My Imaginary Diary

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My Imaginary Diary

• by Niv Hachlili

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My Imaginary Travels to Wallland 1.

• Nine meters down, don't look, you might fall.
• Don't you look down Niv,
• It's mighty high.
• Don't say a word, Finish your food.
• If you don't, the army will come and Take you
  away.
• It's freedom behind those walls.
• Freedom calls us,
• As wind does.

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• The sun rises,
• And clichés have No real meaning.
• We can laugh there on what has been done.
• The skyline awaits us on the right side.
• On what side did you wake up this morning?
• Latitude is gone now,
• But poverty is our line.
• Nine meters high.
• Don't you fall, you hear? 
• You might just land.

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Imaginary wall 1.
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Imaginary wall 2.
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Imaginary man and wall
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Imaginary travels to Blood-land

• We went out in the morning,
• Not knowing what the night has brought.
• We did not listen to the news.
• Drove peacefully to another photoday on the bank.
• But peace was far away from us.
• Something is wrong, I thought out loud.
• The eastern streets were deserted,
• No one on his way to work.

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• David made a phone call that cleared things up.
• "We must turn back" he said,
• "Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated".
• I turned the car around and took some
• Empty Street photos, while driving.
• David said, "You should get a radio".
• We drove quietly, tension was in the air.
• Suddenly, people appeared on the hills.
• Hundreds of people, walking, calling.

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• "Don't stop to photograph" he said, "Please".
• I didn't even think of stopping.
• Stones and rocks, rocks and stones,
• Ancient weapons still in use.
• I pressed the gas paddle to its end,
• Flying us towards the tear gas clouds.
• "shit" I said,
• "shit" David said in his mother tongue.
• "Faster!" he cried and whipped my car
• As it was a horse race.

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• The checkpoint was close.
• On it's other side Imaginary quiet-land.
• The army jeeps came down,
• Roaring governing, Ruling.
• Imaginary Blood-land takes its toll.
• The cries were everywhere,
• Tear gas, Plastic covered bullets,
• Grenades, sticks, Rocks, bottles.
• We kept going, heads down,
• No tricks, no magic.

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• Let us be safe on the other side.
• Let us be safe on the other side.
• We are on the safe side.
• Take a breath, "Were you afraid?"
• "I still am" I say.
• Behind us the clash is on.
• Now you can keep your head down
• And steal some stills,
• Dirty, bloody, painful photos.
• People pay good money for Middle Eastern pain.

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• That night my mother said
• "Enough is enough, promise me,
• No more West Bank this week!
• You must think of us too"
• I promised her.
• After all
• It makes you sick.

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Nivs
imagination
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Imaginary empty street
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Imaginary soldier
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Imaginary stones
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Imaginary Private Thoughts

• It is sad that things happen,
• It is sad when they don't.
• They just leave us here,
• Waiting.
• The smell of fear around us.
• And I can feel myself pity the ones,
• Who are and will be hurt.

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• Like I'm not a part of it,
• This existing reality.
• I only have my own,
• Imaginary world left,
• Now, knowing now.
• Watching with compassion,
• As the wrestle goes on.
• Who will be on his knees next?
• Who will cry tonight?
• Who will curse the world with pain?

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• They have decided,
• Devouring us all.
• Giving us death,
• Wrapped as a necessity.
• Instead of admitting,
• They diminish life.
• They despise life.
• They thrive on our blood.
• As if they have shares.
• In death's stock market.

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Imaginary exploded bus at the wall
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Imaginary Music part2

• The imaginary traveler goes to photograph
• A special musical show in Al-Hakawati theatre
• In east Jerusalem.
• Night before the Israeli- Palestinian land day,
• The place is full, packed with young people.
• The show is Beautiful,
• The band plays amazing.

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• Even though it's not he's language,
• The imaginary traveler is touched.
• At the end of the show the crowd goes wild,
• Sings together,
• Words he can't understand float in the air.
• On stage, Ten Palestinian players and one Jew,
• Their music takes the traveler Far away,
• Makes him drift to dream world,
• Forget where he is at.
• When the show is over, he walks the

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• Talking to he's companions.
• A police car appears from the dark,
• Stops right next to them,
• "What are you doing here ?
• The imaginary traveler is being asked.
• "Walking" he answers peacefully.
• "What are you doing here?
• Repeats the border police soldier,
• "Walking" insists the traveler.
• "This is not legitimate." Cries the soldier,

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• He's imaginary tour book doesn't say such a
  thing.
• "Not legitimate?" he asks angrily,
• "Not legitimate to travel peacefully,
• Minding my own business, in the street?
• "Not in these streets" answers the young soldier.
• "Really? And what streets are those?
• Wonders while raising he's voice,
• The long time, tired, traveler.
• "He didn't mean it like that" hurries
• The older cop in the car, to explain,

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• "Oh, if that's what you mean, then good night
• Say's the traveler and walks away.
• "We don't need to worry about you ?",
• Calls, asks the older cop.
• "No, no need to worry at all" .

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Imaginary singer
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Imagining singer
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Imagining the kanoon
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The crowd goes wild
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Imaginary Travels to South Hebron Hills1

• I have so much I want to say about my Imaginary
  Travels to
• The south Hebron hills, but I Just can't find my
  words
• To describe this terrible beautiful anguished
  place.
• I can only pick up fractures of reality I've been
  a part of.
• It's a beginning of a long journey.
• Yusuf can't speak my language and I can't speak
  his,
• But he insists explaining everything to me

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• As we run from one hill to another,
• From a dark cave to a darker one,
• Wakes up the sleeping ones, gathers families,
• Insisting I'll see them all,
• And I understand there are big issues at stake.
• The kids see me and burst into tears,
• "Settlers !" they call and can't calm down,
• "I'm a friend" I explain in their language
• But they are stroked with fear,
• Running to hide behind their mothers.

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• Billal says to me, "Maybe I can't read and write,
  but
• I know how to plant and to plough, to grow, to
  harvest,
• To build my house, and feed my kids.
• How to slaughter a sheep, how to make good
• Bread. How to live my land without hurting or
  killing it.
• So what does it help if People on the
  settlement,
• Above us, learned all those fancy things I
  didn't?
• All they want is to drive us away from here by
  violence.
• I don't need to be educated to know this is
  wrong.

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• 15 minutes of walk,
• Down the hill,
• Stands the imaginary deserted Army base.
• Two weeks ago the villagers woke up,
• To discover it vanished into air,
• Like it has never ever been there.
• I walk down to see what is left,
• Meeting old acquaintances of mine,
• Brown training targets forgotten behind,

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• Scary souvenirs in this primeval land
• Of strong winds and hazy brand.

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Imaginary old friend
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Jimba kids
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Jimba kids
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Jimba kids
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Susia
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Yusuf
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Imaginary Sailing in South Hebron

• We sit at the headmaster's room
• In the elementary school of tuwana,
• South Hebron,
• Every sentence contains words like
• Wall, settlers, Fence, Borders, Gates, violence,
• It's crawling sneaking down to the
• Wild wild south,
• Cutting, chopping, disintegrating.
• I leave the grownups talk

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• And run out to play with the kids.
• To feel the holiday sun on my face,
• To drive away those worries
• Those fears.
• Now we are all brave pirates
• On a red flagged ship,
• We fight the imaginary waves,
• Scream with joy,
• Getting wet by the fantastic water,
• It's a warm day.

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Imaginary sailing
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Imaginary sailing
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Imaginary sailing
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Sailing
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Sailing
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Sailing
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Sailing
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Sailing
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Imaginary Families of the World

• While I was looking at the pictures I took
• Of the family who hosted us in
• The village of twuana
• A close, familiar, warm feeling
• Sneaked into the heart.
• I knew I've seen those photos before,
• They have been hiding somewhere
• In the back of my mind.
• It was my father's pictures of us,

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• The kids,
• Many years ago.
• We stood, sat, stared,
• Looked at the camera,
• Just the same,
• In this beautiful naïve way kids look
• At life.
• Those pictures are family pictures.
• All families, all over.
• That's what the kid from my

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Family photos
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Family photos
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Family photos
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Family photos
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Family photos
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Family photos
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Imaginary Travels into the Wind

• It's too early in the morning
• Philip leads the way with his foreign car
• I drive slowly behind him,
• We pass by the soldiers,
• Ashraf keeps filming,
• They look at us,
• "Don't stop" I say to him,
• "Don't you stop either" he answers back.
• The soldier's signal - keep going.

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• Philip maneuvers on the dirt roads
• I make an effort not to stay too far behind
• And my old car complains,
• She has a hard time carrying us to all
• Those neglected places.
• On top of the hill the view
• Is breath taking,
• The wind breaks our words
• And I feel I can stay here for ever,
• Under us, the security fence is cutting

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• 2000 years old.
• And now we are rooting out people.
• On the way back we stop in the village
• And I have a chance to photograph
• The kids playing,
• One of the neighbors comes out and says to me
• "Look at the kids, how much love in them,
• You have taken almost everything from us,
• So all we have left to give to our kids is love,

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• Every time a kid is being killed
• A part of all love dies with him
• On your side and on ours,
• We loose love bit by bit."

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Kidslove
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Kidslove
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Snakefence
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Imaginary Travels into the Fields

• We blow the balloons together,
• The girls like the yellow ones,
• The boys like the blue,
• The internationals brought them,
• I brought small plastic animals,
• But none of the kids is interested,
• In my present,
• Everybody wants balloons,
• And they all get one,

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• Later we can watch them fly into
• The cloudy skies,
• And accompany them with our calls of joy.
• No poems about the settlers
• That burnet down
• Last night
• All of the wheat
• That was harvested
• In the fields

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Jimba kids
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Jimba kids
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Jimba kids
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Jimba kids
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Imaginary Free Falling

• I see the kid fall and start running
• Somebody calls from behind
• "Stay back ! they are shooting, stay back !
• I almost reach the kid
• When I feel a sudden pain in my shoulder
• That throws me to the ground
• My camera hits the rocks
• My glasses fly away
• My hands move blindly

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• Searching for an eyesight
• White smoke covers me from above
• I curse and bundle up
• The pain gets stronger
• One of them aimed for me
• One of us, me, mine, did it
• My fingers touch the rubber covered bullet
• Laying next to me
• I crawl behind a rock and wait
• For it all to be over.

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• The nights has changed for him
• He does not find comfort in the sleep
• When he closes his eyes all he sees
• Are seas of struggles
• Hundreds of people walk through his imagination
• And others are trying to stop them
• By beating and kicking
• Streams of sweat curve their way to his pillow
• Trying to penetrate the concrete walls of his
  dreams
• New rules and laws are established

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• Keeping the light on
• Closing all the windows
• Locking all the doors
• Checking that's nothing has changed
• Every two or three hours
• The imaginary traveler is tired
• And frightened
• And desperate
• They have done a good job on him.

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Imaginary grabbing
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Imaginary waiting
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Imagination too close
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Imaginary travels into violence

• What words can describe the violence
• That has taken over our life here ?
• I meet Yaron and Tali, and Tali says
• "It's so strange that people like us,
• Who are against any kind of violence,
• Experience the highest levels of it almost
  daily.
•  
• Jonathan says "Slow down,
• Those guys are crazy, they will

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• Shoot us without thinking.
• I stop the car and look at the
• Security guards that are aiming their
• Weapons at us, I open the window and
• Wave my hand, screaming "Journalists",
• I drive very slowly on the dirt road,
• The bulldozers are creating huge dust clouds.
•  
• An imaginary manual for the
• Imaginary street protestor

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• For the same reason, stay away from
• Open fields (they will catch you or shoot
• You in no time)
• Try to keep a safe distance from the
• Foreign press people, they want to be where
• The action is, and they are easy to spot with
• Their helmets and bullet proof vests.
• The soldiers won't aim at them, but they will
• Shoot anybody that is around and
• Not wearing a big helmet that says

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• The second one is the roof kids,
• They will signal you where the soldiers are.
• If somebody pushes you, fall.
• He probably has a good reason for doing that,
• Like, trying to save your life.
• And when you are on the ground, protect your
  head
• The horses might be coming.
• if there is no laundry outside, know, this is
• A tear gas disaster area.
• When you hear the whistles dont hesitate,

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• The bullet passes five centimeters from
• Jonathan's face and I'm pulling him back.
• "He was aiming for me" he shouts in disbelief
• And I bent behind the garden wall and take
• A deep breath, "Let's move" I say,
• "The soldiers will be coming down and we will
• Be caught in the middle.
• "I was so close to getting my head blown off
• Jonathan replies in surprise.

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• The roofs, the kids direct us to
• The action,
• Boarder police soldiers closed on two kids,
• I get close and the commander
• Screams "don't beat them, the media is here.
•  
• The guy is lying on the ground,
• I think he's dead, but Terry says that
• He moved.
• The medics carry him on their hands.

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• I photograph and get a stick in my face.
•  
• Imaginary Travels into Violence
• And on the weekend, south Hebron hills, the
  harvest is on.
• Violence for breakfast and for launch,
• Fear grows in the fields,
• Kills all crops, all hopes.
•  
• A small riddle for the imaginary audience
• Will an attacking settler be arrested on a
  Friday?

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Caught
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Caught
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Chasing
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Chasing
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Here we go again
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Here we go again
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Press
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Shooting
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Here we go again
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They shot my brother
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You shot my brother
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Imaginary Travels into Silence

• Musa is calling from the top of the hill,
• "Niv ! they are coming at you, run away!
• I start running, the ground is slippery and
• I twist my leg and fall.
• Musa is hurrying my way,
• "Get up, please
• He screams with fear,
• It's just the two of us,
• And musa is not even ten,

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• But he's ten times smarter then me,
• I pick myself up and check my mobile,
• There is no reception.
• They look big,
• Guns are hanging from their shoulders,
• They don't seem to be in a hurry,
• Knowing they control the hills.
• I tell musa to run to his family tent,
• But he insists on staying with me,

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• I hide the camera in my back pack,
• No need for another one to be smashed.
• I don't know where the others are,
• We are too far away from the tents,
• Now I have to stand and look them
• In the eyes,
• Not to show them I'm terrified.
• Musa smiles at me,
• His smile means "What can they do?

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Harvesting
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Harvesting
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Harvesting
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Harvesting
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The kids
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The kids
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The kids
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The kids
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The kids
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An Imaginary Meeting with Past Life me

• "I used to be you
• I say to the young soldier that stands
• In front of my face.
• They don't allow the car to move,
• We get out and start walking,
• "I'm talking to you !
• Spits the soldier,
• "I've fucking told you this is
• A closed army area !"

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• "Do you have a warrant to show us ?
• "I don't need to show you anything,
• I just told you.
• We keep on walking.
• One of the soldiers jumps and tries to
• Physically stop us,
• Hands fly in the air and feasts are
• Being raised,
• "No fighting" I say
• While he pushes,

111

• He's face almost touch mine
• "I used to be you
• I tell him again and nod my head,
• He takes a step back and lets us through.

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Fighting
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Fighting
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Jeep
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Soldiers
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Imaginary Albums

• Tomorrow night I will exhibit two albums
• In "Haara" art event that takes place
• At Nahlaot neighborhood, Jerusalem.
• One album is a journey into the past
• Through the present, the second is
• My journeys with the future generation,
• Both Albums are linked by childhood
• Hopes and shattered dreams.

117

• While I write, the counter is on.
• 11 soldiers and 15 Palestinians
• Have died in Gaza in the last 24 hours,
• A new start ?
• A never ending story.
• Two years ago, on a Friday afternoon
• A suicide bomber exploded in the Jerusalem
• Market, Danya and I were there.
• After we got home, I became very sick

118

• After I finally fell asleep,
• I had a dream,
• I was in my Elementary school,
• I was running the empty corridors,
• Trying to get out,
• Wanting to hide under the old white
• Strawberry tree in the yard,
• Sounds of explosions were everywhere
• And when I finally found my way to the tree,
• And climbed on him,

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• This dream keeps on repeating,
• Coming back to visit me,
• It changes itself from time to time,
• But the running through the maze
• Of the school corridors and the upcoming
• Disappointment is always there.
• This Passover holiday I decided to go
• On a double journey,
• And thats how the albums were created.

120

• To collect them into a one messy chaotic big
• Shared experience.
• The second journey was into my childhood
• Memories that became nightmares.
• My elementary school was in an old
• Building that was build in 1899,
• Today it stands deserted like a big
• White whale in the middle of the city,
• Behind the bubbling market,

121

• More then 15 years, except in my dreams,
• So I decided it's time to go.
• Someone told me the strawberry tree was
• Chopped down,
• Another said the school inhabits
• Drug addicts and it's a dangerous place.
• Third thought it's a waste of time
• "Chasing the past" and suggested
• I would "Get a life".

122

• Blooming and healthy, breaking the
• Asphalt around him, surviving.
• I found a way into the building
• And the second I got in I met
• Vadim.
• Later I got to meet Gregory,
• And Dimitri, and bosh
• And others with no names.
• All alcoholics, some drug addicts,

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• As long as I don't take photos
• Of them.
• I spent three days strolling the building,
• Took more then 500 photos,
• Inside and out,
• All of that time the strange feeling
• Of taking part in my own weird dream
• Didn't leave me.
• Rooms filled with excrement,

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• Frozen nights,
• Terrified sad people.
• Sometimes Vadim walks with me
• Like a shadow,
• "And what was that class for ?
• He asks again
• "This was carpenters class.
• "Really ? No way !
• He laughs and looks at the

125

• Burns himself to death.
• Vadim and I sit on the strawberry tree
• Before I leave,
• It has fruit although it's not the season yet.
• There are no worms.
• I ask Vadim,
• "Will I find you here if I'll come to visit?
• And he answers,
• "You might, but I can't promise I'll

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Vadim cant remember
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Class
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Corridor
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Drying
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Outside
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School
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School yard
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Shoes
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Smile