Morning

At 6:30 this morning there were no border police in sight. A steady stream of people climbed over the dirt heap. Younger men helped women and children. The opening between the concrete slabs had become wide enough even for me (and I am heavy!) to pass through. The gate to the university was open. At the end of the corridor, there was clean gravel instead of the muddy puddles, and also, there was a chair to assist in the climb over the concrete, but the chair on the other side was broken.We took a cab to Wadi Nar, where neither of us had ever been. We expected a roadblock on the way to Bethlehem, but didn’t know exactly where. We noted a jeep and two soldiers at some point, but continued until we realized that we were near Beit Sahur. We decided that it was no use to stop in the middle, so we continued all the way until the end up to Manger Square (fare 7 Shekels). The driver suggested taking us to Checkpoint 300, but we didn’t think that was a good idea ), so we took the first van back.With us sat a nice Christian woman called Numa who works as a nurse in a mother and child clinic, but was on her way to a day of workshops in Ramallah. We asked her to point Wadi Nar out to us and she said: “You cannot miss it, we call it the ‘river’, but it is actually where the sewage flows.” Up the hill near the ‘Container’ roadblock our driver decided to turn around, when he saw that a queue was forming and passed us on to a colleague. All other passengers got off to try their luck via another venue, except for the nurse, who sat in the back between us and said she wanted to try and remain with us.A young, nice-looking soldier, not a BP-man was told that we belonged to Machsom Watch and he waved us through. Numa was extremely happy with the course of affairs and we exchanged telephone numbers. A large number of vans from the direction of Abu Dis were parked along the road, unable to continue to Bethlehem. There were no people held up, but the only car able to pass was ours.Near the gas station halfway to the Mt. Of Olives, the border police stopped a bus and all passengers’ papers were checked. We started to talk to them and were told by Itzik Serbi (a nasty piece of impudence) that they were under arrest and that we were disturbing him doing his job. Those without valid papers, mostly Bedouin, were told to wait (under an awning, since it had started to rain) and would be sent down after registration and a wait of about half an hour.