Qalandiya and Ar-Ram, Sunday PM, February 13thWatchers: Tsipie E. and Ronny P. (reporting)Ar-RamWhen we arrived at Ar-Ram there was an enormously long line of cars and police cars blocking the road and checking people leaving Jerusalem. We approache the soldiers apprehensive of who we will meet this time. For some reason we have the hardest experiences with Ar-Ram teams. This time there was a nice young woman and guys who were open to us and not negative/hostile as we often experience. There were no detainees and within minutes traffic flowed.We arrived at Qalandiya and as we all got off the vehicle 2 guys were stopped by Border Police - quite some distance from the checkpoint. We expressed surprise and to our surprise the 2 young men were let go immediately after some abstract fast check.At the Qalandiya checkpoint there is a crew of reserves soldiers and Emil from the DCO who is always friendly. This time there was a big ado and we were told about it by passing people. A man was stopped carrying a computer screen and they closed the checkpoint and many teams were at work during the next hour and a half. We were told and anyone interested that they found traces of TNT on the surface of the computer - not on the man. The little man was sitting on the little hill next to the checkpoint on a white chair, next to him the computer screen, a dog and half the IDF, with guns, white gloves, cases of portable labs. Quite a sight. His story is that he is from Silwan, worked for the Municipality for many years and his son in law gave him this screen because his broke down. All we could do was to watch the long procedure. It ended with a police van taking him for questioning. He was treated well and all said he will be released after giving evidence.Another long story was a story of a family who came to the checkpoint to ask for the whereabouts of their eleven-year old son who was taken by border police jeep at 11 am close to their home around Hotel Sivan near Atatrot army base. We dialled all kinds of numbers and passed the phone to Emil who was less motivated than us to find out fast where the boy is.At the end the family contacted some relatives and the boy was found safe with a family of friends. The whole story seems to have been an "educational event" for the family. We were shaken by how resigned the mother acted and how we had to beg to make people try to find out where the child is! Another incident was yet another young woman with a computer - this time not the screen but the CPU. This time we hope humor helped . When we caught sight of her we told the officer who dealt with the man from Silwan and we think that he, too, was aware of the absurdity of the scene and he stood by as the strict and not so friendly white-haired volunteer searched the box which the young woman dismantled in no time herself.This volunteer also admonished the soldiers for losing concentration in their job of protecting him by talking to us. The soldier is a DJ in Tel Aviv and we were having a conversation with him and the man with the computer. We left late ,after we saw the man from Silwan being taken to the police station.On the way back to our car a taxi stopped in front of us and a man told us that his friend's ID was taken away in the morning and when he came to the Ar-Ram checkpoint there was no ID.We advised him to go straight to Qalandiya and ask for Emile from the DCO.It was one of the nights when I went to sleep soon after I got home and woke up the next morning with a heavy feeling...