This day is one of the best days so far in my life. We wake up in Samis house and plan the action of Charity Travel. First, I make my donation to Sami’s sister and five other students in political science to support their transportation costs to the university in Nablus. They are committed to the peace movement and can use any help they can get.
Then we go and buy fruit for 345 children in the village school for children age 6 to 12. Everybody is helping. There is a truck bringing many crates with fruits from another village, and quick hands put them into 345 little bags, a banana, an apple and an orange for every child. As we drive to the school, a photographer falls from the sky for the second time. It is Lazar, volunteering for the Palestine Monitor and by coincidence in the village to interview the family of a sick child. He offers me to take pictures of the action. So we are welcomed in the school and visit all ten classrooms, where we give every child the fruit. They all smile thankfully, it feels great. I can sense the culture of peace in these moments.
In two classes we ask every child to write “peace” on the blackboard in English or Arabic. They are very enthousiastic about it, and so are we. Thanks to Sami and his groups, these children are growing up in a culture of peace, despite the horrors that happen to many of their relatives. We take a lot of photos of the action.
I call for every visitor to the country of Israel to come to the West Bank, see it with his own eyes and get involved in a similar action. I believe we can make a change together.
School goes on, and we say goodbye. Lazar and I try to visit a settlement but the entrance road turns out to be too long and we can’t make it in time. So we hitchhike to Ramallah where I am invited for the night. In a bar, we talk about the peace process and the Palestine Monitor with two other journalist friends from England. After two beers and some narguila, the atmosphere becomes really enjoyably smooth.
