Rihan

Rihan, Tuesday, February 1, 2005, AMObservers: Bruria, Tirtsa (reporting)13:30 - 15:30A rainy and a stormy day.Traffic flows swiftly at the pedestrian passage and the vehicle passage.The soldiers offer us sour faces and do not even respond to our greetings.We decided to wait in the shelter of the shed for the rain to stop, and in the meantime conducted a conversation with those pedestrians waiting for cabs to take them either into Israel or to the West Bank.One woman charges at us, saying in English, that she is a teacher from Umm al-Rihan, a Palestinian village in the seam line zone. Ever since the high school there was shut down, she is forced to go every day, back and forth, to the school in Jenin. Instead of a 10-minute ride in each direction, now she needs to waste three hours every day. She poured all her bitterness out on us, adding that there is no chance for her to ever want to have peace with us.As opposed to her, an elderly man, who needs to travel two hours to visit his daughter on the other side of the fence, a distance of about 200 meters (as the crow flied), says that he is aware that the fence, along with its inconvenience, is a result, among others, of Palestinian actions.Three happy female students from Um al-Fahem are returning from the American University in Jenin, saying that the soldiers are good and did not delay them even for a moment.A little boy stands in the freezing cold weather holding a thermos, waiting for the crowd that is not there.