We arrived yesterday from Jordan

Letter from Jill Dreier, CCMEP delegate in Palestine

Hello All,

We arrived yesterday from Jordan. Only a few things to tell. We got thru the border alright, after I got the 3rd degree from several different very young women. Seemed amusing afterward, and the questions were the same, over and over. We DID have a good story (they thought we were weird for liking ants).   They seemed NOT to really give Sam a hard time, but she did get 'selected' for baggage search (her laptop)

We are in Jerusalem and yesterday, we were changing money in the old city near the Damascus gate and the guy said, "which direction are you going?" We replied, "thru the gate" and he said, "oh no, go the other way, there was just an explosion and the soldiers will be here in a few minutes, I just heard it on the radio."  Sure enough, as soon as we left, the soldiers were coming thru the gate, blocked it off, kicked around some people's food stand boxes and screaming their heads off thru a megaphone.  So we waited a awhile and exit the old city thru another gate, a little later.  Anyway, up the same street from our hotel, a few hundred yards was where the suicide bomber died. Apparently, he got spotted by the cops.   The news said some stuff that didn't jive. Basically, we put together that since he was in East Jerusalem, he was forced to set the bomb off since the cops were on him. 

We also have been talking to a lot of people, a lot. Actually, LISTENING to a lot of people-  everyone is very kind.

Our training is tomorrow and then we will head out where we are needed, but for now, that is all.

More later.