Askar Clean Up

Marhaba,
We just finished a clean -up project at one of the UNRWA schools where
we work, in Askar refugee camp. It was a good example of the
difficulties you face in doing just about anything. This school has
what was once a beautiful garden. When we were in the headmasters
office talking about cleaning up the trash and pruning the bushes, he
called in the janitor and asked him to take us to the garden. "Which
garden" the janitor asked. The headmaster told him, "our only garden,
the one in back." The janitor started laughing. After years of
neglect, it was more like a jungle dumpster than a garden. We then
went down to the staff room and hung out until the janitor came back
with trash bags. We started talking to one of the teachers about our
project. The teacher talked about what a shame it is that
Palestinians don't seem to have any reservations about littering. "I
think it's a cultural problem" he said as he threw flicked his
cigarette butt out the widow. Huh. I often hear, "we have bigger
things to worry about, environmental degradation is a trivial matter."

Anyways, the janitor came back with a bunch of "garbage bags." They
were no bigger than grocery bags, and I thought to myself, we're going
to need 500 of these things to clean up the jungle dumpster. As soon
as we went outside, it started pouring rain. We stopped cleaning
after a few minutes, and went up to talk to the headmaster about what
days we could come. We agreed on coming on Sunday, Tuesday and
Thursdays after school. The following Thursday I bought some real
garbage bags, gloves and a hand pruner before going back to the Askar
school with two other volunteers. The headmaster told us that because of the elections, he had
to lock the school, so we would have to come back another day. After
some negotiation we managed to get him to wait half an hour, so we
could at least start. We came back on Sunday, he had another excuse
why he had to shut the school. We said look, if those times aren't
good for you, we can arrange something else, but you're making this
quite difficult. He said coming during the day would be better. A
few days later we came back, we came into his office and he said,
"sorry, today is really not good." As politely as possible I
explained, we're coming here to pick up your garbage for free, in
fact, it's at our own expense, and you're making it extremely
difficult, do you want this to happen or not. After that day I was
ready to never go back. Two later an Irish friend and I went to the
school in the morning. I didn't stop to talk to the headmaster. We
went to the garden and started picking up trash, pruning bushes and
trimming trees. A few kids chipped in to help. We got 9 bags of
trash out of a 300 square foot area. After hearing that some ajnabees
were out picking up trash, the headmaster came out to see what was up.
Since that day, he has been much more helpful. He now brings us tea,
bread, and kids to help.
The next day we went back, there were already kids picking up trash,
with one exceptionally helpful kid in charge. We developed a core
group of kids to help, and lead the effort once we were gone. These
kids have every reason to be concerned about other things, but for
whatever reason, some of them were really dedicated to beautifying the
garden. Of course, problems didn't end with the headmaster. Kids
threw rocks and spit at us from the upper levels of the school. One
kid stole my hand pruner and cut a water pipe. One day we left right
as school was let out and there was a veritable riot in the street.
It took a teacher with a big stick to fend the kids off. I've started
a similar project at another UNRWA school, and we're trying to get the
ministry of interior to cover some of the costs, and institutionalize
the idea of keeping Palestine clean.
In other news…
Things are getting a little tense in Nablus. Today, no one is allowed
to enter or leave the city after last nights clashes. Yesterday, a
couple hundred Israeli settlers were forcibly evicted by Israeli
soldiers from a Palestinian house they had occupied a year ago in
Hebron. After attempted negotiations, 600 Israeli soldiers carried
out a supreme court order to remove the 250 settlers from the
compound. Settlers throughout the West Bank are livid about the
eviction, and attacks on Palestinians have risen sharply. Yesterday,
settlers descended on the main checkpoint (Huwarra) in Nablus to seek
revenge. They set fields on fire, flipped cars, threw rocks, blocked
the roads. Palestinians responded by throwing rocks. The Israeli
army started to tear gas everyone and arrested a few people. Settlers
have vowed to ratchet up the conflict with both Palestinians, and the
Israeli army.

Sincerely,
Mike