Skeletal half finished and still in progress buildings tower over the suburban areas of Ramallah. Like gravestones of unfinished dreams, of halted progress, these monolithic spectres watch the daily routines of Palestinians as they go about their day. Some of the buildings are half finished, with the top or bottom floors well lived in by families, while the rest of the buildign remains in a continual state of development.
The corridors, empty of life aside from dust covered tools and rickety scaffolding, howl loudly with the summer breeze as if crying out for attention. Much like the land in which they reside they are destined to remain half finished, remainders of a broken promise somewhere in their past.
Walking inside of them is much like walking in a cemetery. The air is cool and the stone doorways thick with wanting and a reminder of the possibilities and inevitabilities of life. Being inside and looking out gives a strange sense of shelter and comfort. Where the silence is heavy like the stone slabs used for the stairs and the shadows are deep and dark like twilight in the valley.
During rainfall passerbys and stray animals take refuge from the driving rain in the bellies of the towering beasts, and during the heat of the day their shade provides comfort for an afternoon smoke and a nap. In a sense they are still fulfilling the general purpose of a building, but it is impossible to ignore the deeper wanting to complete a destiny that these structures harbor. They were built for man to start life in, to live in, to be more than shelter, to be a home.
As time drags on many of these half built structures will remain forgotten. The money to complete them dries up, the permits to continue construction are not issued, or simply they are abandoned doomed to an existence as a reminder of man's flaw of not being able to follow through. Like the lonely sentinels they are though, they will continue to keep watch, as life continues on the streets below.
