Abu Dis, Container (Wadi Nar), Sheikh Saed, Mon 7.12.09, Afternoon
2:00-4:30 PM
On the way down via Jebel Mukabr slight rain started and the drizzle caused the road to be extremely slippery. We saw many children near the schools and noted a slipping/sliding car having great trouble to mount the road. Even pedestrians were slipping.
We were allowed to enter through the turnstiles after permission was obtained by telephone.
A yellow school bus was just dropping some children on top of the CP, they go to school in Sawachreh and live in Jebel Mukabr they said.
A little later the bus, which had made a tour, returned and we verified with the driver who said that the school in Sawachre was better than that in Jebel Mukabr. The driver himself lives in Sheikh Saed and said that about twenty children are bussed daily from the CP to Sawahre via the dangerous road. He lives in sheikh Saed and told us before he accelerated that this CP is REALLY shitty (“khara”) – his words!
We saw some more cars struggling with the steep slope towards Jebel Mukabr and were glad we could take the Road of the Americas.
We entered with the car as far as we could into the road leading to the Pishpash where major infrastructure is being carried out to make it a real passage for the nursery school kids, with street lights, etc. The last bit of the wall at this stretch is almost completed.
We spotted two civilian guards who were both pleased that they had work watching over the workers and the equipment and thought all this construction was of major importance to our security.
As we approached Wadi Nar we saw a long line of cars from the opposite direction coming from Abu Dis. At the same time a transit with an Israeli driver dropped off a load of workers coming from the direction of Kedar. We soon found out what all this was about. The road turning east towards the garbage dump, the Jahalin encampment and El Azzariya was closed off. Large orange signposts in three languages ( Hebrew and English with spelling mistakes) proclaimed that the road was closed and pointed in the direction of a detour via the winding road towards Abu Dis.
The road is being renovated and works will take until May 26th. During half a year in the muddy season the Palestinian drivers will have to struggle with the narrow congested road, while the super highway serving a few hundred people from Qedar remains empty and serves Jews only.
A few more loads of workers approached the junction from the way we came, obviously transported by their employers. They all waited near the grocery store for an empty cab to take them home in the direction of Bethlehem.
Once in a while a car was checked randomly, but the documents were returned within a few minutes. The queue kept moving more or less, albeit very slowly, due to the condition of the road and the bumps near and in the CP. No soldier came to disturb our work.