S. is visiting for a couple of weeks. This is her first time in Palestine and the Middle East. A couple of days ago we went to Jerusalem, and so S. had her first experience of Israeli checkpoints (you don’t get checked coming from Jerusalem to Ramallah). After a comment at the Kalandia checkpoint, I invited her to guest blog. So here are some reflections from a fresh set of eyes so to speak:
The sun is hot, but thankfully we are under the shade of the roof that covers the vast waiting area of the checkpoint. We’ve arrived and a crowd has already formed, spilling out from where people are lined up to go through a life-sized, heavily barred turn-style. Before one reaches the turn-style, people are queued in what reminds me of what cattle and sheep go through to reach their pen – a corridor with metal bars on both sides. As I am waiting, I look at the people around me, Palestinians old and young, men and women, girls and boys, families, and foreigners. It is a Friday and many are crossing to go to midday prayers held at the mosque, Haram Al-Sharif, in the old city of Jerusalem. It is also the beginning of the weekend. There are men smoking and laughing, women talking amongst each other, and many more standing in silence and waiting in the summer heat. In front of me, there is a boy, around 8 or 9 years old, dressed in a dark blue t-shirt, shorts and sandals. He has dark black hair and big brown eyes. I look down and in his hands he clutches a clear plastic bag that contains water with an orange goldfish. This is all that he carries. He sees me looking at him and his fish, and we smile at each other. I put my hands lightly on his shoulders and bend down in delight to comment on his fish. I ask if it has a name and he says ‘no’, that it’s for his aquarium. The crowd begins to move and we file through the turn-style where we wait again. This time it is the waiting area just before you go through to show your passport to the Israeli officials. As we wait, there is a sense of commune amongst those around us. I feel a part of it somehow, a part of this waiting with them. Some get tired of waiting and move forward to slip in front of others who have also been waiting. Some of the older women comment on this, others stand in silence and wait. I look behind me and a boy stands quietly. He looks up at me with a slightly cross look on his face; I can see that he is tired of waiting. I share his frustration and wonder if the young because of this experience become politicized early in life or if checkpoints have become so part of their everyday that it is merely in the background of daily life. Up ahead a sister and brother, no older than 8 and 10 have come back through the gate. They have been turned away because of their identification. We discern later when their mother shows up that their other siblings got through with their aunt and are waiting on the other side. When the girl sees her mother, she begins to cry, we hear that it’s her birthday. The mother moves them in to another line to wait. We also move into a different line, as we find out that we were in the wrong queue. We also wait. This time the line is faster as it’s the line for people with official passports. We are finally at the front of the line, where they let people in 3 persons at a time. I walk through. An older woman, who walks through before me, turns and smiles broadly. She does not need to say anything; her waiting is over. I walk through the security gate and then to a window where I am asked to show my visa. I show the Israeli guard my passport and he sees that it is Canadian. The guard says, “You’re from Canada, cool.” The soldier is probably no older than 20 years old, closely cut hair, army green uniform, sitting nonchalantly with his legs wide open. He lets me through and I walk out to the other side where I wait for C. As C comes out, the sister and brother with their mother do also. They are reunited with their family so that they can go and celebrate her birthday. There is a sense of relief as we make our way to the buses that will take us to Jerusalem.
The title of this blog entry also comes from the film “Waiting” by Rashid Mashrawi (a Palestinian director) that we saw at the Franco-German Cultural Centre. This film depicts the experience of constant determent, particularly for Palestinian refugees, and the waiting involved during this time of deferment.
My very brief experience of waiting does not even come close to the wait that Palestinians have had to endure.
S.
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