I Saw it in Palestine

Tractors are Awesome:

Warning: This post has no political content. It's about my everyday life in Tuwani.

I keep a running list of things in Palestine that might kill me. Until yesterday, the list read as follows:

Israeli settlers
Israeli soldiers
Palestinian taxi drivers
Poisonous spiders
Poisonous vipers
Feral dogs
Smoke inhalation (from our rickety wood stove)
Falling into the well
Hyenas

Then yesterday I was walking home to Tuwani from the village of Karmel quietly minding my own business. I watched a tractor drive past me and then stop in the middle of the road. The tractor wasn’t pulling any cargo; the drive was just sitting comfortably in the seat driving the engine back home. A Tuwani resident hopped on the back and gestured for me to follow. I climbed aboard, hooking my backpack over the back of the driver’s seat, and perched myself above one of the down over the opposite wheel. The driver gunned the engine and we started trundling down the road towards Tuwani. Immediately, I realized that ridding over the wheel of a tractor was much more dangerous than it looked. Coming over the remains of the roadblock, I realized that it might even be a good way to die.

When we arrived in Tuwani, the driver stopped the tractor at the base of the hill to our house. I must have been grinning like a fool as I climbed down. Definitely the coolest way to die in Palestine.