on the other side of the wall

i have been here since wednesday, and its been strange. since i got to tel aviv i met my old friend harry, the chiropractor who works all over the place treating people for 12 hours a day, just about every day, for next to nothing. with him are a team of people doing the same, with different skills. one young guy named mikey is his apprentice and he has studied shiatsu for 3 years. another man is an acupuncturist. the last man with them is the most interesting of them all - an autistic man who has incredible powers of healing and intuition. i arrived to meet harry and there this man was, looking like a child at my bags, and harry explained to him that i study acupuncture, and he laughed and said, oh you use the needles, but all i need is this and he lifted his index figer slowly. i was a little surprised, not what i expected to hear from this man. and then harry explained to me that he had just cured this man of pain for thirteen years by touching him with his thumb on his body somewhere, and the pain was gone. then he told me more stories, and aviad looked out the window or made jokes. a very simple and pure man. he told me he doesnt have a diploma, except for the one from above. and if there is someone who can see energy he would happily show them his diploma. so together they are quite a team of people who do a lot of amazing work in the west bank, and all over, for next to nothing. all harry asks for is to be able to put food on the table.

which is where we go next, to his kibbutz. so clean, so quiet, so calm. the house is wonderful, and they treat me like i am family, with so much affection. we sit and talk the night through.

i go back and forth about how i feel being in the kibbutz. part of me of course feels like i must go immediately back to the west bank and work more, that if i am resting then i am not doing all i can. but i am also so tired, and it seems like a good place to rest.

oh yeah, i just remembered an fascinating man i met in ramallah. as i was waiting on the corner for abed so we could have coffee a man bumped into me and asked where i was from. i told him, and he told me that he has been living in georgia for the past 15 years. this palestinian man had a full-on southern drawl with is slight palestinian accent. he had phrases like "wull if thars anuthan yoo need, y' just lemme know, olright?" i remark that his accent is very strong, the southern accent that is, and he just says, "well yer dayamn right ubout thayat". incredible, i cant dream up a more hospitable mix in the world, the southern hospitality of the US, with its welcoming and soft tones and phrases, together with the most generous culture i know, the palestinian. and this man had it all. it was something so rare i am not sure if i will ever see it again. i felt as if in the presence of some sort of cosmic phenomenon! it was weird, and he just kept talking and i just kept looking at him in suspended disbelief at the fact that a very strong souther accent was leaving this palestinian man's mouth. he immediately gave me his phone number and said i should never feel alone when in ramallah, i should call if i needed "anuthang".

israel culture is quite different, especially in the cities, and part of that is simply because it is a city. when i get to the kibbutz people move slower, greet one another on the street, and dont lock their doors. i met an israeli activist who worked for five years living in the west bank, and she had a vrey difficult time there. she had been shot twice in the stomach by the israeli army in a demonstration, and she hasnt been back since. the family she lived with, a man and woman with 15 children and relatives living with them in a small house, have also suffered very much, and she wants me to go see them, and perhaps help the mother, who has been shot three times and is still suffering from the physical wounds, as well as psychological. i spent most of the day today with a youn woman, just 21, who was raped last year. when i met her she appeared so sweet, so fragile, the type of person you that anyone in the world when they see her wants to put down whatever they are doing and offer her something, and just to be in her delicate presence to feel her sweetness. later i find out that last year she was raped by a stranger. david, harry and chana's son, returned last night for the weekend from the army. he has been there for 7 months. it was a difficult choice for him, growing up on a peace-loving kibbutz with two non-violent parents. he struggled for such a long time about how to decide, and it seems that the pressure from other boys in his environment and in this culture dont allow him to listen to his heart. so he chose the army and when i see him when he gets home, i ask how he has been. he says, i am more machine, less man. this is what the army does to me. i am taken aback. quickly he shifts to showing me photos of his army experience - 18 year old boys like they are at camp, but with huge guns, being robbed of their innocence and childhood. just kids pretending to be hardened and tough, showing off their guns. then their is child-like laughter, games,punching each other. its a coming of age, a rite of passage for them. its so awful that they have this stolen from them, being turned into machines. david says that he will be trained in how to detonate and disarm mines. he has a picture on his desktop of his computer where i type this email looking at a dusty scene with his feet up on a chair. he has taken the photograph, so all you see is the landscape and his feet, so you know he is there. occupying.

everyone is affected by this conflict, so many lives are touched, wounded, destroyed. now i find myself part of it, and you all who read this too. i cant decide if the seemingly random acts of violence and trauma and suffering confirm or deny the existence of some sort of higher force.

today i go back to the west bank, and i must admit i am ready. i will deliver some things to the center in ramallah, then probably spend the night there, and in the morning go again to abed's house and see their clinic, the one they were building last year when i was there. its complete now, but it was closed when i went on the last visit. from there i hope to go to either nablus, if they let me in, or to jenin, with the same qualification. the checkpoint to nablus is by far the ugliest in all the west bank. well friends, thats all for now. sorry about not writing as much, there hasnt been as much going round in my head. but perhaps soon enough. after all, i have nearly two more weeks to be here. so more to come, stay tuned!