Entries this day: Demonstration_of_checkpoints Funniest_thing_ever!

Demonstration of checkpoints

1:31pm IST Saturday 12 November 2005

There was a demonstration at noon at Qalandia today. Then it got moved to a different location at 1pm. Then it got cancelled altogether because not enough people (Palestinians?) were able to get there. The checkpoints worked, and kept them from demonstrating against the checkpoints.

Got to talk to a guy who's both American and French and doing a documentary with some something something here in this crazy area. Quite interesting to see how he was all shocked at the chaos of Qalandia, and I can remember being shocked at the chaos of Qalandia, but after 4 weeks here, I'm over it.

That's messed up. It's like I'll leave this occupied territory and people will be like, "what's it like?" and I'll say "meh; not a big deal."

But in reality: It's shocking.

Chatted with Ben on the way back; I am pretty focused on the idea of getting pictures on my site to include coordinates so I can link them to a google map on my site. Right now I'm going to go design what I'd like the user interface to be like, before I get caught up in code and what other people have done.

Funniest thing ever!

12:34am IST Sunday 13 November 2005

Oh my god the funniest thing! I just went downstairs to the bakery where there's a guy with moustache who is the friendliest and funniest of all the little shops in the area. When Sarah and I first started our nightly food-purchase missions, we ended up always going there first, just to joke with him in the very limited shared language we have.

If there are no other customers, I will often "pay" with Japanese money. He will inspect it mightily, we discuss its value, and then he gives it back and I pay with NIS ("New Israeli Shekels," I think).

Today I greeted him as I walked in and he greeted me back and I grabbed a tub of hummus and a bottle of Pear Cactus Apple juice and put them on the counter. He said, 'twenty shekels,' and put out his hand.

I put a 0.05 shekel coin in his hand. He looked at it for about a half second and he tossed it backwards over his shoulder, never to be seen again, and put his hand again.

HAHAHAHAHHAAHAAA!!!! I burst out laughing, for there was nothing else I could do.