Maree Makom

Waiting
It is two o’clock. The camp’s grey-dusty alleys are
searing. Here and there a plastic bag rolls empty
in the wind, or lies bloated in a sewage puddle,
inhaling its final bubbles of air. On a crumbling
cement stair, in front of a tin door red from rust
and stained with paint and jotted words that are
only visible in part within the picture’s range, sits
a bearded man in a frayed yellow-grey jacket and
washed-out cloth pants, on his head a round cap,
and in his fingers a cigarette butt he is smoking
slowly. In front of him, in the sun, a set of scales
sway to and fro in the light breeze, two green
plastic buckets balanced on a dirty metal axis,
swinging lazily up and down, up and down—the
moment is long, hot, and still.
Video Recording Site
Deheishe, a refugee camp near Bethlehem,
established in 1948 as temporary housing for
3,000 refugees, and occupied today by about
12,000 people living in less than one square
kilometer
Video Recording Occasion
1998. Production of a video piece by L.
and R.
Characters
Anonymous