Origin: Aroub refugee camp, close to Hebron
Destination: Jenin
Total Duration: 5 hours 26 minutes
Travel Duration: 4 hours 18 minutes
Total Cost: 53.5 NIS ($12.44 USD; $17.42 CAD)
Number of Checkpoints: 8 (including spontaneous checkpoint that we avoided)
11:48am. I say goodbye to all my relations, including my mother who has come to visit, and I head out in an 80's stationwagon. They've insisted that I go with my cousin to a nearby village to slaughter a Gedi (sounds like a sheep and looks like jar-jar binks) and take some meat back to Jenin.
12:01pm. While going up a hill, the car stalls. It has run out of gas. "You were just at the gas station yesterday! How much did you put in it?" "One litre".
12:05pm. A person driving the other way gives us a two litre bottle of gasoline. We get back on our way.
12:09pm. The back door of the stationwagon flies open. The gedi tries to escape. The son of the driver was holding onto the rope, but he had a broken arm. A few of us grab the rope, and the gedi is back in the stationwagon.
12:12pm. We stop by a gas station to fill up. The driver puts in 5.5 litres, which costs 25 NIS ($5.70 USD; $8.00 CAD)
12:17pm. An old man flags down our car and asks if he can ride with us. There's no room. Sorry old man.
12:22pm. I am starting to panic over time. I don't have to take any gedi meat home with me. I have to go so I can actually get home tonight. I apologize to my cousin and grab a bus. A fight errupts at the front of the bus between some man and some woman over her husband's unpaid cellphone-related debt. The man has wronged and is told so by everybody on the bus. Cost of this leg of the journey: 3 NIS ($0.70 USD; $1 CAD).
12:28pm. We ride by a peace sign that says "may peace travel with you". It has holes in it from a tank shell.
12:29pm. I need something bigger to write on. I don't know how I thought I could squeeze all my trip logs onto the back of a business card.
12:30pm. The driver kicked me and the other passengers off of the bus so he could pass the Gush Ezyon checkpoint without any hassle. All of the men walk about 20 meters in front of the soldiers to the other side of the checkpoint and wait. None of us are checked.
12:34pm. The same bus picks us up, again right in front of the soldiers. I am incredibly surprised at the blatancy of what we've just done. The soldiers appear unconcerned.
12:36pm. There grammar error on sign on bus. Amused.
12:40pm. End of line of bus. We're waiting on the side of the road for transportation to Jerusalem.
12:44pm. The curiosity of a woman beside me finally gets the better of her, and she asks who I am. I'm an independent human rights observer. I help where I can. A white mercedes drives up while we talk and asks for several hundred shekels. The heavens are invoked and parents are cursed.
12:45pm. A man in a service rushes us on. It'll be a 500 NIS fine if he's caught "picking up Palestinians", with potential jail time. We pay 7 NIS ($1.60 USD; $2.30 CAD) for this part of the journey.
12:47pm. I'm pulled out of the car at a checkpoint for interrogation and searching. They want to know who I am and why I was in the west bank. I'm nobody, and I'm visiting my grandmother. They radio a commander for further instruction.
12:53pm. The commander tells them to release me. We continue on.
12:54pm. We drive by one of the routes I was going to try - a route that the Palestinians without Jerusalem IDs (blue in colour) usually take. They've caught somebody and are detaining him.
12:59pm. The driver asks where I'm going. Jenin. He asks what it's like in Jenin. He hasn't been in 3 years (since the beginning of the intifada). He tells me that the people in Jenin are Real Men.
1:05pm. I want to get a wireless network hub, so I ask about computer stores in Jerusalem. It's Saturday, so all jewish stores are closed. I'm relatively sure the Palestinian stores won't have what I'm looking for. Damn.
1:09pm. Arrive in Jerusalem.
1:12pm. While walking down a street towards the computer store, I hear a Palestinian car loudly playing techno with the all too familiar beat. um tsshhh um tsshhh um um um tsshhh.
1:18pm. In the first computer store, the guy hasn't even heard of the stuff I want.
1:44pm. After two more computer stores, I finally settle for a second hand wired hub. 1-baseT 8-port with BNC. It'll do.
2:17pm. I get onto a car from Jerusalem to the Calandia checkpoint outside Ramallah. An old woman is kicked off because she has West Bank ID. Cost: 3.5 NIS ($0.80 USD; $1.15 CAD)
2:23pm. An Israeli police speed trap is on the road, but it took a while to recognize it. It's set up just like a broken down car on the side of the road, and the radar gun is clearly protruding from where the license plate should be.
2:25pm. A surreal scene. An army jeep is blocking one of the roads by a checkpoint and facing down 10 Palestinian cars that cannot move. The soldier inside is screaming through the megaphone at the top of his lungs. His words are incomprehensible to me.
2:31pm. Arrive at Calandia.
2:41pm. I get into the service to Jenin. The driver insists on all of the passengers buckling up. Very strange. Cost: 40 NIS ($9.30 USD; $13 CAD).
2:43pm. A crackling radio feed from Jordan is talking about divisive actions of the Palestinian Authority. The program proposes that International Observers are the only solution.
2:53pm. Another driver tells us the road we are on is closed further ahead by sand roadblocks. We have to go back.
3:06pm. Tanks are blocking another road we were going to use. We drive yet another way.
3:06pm. I feel a little bit sick from the really windy roads.
3:42pm. I wake up from shitty sleep to give my passport to the soldiers at the Tanaseeh checkpoint.
3:53pm. I wake up from another 10 minutes of shitty sleep to give my passport to the soldiers at Hamra checkpoint.
4:33pm. We hear about a spontaneous checkpoint a little further up the road. Two guys have to get off, since the driver can't take them to where they were originally supposed to go. They'll catch alternative transportation.
4:52pm. We hit the Jannat checkpoint. We're so close!
5:03pm. We finally clear the Jannat checkpoint.
5:14pm. Arrival into downtown Jenin. The end.