"Hello. What's your name?"

Jayyous, August – October, 2010 photos by John Buttrick


The 4am call to prayer resounds over the village. The call awakens a rooster to crow, sheep bleat, a donkey brays. Multiple answers to each reverberate across the village and over the hills. Then the flies arrive, delighting in flyovers around my head, seeking strategic landing spots on my eye lids and in my ears. A favorite seems to be “touch and go” action from the launching pad of my nose.

I put my covers over my head but the heat of the rising sun soon creates a solar oven in which I’m the roast. I throw the covers back, swat at the waiting flies and survey the waking village of Jayyous from the roof top of our home where I’ve been sleeping under the moon and stars to capture the cool night air after a very hot day.

Standing on the roof, I’m cooled by the early morning breeze coming from the Mediterranean Sea, 23 kilometers (15 miles) to the west. On a clear day from the municipality building, it can be seen along with the tall buildings of Tel Aviv. It is often said in Jayyous, “We can see the sea but as Palestinians we are not allowed to go there to swim.” Mofaqw, a 22 year old university student and a community leader for his generation described to us one evening over coffee in our courtyard, “On the day that the separation barriers come down I will sleep until noon, get a car and drive to the beach of the Mediterranean Sea. I will buy some fish and grill it on the beach. I will swim. I will have my blanket with me and I will sleep overnight on the beach. That is what I will do on the day that Palestinians become free.”

Looking down on the street in front of our EA house I can see to my right the eastern entrance to the village, marked by a fountain in the middle of an intersection. When the rains come in a few weeks, the fountain will begin to flow again. Between the fountain and our house I can see the house of a man who has land but no permit to go to it so he works in Israel. He has left already. We see him passing through the workers gate with three to four thousand others between 4 and 7 am on Sundays and Thursdays when we monitor the entrance through this separation barrier. Looking up the street to my left I can see a few people going to pray at the Mosque. Two houses up I can see the home of a young man who was taken by the Israeli army in the middle of the night about a week ago. His family still does not know where they have taken him.

Lining the street are a series of shops, their iron doors slid back when they’re open. The streets are paved. Our street has sidewalks on both sides, the curbs checkered in red and white or black and white blocks. Lining the sidewalks are six foot high concrete walls or the fronts of houses and shops. Everything is built with reinforced cement columns and cement block walls. Finished houses are faced with smooth polish stone tiles. Most of the houses are two stories high, many of the newer ones are three and sometimes four stories. A few house animals in the lower level, often in a courtyard next to the main house. Next to our house is an open yard with housing for 10 or 12 sheep at the back of the lot. We have lots of sheep bleating and sheep smells wafting in the windows on our west side.

Because land is limited and expensive, houses are built up instead of out. As a family expands a new level is added. One house, for example, may have parents on the first floor, a brother and his family on the second, and a son and his family on the third. They tend to refer to each level as a “house” that they own.

A child’s voice cuts through my leisurely survey of our street, “Hello. What’s your name?”I answer from my rooftop vantage but the child is really not interested in the answer. The children have learned the English phrases at school and want to practice saying them. As soon as we step outside the house, voices come from the street, doors, windows, and allies, “Hello. What’s your name?” They are cheerful children, eager to make connections with the internationals.

A little further up the street on the other side is the first of many small one room shops in that direction. It is open most of the time. We get water, juice, rice, beans and often pita bread there. The shop keeper, Naim, enjoys trying to teach me to count and make change in Arabic. Children dash in and out of the store buying candy and ice cream while we have conversation in English.
Back across the street is the falafel shop. Except during Ramadan, he is open from 7or 8 in the morning. However, he closes in the afternoon and doesn’t open again until 7:30pm. On our first day in the village two of us went at 7pm to buy falafel for supper. He was not yet open but the young man who sells produce across the street welcomed us, corralled some chairs and insisted that we sit until he could make some tea for us to drink. He and several others sat with us drinking tea until the falafel was ready. Conversation was limited by language differences but hospitality was joyfully expressed. Frequently, as we walk the streets, people call to us from their houses to come into their houses or courtyards to have tea and Arabic coffee as well as sweets and fruit. These invitations continue throughout our three month stay in Jayyous.

Moving up the street again we come to an intersection with a street that goes down to the south barrier gate, through which some farmers must pass to get to their fields. At this corner there is another grocery store, the taxi and service stand and a barber shop. I’ve had tea and conversation at the taxi stand waiting for a bus and in the barber shop while waiting for a haircut. The owner of the store is struggling. He borrowed money to stock the store and now he is having trouble paying it back and restocking the store. Part of the reason for the financial strain is a son who is in an Israeli prison. No one seems to understand the charges against him. But Muhammed pays 1000 nis (about $37) a month for food and things his son needs in prison. Muhammed can get a permit to see his son once a month for 30 minutes through security glass talking on a phone. He also needs a travel permit which is difficult to acquire. Sometimes he can’t get a permit because he is considered a security risk because his son is in prison, this includes a permit to his land.

Continuing up the street are small shops selling a variety of items. There is a large mosque from which I heard the 4am call to prayer. At the far end is the municipal building and a school for the younger children. Down narrow side streets along the way are schools for the older children, one for girls and one for boys. There is a recreation building where the volleyball games are held and many residential homes extending down the sides of the hill on either side of the main street. These homes overlook the expanse of olive groves and farm land that belongs to people of Jayyous. Much of this land to the west has been separated from Jayyous by the separation barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territory. The fence has been built on the Palestinian’s land, 3-5 kilometers from the green line border with Israel. Beyond this land can be seen Israeli houses. To the southwest there is an illegal Israeli settlement on the Jayyous farmers’ land. The former mayor of Jayyous has land on both sides of this barrier and adjacent to the settlement. He lost over 500 0live trees that were destroyed during the building of the barrier.

The spirit of the people is difficult to discern. Jayyous was one of the very first villages to organize weekly demonstrations against the building of the wall. They finally gave them up because many felt that the cost in reprisals from the army was too high. Some were arrested. A considerable number lost their permits to their land or experienced many delays in their applications. Crossing through the barrier to the land was also made more difficult by the Israeli soldiers. The number of permits to the land that have been granted have been reduced from 450 in 2009 to 350 in 2010. Also, many have been reduced from one year to 6 months, 3 months or fewer.
Recently a farmer had his renewal application for a permit denied, even though he has a paper saying that renewal is automatic. He is appealing the decision. However, he continually asks himself, “What could I have done to account for this refusal? I’ve stayed in the area. I’ve been a good citizen. Why do they refuse me?” Many people try very hard not to disturb the situation. They pass quietly through the farm gates. They cooperate with the soldiers’ demands, even when they seem unreasonable or unjust. Anger is deep seated and often denied. For many, the separation from their land has become the ordinary way of life. The say, “What can we do?”

However, we also have met some young men in the village who are asking very seriously, “What are the ways to resist the injustices of Israeli occupation? What does it mean to resist? Are both violent and non violent resistance effective and right to do?” International law suggests, “yes.” They are searching and determined to be effective resisters. Their spirits are high. They are not giving up.

There are many other people whose homes I can see or picture from the roof of our house. There is the farmer who invites us to dinner and after the first time in the formal dining room welcomes us to the kitchen table. He explains, “Guests are welcomed into our dinning room. Family eats together in the kitchen. You are part of our family.” There is the woman who cooks pita bread on an open fire outside her home and gives us one hot off the spinning flat iron cooking disk as we pass by. There is the woman who makes and sells sheep/goat cheese that she makes fresh every day. She also makes yogurt and olive oil. Once or twice a week we sit for tea and coffee with her children, husband, and sister who goes to the university. It’s part of the process of buying food from her. There is the man who drives a taxi for us, introduces us to the leaders of the villages in the neighborhood, and translates for us. He takes us into his home to become friends with his wife and children. There is the shop keeper who has been in a Palestinian prison for belonging to the Hamas party. There is the man who was imprisoned in the United States after 9/11 for two years without charges under the Homeland security Act because he is Palestinian. He had been legally living in the US for several years. He was deported when released from prison. He cannot get a pass to his land here. He is in the process of setting up a smoke shop to try to earn a little money. He has had us for dinner and enjoys philosophical and political discussion. He says he has no ill will against the United States for the treatment he received.

I think of many others as I look over the rooftops of Jayyous. We are internationals in their village. There is much we shall never know about their culture and the ways of their village. But what they do tell us is that we are welcome here as long as we stay. They are a people of hospitality. They use the English word, “welcome” in many contexts, beginning with, “Where are you from?”
“The United States of America,” we respond.
“Welcome.”
And “welcome” continues to be said over and over: when we enter a home, receive some tea, are offered a ride on a tractor to a farm gate or make a purchase in a shop. “You are welcome.” And then there is the welcome in the smiling voices of the children, “Hello. What’s your name?”
“My name is sojourner in you village. And you have indeed taken me in. ‘Welcome.’”


EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.