Nabi Ilyas
Translation: Bracha Ben-Avraham
We, Brenda the teacher and Liora the driver, arrived at the classroom a bit late, but we were forgiven for being late. Five girls and two boys were waiting for us. One additional girl arrived with a two-month-old baby, who was extremely well-behaved. We were, of course, offered coffee and cake. The lesson began with presenting newspapers. Brenda explained how international newspapers deal with the Middle East more than any other region in the world. The students were extremely impressed with this. Each student received a newspaper and the assignment of reading an article and talking about it at the next lesson. Do we expect a lot of students to be absent at the next lesson?
Afterwards the lesson was devoted to conversation, which the students were waiting for. The students received written pages and the students read from the pages to improve their pronunciation.
Brenda then asked the students "What is love?" There was a lot of embarrassed laughter. There were some comments offered by the more adventurous students about feelings, but no one said that they loved anyone else except for other members of their families or chocolate. This was an introduction to another part of the lesson in which the students received pages with a story about a beloved dog. After an hour we parted lovingly, and we are not certain whether the students enjoyed the lesson more than we did.
It was wonderful to see how the children outside who were not yet ten years old helped me turn the car around and pull out.
A-Nabi Elias
See all reports for this place-
A-Nabi Elias this is a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank, east of Qalqilia on Road 55, north-east of Alfei Menashe colony and west of Karnei Shomron colony and the Palestinian city of Nablus. As of 2016, the village was populated by 1,458 inhabitants.
Near the village is a maqam (holy site memorializing a sanctified person) - the prophet Elisha. Until 2021 Road 55 crossed the village. Then a bypass road was paved through olive groves that were sequestered from the villagers. Consequently, the farmers were left with small olive groves that they could not access nor cultivate. Inhabitants protested against the road for weeks, supported by peace activists, but nothing helped and the road is now a given fact.
The village's main street had been a shopping center for all residents, including colonists. We even saw a Kashrut (kosher food) inspector in a butcher shop close to the falafel stand… The bypass road, according to tradesmen, has impacted their businesses and clients, while others claim that there are customers now for parking has become easier.
Alfei Menashe and Tzofim colonies nibble at the village lands from the north and south and get closer to it all the time. Colonists of Alfei Menashe have outdone themselves, sending their surplus sewage from the oxygenation pools toward a-Nabi Elias land, even reaching the houses.
The villagers are known as seekers of peace. For years there was no hostility towards Israelis. On the contrary, we were always welcomed warmly and stopped there to enjoy their delicious, inexpensive falafel.
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