Today was the highest point of my time in the beautiful West Bank. People laugh when I say that. The West Bank - beautiful? Isn't it all bullet holes and bombing?
No. It definitely is not. Today, on the olive fields, I look around at perfect middle eastern valley, with almond trees in blossom against a deep blue sky.
But this is not the most uplifting thing on display: It is lunchtime, and volunteers from Norway, UK, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, America, Switzerland, Armenia, France and Finland are together, sitting in the sunshine eating and talking (not to mention a bit of impromptue dancing) with our Palestinian hosts with whom we have spent the morning planting trees.
I find it very difficult not to get emotional at the sight. It is perfectly... human.
We watch the farmers' kids running around playing, and the old farmer's wife boiling up yet more Arabic tea.
Robert, one of the other volunteers from the UK turns to me, but I don't see a smile on his face, as on everyone else's.
"How can they put these people in cages?"
I don't have an answer for him.
No comments:
Post a Comment