On the 26th of February two nice ladies coming from Scotland, Caroline and Brenda, arrived in the Jordan Valley to help for two weeks Jordan Valley Solidarity in its different activities. Regurarly they will share their experiences on our website.

27.02.2011

The sun shone as we drove past lush vegetation and undulating hills of the Jordan Valley. We passed camps of Bedouin families before we finally stopped at Ein Il Hilwe camp. As we arrived we were directed to the top of the hill overlooking the tents. A settlers car was parked as a shepherd had been detained by two settlers when he had tried to stop them stealing his sheep. The settlers had called the police who came and took the shepherd away to Hamra checkpoint for whatever reason. The women were obviously very frightened in case settlers appeared in the camp. One young woman told us of the day she was hit by one, for no reason other than being there, and another older woman, two days previously, had been beaten when she was with her goats.

On the left side the Bedouin shepherd, on the right side the settler coming to harass him

There are 29 families here all living in tents. The conditions are very poor by anybody standards, and what little water they have is from an almost dry stream. We were shown around and the boundary pointed out. Crossing the road, which is the boundary, is forbidden for the livestock and grazing on land on the other side of the stream incurs a fine of 1000 NIS.

At the kindergarten’s tent three female volunteers do their best to provide stimulating preschool fun for around 13 boys and girls. These volunteers provided the mid morning snack of bread and hummus with orange juice for these friendly smiling wee ones. It was not hard to fall in love with each and everyone of these beautiful tasseled haired, weather-beaten faced babies. One wee girl has mobility problems and has to be brought in a wheel chair from 4km down the road. Today she was lucky, one of the volunteers had a car. They sang, they had a story read to them and they played. Looking around all we could see for them to play with were a few Lego bricks, a plastic see-saw and a slide, a foot ball, and squashed small balls. When the kindergarten was over the children headed to their tents. Three little lived across the road and over the fields. To watch these 3 year-olds hand in hand heading home was very moving. How can anyone justify the intolerance and cruelty these families endure ?

We had now a dilemma, should we stay here in case settlers appeared or take a chance and move on to another camp. We moved on and we were shown a camp where hopefully a school tent would be erected soon. Again these people have problem with attacks by settlers and have strict rules imposed on them. Their animals are fined if they crossed the road or graze where they should not.

The grassroots movement JVS appears to us to be a vital life line for these Bedouins and they are doing a great job fighting for and providing essential equipment, education and provisions. We feel privileged to have met such dedicated volunteers and look forward to the next two weeks.