November 6, 2003
So, the last day or so... Bleh.
There was another meeting with our PA coordinator for NGO's last night... Or was there? Feeling utterly fed up with the nonsense of our first two meetings with him, I opted to stay home and write a piece for DC Indymedia, and continue getting press stuff together. 4 hours after leaving the rest of the ISMers came home, but there had been no meeting (gasp!). Our guy hadn't coordinated anything, and they went to get dessert with the local coordinators, instead. Lovely.
I began feeling really upset about the situation -- no work was really getting done, and I'd almost wasted a week here. I wrapped up writing, and decided to try and go to sleep at a reasonable hour, to curb this sleep disorder I seem to have developed. It worked, too... Kinda.
At about 3am, I woke up to the call to prayer -- during Ramadan, every morning is started with a blaring noise comparable to an air raid siren, followed by a'capella songs, etc. Sometimes, it's beautiful. This morning, it made me miserable. As if that weren't enough of a distraction, Mohamed was tossing and turning a few feet away, and breathing/hacking like he was about to die. So, I gave up on sleep, and went up to the roof to watch the sun come up -- something I'd yet to do. Finally, about four hours later, I fell back asleep... And didn't wake up until 2-fucking-PM. What the hell is happening to me???
The day passed in much the same way as the last few have. Very little work, some brief forays out into town, etc. I also called Lufthansa to find out how difficult it would be to get my flight home moved up a week -- no dice. In the evening, there was a sort of memorial/celebration for the late Edward Said, here in the town, at what is more or less the city hall. I was enticed into going (despite that the entire presentation was in Arabic) by the mention that a half hour into it we'd be leaving to meet with some people from a neighboring village about an action they wanted to have. After sitting there for a bit (the event, of course, didn't start on time), I asked when we should leave for the meeting, and was told that we weren't leaving, the plans had changed, and the people were supposed to meet us there. Well, that was it.
Having had enough of people's tapdancing about these actions for the last few days, I went home, to try and get something substantive done, for once. I probably can't adeqately characterize my frustration, at that point. I was ready to just leave Qalqylia, outright... Action be damned. But when everyone came home, they informed me that, while the meeting we were supposed to have did not, in fact, go down, there was another meeting about Sunday's action which was apparently quite fruitful. We'll begin preparations tomorrow.
Get fucking ready.
There was another meeting with our PA coordinator for NGO's last night... Or was there? Feeling utterly fed up with the nonsense of our first two meetings with him, I opted to stay home and write a piece for DC Indymedia, and continue getting press stuff together. 4 hours after leaving the rest of the ISMers came home, but there had been no meeting (gasp!). Our guy hadn't coordinated anything, and they went to get dessert with the local coordinators, instead. Lovely.
I began feeling really upset about the situation -- no work was really getting done, and I'd almost wasted a week here. I wrapped up writing, and decided to try and go to sleep at a reasonable hour, to curb this sleep disorder I seem to have developed. It worked, too... Kinda.
At about 3am, I woke up to the call to prayer -- during Ramadan, every morning is started with a blaring noise comparable to an air raid siren, followed by a'capella songs, etc. Sometimes, it's beautiful. This morning, it made me miserable. As if that weren't enough of a distraction, Mohamed was tossing and turning a few feet away, and breathing/hacking like he was about to die. So, I gave up on sleep, and went up to the roof to watch the sun come up -- something I'd yet to do. Finally, about four hours later, I fell back asleep... And didn't wake up until 2-fucking-PM. What the hell is happening to me???
The day passed in much the same way as the last few have. Very little work, some brief forays out into town, etc. I also called Lufthansa to find out how difficult it would be to get my flight home moved up a week -- no dice. In the evening, there was a sort of memorial/celebration for the late Edward Said, here in the town, at what is more or less the city hall. I was enticed into going (despite that the entire presentation was in Arabic) by the mention that a half hour into it we'd be leaving to meet with some people from a neighboring village about an action they wanted to have. After sitting there for a bit (the event, of course, didn't start on time), I asked when we should leave for the meeting, and was told that we weren't leaving, the plans had changed, and the people were supposed to meet us there. Well, that was it.
Having had enough of people's tapdancing about these actions for the last few days, I went home, to try and get something substantive done, for once. I probably can't adeqately characterize my frustration, at that point. I was ready to just leave Qalqylia, outright... Action be damned. But when everyone came home, they informed me that, while the meeting we were supposed to have did not, in fact, go down, there was another meeting about Sunday's action which was apparently quite fruitful. We'll begin preparations tomorrow.
Get fucking ready.
posted by Joshua | 9:21 PM
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