Our shift included meetings and activities with women in the clubs at Nabi Elias and Immatin, and a meeting with municipal council heads from Immatin, Al Funduq and Nabi Elias to update them about Highway 55.

10:00  Nabi Elias.  The coordinator of the women’s club informed us Tuesday that she hadn’t yet been able to organize the group of young women to learn English and asked it be postponed to next week.  When we reached the village we discovered that since meeting with her two weeks ago she’d given birth to a daughter [Congratulations!], earlier than had been expected.  But she promised to be at the club next week.

Eight of the older women came this week (they’re our children’s age, approximately…) to continue making furniture out of recycled carton, led by Rivka with assistance from Sarahleh and Dafna.  Five of the women continued energetically to the second stage of the work.

Dafna had brought a Hebrew-Arabic dictionary, which helped greatly with the explanations, and Rivka used a translation app on her smart phone for crucial words.

At the end Rivka collected everyone, summarized systematically all the preparatory stages up to this point, in English, and the assistant coordinator translated what she said into Arabic.

There was a pleasant atmosphere, interesting discussions, and without anyone having planned it the room became a class – we learned Arabic from the Palestinians and we taught them Hebrew.  It was endearing and beneficial.  Everyone’s looking forward to next week’s meeting.

10:30  Susie, Nurit and Dvorka drove on to Immatin with Nadim.

We first became acquainted with people from the village during the olive harvest on the day we came to help them pick and also be there because of the harassment by settlers from "Havat Gil’ad" (Gil'ad ranch).

Today’s meeting was the first with a group of some 15 women who came to the club and welcomed us very warmly.  After telling them a little about MachsomWatch everyone introduced themselves and we talked about what we could do together.  They chose handicrafts and to learn Hebrew (not English, as we had initially proposed); we decided to organize two groups for next time and begin working.

We were glad that one of the women suggested we learn Arabic from them.

At the end of the meeting, which was short this time, we went to the municipal building to update the head of the village about Highway 55 – the exchange of letters from Immatin and Hanna Barg with the Civil Administration and the Traffic Department of the Israeli Police Judea and Samaria District.

11:45  Al Funduq:  We met people from the municipality to update them also about the response by the Israeli police regarding Highway 55.

12:15  Back to Nabi Elias to meet with our acquaintance who heads the municipality and advises ten villages in the area on infrastructure issues.  We also updated him regarding Highway 55.

We weren’t really surprised that, although our update was received with gratitude for our desire to help, no one we spoke to was very optimistic that the problem would be solved.

13:05  Habla gate.  The gate was open when we arrived; a cart, two cars and a few people crossed without delays.

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