspicion is that the houses are built with the summer heat in mind, rather than the winter chill. So every night that I am at home, I turn the electric heater on, usually as soon as the sun sets. Just before getting into bed, I move the heater to the foot of the bed to heat the sheets a little and also the pillow, which for some reason gets very cold. I then jump into bed and let my body heat warm it a little before getting out again to turn the light and the electric heater off.

Usually, as those who know me will be well aware, I wake up at least once in the night to use the toilet. While it's chilly once I leave my room, I'm usually still half asleep and thus not fully aware of the cold. However, a few times since I've been here, I haven't been able to get back to sleep. I'm unsure if this is because of the cold weather, or some pyschological mechanism in me that starts to think about whether or not the IDF will burst into my apartment in the middle of the night.

At the beginning of the intifada, the IDF entered most homes in the village, and made the occupants stand in front of a camera holding a piece of paper with their name on it. Imagine, if you will, a criminal mugshot. This, of course, is no coincidence. (At another level entirely, the panoptic reach of the Israeli state into the West Bank truly amazes me).

Most nights however, I get back to sleep. Then, getting up first thing in the morning is the most challenging task. It's always cold (unless I wait till midday) and that just makes it even harder for me not to role over and drop off again. The last couple of days it's taken me over half and hour to get out of bed after my alarm has gone off.

If you're ever visiting the West Bank in winter, be sure to bring warm pajamas!! (Alternatively, of course, you could do what all the wealthy Palestinians do and move to Areeha (Jericho) for the winter. It's a lot warmer down in the desert!)