A tear rolled down my cheek as I thought about it. Nobody came. And so we found ourselves digging alone: ten internationals trying to clear the roadblock with rickety shovels, pick-axes, and hoes.
The tear hit the ground, but was quickly covered by dirt being thrown my way by another international. I kept my head down and kept digging. How many times could I do this? This was just my first time and already my spirit was almost broken. The Berqin valley road is the main method of transportation into the city of Jenin from the town of Berqin and most of the western villages. It has been closed and opened at least a dozen times in the past year.
Every resident of the town of Berqin has shared in the suffering of having the road closed. When the municipality of Berqin dared to open the road in February 2003, tanks posted themselves where the earthen roadblock used to be, and ensured that everything that moved was shot at. It was four months before the tanks left, to be replaced by the earthen roadblock we were trying to dig through.
As I kept digging, thoughts raced through my mind. I could not blame the Palestinians for staying away. After opening the road dozens of times only to receive immediate reclosure and violent retaliation, I don't think they believe that things can be different. We - our faces not yet cracked by the hot sun - were idealistic. More than anything, we believed.
A pile of dust was kicking up into the air as two vehicles approached. A dozen Palestinian kids got out of the taxis and offered their help. We took shifts, laughed and kept on clearing the roadblock. The kids were young, but happy to help clear their road. Suddenly, while working, they all started to run. They had spotted the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) driving up to the roadblock. They were nothing less than shocked to see that the soldiers - who would not hesitate to open fire with live ammunition on them in most cases - were trying to be civil with the international activists. The IOF soldiers told us that they didn't care whether we cleared the roadblock, but that we were wasting our time: they would most likely reclose it soon.
There is no security reason for closing the road to Berqin. The roadblock can be circumvented by the dedicated, who take an alternate route that turns a 5-minute journey over semi-smooth roads into a half-hour ordeal over dust-choked and mountainous terrain. If not security, the only possible reasons for the roadblock are the disruption of the Jenin economy and the oppression of an already-broken people. The Palestinians knew, though, that allowing the roadblock to go unchallenged was to build yet another pillar of the apartheid-style occupation. Still, so much had already been lost, and so only the kids came.
Another pile of dust approached. It was a bulldozer, and it marked our salvation. Barely a dent had been made in the roadblock, even after hours of work. We cheered our frustrations away, and watched it open the road again.
"They will close it again." The man was happy to have the road open, but his lips puckered with the bitterness of life, and his eyes showed only despair.
"And we will open it again." The international was unphased by the day of hard manual labour. And at that moment, when the eyes of the international and the man met, I saw the thing I had been looking for the whole time. At that moment, I witnessed what we all needed to help us continue: hope.
tarek : )
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