Read here the first part of Tamers description of his trip to Great Britain in June 2004:
Dear friends, sisters and brothers:
First of all I would like to share my visit to the UK with you, because I enjoyed it so much. I will write about it as sections,
The sections will be as the following subjects:
• My trip from Bethlehem to Jericho.
• My stay in Jordan , which was just 5 days.
• My entering through The Heathrow airport and the first week meeting the first strange British things.
• My traveling in the UK and my events and meetings and what were my feelings in those periods!
• The time in the plane.
• My return home and what I felt.
• My time after returning.
Second, I really don't know what are the words at least which I could say for all the people who supported me in my going and trip. And I think the words are not enough, because these people didn't support me as a person, but they support me as a step of justice and as a try to keep the hope, even if it is very poor and small, but they helped me, my nation, the peace and the just a lot, and I am very grateful because of that, I hope the number of these good people could be bigger and bigger until the justice spread through all this huge world!
MY Trip From BETHLEHEM To JERICHO
My trip started by me leaving home at 6 o'clock in the morning, but 6 o'clock wasn't the hour which I organized to leave at, because the hour was 4 in the morning, not because I liked reaching Jordan very early, but because I didn't know what could happen on the checkpoints and temporary Israeli road blocks, and because I wanted to have the enough time to know what I shall do if the Israeli soldiers returned or prevented me from going, but some wrong thing happened with the alarm o'clock, so I woke up later.
I was discussing with my family one night before I leave how many checkpoints or how many stops I will find in my way to Jordan, and we found that I would be stopped not less than at 20 checkpoints, so they said you should go at 4 o'clock to reach in the same day, because on each checkpoint I should change taxi and walk to get another one, because the roads were damaged or closed by the Israeli army!
When I left home I found a driver, he asked me "where I was going" and I answered to " Jericho " , he said "I could take you there", I said "will you take me all the way or shall I change your taxi on some coming checkpoints?"
He said "I will take you all the way, and I will take you by a very safe way, because if you want to go by the Abu Dees road, you should put your self in danger, because you will walk near the "Wall" and you will not reach Jericho by less than 20 checkpoints, and you should wait in Jericho two or three days because you reached later than your time to go according to the permit!" I said "so how much money do you want?!" he said "just 150 shakaels", it is about £18.75 or 9.37$, this money is little money, but in Palestine it is not little and specially because of the unemployment which we suffer from in these days, and for me this little money could help me so much, because the income of our family stopped since the year 2000 , which was the beginning of the Israeli occupation and the attacking of the West Bank and Gaza. Anyway I went with the driver and as he said he will take me from the safest way to Jericho but in that way we found just 5 checkpoints, and we spent about half an hour on each checkpoint, and we reached Jericho at about 2 o'clock ! I think this is more than the time which you need to travel from UK to Jordan by plane!! It needs just 5 hours from the UK TO Jordan , but my way from Bethlehem to Jericho needed from me 9 hours!!!!!
I don't want to talk about the suffering details which I had on the last four checkpoints, but at the final checkpoint which they "the Israeli occupation" call Jericho checkpoint (they started naming the checkpoints because of the very big numbers of the checkpoints which surrounds all the towns ,villages , cites and camps in Palestine, you can not even move or drive more than one or two kilometers, and then you should stop to be checked and questioned on a checkpoint. and if the Israelis think that any person has some political relationship, even if they are not sure, they will take him to the prison, or some times kill him, or stop him, so no one knows what could happen for that person after that.) when I reached that checkpoint I saw about 120 taxis in front of me, and maybe the same number behind me, and fortunately I was with a man from Norway, he came with me as protection, I asked him to go to the soldier to tell him that we are in a hurry and we need to leave now! He did, and the solider said "come!", we went with the taxi, and the solider asked me about my name, I said "Tamer!" He said because of that show me your ID and your passport! I did, and after some minutes he said your papers are good and completed, but do you have permission from Israel ?! I said "no", he said "why not?!" I said "I went to get one since I'm 17, but they said that I don't need one, because we stopped using them" (this is a permission of age which is needed if you're under 35, people under 35 are prevented from leaving the country without it). Then he said "go home; and when you need one come back to me!!!!!"
I said "really?!" I added "I will not leave" because I wasn't able to be patient any more, and then he said "do you have any security problem?" I said "of course NO, because if I have any, you will not find me here!" He said then "go!" I passed the checkpoint and that was the first and the hardest section in all my journey, but I think I should be used to this situation because this situation started 4 years ago, but I hope it will finish soon, by the waking up of the world!
Tamer
See pictures from the trip at: photoblog.be/karama
Diary project: