A pleasenter school accompaniment

What a difference a week makes! When we visited the orphan boys school in Wabi Rabada last week (see Feb. 7 blog), there was much stone-throwing by the boys, and police were patrolling with their tear gas canisters ready for action. This week we saw only one boy tossing a stone at the Israeli settler's house behind the school, none at all striking the Ecumenical Accompaniers, just a couple of boys throwing stones at each other. There were no police patrols.

Before classes were released, we told the principal about our experience last week, and our impression that the students may not understand our mission to help deter human rights abuse. We made a date to visit the classrooms next week to be introduced, and we made it a point to engage in friendly chats with students on their way down the hill. We don't know whether the principal passed some word down to the students today, or whether it was pure luck that today's school accompaniment was incident-free.