The way I feel right now is exactly the way I felt in 1991 when I was nine and we were waiting for Hurricane Bob to hit our house. The news is on. The neighborhood is quiet (everyone's at Friday prayer). I've stocked on bottled water (but only because a friend from the US is coming who prob isn't used to the tap water here).
Bog-confession, I'm pretty nervous about driving to pick my friend up at the airport today. There's two ways to get there: one is through the main Qalandiya checkpoint to get into 'Israel proper' and then the highway - well, that checkpoint is currently full of soldiers, tear gas and stone-throwing protesters and is closed. No dice. The second (and faster) way, is to drive through the Palestinian villages then onto the settler highway past the deep-West Bank settlements and then to the highway. This is a less checkpoint(y) way, but drives you right past the settlements, main flashpoints. Ugh. We'll see how that goes.
I had breakfast with a dear friend this morning, a Palestinian, who said he is nervous to see what happens here. That made me nervous. Expectations are high - and that means so is the potential for disappointment.
I'll be blogging from my phone as much as possible once I get back safely and watch the speech here, etc. - should be chaos in the streets. Also I suggest those who are interested in getting real-time updates on what is going on here follow Joseph Dana on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ibnezra He's at Qalandiya right now, his photos he tweets are amazing, and he really gives you a good idea of what's going on on the ground.
Bog-confession, I'm pretty nervous about driving to pick my friend up at the airport today. There's two ways to get there: one is through the main Qalandiya checkpoint to get into 'Israel proper' and then the highway - well, that checkpoint is currently full of soldiers, tear gas and stone-throwing protesters and is closed. No dice. The second (and faster) way, is to drive through the Palestinian villages then onto the settler highway past the deep-West Bank settlements and then to the highway. This is a less checkpoint(y) way, but drives you right past the settlements, main flashpoints. Ugh. We'll see how that goes.
I had breakfast with a dear friend this morning, a Palestinian, who said he is nervous to see what happens here. That made me nervous. Expectations are high - and that means so is the potential for disappointment.
I'll be blogging from my phone as much as possible once I get back safely and watch the speech here, etc. - should be chaos in the streets. Also I suggest those who are interested in getting real-time updates on what is going on here follow Joseph Dana on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ibnezra He's at Qalandiya right now, his photos he tweets are amazing, and he really gives you a good idea of what's going on on the ground.
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