My checkpoint experiences are increasing exponentially. We pulled up to the checkpoint by the side of the road, a few haphazardly scattered huge concrete square blocks with a makeshift roof to block the sun placed above the soldiers. This was the entrance to the town of Qalqilia, the only way in as all other roads were closed. Qalqilia is a town in the northern West Bank that borders Israel (or what our guide for the day called Palestine 48). It can be completely closed by the Israeli military, being basically completely surrounded by the WALL. The female soldier with her weapon swung over her back looked at the bus and the driver and told us we could not enter Qalqilia with the bus or the driver because he has a Jerusalem ID and did not have special permission to pass the checkpoint. After a few minutes of trying to plead our case we parked the bus on the side of the road and found a taxi for 5 of us and another passing driver with space for the other 4. These two vehicles took us past the checkpoint, this time with a casual wave from the soldier and into downtown Qalqilia.

In downtown Qalqilia we met Mohammed, our guide for the day from the Stop the Wall organization and found two more taxi's that became our transportation for the day around the town.

We stood in various places around town looking at the WALL. It just kept going and going, all around the town with glimpses of Tel Aviv in the distance. We saw where the WALL cut through agricultural lands, we saw the huge inspection point where close to 20,000 Palestinians had to pass through a series of screenings to go to work in Israel, we saw the tunnels that had been bored into the WALL to allow passage to the next village but had a huge iron gate on the last one that could be shut to close off the town, we saw where the formerly bustling market had been turned into a ghost town because of the proximity of the WALL and the observation towers, we sat quietly in our taxi's at one portion of the WALL where we were informed that if we got out the soldiers would begin yelling at us and possibly throw noise bombs or tear gas, we looked at graffiti adorning the walls (in one place there was a swastika), we sat in the taxi drivers home where he had graciously taken the group for a bathroom break with his children running in and out of the room while we drank tea, and there was so much more...occupation and oppression continue to take on new meanings...

As we tried to pass back into Bethlehem from Jerusalem we were again stopped at a checkpoint and not allowed to pass, this time because the driver did not live in Bethlehem. Every other day this same bus had passed in and out of this same checkpoint but not today. So we had to turn around. We are lucky, as a group of Americans and with a driver who has a Jerusalem ID we could go through another unmanned checkpoint by another route and made it back to Ibdaa 20 minutes after getting turned away at the other checkpoint...

How to understand and process all these experiences? The WALL, the checkpoints, communities falling apart with fancy high-rises on the horizon, soldiers with hands on their weapons guarding dilapidated roads, the hospitality of random people, it all swirls around my head.