Some random Ramallah notes

Did I mention the new traffic lights popping up all over the centre of Ramallah? I know there were a handful when I was last here 14 months ago, but now they’re all over the place and people are actually quite good about obeying them. Maybe it’s all the police Abbas has put on the street.

A friend who has graduated from university is thinking about getting married. It’s amazing how different this process is here. He’s from a small village and he wouldn’t even be able to talk to his fiancé until they got engaged. I still can’t figure out what expectations village guys have here when they get married, beyond sex. It’s social convention to get married when you finish education, and I suggested he could go to the university to meet girls and actually get to know them before getting engaged, which a lot of under/graduates do now, either during or just after their time at university. This suggestion just seemed like too much effort for him though. Our mutual friend who was with us also thought the university idea was a much better option, although he plans on traveling so he has no desire to marry at the moment.

I was speaking to a friend who works for the World Bank in Ramallah, as one of six coordinators running the Social Safety Net Reform Project here in Palestine. The project gives roughly 1000 shekels a month (divide by 4 for dollars and 8 for pounds) to the poorest families in Palestine, and currently supports about 50000 people. My friend said that although the donations were spread all over Palestine, there were a lot of poor people in the villages around Khalil (Hebron) who used to work in Israel before the intifada closures prevented them from doing so. Each district of Palestine has roughly 6 field researchers who assess the families every six months. Apparently a number of other donor organizations have been using their database to target charitable projects. Despite being fully aware of the dubious politics of the World Bank, he said the work they do here is mainly focused on children’s health and education, so it avoids the ‘hidden politics’ as he terms it. He makes $800 a month, which is an excellent wage here in Palestine.