Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land by Ruth Everhart

Author:Ruth Everhart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing

Deheshieh, Palestine

CHAPTER 12

The Hope

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!

PSALM 133:1

THE BUS TAKES us to a Palestinian refugee camp called Deheshieh (duh-HAY-shuh). We are served lunch in a community building that is owned by the United Nations. The food is typical of what we’ve been served before: hummus, cucumbers, tomatoes, pita bread. The main dish is served by the plate: a large mound of white rice topped with a bone. The bone has a knob of dark meat, probably lamb. My body seems to be toying with a case of what Stephen politely calls “Herod’s Revenge,” so I offer my meat to Brian and eat enough of the rice to get by.

After lunch we’re given a tour of the camp. Our guide’s name is Jihad Ramadan. Now there’s a name that communicates! He looks to be in his early twenties, a compactly built man with pronounced muscles, shiny black hair, and olive skin. His face is beautiful, lit with fervor. A pack of cigarettes bulges in the pocket of his tight-fitting T-shirt, which is red, white, and blue. I suspect that he isn’t wearing those colors to honor the U.S. flag.

He speaks with impassioned eloquence. Deheshieh is one of fifty-eight refugee camps. In fact, it was the first camp, established in 1948. From 1948 to 1967, the West Bank was owned by Jordan; but in 1967 the United Nations began to rent this land from Jordan for a term of ninety-nine years. All housing and services are managed by the U.N. This camp covers one square kilometer and houses 11,000 people. That density is shocking, even to me, living in densely populated northern Virginia. But I am stuck on another fact. This has been a refugee camp from 1948 until now? Doesn’t “camp” imply that it’s temporary? How many generations have already been raised here? Being a refugee isn’t the temporary condition I naïvely imagine it to be.

There is one clinic with one doctor for the entire camp. One doctor sees 280 patients per week. Again, I attempt calculations in my head: Is that fifty-five patients per day, some five minutes per patient?

Jihad has no trouble projecting his voice over the group. It’s obvious that he has given this tour many times. The statistics flow, well-rehearsed, but emotion makes his voice raw. He’s talking about medication. Basically, it isn’t available. Sixty percent of the people living in this camp are children — 6,000 of them. There are fifty students per classroom. In spite of that dismal statistic, Deheshieh is the most educated of the camps. I notice that many people have their faces scrunched up. I realize that mine is scrunched up too, from the sun, from concentrating on such crude facts.

“Do people here work?” someone asks.

“Basically, no,” Jihad answers. “There are no jobs, and you can’t get to Jerusalem.”

“But isn’t it only a few miles away?”

“Isolationism by the Israelis!” Jihad shouts, then walks on.

We pass walls covered with posters picturing young men, like mug shots only more flattering.

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