Wednesday, June 18 2003

I woke up this morning to a pleasant familiar noise, the bleating of sheep being taken out to graze, a noise I hadn't heard for 18 years. All together there are about 200 adult sheep in the upper village, not a great many since my wife and I had 400 ewes during our days of raising sheep in northern Alberta. I talked to the herder, Sameh, and I will go out with him one of these days. There are more sheep in the lower village.

Yassir Fehmdi, who lives up in back of the International House, was about to depart to his job in Aqraba, about 4 kms from Upper Yanoun, taking the two internationals, Kent and Ethan with him. They will then travel by taxi and mini-bus to Jerusalem. This leaves me as the only international here.

I started out down the road in front of the International House and was met by Yassir's brother, Rashid Fehmdi, driving an old Massey Ferguson (MF)165 diesel tractor. He was returning from working his field of vegetables in the cropland below Upper Yanoun. He had picked a box of eggplants for the other villagers I suppose, since there weren't enough to take to market in Aqraba. I will also go out with Rashid to work with him one of these days.

Walking on down the set of switchbacks in front of the house, I saw a man with a donkey pulling up water from the village well using rope and bucket, so I stopped to talk to him. It was Najah (or Nadjah), a really handsome man of about 50 who speaks English very well, haveing worked in Kuwait until the first Gulf War. He would fill a jerry can, then load it and himself on the little old donkey and trot up the slope to his house to water some new trees and shrubs he has started. He showed me a pomegranate cutting that he has rooted for a new tree. He has new fig trees, almond trees, strawberry plants, and grapes started in soil that I wouldn't think anything would grow in. He is obviously planning on be here for the long haul.

Part of Najah's yard with newly planted trees. He and his descendents plan to be here for a long time, Inshallah, "God willing." His ancestors had been here for hundreds of years, perhaps back to Roman times. He showed me the entrance to a cave that his grandparents had lived in during the time the Ottoman Turks occupied the Holy Land. The Turks were here from 1517 to 1917. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by the British and French in World War I, the British took over. In 1917 the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, offering the Jewish Zionists a home in Palestine. It put in motion the Zionist take-over of Palestine.

Najah's father Ahmed Sbaih is 85 and missing an eye that was beaten out by a settler as he was herding his sheep on his land in back of Yanoun. That land has now been pre-empted by the settlers so no one from Yanoun can graze sheep there, or even walk there. Last winter an Israeli peace activist, David Nir, a Ph.D. physicist, was staying in Yanoun and tried to approach one of the settlement outposts ringing Yanoun. About 100 meters in back of the uppermost house, he was knocked down and seriously injured by settlers.

Najah's wife's family lives in the nearby village of Beit Furik, maybe 6 km as the crow flies from Upper Yanoun. She has not been able to visit her family for three years due to road closures. Nor could she walk overland for fear of being shot or beaten or by armed settlers. Finally, she was able to get through by going around by Nablus and back in to Beit Furik, traveling about 50 km, but Najah himself was afraid to risk it.

In Yanoun each family house has a built-in cistern below the house, and rainwater is collected on the flat roofs in the winter to fill the cistern. This is the water we are drinking now. If the cisterns run low, then a water tank will be used to haul water from the village well to refill the cisterns. The village well is a natural spring, enlarged by the Palestinian Authority. Houses in Yanoun used to have running water. There was a pump at the well and piping up to tanks on the hill above Yanoun to supply water to all households. The settlers destroyed the tanks and tore up the pipes, and there has been no money available to rebuild; thus this system of hauling water.

I then went over to the Abu Hani family house to meet the parents of my shepherd friend Sameh. The same mother and father are parents to 15 children. One of the older sons, Walid, arrived in an old VW bug from Aqraba just as I got there. He speaks English quite well, and I hear, does OK in Hebrew. He works for the Palestinian Authority security force, I don't know in what capacity. He lives in Aqraba. He offered to come and get me any time I needed a ride over there, and I will take him up on it one of these days.

Since I was the only International in town, it was up to me start the generator. This good-sized diesel motor-alternator set was made by Daewoo of Korea. I suspect without the generator the families would not be here. For three and a half hours a day they have lights, indoors and out, and can watch some TV, and plug in whatever appliances they have. There are no refrigerators operating in Upper Yanoun.

In the evening I was invited to the mayor's house for supper, after starting the generator. The food at the mayor's house was great, but simple: tomatoes, cucumbers, yogurt, olives, flat bread, olive oil and zatar, plus cheese made in the village.

But it is now 10:45, as I write this, with lights out in 15 minutes, so I will rush around and get ready for bed. Sameh is going to turn off the generator for me.