Inspired by people met in Ukraine and by Bob Dylan...

Oh, where have you been, my sweet soul son?
And where have you been, my darling loved one?
I’ve been to the country of the red Kalina,
I’ve walked yellow fields and swim blue skies
I’ve been in a land claimed by war
I’ve been in a country painted by fear
And I’ve been to a place that cry the presence of a dove

And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

We all called her jiddi, grandmother in Arabic. She was not our grandmother, but that word symbolized the affection we all had for her and had become almost a forename for us. Living with her grandchildren she sometimes mistook us for them, but never at important times, when it was urgent to act she called us ajaneb and we knew what we had to do. Her story has been important to me: in a context where, as a woman, it is difficult to speak and move freely (even with the privileges of being a foreigner), she was a role model. Through her actions and words she was able to influence the men in her family more than any other, showing me that strength is not always where we expect it. Hafez told us many times how she was the one who made him realize that nonviolence would have been the most effective struggle. She who never backed down and who first glimpsed another way. Famous are the videos in which she is forcibly dragged away by the police, in which she threatens soldiers with a slipper, in which sitting on her ground she does not move an inch. She was already old, in our eyes she has always been.

She was young before 1948, was born before the State of Israel, and lived as a refugee before settling in Tuwani. Her stories, narrated to us in unintelligible Arabic, told of life before the occupation, the oldest traditions, and the deep connection to the land, witness to History, from a small corner of Palestine.

Without speaking she showed us how important the land is. She always cultivated her garden, which she hoed while sitting, on cold evenings she slept with her newborn lambs to keep them warm, she always participated in every planting and every harvest, and in summer she slept every night on the roof, under the stars. A woman, a farmer, a widow and yet from this position of fragility she exuded an authority that made her respected and followed by all. Together with the other old women, they were the secret force in the village, who passed on the sumud to their daughters.

We volunteers arrived in the last years of her long life, and for everyone she was a symbol of nonviolent resistance but also a presence in daily life. With her, we spent long winter evenings around the stove, and summer nights on the roof, when at dawn, still sleepy, we would find her already awake and intent on some work. Surrounded by grandchildren of all ages she would give each one a task, and they would all support her, accompany her, and talk to her. Her watchful eye followed us in every movement and her rare smiles restored our conviction when we doubted. Today we say goodbye to an icon of resistance and our jiddi.

M.

I’m almost at the end of my experience in one of the projects of Operazione Colomba: a few more days, then I will go back to Italy. My family, friends, and close acquaintances refer to my coming back as a return to "my reality". In fact, leaving home to dive into a completely different context, in order to wholly experience all its aspects, in an all-encompassing way, can have a very strong impact. Therefore, in some hard moments, the thought of going back home, where everything is known and without excessive unknowns, can bring a little security.

Yet I perceive a discordant note in this definition, something that bothers me. So I’ve started asking myself: what is "my reality''?

Isn't it what I'm living right here, right now? And won't I carry with me, imprinted in my heart-head-belly all these moments, this reality that has now become also “my reality”? As a matter of fact, am I not here to take on, as a human being and a citizen of a round-shaped world, a slice of responsibility to counter the injustices that afflict the planet?

That’s what I am supposed to do, as the reality of a globalized world can only be experienced in all its complexity and when I decided to come here, I did feel the need to find an example of resistance to the ugliness of a humanity, the contemporary one, which seems to have cut down the umbilical cord with Nature in order to pursue a fictitious, virtual and consumerist dimension that is clearly unsustainable over time.

We travel for two hours from Valdivia,  crossing dirt roads and taking a ferry in order to get to the entrance of Fundo Punta Galera, located in Chaihuín, an area of Los Rios. This vast Fundo is a large private estate which was "regained" a few weeks ago by the Mapuche community called Lonko Pablo Nauco.
To show it, a Mapuche flag is fluttering at the entrance, and a banner announces that the community has managed to regain the land: the bolt securing the gate seems to convey the message "no one can enter here anymore".
The community is very suspicious because they fear that the "owners" of the large estate or the police may take action to get the land back. However, we are allowed to enter thanks to the contact we established with the werkén, i.e. the spokesperson of the community.
After crossing another dirt road, surrounded on one side by rich eucalyptus vegetation and on the other by the powerful view of the Pacific Ocean and its virgin beaches, we finally meet the community.
After several handshakes and a more in-depth introduction of who they are, some community members begin to tell us the story of their families and their ancestral lands.
The territory where we stand - which has always been inhabited by Mapuche Lafkenche communities of the coast - was donated by the Chilean State to a French noblewoman in 1922. Fortunately, she never took an interest in the matter and never set foot on "her land", therefore the sale of the land did not have any impact on the life of the indigenous community.

Current situation

In March, 3 attacks were carried out in different areas of Israel causing 2 victims in Hadera, 4 in Beersheba and 5 in Tel Aviv on March 30th. In response to these incidents, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced a tightening up of public security measures. The same evening some clashes occurred in Jenin, Ramallah and Nablus, as well as in the refugee camps of the main cities.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published the results of a research conducted by the association “Breaking the Silence”, according to which Israeli soldiers are allegedly collecting sensitive data on Human Rights activists in the South Hebron Hills, with a particular focus on the ones coming from European countries. This action would pursue the objective to identify activists by taking photos of their passports and faces, in order to keep a file on them in the system called Blue Wolf which already collects sensitive data to monitor Palestinian citizens. In this way, the access to the country would be prevented for them from the arrival at the airport.

Sharing, Work and news about Volunteers

In March, the volunteers guaranteed a presence both in the south and north of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, with particular attention to the Jordan Valley. In this area, new villages were explored, getting to know new contexts and communities dedicated to pastoralism. Unfortunately, the conditions for accessing the land have worsened in recent months. Israeli settlers graze their flocks undisturbed on Palestinian lands, while the legitimate owners of the area barely access them since they are attacked and expelled by the settlers protected by the army.