Canada Day
"ALL WE ARE SAAAAAAAAAYYYYIIIIIINNNNGGGGG..." The words screamed through my head for reasons that I cannot possibly understand.. "IS GIVE PEACE A CHAAAAANNNNCCCCCEEEE". And as they screamed through my head, I screamed them at the top of my lungs. Nobody could hear me. There was something comforting about that, and so I screamed some more. Drowning me out was the loud drone of the engines of two tanks as they were being revved. I couldn't see them, though.. Only hear them. The only thing more intense than my singing or the sound of the tanks was the pain. My eyes were burning. My nose was burning. My face was burning. I had been hit by tear gas. It is just as bad as they say, but I knew it couldn't kill me..
"ALL WE ARE SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG.." The words came back as I ran away from the gas. I don't know where I was running to.. Just running, I guess.. Something like a kid who had just gotten hurt and was running.. I finally got enough hold of myself to stop and open my eyes. I found the first person with a bottle of water and dumped nearly half of it on my face. The pain went from acute to chronic, but was less severe nonetheless.. And so I went back to my work.. We washed out the rest of the internationals, and we went right back to it.. chasing tanks and frustrating soldiers..
"AAAAALLL WEEE ARE SAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYIIIIINGGGGGGGG!!!" I couldn't get past the verse.. I wasn't screaming it anymore.. Just spitting out the words as I panted and ran.. after tanks.. away from soldiers.. to people.. I kept running, panting and singing.. I finally noticed the great distance between "my" tank and the rest of the convoy, and so I walked off the sidewalk and stood in front of the tank. It came to an abrupt stop, and waited. I guess they didn't want to be too distant from the convoy either.. I stood there, my hands up, staring at that nothingness in the barrel of the tank. I felt no fear and no pain. Only serenity. The tank revved, and the main driver of the tank threw a pop bottle to try to move me from his path.. I just stood there, that same line from that same song running through my head.. Peace..
While I was halfway through the line, I felt an incredible force on my arm, and found myself walking backwards with some vitesse. I looked back to see that a Palestinian had grabbed my arm and was pushing me back. He broke my rhythm.. I saw in his eyes the tears of fear that had come from him seeing people as stupid as I make mistakes as big as the one I was making.. He was definitely crying and super pissed.. I pleaded with him to leave me alone so that I could help, but he would not. When I finally convinced him, he just stood there crying until another man came and pulled him out of the street.. As I calmly walked back to the tank, I wondered what was going through his head.. I wondered what his story was.. As soon as I arrived at the tank to take my spot again, I saw myself being charged by a soldier, who was being followed by a soldier trying to stop him. Not good. They talk about plans going out the window, and assessing the situation, and both of these came into play with this guy. In terms of fight or flight, I picked flight. We did about 200 meters before this guy realized that he had to shoot me to stop me. Every time he stopped and got onto his knees, I stopped and put my hands up. Every time he started running after me, I ran away. Before this scene replayed itself too many times, he was caught by his partner and dragged back into the police jeep.
By the end of the day, we had put in almost 4 hours chasing tanks. The Israeli soldiers fired tear gas twice, sound bombs at least five times, and rubber bullets about ten times. There were no fatalities, and no property damage. That was our success: We kept the Israelis honest. With so many cameras and internationals, the Israelis had to behave according to the so-called "conventions of war". It was beautiful.
tarek : )