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BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK It's a chilly late afternoon in Bethlehem. Along
quiet streets, grocers are hastily packing away vegetable stalls;
colorful Christmas decorations glint in shop windows. And, on a steep
hill at the edge of the Bethlehem University campus, a group of 12 young
Palestinian women are braving the cold for a precious once-weekly
ritual: soccer practice.
The women, between the ages of 14 and 22, make up the majority of the
Palestinian Territories national women's soccer team, which meets on an
improvised concrete soccer field every Wednesday, rain or shine.
Currently, they are working hard in preparation for their next
tournament, despite lingering questions over whether they will be able
to attend.
"We hope," says Samar Araj Mousa, Bethlehem University's athletic
director who founded the team in 2003, "that we will play at the second
Arab Women's Football Championship in Abu Dhabi in January." Tight
travel restrictions and severe financial difficulties may keep the team
from competing for their homeland.
The girls, under the eagle eye of volunteer coach Emil Hilal, a sports
teacher at a nearby high school and a one-time local soccer star, form a
line on the playing field, their breath billowing clouds in the cold
air. They begin ducking, weaving, dribbling, and shooting, as Mr. Hilal
yells instructions. An excited cheer goes up as goalkeeper Nadeen
Khaleeb throws herself fearlessly to the ground, successfully defending
her makeshift goal posts.
"They're doing their best," says Hilal, "but they don't have the
facilities or the equipment to be as good as they could be."
While the Palestinian Authority pays for the national men's soccer team,
which trains abroad in Egypt with salaried players, the women's team
mostly fends for itself. Continuing governmental and local authority
financial shortages make it increasingly unlikely that money for a
women's soccer team, even a national one, will be a priority soon.
But the hurdles are not just financial. Several girls have been hurt
playing on the concrete practice field.
The only real soccer field in the West Bank is in Jericho, just 18 miles
away, but largely inaccessible due to a string of stringent Israeli
military checkpoints. For some, the strain of travel is too much: The
team's former coach resigned last year after returning from the West
Asian Women's Football Championships in Jordan. Detained and
interrogated for hours at the border by both Israeli and Jordanian
authorities, he found the experience too traumatic to repeat.
"The girls," says Ms. Mousa, "sat crying at the border, knowing they'd
missed their game." Fortunately, they were able to reschedule the game
for the next day.
So why, despite the manifold difficulties, is soccer the girls' game of
choice?
For Mousa, it's a combination of factors. "It's good for their health,"
she says, "for their stamina and their endurance. They also make strong
friendships, and it teaches them principles of sportsmanship. And," she
adds, "soccer represents their only chance to go abroad."
But for most of the girls on the team, a mix of Muslims and Christians,
soccer is more than a form of exercise or a way out of the West Bank:
It's a way of life.
"Football has been my passion since I was small," says team captain
Honey Thaljieh, a Bethlehem University graduate in business
administration. "First I played with my brothers on the street, then on
boys' teams at school."
Her bedroom, she says, is plastered with pictures of her favorite team,
Brazil, and its star player, Ronaldinho. "Our society has a very
male-centered mentality," she continues, "but we're showing women
there's a different way. Step by step, from the inside, we're changing
things around."
"I feel powerful when I'm playing soccer," says Amira Hodaly, who
studies physical therapy at Bethlehem University, "I started when I was
10, playing alongside my brothers. Now that I'm older, it's less
accepted than when I was just a child. But," she adds, smiling, "I don't
care."
Though many of the players have been teased by their male peers for
their soccer passion, most have received support and encouragement from
their families.
Ghada Hodeli, a university accounting student, is engaged to be married.
Although her fiancé doesn't play soccer himself, he understands why she
does. Several other players, however, have had to deal with a more
disapproving response.
"My parents don't really like me playing," says Sarab Shair, a
21-year-old Muslim who grew up in a children's home and was later
adopted by a local family. "But they don't have a choice.... They also
want me to wear the veil if I have to play at all, but I've refused
that, too."
Instead, like most of the girls, she plays in shorts and T-shirt, her
hair swept back into a ponytail. Some other Muslim players, like Navin
Kaleab, sister of goalkeeper Nadeen, play in long sleeves, pants, and a
head scarf. But it does not affect her performance, she says with a soft
smile. Though the local Hamas administration supports the team in
theory, Mousa notes that the authorities have advised that the team
cover up and play indoors, away from male spectators. So far, the team
has not been forced to do either.
Opportunities for the entire national team to play together are
extremely rare. The handful of team members from Ramallah and the Gaza
Strip can't come to practices in Bethlehem. They train locally, often
with fewer resources and even less support than the girls in Bethlehem.
The team can meet and play together only at overseas championships.
The first such opportunity came last year at the West Asian women's
football championship in Jordan. "It was a strange experience," recalls
Hilal, "the team playing a game together without even knowing each
other's names."
Not only was it their first time playing on grass, it was their first
game as a full 11-member team. "But even so, the girls did well as
beginners," Mousa says. "They played against the Egyptian national team,
and though they lost, it wasn't by a big margin. In the future, it will
only get better."
If they do manage to attend the Abu Dhabi championships in January, the
team aims to prove its potential against its professional, well-financed
competition.
By 5:30 p.m., dusk is falling in Bethlehem. On the horizon, a vivid pink
sky hangs above the looming concrete "security barrier," which snakes
across the countryside below. As the field slips into darkness, the
girls pile into two cars waiting to drive them home.
"Although we can't yet compare with many other clubs, other teams are
still quite scared to play against us," says Thaljieh cheerfully, as
muezzins and church bells start to echo in the evening air. "We might
not have the facilities that they have, but they know we have the
ability, the courage, and the determination to win. And, one day, we
will."
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