Bruqin, Haris, Wed 4.1.12, Morning

Translation:  Suzanne O.

We started our trip at Bruqin, the streets are deserted.

 At the club in Kafr ad Dik women were already waiting for the beading and yoga classes and they showed Tova the homework they had done.

Outside the club a man and his sister were waiting for us (they knew when we were due to arrive) and asked us to translate the sentence given by the court to the above man, it was printed in Hebrew and, of course, no one had bothered to translate it into Arabic.  The man's crime had been to enter Israel without a permit, for work purposes of course.  The sentence was not heavy but included a month's imprisonment suspended for a year and during this period he is unable under any circumstances to even think of obtaining an entrance permit and he has no idea of how to support his family.

 We returned to Bruqin and to the women's club who had heard of our activities and asked us to visit them.  We agreed with them on classes for handiwork (knitting), English lessons and, maybe, an exercise class and made a date for next week (if we are allowed to use Nadim who is not only our driver but also our translator).

We drove to Haris and met with people who were unloading olive tree plants from a lorry, they told us they were planting the olives on their land to avoid losing it because it is not farmed.

There were women waiting for us in their club here as well, they had heard of us and requested that we do some activities with them too.  We promised to check out the possibilities.