Palestine 2009                                                            
February reflection: “Thirst”                                 by Sarah MacDonald

“In a dry and weary land, where there is no water…”  These words from Psalm 63 beat in my head like a refrain as I hike through the South Hebron hills.  I arrived on team in the village of At-Tuwani the first day of February—what should be late winter, well into the rainy season.  But the previous months were perilously dry in this southernmost slice of the West Bank, north of the Negev Desert.

The Palestinians we accompany in At-Tuwani and neighboring villages are farmers and shepherds.  They rely on the winter rains to refill wells and cisterns, to nourish crops of wheat and lentils, to green the hillsides with grass for grazing.  A dry winter—such as the area experienced last year—means summertime drought and the need to truck in water and fodder.

The Israeli occupation further worsens the situation.  Road closures and checkpoints make it harder and more expensive for trucked-in supplies to reach these rural areas in the South Hebron hills.  Meanwhile, limited resources are inequitably shared.  At-Tuwani is in a part of the West Bank under full Israeli military and civil control, and the Israeli government has refused to connect the village to local water lines or give the village the permit to deepen their already existing wells.  Some of the Palestinians’ cisterns have been demolished or are currently under demolition threat.  The Israeli settlement of Ma’on, however, less than a kilometer away, has easy access to a seemingly endless supply of running water.  And in contrast to the Palestinian traditions of dry land farming and grazing flocks, the settlers’ agricultural practices—fruit orchards, greenhouses, large cow barns—use vast amounts of the scarce and precious water.

The first week of February is unseasonably hot, as if the calendar had leapfrogged into summer.  Each step on the dirt roads of Tuwani kicks up a puff of white dust.  The air smells like chalk.  In plowed fields where crops should be starting to sprout, the ground is a barren, sun-baked crust.

Still, shepherds have begun to take their flocks to graze on the sparse hillsides.  We internationals go too, with video cameras and mobile phones, ready to document and intervene if problems arise with settlers or soldiers.  One of my first days out, I ask about the weather, about the potential for drought.  The shepherd I’m with shakes his head morosely.  “Last year little rain,” he says.  “But this year none.”

Finally, ten days into February, the skies turn grey and gusty, the temperatures drop, and a downpour starts in the late afternoon.  The seven of us on team huddle in our small cement house, chilled but jubilant, exchanging happy cries of “Humdilallah!  Praise God!”  We have to shout to be heard over the din of rain drumming on the tin roof overhead. 

By nightfall the storm has intensified; now thunder and lightning crack across the sky.  In the middle of the night, one resounding crash startles me awake.  For an instant I fear the roof is falling in.  My mind races first to settler attacks and military bombings, before I realize it’s only the storm outside and I go back to sleep.

The next day we learn that lightning struck our neighbors’ sheep pen and killed four sheep.  I recall my sleep-fogged fears when I heard the crash last night.  What happened was not an attack exactly, but certainly a serious loss.  The family can’t even eat or sell the meat, which is not dhabiha halal since the sheep were struck down by lightning rather than ritually slaughtered.

As we talk with other neighbors, they express their worries that the rain has not come soon enough to make the crops and grass grow.  We celebrate the storm—rainfall is always a blessing here—but soberly.  The land and people here need a larger blessing to survive.

The final Wednesday of the month is Ash Wednesday.  I am in Jerusalem that day.  Coming home after a church service, the Lenten black cross smeared on my forehead, I cut across the lawn.  The earth underfoot is dry and cracked, despite the heavy rains that drenched the city the previous weekend.  I find myself thinking of dust and ashes, penitence and thirst.  Of occupation and settlements and inequities as plain and hard as the ground I’m walking on.  How long until justice rolls down like water in this land, until it pours down like needed and life-giving winter rains?

“Grieving and giving thanks in Colombia ”                    by Sarah MacDonald

November 27 was U.S. Thanksgiving, a day I usually associate with festive meals and family gatherings.  Here in Barracabermeja, however, our day unfolded differently.

At midday two strangers entered a house in our neighborhood and shot a man as he sat eating lunch.  This murder furthers the wave of assassinations—at least 100 so far—in Barrancabermeja in 2008.  Because this particular killing occurred just down the street, the violence feels both shocking and frighteningly mundane.

In the evening our team joined a vigil in front of the murdered man's house.  Neighbors crowded the patio and spilled into the street.  We sang songs, lit candles and listened to community leaders insist, "Enough!  We cannot tolerate any more assassinations in Barranca.  The death of one of us diminishes us all."

A similar spirit pervaded the previous weekend, when my teammate Gladys and I attended a workshop designed to help labor union leaders and family members recover from and resist systemic anti-union violence. The workshop’s sponsoring organizations—Corporation AVRE, which offers psychosocial and mental health care to victims of political violence, and the Sisters of St. John the Evangelist, a religious order devoted to helping workers—requested CPT accompaniment for security purposes.  Violence toward union organizers and members in Colombia has resulted in over 40 assassinations in 2008 alone, and over 4000 assassinations during the past 20 years—which illustrates both the need for such a workshop and the risks for those gathering.

Several workshop participants were the widows and children of assassinated union leaders; others were union leaders worried about their families in this context.  One woman recalled her husband's murder in 2002 and the challenge of raising 4 children on her own: "We don't miss him less as time goes by.  We miss him more."  Another expressed anxiety for her adolescent son, who has already lost an uncle and two other friends to assassinations.   This woman, a community leader and activist, knows well the dangers to herself and her partner, also a union leader.  But the fears and hopes she shared are for her children.  "We can only go on as a family," she said with tears, "in the power of love."

Other moments that weekend were joyful.  Two actors from a theatrical group Harlequin and the Jugglers led us in playful movement exercises and improvisational songs.  They recited poems and performed a puppet show.  They organized a costumed, wake-up serenade on Sunday morning.  "Art is an important means of resisting violence," they reminded us, as workshop participants designed posters, acted out skits, and created a memorial to assassinated family members.

Throughout the weekend, prevailing themes were the strength of family and the gift of gratitude.  The warm family atmosphere embraced even Gladys and I, present as accompaniers.  I appreciated hearing many people express thanks: for the lives of family members they have lost, for the consolation they experienced through the workshop, for the hope they feel in solidarity.

So this was how I celebrated family and gave thanks this year.

(Thanksgiving Day 2008)