The Sounds of Palestine - after Israel
They couldn't hear. These 800 people sitting in a tent in Palestine couldn’t hear anything.
We crept into Palestine uncertain of what to expect... There was the same casual military, just different insignias.
We were watched with suspicion. The uncertainty was shared when we drove into the town of Ramallah. We were strangers from another world.
They were there waiting when we arrived– Palestinians who were deaf or near deaf. They came with their children. Some had never heard their family speak. Never heard music. Never heard the wind in the trees. And… perhaps… never heard gunfire.
Given our international disagreements, it was amazing to me that they had faith that we Westerners were going to do anything good for them.
But they were there waiting, sitting in row after row of plastic chairs in a schoolyard on a hot afternoon… waiting.
What they had been promised was a chance to hear, a chance to hear something.
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