Day 18 - June 7, 2009

We woke up bright and early and had vegan food for breakfast, which is all we'll be eating at the farm, and I love it. We headed to the Erez border and promptly got out of the bus - Patch did a great speech and then headed to the patrol station with all of our passports (he was fully in character, including a chicken on his head and a rubber fish in his hand). I have a video of the whole thing which I'm going to upload as soon as possible because I really can't describe the experience well enough. We had a samba band with us (most of whom are refuseniks) and four clowns from a group in Tel-Aviv dressed up in IDF-type costumes. The playground was quickly assembled and kites were soon in the sky. Patch made good friends with Ronnie, a border patrol officer, and we actually saw smiles on IDF faces!
It was overall a huge celebration and a ton of fun. We were eventually given back our passports and told we weren't getting in (which we very much expected), which prompted Patch to start a poker game with them (I wasn't quite sure how that worked, but it seemed to be quite popular, even with the border guards). After two hours, though, the IDF got agitated and came out in full force, huge rifles and gear and all - apparently clowns and women dressed in pink are very threatening. They forcefully put the clowns in the bus and took the mallets away from the drummers, and I still have yet to find out what happened to our playground. There was a really heated coversation between and IDF solider and one of the drummers, where the drummer was telling him that every solider plays a part in murder - apparently he didn't like that very much.
Back to the farm where we had a great lunch and then had two seminars, although I completely slept through the first one by accident. The one I did go to was about the boycotting of Israel, and I will hopefully soon post some websites that have more details.
I will be with this group for at least the next few days so I will continue to update as often as I can. There is a bit more free time here and more laptops to borrow so it seems possible :) And if anyone is interested, there is another convoy in early July with Galloway going through Rafah that I may attend, if anyone wants to join!