After a long day of travel on bumpy apartheid roads I arrived I back in Masafer Yatta. I left my backpack with all my clothes and personal care items on the service bus which is a major setback to my personal hygiene but I do still have my wallet and passport, mashallah.
Donate to sustain the work, here!
I spent the night at the cave of the family whose eldest son was murdered by the occupation outside their home. Their neighbor recently had five red cows killed by settlers in the night so we slept with the door open and the outside light on. Or rather I tried to sleep; I got about 15 minutes total. Every noise sounded like a settler walking across the yard. The dogs who usually only bark when people arrive were barking all night. At one point I convinced myself that one of the howls was a person pretending to be a dog but when I went to look there was nobody there. My heart raced so fast it hurt. I’m not sure why last night out of all nights my nervous system decided to go haywire but I was scared I would never return to normal.
And then the morning prayer played over the mosque speakers and then the sun rose and I began shepherding in the vast Saidge valley and another goat gave birth and things now almost do feel normal. If only it weren’t for the war planes booming overhead, settlers driving their ATVs on the road above us, my phone constantly alerting me with updates about two ISM activists who were just arrested and taken away by the army (who does not have the authority to make arrests), and having to walk ten miles before noon because this area and surrounding villages have been reclassified as an army “firing zone” by the IOF.
