Manic Monday

So dunno if most of you know this but there is a bit of a militia turf war going on in Gaza at the moment between the Fatah police force and the new Hamas security force. Well yesterday my Library building got caught in the crossfire.
The police station directly across from the library was shooting at a Hamas group 200 yards down the street, at a crossroads.

Only two of my students had arrived for the afternoon class when shooting started outside.
Me and the two guys went to my office (the room in the picture)to see what was happening, next thing shots were fired at our building. We all dropped to the floor instantly, a few seconds later a bullet came through the window about waist height just where I had been standing, I reckon it must have been a piece of glass that scratched my nose and not the bullet itself, but I guess I'll never know!

Me and the two guys ran to another room, before heading downstairs when there was a break in the shooting. There were about eight of us in the library bottom floor hiding behind bookshelves.
It turns out the Fatah police had used the empty floors above us as sniper positions and the Hamas guys were just shooting back at the building.

After about 15/20 mins more there was a break in the shooting and some of the guys started walking around, suddenly it started again the building was being hit,
suddenly there was some frenzied shouting. The caretaker Mohammad had been shot in the back.
I froze, lying on the ground, while the shooting continued to hit the building. When it stopped after a minute or so later I crawled across the floor to see what had happened.
Mohammad was lying on his stomach trying to make a phonecall, his back was drenched in blood and there were blood-marks showing how he had made his way, on the ground, to the phone.
He was trying to call an ambulance. I put my hand on his shoulder just to try to stop him from getting up, someone threw me a blanket but I didn't want to put pressure on his back in case his spine was damaged.
I just kept asking him to stay down. Others called the ambulance on their mobiles.

I spent the next ten minutes praying genuine prayers.

The Red Cresent guys, to their credit, were there in about ten minutes driving directly into the crossfire. They came in with a stretcher and asked me and another guy to carry him as they ran out of the building waving their hands in the air, trying to stop the shooting. We followed them out as quickly as humanly possible, but just as we got to the ambulance the shooting started right where we were. I nearly dropped the stretcher.
We crouched behind the ambulance, they pulled him in and I legged it back to the library.

All in all I reckon the shooting went on for around 70/80 minutes. I got home and tried to relax, stayed away from the windows for a while mind you!

The thing is I was just unlucky, wrong place at the wrong time. For most of Gaza it was a normal day. Went to visit Mohammad this morning, the bullet is still in his back, but it missed his spine and major organs. He lost a good bit of blood but is stable and relaxed. A Jordanian diplomatic worker however was killed in the crossfire by a stray bullet as he drove through the crossroads at the bottom of the road.

I visited the library today. It was open, the Palestinian people are ridiculously resilient. However the building was shot up pretty badly, maybe 10/12 broken windows.
My course was only meant to be a month long and it doesn't seem like it will be viable for me to finish it out. If I can't teach there isn't much I can do here, so I'm moving to Bethlehem in the next couple of days.
Said lots of goodbyes today, was pretty crap. I will visit this month.

The shootout was random, no real reason for it other than a natural result of the complicated, hazardous and crippling position Gaza has found itself in. I know families who lived like this for weeks during the intifada. I know children who are afraid of playing on the streets 5 years later. I had it for an hour and it scared the shit out of me.

So many of the "problems" in various regions of the world are man made. However here the solutions are easily available as well, the suffering in Gaza in recent times is not necessary. Gaza is not Africa. There is no famine or natural disaster, the people here are educated and industrious.

The crisis here persists because people choose to have it persist.

very big, very old

'Very big and very old' is how a wiser man than me once described the pyrimads.
Giza was a bit of a zoo, lots and lots of people and cameras and maps.

Spent Four days in Cairo, really liked it.
The place is massive, crowded, and crazy busy.
The traffic lived up to the desciptions i'd heard. Completely mental. Completely.

I spent most of my time there just walking around for hours,
spent an hour and a half in the egyptian museum,
lonely planet suggests at least 2 full days.
Egypt has an overwhelmingly dense history,
there is just so much.
Pharonic, Islamic, Jewish, Coptic etc.

Went home via-Jordan, got a ferry across the red sea.
Parted it, I like to think.
I was on the ferry 7 1/2 hours before it left,
was a long day.

Back in Gaza now, new classes starting this week.
ohh and I have the runs!
Goodtimes.

My week

Had a strange and busy week.

I dunno if I have mentioned this but I've been playing football on Monday and Wednesday nights for over a month now. It's been a really sweet way to break down the language barrier and really get to know people.
Anyway this week I played football as normal on Monday night.
There was this guy called Tamer playing, he is one of those annoying centre midfield players who never loses the ball. You know one of those small guys you try and kick but they're too fast!

Some of you might have read that on Tuesday morning two Palestinian police officers were killed when a shell exploded in a police station. The story goes that an unexploded shell was taken to the station to be diffused. Tamer was one of the guys who died. He was 27. He wasn't diffusing the shell or anything, he had just gone inside to get a glass of water when it went off.

I went to his funeral with the rest of the guys from football,
it was an odd experience.
People weren't as devastated as I thought they'd be,
I heard someone said that this was becoming normal.
Someone said they envied him,
another told me Tamer had the two most beautiful boys in all of Gaza.

W.B.Yeats called post-1916 rebellion Ireland a "terrible beauty".
If ever that were true for another place, it is true for Gaza.


In other less important news my English classes are finished.
Had a mini-party in the last class, got a bunch of presents off the students, was real nice.
I am in Jerusalem now, heading to Egypt and Jordan in the next couple of days to renew my visa.
I'll teach one more English class in Gaza before heading to Bethlehem for July and August to teach English and learn Arabic.