'Atara, Qalandiya, Sun 31.10.10, Afternoon

Translation: Ruth Fleishman

Qalandiya:
Once we made out the smell of urine at the north entrance, once our ears were deafened by the guard shouting from the tower: "Hay… you… Hay… You… stay away from the fence!", once our eyes noticed that the guard was waving his rifle at us as he was yelling: "Hay… Hay… No Pictures!", we knew at last that we had reached Qalandiya checkpoint.
We weren't surprised by the slow pace in which the inspection of those entering its gates was conducted. We had gotten used to the scanning of the IDs and the typing in of ID numbers. Those too will be kept aside until the bad times begin and this information will come in handy.
There was an innovation at the actual passage: on the metal detector gates metal strips were hung, they projected pictures of small green and red people= passes or doesn't pass (the picture was taken secretly).

Atara/ Bir Zeit:
Fear and tremble possessed the soldiers at the sight of a civilian car parked by the side of the besieged post. "It's very dangerous to wanders about at night around here… don't come near the post… I'm the post commander and when you approach it makes my soldiers jump…"- all this was said explained to us through the canvas covered fences. We could make out the persons voice without seeing his face, he insisted on telling us over and over again that this spot wasn't a checkpoint: "it's a post!".   

Then another voice came out of the "post", it reported on the radio that: "the three aunts are standing outside…". Only once a military vehicle arrived was the gate opened, then a group of reserve soldier came carefully outside: one or two steps outside the fence. A bearded man was bossing them around and told his colleagues not to talk to us, he hushed down a curious soldiers who wanted to understand who we were and why we came there.