More Tel Rumeida

I'm a little jumpy at the moment with Hanukkah on its way. It could be either very quiet or very problematic, depending. I don't know if there are likely to be attacks or not but we shall see. There are lots of foreign Jews in the area, who in the experience of those who have been here a while, tend to be quite aggressive. There are lots of Hanukkah celebrations going on and fireworks which make me jump.

It has been a quiet day however here with no real problems. A bunch of soldiers were going around with a sledgehammer and originally I thought they were going to push into a house or do a raid but they were practicing. This basically involves going up to a house, cocking their rifles and then standing around. I followed them around for a bit and then left it.

On the roof I saw the secret military cameras filming me, goodness knows what for. I find doing my laundry incredibly boring, I can't imagine that watching me do it is any more exciting. Later on played football again with some other internationals versus some Palestinian kids- aka Brazilian football side.

Been thinking about that article about the increased level of stress, violence amongst children here and talking to other people about it. A lot of kids have counselling and are very aggressive and show signs of stress. And with no school recently due to the lack of funds there are problems seeing it. I spoke to someone who is involved with after school activities and they have to spend a lot of time trying to tell the kids what is 'normal.'

Had dinner at a Palestinian house, someone who is not anything to do with the project here but decided to invite us along to say thank you! We hadn't done anything for him directly, he doesn't live in the Israeli controlled area but we had more food than we could eat over 3 or 4 meals and they kept almost shoving it down our throats. Political discussions inevitably ensued and again the people were well-informed, non-violent. I really love the culture over here, the idea of extended family, the friendliness of it all. The only things I don't like are

1. The pushing and shoving that often happens for the bus
2. The one or two occasions someone has tried to short change me
3. Bartering - I'll never be any good at it
4. Spitting on the street - horrible
5. And something else that I can't remember now

They were interested in the culture in the West and were quite shocked at the amount of single mother families that don't get help from the extended family or the father amongst other things. I'm not a self hating westerner but I think there is a lot to be said for the culture of extended family over here and the level of friendliness. If at home if someone invited me randomly to their house I would probably think they were a bit weird or some kind of stalker. I can see why some activists come back again and again and again.

A few days of demonstrating to follow I think followed by Christmas!