Saturday
In the early evening we arrived with a group from 19 participants in Ramallah.
The scouts of the Qadoura Camp did a official scout Welcome ceremony for us. The scout, aged between 12 and 24 observed us curiously. The scouts served us a delicious palestinian house made dinner. Later we walked to our flat which the scouts gave us for free-for the first time we passed through Ramallah downtown. Noises and smells on the street made us realise: we arrived in palestine now.


Sunday
In the morning we walked together to the Scouts center. The task for this day was to clean up the streets together with the scouts. Everyone started working- after some time we found out the system of cleaning up effissiantly. I observed the group and was happy to see the way how the 2 groups started to communicate with each other. Language was not a problem.


Songs, handsigns and simply the work together made it possible to connect to each other. When we finished cleaning up the street the scouts put up a new memory table of the people that got killed in the camp in the last years. Together we sang the Conference song for them and created like this a athmosphere of hope.


Remarkable at this day was what happened between Tali, the jewish israeli girl and the scouts. With unbelievable curiousity and openess they tried to discover each other.
I was sure that we are on the right place with the right people when i saw Tali playing flute, surrounded by a group of palestinians listening to her carefully and this in the middle of the streets of Ramallah.


For lunch Amin, one of our great friends and supporter in Ramallah arranged a meal in a Restaurant where we got food for half a price as aknowledgment of our volunteer work.
“In the afternoon we were invited to visit some families who live nearby Qadoura Scout Camp. We first talked to a mother who had two sons arrested years ago. They are still in the prison and, because of this, the all family is not allowed to leave Ramallah anymore. They can’t get the permissions even to visit them in prison. The second person that we talked with was also a mother. Her son was killed by the Israeli military forces on his way back home. All histories were very sad but, at the same time, we could see how strong a person becomes when being strong is the only way to keep going. We saw sadness but we also could see hope everywhere. Actually, the mother that lost a son is now a grandmother. Her grandson is called by her dead son’s name”( Shejla)

The evening we spend in our apartment, sitting together, chatting about the day, exchanging about our expieriences.
In the night I got a phonecall from Roi, asking me if an israeli girl is with us, that her mum is worried about her being in Ramallah and that she informed the police. I got scared in this moment. I didn´t know about the consequences for Tali and the Palestinians that hosted us in Ramallah that could come out from the circumstances that israeli citizens are not allowed to enter Ramallah by israeli law.
Annika, Tali and me decided together that Tali should leave the next morning.


Monday
Tali left in the morning. She told me later that she was questioned at the Kalandia Checkpoint about why she was in Ramallah and what she did there.
For her the expierience in Ramallah was life changing.

The group went to Hekmats house to visit the place where some month ago the idea came up to build a youth center combined with a hostel for travellers. The house, which is under construction and which was used as a horse club until now gave us room to create ideas and visions about the project, which we called: baituna-my home.
In the afternoon we went to the refugee camp ... which is located next to „baituna“ . For the youth from this camp our youthcenter would be interesting.
We found there a very professional and good youthcenter, which works there for years already. Are we actually needed here is the Question which comes to our minds.




Tuesday

“We were getting ready for breakfast when the invitation arrived – Chief Scout Mohamed, our host in Ramallah, was offering the breakfast in his cafeteria nearby. After the banquet (the best falafel ever…), we went back home for the morning gathering. The group decided to split - some people would go to the Youth Center’s project and some decided to stay and clean the area behind the building, which was really dirty.
We thought that it would also be a way to thank Mohamed for providing us a place to stay. The cleaning group started working, collecting all kinds of rubbish. After few minutes of work, two little girls, about 10 years old, started looking at us from the building above. We waved to them and a silent conversation started, so they went down to help. Half an hour later, 8 children were helping us to clean the land.
By lunch time we had to stop to meet the group in the city center, but the work was done and a mountain of garbage was inside plastic bags. We took some pictures, said goodbye to the children and went back to the apartment to admire from above the result of our hard work. Then somebody started knocking at the door. We opened it and the 2 girls that first started helping us were standing there, asking for more plastic bags, so they could continuous cleaning later. We found out that the results of our work were a lot bigger than we ever could expect or imagine “( Shejla)

In the afternoon we went shopping in little groups in Ramallah. One group visited the grave of Arafat another group I saw sitting at an Arguile Shop, smoking like the old Palestinian man and drinking Café.
At the early afternoon we had meeting in the Scout center again, where they prepared a Goodbye Party for us.
We all arrived at the Scout-center as we heard shooting near by. We got a call from Sheila and Darcio that they where hiding in some shop, because the Israeli Army is in the City Center.
What you do in some moments like that? Two participants near a shooting, a group of young people in a Scout´center shooting outside in the streets near by? I realized that you do nothing. Staying in safty was the best for us as we didn´t know the situation.

After some time, when the shooting end two Scouts where leaving to pick up Shejla and Darcio from their shelter.
They came back and told us their story:
„It was almost 6pm and we were late for a meeting and lost in Ramallah city center. For us all the streets seemed to be the same. Usually my husband is very good in finding our way back, but, this time, as we don't speak Arabic and didn't take note of the address or the name of the place where we should go, we could only try to remember how to get there. The streets were crowded close to the Baladna Ice Cream Shop, where we stopped to ask for directions, when we saw the soldiers crawling, hiding behind the cars parked, before standing up and starting shooting without any warning. Immediately after, an undercover agent, wearing a checked shirt, jeans and a cap, joined the uniformed soldiers and also started shooting. We got terrified by the brutality of the scene. We saw mothers in panic trying to protect their babies, children crying, people screaming. We heard noisy bombs, thousands of bullets, ambulance's siren, cars moving around, and shattered glass. About one hour later the army left the city, but, even before leaving the store that was our shelter, we knew that somebody had been executed”(Sheila)

The Scouts honoured our engagment in the volunteer work by making a scouts ceremony for us where we all became scouts of honour.
After all this what happened we where again invited to eat this famous falafel and we ate so much that we could dance Dabka anymore.

With joy and sorrows in our hearts we left back to the apartment. I think this was a feeling that was going through the whole days: on the one hand joy that we got from the people by joining their activities and work. On the other hand the suffering and desperation caused by the occupation.

The next morning we left one eye laughing-cause we where going to the beach to meet the other groups from the conference-the other eye crying-cause our Palestinian friends where not able to come with us as they need permission from the Israeli Army to leave the Westbank.