a la recherche de leurs olives perdues/ in the search of their lost olives

Vendredi 30 septembre 2005.
j'ai assiste a la manifestation hebdomadaire de Bilin, un petit village a l'ouest de Ramallah. le theme de cette semaine etait la cueillette des olives. la construction du Mur a Bilin a engendre la perte de la moitie des terres du village. ainsi les habitants de bilin ne pourront pas recolter les olives. La manifestation visait a essayer de recolter des olives dans la zone innacessibles. les soldats, en force, ne nous ont pas permis d'aller tres loin. apres avoir cueilli symboliquement des olives dans quelques arbres, la manifestation s'est pacifiquement terminee.
de nombreux israeliens ont participe, certains ont du faire deux heures de marches pour rejoindre bilin en evitant les barrages. le slogan etait simple: "arracher votre Mur, pas nos arbres".
Je suis revenue une nouvelles fois epuisee, 4 heures sous le soleil, dans la poussiere et sous tension, cela vous pompe toute votre energie. Ce qui m'a frappe c'est la participation des jeunes et enfants palestiniens. ils sont certainemement moins impressiones que moi par les soldats. ils narguaient litteralement les soldats, dancant devant eux. en particulier un enfant peut etre de dix ans portait fierement le drapeau palestinien et jouait a se mettre au plus prets des soldats et a agiter le drapeau sous leur ne, comme pour leur dire: "vous voyez, nous sommes encore la et vous ne pouvez tuer notre fierte et identite".


ENGLISH
Friday, 30 September 2005,
I went to the weekly demonstration in Bilin, a small village west of Ramallah surrounded by the Wall and settlements. the thematic of the week was the Olives harvest. the olive harvest season is about to start in Palestine and the inhabitants of Bilin will not have access to most of their trees as half of their lands have been taken by the construction of the Wall.
the aim of the peaceful demonstration was to try to access these trees and collect some olives. we could not go very far as many soldiers were waiting for the demonstrators to prevent them to go further near the construction site of the wall. nevertheless symbollically the inhabitants of Bilin climbed some trees and collected some olives in front of the soldiers. then the demonstration peacefully ended.
numerous Israelis participated and some of them had to walk for two hours to reach Bilin by avoiding the military checkpoints.
the slogan of the demonstration was simple: "uproot your wall, not our trees".
I came back to Ramallah totally exhausted. even of there wre no violence this time, it remains exhausting to stay under the sun for four hours and also to face the tensed situation with the soldiers. what struck me is the participation of the children and young Palestinians, they were dancing and provoking the soldiers. they are so used to have them around and are certainly not afraid. one particular boy, probably around 10, was standing in front of the soldiers with the Palestinian flag and was playing to come closer and closer. as we wanted to say: "you see we are still here and your are not killing our pride and identity"