There are distractions. One big favourite is a TV documentary about the reunion of a divorced Lebanesecouple. The Lebanese TV gives them a house and a car as incentives. Reality TV as a way of escaping reality. During a visit to a nearby home, one woman tells me that she is hooked to the program. A little later, she shows me two five cm deep holes in the walls of her TV room; marks of bullets that were shot a few weeks ago from Rachel’s Tomb. Her son was studying close to the fire line but happened to be in the kitchen when the bullets came in. Our neighbour says that she is amazed how much “luck” people experienced during these months. She heard a lot of narrow escape stories. One would like to believe in miracles, these times.

I see on TV the Lebanese Fairouz singing “Yara.” A few months before Jara was born, Mary and I heard the song on radio and, charmed by the sound of the name and the music, decided to give our daughter the name of the song. There are two versions of the song, the old one rather cheerful, the new one melancholic (possibly under the influence of the Lebanese civil war). I listen to the new version which fits the mood of the moment. I’ll hope for luck in my attempts to renew my visa. Until the beginning of the Intifada I renewed my work permit without problems but lately all contacts have ceased between the Ministry of Civic Affairs of the PNA and the civil department of the Israeli occupation who needs to give the final approval. I thought to solve the dilemma by moving to Jerusalem, from where one can directly apply at the Israeli Ministry of Interior. But there an unfriendly staff told me that, considering my being married with a Palestinian woman and since the previous work permits were issued in Bethlehem, I could not stay in Jerusalem. How was I supposed to move, she asked, while my wife could not enter Jerusalem? You have to apply in Bethlehem, she said, go to ‘them.’ (Somehow, Israeli officials cannot bring themselves to pronounce the words “Palestinian Authority” or PNA). But, I say, I cannot apply through ‘them’. “We are sorry.”

So I decide to simply cross the bridge to Jordan in order to get a tourist visa. Before leaving I contact several institutions, including the Dutch embassy and a human rights organization, as a kind of insurance policy. Karishma, who knows my preference for orderly planning, laughs when hearing how many persons I try to involve. However, the journey to Jordan, in beautiful weather, is relaxed, and at the Israeli-Jordan border, I meet officials who enjoy their lack of work (there are hardly tourists now). Both on the way out and the way in I get time to explain the situation. The officials see the irregularity of my situation but don’t care too much. One of them is impressed when I tell her that I am a “project manager” and she even deals respectfully with me. Only some questions are annoying (“In which hotel in Bethlehem do you stay?”). It is strange that after six years of working here and being married to a local Palestinian, there is still no other option than to be classified as a tourist. 

In Jordan I travel to Amman where the local Freres School hosts me for a few hours. I enjoy a meal of five courses. Walking in the residential area of Jabal Hussein, I inhale tension-free life. It does not last long. At the taxis heading for the Allenby Bridge the concern is visibly present on the drivers’ faces. They tell me that already for seven days some 11.000 Palestinians from the West Bank who took a holiday in Jordan, are not allowed to return. They have to stay at their family or in hotels. For lack of other passengers, I take a private taxi. The taxi-driver, a Palestinian whose parents are originally from the West Bank, tells me that the economy in Jordan is “zero.” Like so many other taxi drivers in Jordan he has a university diploma. I remember that last week Channel Two of Jordan TV was taken out of the air for financial reasons. 

Back in the West Bank, I join other travellers who are heading for Jerusalem. The taxi driver says that he’ll bring us to Damascus Gate if “we are not afraid.” We decide not to be afraid. Just before Bethany there is a stop when cars are checked by Israeli soldiers at an impromptu checkpoint. There is the familiar sound of sighing and clicking with the tongue while we watch needless humiliations. The examination of the car directly in front of us takes time. At two different moments, the driver is bodily searched with his hands in the air. The soldiers take their time to quietly check each corner of the car. Probably the driver had said something what he better should not have said. Afterwards the soliders direct the car and the hapless driver beside the road, to allow the waiting cars to pass. 

Back in Bethlehem, I’ll leave the taxi and walk down the main road with a man who, like me, found the price of a private taxi too high. He carries a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Obviously ill at ease, he tells me that his father was recently declared to have a malignant form of cancer. He is on his way to visit his father in the Beit Jala Hospital. We take a route around Rachel’s Tomb to avoid any possible exchange of fire. The man, Bassam, works at a flower shop in West-Jerusalem. He turns out to be a colleague of a girl from Beit Jala who once came to our Institute to tell that she was interested in our work and in international relations since she had completed a course in Holland in flower arranging. I remember to have recently read about a gardening project in Moscow that spontaneously developed into a peace studies course. Bethlehem needs flowers, Mary and I agree. It has always been her dream to follow a course on gardening or flower arranging.

When reaching ‘Azza or Beit Jubrin refugee camp – a small camp located within Bethlehem – we are stopped by Palestinian soldiers who search our bags. Some weeks ago, they explain, several disguised Israeli soldiers, in civilian clothes, entered the camp apparently with the intention to assassinate a Fatah leader. Later on Mary tells me about another road surprise. On the Wadi Nar road, used by Palestinians who cannot enter Jerusalem, settlers presently wave Palestinian flags to mislead tax drivers who take dirty side roads. When the taxis drive into the direction of the flags, the settlers shoot at them. 

Next day I receive an email from Suha, one of the youth who three months ago went to Holland on an exchange programme. She writes that she got engaged to a Palestinian whom she met in The Hague. The engagement took place in Amman. (All her family is now stuck in Jordan due to the border closure). I consider how projects are often most consequential in their unintended effects. One may have the illusion of designing reality, but reality always takes its own course. Seven years ago, Mary and I met each other after I became familiar with her sister at a conference in Holland. Often marriages are the result of a chain of little coincidences. It was Suha’s luck to be able to join the exchange program after one member withdrew at the very last minute. 

Next day, I hear about the other participants’ experiences. They were involved in some hundred meetings during which they confronted what they called “the Dutch guilt about the Second World War.” (Some 90% of the Dutch Jews were deported to the extermination camps). Karishma saw the youth’ eyes sparkling with life. They had many stories to tell. During one night, it was over twelve o’clock, some of them were walking on a silent dike and, as they looked like vagabonds, were stopped by the Dutch police. According to the story, the police woman had to cry after she heard one of the youth’ accounts about the situation in Palestine. I try to picture the situation and can barely believe it – Dutch people and certainly Dutch police do not cry easily! Suzy says that back in Bethlehem the youth will undergo a reverse culture shock, when they have to once again accommodate to a culture with strong family and community bonds and social control. Seeing the new political situation with their own eyes may be still another shock.

People travel; ideas travel, too, often along unlikely roads. While in Holland, Suha visited the Anne Frank House, and started reading Anne Frank’s diary. After hearing this, I myself bought the diary in Jerusalem (I never read it in Holland), and gave it to Suzy who is now using parts in the English classes in which she practices diary writing. She says that some of the students rolled their eyes but that others were immediately enthusiastic. Now students each time want to know what is going to happen to Anne. For their part, the girls themselves are writing diaries which are quite unsettling. The other day, a foreign representative of an organizarion for Jewish-Christian dialogue visited Suzy and her class. She was quite enthusiastic about the diary  project and the exchanges with schools in Holland, but also asked whether the diaries, with their graphic descriptions of Israeli violence, could not give rise to anti-Semitism if read by youth in the West. When Suzy asks my opinion, I tell her that anti-Semitic understandings cannot be excluded but that it is difficult to hold Palestinians responsible for the misuse of such stories by a Western public. However, raising awareness about such issues, also among Palestinian youth, is not misplaced. At the very least, effective communication requires that one knows how an audience deals with your information. 

By coincidence, Mary and I buy Jara a lego present on the same day. Jara dreams that she is Snow White and she sees the dwarfs around her. She experiences her first school days at the Freres. She is happy but on the third day a few boys scare her. Now we try to convince her once again that school is nice. I point out the room at the Freres where I usually work, which gives her a feeling of security. Mary and I try to plan for the summer holiday. Mary: “How can you plan, we don’t know what happens tomorrow.”