The farmers’ access gate to their fields, scheduled to close at 8am was still open when a father and son approached the gate at close to 8:15am. My partner, Miriam, and I had been exchanging small talk with two soldiers at the gate about the weather, the World Cup and the location of their homes and ours. As the farmer and son approached the gate, the soldiers waved them forward and closed the two parallel gates, separating us from the soldiers, the farmer and his son.
The farmer showed the soldiers two sets of papers. They looked them over briefly and handed them back. We could not hear what was said but there was obviously a disagreement. The farmer became excited and kept pointing to the papers and waving his arms. One of the soldiers spoke firmly, pointed back toward the gates which were closed but not locked. The boy ducked under the first gate and pushed open the second, returning the way he had come. We tried to speak to him but he would not look at us and was walking very quickly back up the long hill to the village. He appeared to have tears in his eyes.
Because of the two gates between us, we had had no opportunity to engage the soldiers during the disagreement. After the farmer had left for the fields and his son was around the bend in the road, the soldier in charge, a captain, came toward us to lock the gate. Speaking through the high chain-link fence I asked him what had been the problem? He mumbled something vague about the papers. I waited for him to say more. He concentrated on locking the gate. Then he looked up and said with a friendly shrug, “It sometimes happens.” The implication of his body language seemed to be, “Don’t worry about it. It’s the way it is.”
He turned to join the other soldiers and drove off in their jeep. We watched them go and then turn ourselves to follow the tracks of the young boy up the long arduous hill back to Jayyous.