When deciding which villages to visit with Assirk Assaghir's Mobile Circus, Yanoun village was one of the first on the list. Yanoun is a small community of around 100 people split into Upper Yanoun ( 6 families living on the mountainside) and Lower Yanoun, which lies in the valley on the road to the next town center. This peaceful place with its old stone houses and golden wheat fields has a dark side that is revealed when you look to the hilltops. Yanoun is surrounded on all sides by illegal Israeli settlements, leaving their only entrance and exit a small road through the valley to Aqraba, the nearest town. With the settlement block of Yatmar to the West, North and East and a new Israeli military outpost to the south, Yanoun's presence is preventing the entire 8km by 3km area from being taken over by settlements. Of course, this important position drives the settlers to harass, attack and antagonize the villagers in hopes that they will eventually leave 'voluntarily'. Israelis settlers would bathe in their spring (their only source of drinking water), poison their sheep and steal their olives (their only sources of income), not to mention attacking and sometimes killing them in their fields. In 2002, after a farmer was brutally beaten to death in his field, the villagers were afraid to stay and collectively moved to Aqraba. The Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) took note of what had happened and brought the villagers back with a promise to provide a constant international presence in the village, something that would help to deter settler attacks. To date, this has prevented settlers from making violent attacks and raids, but not from harassment and theft. On top of all of this, Yanoun is located in Area C of the West Bank (to see a map of the division of land by the Oslo Accords, visit
http://www.ccmep.org/delegations/maps/palestine.html), so it is illegal to build any structure. Necessarily, young men and women who want to get married and start a family must move to the nearest town. There is simply no room for them in Yanoun, despite the vast area of rolling hills and valleys that stretch before them.
It is with all of this in mind that we chose to bring the circus to Yanoun. The group of advanced teens from Nablus were chosen to perform the show that will be toured to 8 villages and 2 refugee camps. They were told, "We'll start in Yanoun." Puzzled looks crossed their faces, "Where?!" They had never heard of this place.
When we arrived and set up to play in a small courtyard, timid children began to gather around. They were all very shy and serious as they waited for the show to start. The head of the village and the father to 4 of the girls said later that the children seldom laugh and are often afraid, especially of strangers. When the show started they didn't act like children usually do when watching a show. They were very still and quiet, but didn't take their eyes off of the performers. By the time the first clowning act had come, the children had forgotten their surroundings, forgotten to be afraid and shy. When the tall clown in yellow looking for his hat woke up the sleeping clown in red for the 4th time, and they chased each other around the room, the ice was finally broken and the kids broke into laughter. "We've never seen them laugh before," one of the EAPPI workers said.
As the show came to a close, we were all happy about the fresh, fun atmosphere that had been created in Yanoun, even if only for a short time.
As the teenagers from Nablus were packing up their things, unused to the quiet of the countryside, Rashid, the head of the village asked if he could take some of our time to describe Yanoun's history and current position to the boys. Considering the fact that they hadn't even heard of Yanoun before, we were glad for them to get a chance to learn about it. We all sat in a circle in the courtyard and listened to Rashid tell of the beauty of Yanoun and their lifestyle and the horrors they have experienced at the hands of the settlers. They kept looking across the valley to the other mountaintop at the new barracks the Israeli military had built, finally understanding what it means to live with settlers, military and the constant possibility of being uprooted from your home. As we sat there in the setting sun, I realized that during the preparation for the Mobile Circus, we had been focused on how the activities would affect the village children and had completely passed over the incredible impact visiting these isolated, vulnerable villages would have on our teenage students from Nablus. The boys loaded the equipment into the bus quietly, thinking over what they had just learned and the kind of life they had just been exposed to. Although they came to the circus school the next day back to talking about music videos and their new iPod, we knew that this experience was still with them and would make them open their eyes past the realities of life under occupation in a large city like Nablus to the others in their own country suffering in different ways.
All in all, the Mobile Circus is becoming a richer and richer experience each day. We'll see what the next 2 weeks of shows in villages and camps bring to light.
Peace
