Imagine

Imagine that your town is being occupied by a military power which then denies you access to your natural resources, taking them and draining them in ways that are irreparably damaging to the environment. They take the water from your land then sell it back to you, even denying it completely sometimes. Imagine living as a second class citizen, you can see the electricity cables stretching from pylon to pylon across the desert but bypassing your village entirely. Imagine that the ways your family have made a living for generations have been taken away, because your land has been taken, and your transportation and movements restricted. Imagine paying taxes on every drop of rain that falls in your water tank –the tank you built because you couldn’t afford to buy water from the authorities. Even that rain, isn’t yours.

This might be a stretch of the imagination. But I’m sorry to say, the reality is even more unbelievable.

In the Jordan Valley I met people so truly poor – that is, with no options or choices left – they pay for transport each day to the settlement of the illegal settlers nearby, the settlement that is taking their water and selling it back to them, taking their ancestral land and doing all they can to drive them out. They then stand in a line up while the man in charge picks who will work that day. They pay this man for his service, if they’re lucky they’ll be picked to work. Imagine. Swallowing all your pride to do that, because you have no choice.

Poverty is not just about economics. It’s being forced to just about survive, to be at the mercy of those who care so little for you, to have no way out.

It seems unbelievable, but I saw it. Realities like these are only challenged when people know. And now you know.