CPTnet
6 June, 2011
HEBRON/AL-KHALIL REFLECTION: Hebron comes to Newberg, Oregon
by Esther Mae Hinshaw
On Saturday, 21
May, a shopkeeper called us CPTers to the souq (market) in Hebron’s Old Cit because a
sound bomb had hit a man in the head. As
I was approaching the shop, another sound bomb fell near where I was walking,
momentarily deafening me. I found the
experience very disorienting; I thought, “I can’t hear anything and I am
all alone,” even though a colleague was with me. For the rest of the evening, my ears felt
very full and hurt at times.
That night I
dreamt that my ear drum had burst and was bleeding. I remember running home and at one point
people were chasing me. When I arrived
at my apartment in Newberg, Oregon, some armed men — soldiers or police — came. They spoke to me in a quiet voice, and when I
responded, they would not believe that my ear had been injured because I could
hear what they were saying. They
proceeded to search my apartment for bomb-making materials. The next day in the dream, I let my boss at
work know that I might be arrested at any time.
When I awoke in
the morning I was feeling no further effects from the sound bomb. I can only imagine what it must be like for
people who were nearer to the sound bomb or even hit by one, and what it must
be like to live with the anxiety in the real world that trauma might strike at
any time.
