Zif, a-Tuwani

We visited the preschool of Amal in the village of Zif.  The preschool has two medium-sized rooms and an entrance room, not enough room for the number of children attending. Amal has two young assistants to help her.  Twenty-three 4-5 year old children were at the preschool.  Amal told the children a story to which they listened attentively and she then asked them questions about the story.

   We talked to Amal about the preschool and her main concern was equipment.  Although she has plenty of chairs for the children, there are no tables for them or closets to story educational materials.  There are also no children literature books or materials for creative activities.  We told her about our activities and gave her printed material describing them.  Amal was very interested in the types of activities we do and we agreed to talk in two weeks time.

     We called the Tuwani preschool and dropped by the Um-el-Khir preschool but there were no activities taking place that day in either preschool.

            We stopped by Um-el-Khir on our way back to Israel.  The Village Group had arranged a visit to the village by a member of the American embassy.  The villagers showed him the gloomy situation of the village, particularly after the destruction of village houses last month.  The entire village is under orders to be destroyed.  Villagers leave for work each day not knowing if their homes will be there when they return.  During the latest destruction, that included the destruction of the village tabun oven (which was located near the fence of the Carmel settlement and the smoke from it bothered the settlers), toilets.  The army declared the village a closed area and evicted all the foreign volunteers, then quickly destroyed homes and tents, and left the village.  The villagers explained to the American representative the importance, urgency, and severity of the situation.  They claim that if a peaceful solution is not found, the situation in the territories could deteriorate into war.  What is there to say – our heart aches in light of what's going on in our name and with our money