a trip. a tale.

a new page

2007-09-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

oh, hello blog. i haven't seen you in a while.

i am a californian now. the next time i vote, it will be in a blue state (not a swing state). i barely ever drive, but my new license lists my permanent residence in the tenderloin of san francisco, my photo is a picture of me with long hair, not short, and a nose ring. everything is new and strangely permanent.

i buy my fruits and vegetables at a farmers' market that sets up shop a block away from my building twice a week. on sunday mornings i go early - past a grassy area where a gang of the neighborhood's homeless gather for their nightly slumber party, past a smelly old truck full of live chickens squawking foolishly from inside over-packed cages. i watch the old chinese man break their necks one by one and distribute them to a long line of customers who chat unintelligibly (to me, at least), comparing prices as they juggle their bags full of beans and potatoes and flowers. the market breathes - the air somehow seems fresher when i walk between the stands, squeezing tomatoes and sniffing melons and wishing in vain that i will find avocados (they never seem to have them at this market. i thought avocados were a california thing?). my favorite vendor is an overweight chinese woman who wears a blue bandanna and her long hair in two braids that are always messy and falling out by the time i find her. she offers me what she claims to be the biggest, freshest head of lettuce - though mysteriously, she just gave the biggest, freshest one to the man in line in front of me - and when i protest that i live alone and have no use for an oversized head of romaine, she suggests that i have a party and share it. i laugh and buy the lettuce; that's easier than telling her that i don't have enough friends for a party yet.

my apartment is on the twelfth floor of a building exclusively for law students. some days it feels like a dorm. the boys who live on my hall go out to clubs on weekends and invite me, come home late making lots of noise and playing drinking games, roar at the television together on saturday afternoons. when i arrived one month ago my space was empty - the sad brown carpet made the off-white walls look even sadder, the venetian blinds hung unevenly over shaky old window frames, and the tiny kitchen stood alone in the corner, the two stove burners and minifridge seeming to laugh at my misfortune. who knew such a small space could be so monotonous? a single towel rack, installed by a previous tenant, broke the impossible dullness of the space, if only because it represented a past life, something real and concrete that once hung its wet towels in the bathroom but has now disappeared, leaving only the towel rack as a memorial. i slept my first few nights on a camping pad on the floor in the corner where my bed now sits. staring up at the rough, stucco ceiling, i listened to the shouts and sirens blaring twelve stories below and wondered with what memories i'd fill the room, if i could find a way to call it my home, what i'd leave behind.

when i arrived in my bedroom in palestine, i cried. cried at the touch of the cold tiled floor, cried at the terrible orange doors and bedspread, cried at the strange smell of the air freshener in the bathroom, the sounds of shouting children in an unfamiliar language coming from outside. i cried at the total unfamiliarity of the entire thing, at my feeling that, for the first time in my life, i might not have been prepared to handle what i'd set myself up for. i didn't cry this time. i opened my windows, stuck my head outside, and smiled, for all the same reasons that i'd cried ten months earlier. it doesn't scare me anymore - i'm getting good at re-rooting.

from my window i look south across market street onto the mission and potrero hill - two neighborhoods in san francisco. past potrero hill there is a single piece of land that strangely remains totally undeveloped - in the late summer months it is brown, with only a few trees spotting it, and it sticks out from the multi-colored homes below. i found out a week after staring at this beautiful hill that it's actually a dog park, but i try not to think about that. i prefer to imagine that it somehow erupted from underground after everything else had been built - it doesn't seem to fit, and yet i couldn't imagine the view from my window without it. the hill reminds me a little bit of palestine. i think about looking out onto the bethlehem countryside from my veranda onto the layers of stone wall and dry grass rolling like waves toward the horizon, the white stone houses seeming to balance on the steep inclines of the mountains, the huge plateau of herodion (which i never did get to visit) in the far distance. the voices of children screaming, diesel cars puttering by, goats baaing, have all been replaced by the pulsing beat of a modern city, but my hill is still there, like it showed up to keep me company in this strange place.

there are pieces of me everywhere, and everywhere i've been has given me a little it more of myself that i'm now holding in front of me, colors and shapes pulsing in my hands. some days i look at the pieces and see if i can make sense of them, put them together into something intelligible. mostly, though, i like the way they look now, all muddled and disorganized, like someone's taken a handful of paintballs and thrown them against a white sheet so that the colors have started to melt and swirl together.

We will replant these trees.

2007-05-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

8:3o pm, May 19, 2007
Artas Village, Bethlehem, Palestine

We arrive in the deep, silent valley shortly after sundown. The path is unpaved and dark - we can only see ahead by the harsh power generator light beating down on our camp from the mountain above. The generator was built yesterday morning in the first step of an Israeli project to seize and clear the land in this valley, to destroy the farmland on which the Abu Sway family cultivates apricot and almond trees, to clear way for a sewage system to serve the nearby Israeli settlement of Efrat. We are about fifty, a gathering of Palestinians, Israelis and foreign activists huddled around campfires getting to know one another. We will wait until 4 am, when the military is scheduled to enter and clear the piece of land.

10:15 pm

A group of foreigners has just taken off for the night, though we're told more will come early in the morning. Erin and I take a walk away from the group, and look up the mountain to watch the security guards wander around their base above. We can see and hear the crackling of their own bonfire, and the faint sound of a radio playing music. The soldiers are younger than I am.

1:15 am

About seven soldiers arrive at our camp and circle around us for a few minutes, taking photographs and speaking quietly to each other. They come down into the camp and speak to our leader, Awad, and ask if they can take a few photographs of the Palestinians participating in the campout. Among us are three older women, at least seventy-five years old, and two old men, the owner of the land and his brother. Awad refuses the soldiers' request, and a small confrontation breaks out. I am scared; I pull my hat down lower over my eyes and stare at the fire, waiting for something, though I'm not quite sure what. There is talk of a dangerous gunman roaming the area, possibly a deranged settler, and we are warned to leave the area to protect our own lives. It is a lie, a scare tactic.

2:20 am

The armed gunmen never came, so we begin a game of hearts with a few of the younger Arab guys. I'm terrible at cards, and it only takes a few rounds for me to acquire three or four advisors pointing hastily at cards telling me to put down, pick up, pass, I have no idea. I eventually give up, pass my cards to my head advisor, and try to take a nap. It is cold, colder than I expected in May, and I am hungry and tired. I lie sleepless with my eyes closed, listening to the night birds sing behind the laughter and chatter of my comrades.

5:05

I haven't been able to fall asleep, probably due to some combination of the rocks below me, the conversations around me, and the three cups of Arabic coffee I've had to drink. I sit up and chat for a while with two other foreign women, one from Britain and one from Canada, and we wonder why the army never showed up. I'm sure that they have postponed their action, figuring that if they postpone it long enough there won't be any activists left to oppose it.

The sun is beginning to rise and gradually our group is stirring, wondering why the soldiers never arrived. I'm looking at a group huddled around a newly lit fire. In the center, the wife of the landowner wits, gesturing wildly and smiling, exposing a set of perfectly white teeth. She warms her wrinkled, strong hands against the flames, and her white scarf surrounds her face, strands of grey and black hair sweeping down her eyes, eyes whose years have been drawn in delicate lines that deepen when she laughs.

5:15

The arrival of thirty soldiers is forewarned by the mighty rumble of a bulldozer descending from the top of the mountain. The soldiers stand in a line facing us, and one, I imagine the head officer, warns us that we have ten minutes to leave the land. A discussion begins, dominated by the same woman, who keeps repeating, "This is our land! May God forgive you! Put me in jail, what else have I got?" Behind her, Israeli activists are tying themselves to the twenty-six apricot trees in the grove. Five minutes pass, then eight, and we are reminded over and over again that we are in a closed military zone illegally, that the land is not Palestinian, and that we have no right to be there. There is yelling, and some pushing, and I back away and begin to take pictures.

The soldiers line up in a row and begin to walk across the field, pushing the demonstrators back as they go. Those who resist are removed forcefully; some are picked up and carried by three or four soldiers, their bodies limp to demonstrate their non-violent resistance. The soldiers grab the Palestinians forcefully and drag them away from their trees; one man is thrown roughly against the wall and is surrounded by three soldiers when he attempts to stand up. When all of the demonstrators are pushed back to the stone wall surrounding the grove, they are lifted up above the wall and pushed over, five feet to the ground on the other side. Some manage to slip back into the grove, but they are removed again in the same way. Some of the Israeli activists are shouting at the soldiers, though I can't understand what they are saying. The soldiers' faces remain cold and detached - they do not respond nor do they flinch.

Meanwhile the oldest woman is walking around, grabbing soldiers by their shoulders and frantically chastising them for their heartlessness. Two other women from her family are seated at the top of the grove, cross-legged, crying as they watch the bulldozer enter the field and begin to uproot each tree, one-by-one. We have all been removed from the field by now, and though some attempt to hop back over the wall, they are quickly pushed back by soldiers. Only the women's cries are heard over the grinding gears of the bulldozer.

6:45 am

The soldiers have cleared the field of the twenty-six fruit trees that stood only ninety minutes ago. The stone wall surrounding the grove, which has stood for over one hundred years, took only three minutes to topple. Four Israeli citizens have been arrested - their hands are bound by plastic bands and they sit waiting to be taken away on a hill nearby. The last two women have been removed from the field, by the hands of a soldier who looks like, and probably is, my age. I caught him more than once grinding his teeth and doing what looking to me like holding back tears - he was the only one whose face betrayed any kind of emotion. I catch his eye for a moment and can't think of anything to say, so I just hold his eyes for a few seconds, hoping that maybe a bit of the pain that I'm feeling, which is only a fraction of the pain the owner of the land is feeling, will somehow penetrate his years of training and brainwashing.

Two new soldiers bound down the hill from the generator carrying bags of cookies and juice for the soldiers. Congratulations on a job well done, now rest a while.

8:00 am

We've decided that it's time to leave, since the soldiers have all but left the premises and the whole place seems to be crying against a blue sky. I look up the mountain and stare for a moment at the red-roofed buildings of the Efrat settlement. In only a few weeks, their sewage will be pumped through this field, destroying the entire valley's ariability. My eyes cast down to one of the younger Palestinians, the son of the land owner. Last night we kidded with each other about the urgency of bringing an arguila (water-pipe) to the camp. This morning, our eyes meet and I am overcome by the despair seeping from his eyes, his unwavering yet defeated stare, his youthful face aged years since our joking only a few hours ago.

Note: I will put pictures of the morning on facebook in the next two days, or I will post a link to them here.

Fighting the Wall

2007-03-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I participated in my first protest against the segregation wall, and I'm angry that I didn't go earlier. After only a few hours, I left the demonstration feeling energized, productive, like my presence here represents something concrete, like I have a purpose. Perhaps exactly at the right moment, I was reminded of why I'm here, what I care about, and what's really going on.

There are weekly protests against the Wall in a few locations throughout the West Bank. For a long time, the largest and most publicized demonstrations were taking place in Qalqiliya - a town in the northwestern West Bank situated just East of the Green Line (which marks the internationally recognized border between Israel and the West Bank). You can see on the map below that the Wall, which has been in construction since 2002, cuts deeply into the West Bank, often enclosing entire cities, leaving them accessible only through checkpoints.

Proponents of the Wall claim that it is being built in the name of security, to protect Israel from terrorist attacks. Opponents argue that the Wall is a "Land Grab", a means of securing land for Israeli settlement expansion in the very near future. In fact, the instance of terrorist attacks has decreased in the past four years, but its also clear (from my own veranda) that the Wall and its planned path swerves through land, separating settlements deep inside West Bank territory from nearby Palestinian towns.

During construction of the Wall around Qalqiliya, internationals and Palestinians gathered regularly to protest. The Wall went up anyway, and today, the city is essentially dead, economically and socially. The biggest Wall demonstrations are now in the Ramallah area, which has also been almost completely surrounded, and, in the past few months, around Bethlehem, where construction of a 360*, 28-foot wall is almost complete.

Last weekend I went to the Bethlehem demonstration with a friend and her colleague, Marwan, one of the coordinators of the weekly demonstrations. Marwan spoke to me the whole morning about Gandhi and his teachings of non-violence. He is fascinated by the possibility of a tiny man clothed in rags gathering more strength than the British Empire, and emphasized to me the importance of continuing non-violent resistance in Palestine despite the desperate situation. I don't think non-violence is a term that we as Americans automatically, or even after consideration, associate with the Palestinian resistance. It has, however, been a central part of activism here since 1948. Unfortunately, we don't see that on our side of the ocean.

We arrived in the village of Umm Salamona on Friday afternoon and walked about a kilometer through baby olive tree fields to the beginning of the march. From afar we could see the group of 150 or so Palestinians finishing their Friday prayers - kneeling quietly in neat rows, bodies rising and falling like the sea. Only a few hundred meters away we could see three military trucks surrounding the construction site, where workers and a front-end-loader were clearing a path for the Wall.

When we arrived at the site we saw that the group was about 200 - accompanying the Palestinians were nearly 50 foreigners and Israelis. The Friday prayer ended and one of the coordinators spoke to us briefly about the history of the Wall, what its impact would be in the area, and what we would be doing in the next hour. Over and over, in English and in Arabic, he emphasized that there would be no violence on the part of protestors that day. "Our faith in our land is stronger than their weapons," he said more than once. Non-violence was central to his message, and all of the participants, young and old, Palestinian and foreign, nodded in agreement as he warned us not to lose control, not to pick up stones, not to throw away the message of the demonstration.

We started walking, shouting "No, no, to the wall!" "One , one country!" and "Where is the justice?" A band of soldiers - as always, my age, probably younger - ran along on either side of us, scanning the crowd for disturbances. I caught one young guy filming us with his digital camera...but nothing happened. We walked along our path, crying for justice, holding hands and flying flags. At one point the soldiers stopped us, forming a wall of shields across the path. I was frightened - as voices raised and protesters pushed against the soldiers angrily, twenty five armed soldiers watched us from on top of the hill, waiting for a stone to fly or for one of their comrades to fall. I've heard stories and watched news coverage of protests in Ramallah - its not uncommon for Friday afternoons to end with tear gas and rubber bullets. This Friday, this site, though, saw none. The same coordinator who had spoken before stepped to the front, calmed those still marching (I had climbed up the other side of the hill and was watching carefully by that point), and then turned to the soldiers and spoke for a moment. Somehow, we were able to finish our march without another interruption.

The afternoon ended with an evaluation session led by the demonstration's coordinators. By that time our group had trickled to about 50 or 60 people, but we sat for an hour, sipping juice and eating cookies (as is standard at any Palestinian gathering) discussing the successes and failures of the day, points for improvement in the future, and our different roles as Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners. They asked us, as foreigners, to document our experience, to send home photographs and stories to share the truth about the situation and the resistance. I returned to the village on Friday feeling energized, educated and overwhelmed by the gravity of this responsibility. It would be impossible to successfully repaint the distorted pictures that we are presented in the United States, or to flip over the coin that has laid forever on the same side.

I guess this is a start.

One Morning

2007-02-18T03:34:00.000-08:00

I went to Jerusalem earlier this week to mail a letter, and found the Old City closed for what seems like the 10th day in a row. Saying "closed" makes it sound like the city is a shop, and the owners have gone on vacation or are renovating. In fact, no less than fifteen guards were stationed at every entrance, carefully checking IDs to regulate who could come in and out of the huge fortress - residents, church clergy, elderly religious worshippers - no one else. The security measure is part of an effort to protect the city during recent "clashes" over whether or not the Israeli government can run a construction project against one of the walls of the al-Aqsa complex, the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism. The al-Aqsa complex is the third-holiest site in Islam, behind Mecca and Medina, and has technically remained under the control of Muslim clergy since 1967. In fact, the area, where the Dome of the Rock and the mosque are located, has been the site of countless clashes between Israelis and Palestinians over the past thirty years. The second Intifada is often called the al-Aqsa Intifada, because it was sparked by Sharon's visit to the site in September, 2000.

The construction work has been put on hold for now, because of serious backlash from Palestinian protestors two weeks ago when the work began. Protestors and Islamic scholars claim that the construction could potentially damage the integrity of ancient archaeological sites below the mosque; Israeli and other sources argue that this is not true. Whether or not the stated reasons for protesting the work are factual, it seems obvious to me that the work comes at a strategic moment, when the world is focused on the new Palestinian unity government, whether or not it will recognize Israel, and whether or not it will stop the months of infighting in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Fateh, which the UN says has been more damaging to Gaza Civil Society than Israeli incursions ever were. While we are all watching intently, criticizing Haniya and Abbas for not meeting "international conditions" at their Mecca summit, Israel continues to take tiny, almost unnoticeable steps toward gaining total control of Jerusalem. Construction work to rebuild an entrance path to the mosque seems small, but as yet another finger reaching deeper into the everyday lives of Palestinian Jerusalemites, it seems like a move worth protesting.

And then the protests are met with police opposition, which is plastered all over American news sources as "clashes". Stones v. rubber bullets and tear gas. Can we really call that a "clash"?

On the way home, I found the Bethlehem checkpoint more backed-up than I'd ever seen it - 50 people waiting to exit, around 20 waiting to enter, one young woman sitting inside her glass booth, slowly checking IDs, making phone calls and barking at her coworkers, a smoky crowd of teenaged soldiers hurrying in and out of what I assume was their lounge, clearly all on break.

So I waited in line, watching the men and women in front of me become more and more restless as their attempts to push through the crowd or convince the soldier to let them pass failed. A little boy in front of me was crying - he had no eyes, only a class eye and an empty, darkened socket, but his wails filled the neon-lit building as he moved from body to body in the line, each time thinking he had found a familiar set of legs, though his parents were both busy negotiating with the soldier. Finally, she consented to let them through, right about the same time that a male soldier stepped out of the office and spotted my blond hair in the crowd. Almost immediately he had me ushered through the turnstile and began idly chatting with me as he flipped through my passport. Usually at checkpoints I need not even open my passport, let alone talk to the officers. As usual, I froze, unable to respond comfortably, unable to lie, unable to tell the truth, simply uttering cowardly half-truths and hoping that eventually he would had me back my little blue booklet of freedom.

Are you from California, he asked me? The others in the line had resumed their frustrated pushing and yelling.

What are you doing here? We stopped for a moment as the woman struggled to carrying her bag and her child through the final turnstile. He helped her lift her bag through then returned to me.

Do you live in Jerusalem? I tried to pick up the pace of my walk.

Would you like to drink something with me in Jerusalem some time?

When I crossed the hole in the Wall, I felt like I was home. Mostly, though, I felt like I was going to be sick.

Of weeping stones

2007-01-30T02:04:00.000-08:00

An old friend passed through Jerusalem this weekend, and we met for a brief twelve hours to share a meal and try to squeeze in all of the stories and jokes that we've missed since our last meeting, more than eighteen months ago. The last time I saw him was in Bryant Park in New York City, where we shared two slices of pizza before he hopped back on a plane to Cairo, where our friendship first formed. The last time I saw him in Cairo, I had returned from Alexandria for only a day before my flight back to the United States, and we met for clinking Stella beers and peanuts at Hurrea, a Cairo bar historically famous for being a center of underground political and literary activity.

We like to joke about the peculiar and random circumstances of our friendship - instead of choosing a new restaurant or cafe in which to catch up, we choose a new continent.

Still, there is something very romantic about building a friendship on meetings in three cities so full of history and energy. This third meeting, though, felt somewhat different to me for its setting - unlike Cairo and New York, where dynamism and mystery fill the air like steam rising from the subways below, Jerusalem's positive energy is matched, if not overcome, by a feeling of tragic desperation, of a tension and urgency propelled by many years of conflict. The city is a source of hope for so many in the world, a symbol of faith for millions who only dream of setting foot on its narrow paths of ancient stone and dirt. And yet those who walk these streets live in constant fear of their lives, constant uncertainty of what might happen tomorrow.

A few weeks ago a group of us went to Jerusalem on a rainy Saturday afternoon to visit the Wailing Wall, the holiest site in Jewish tradition. We were mostly internationals, but a Palestinian joined us that day, the last day of the month-long Travel Permission that he had gotten for Christmas. We roamed the Old City as Jewish families slowly emerged from their homes, making their way towards the wall to end the Sabbath with prayers. We watched the worshippers gather, some chatting happily, others standing solemnly, marvelling in the wall's strength, others caught in almost trance-like prayer, their hands laid on the cold, wet stones as though they were extracting some divine energy. As usual, I was caught in awe of their undaunted devotion to their beliefs; I can't imagine believing so fully in something so abstract - I think the weight and responsibility of so much faith might be too overwhelming, too much pressure for me to bear.

Despite the obvious celebratory aura - the end of Shabbat means the beginning of a new work week - the whole display somehow felt desperately sad. My friend asked me why I thought they called it the Wailing Wall. I told her that I wasn't sure - perhaps it is crying for years of Jewish oppression and struggle, perhaps for those years when Jews were not able to access the site, or perhaps, like the city's streets, it is crying for a lost vision of peace that has been almost completely forgotten.

Jerusalem

I wept until my tears were dry
I prayed until the candles flickered
I knelt until the floor creaked
I asked about Mohammed and Christ
Jerusalem, luminous city of prophets,
Shortest path between heaven and earth !
Jerusalem, you of the myriad minarets,
become a beautiful little girl with burned fingers.
City of the virgin, your eyes are sad.
Shady oasis where the Prophet passed,
the stones of your streets grow sad,
the towers of mosques downcast.
City swathed in black, who'll ring the bells
at the Holy Sepulcher on Sunday mornings?
Who will carry toys to children
on Christmas Eve?
City of sorrows, a huge tear
trembling on your eyelid,
Who'll save the Bible?
Who'll save the Qur'an?
Who will save Christ, who will save man?
Jerusalem, beloved city of mine,
tomorrow your lemon trees will bloom,
your green stalks and branches rise up joyful,
and your eyes will laugh. Migrant pigeons
will return to your holy roofs
and children will go back to playing.
Parents and children will meet
on your shining streets,
my city, city of olives and peace.

Nizar Qabbani

the gender question

2007-01-24T23:00:00.000-08:00

i had a conversation with a colleague in the village this week that left me feeling not only frustrated and injured, but also confused. it started out as a brief lesson in palestinian culture from one of the mothers, but quickly developed into a heated discussion of religion, gender and sexuality between me and my friend. he is twenty-three years old. last year he graduated from birzeit university, the most prestigious palestinian university and one of the more respected universities in the arab world, with a degree in psychology, and now works as a youth advisor in the village. he comes from a refugee camp in ramallah, but he and his brother both live here in bethlehem. he is engaged to a young woman to whom i give english lessons, and the couple has invited me to their wedding in july.

we started discussing the many double-standards that exist in this society for men and women in all aspects of daily life - dress, studies, household responsibilities, manners, posture, socialization, everything. according to some (though not all, and not always universally considered accurate) readings of islam, women are required to wear the mandil (head scarf) and dress modestly, are forbidden from socializing with men except in academic settings, are expected at a very young age to take on household responsibilities that men and boys are not asked to complete. when male guests enter a home, more conservative women will retreat to the kitchen or bedroom so as not to socialize with a stranger; many women wishing to enter the work force will begin to cover their hair to protect themselves from male scrutiny; when i eat dinner in the village houses, more often than not the girls clear the table and do the dishes, and the boys play outside or start their homework.

these rules and separations, or at least the visible ones, don't apply to all women in the society. many women do not cover their hair, wear western clothes, study at university, obtain high-level degrees, work as doctors and lawyers, party at nightclubs. but the less-tangible, underlying inequalities are in many ways more frustrating, because they are harder to question and fight.

i come from a society that is very quick to condemn this kind of power-imbalance, and to be honest, though i like to consider myself an educated and open-minded person, many of these traditions irk me as well. because i am an outsider, the manifestations of this double-standard seem obvious and often barbaric to me, but in certain ways they are no different to the perhaps more subtle imbalances that exist in the united states. today, women enter the workforce at almost the same rate as men, and yet men still control nearly all upper-level management and decision-making positions in the government and large companies. a greater percentage of working women (compared to working men) occupy service positions (waitressing, house-cleaning, secretarial, cashier, etc.) than their male counterparts. even though anti-discrimination laws are in place today, its still a well-known fact that an employer would rather hire a man than a woman, based on the fear that she may choose to have a baby at some point and would then be entitled to maternity leave. it seems that the government is actively looking for a way to take away a woman's right to control her own body.

i'm in no way trying to argue that the situation for women in the united states is as difficult as it is for women in arab countries. it's not even close. i am saying, however, that our society is still quietly patriarchal and bears remnants of a gender imbalance that still exists in full force in much of the world.

so back to my conversation with my friend. eventually we started talking about sexual relations between men and women, and for the first time the realities of these gender standards became real, tangible, and unspeakably disturbing to me. women in this society (as in most societies in the world) are expected to be virgins when they are married. if they are not virgins, they are considered to be unchaste and "damaged goods", and can suffer any number of punishments at the hands of male family-members. this is not a secret - particularly in the arab world, it is a well-known and hotly disputed (by newly forming women's rights groups) fact. i asked my friend what he would do if he found out that his unmarried sister was in a sexual-relationship. he told me he would kill her.

he considers himself to be a women's rights advocate, so he would not only kill his sister, but first he would kill her lover, under the assumption that its just as much the male's fault as it is the woman's. so he would kill twice. but if he found his brother in the same situation, he would not kill him, but would disown him. if the woman's family killed his brother, my friend would say that they had the right.

so, here is my friend, to use a bad cliche, among "the best and the brightest" of his generation in palestine, and he would be willing to kill a family member to protect the family's honor.

a critic of palestinian activism...or perhaps a critic of jimmy carter's book, would argue here, "how can you advocate for independence in a society where this kind of barbaric practice is condoned?" some days i'm not sure. the truth is, the society here is not perfect - no society is. it bears remnants of ages and loyalties and traditions past, and its complexities make it both fascinatingly beautiful and unimaginably frustrating and tragic at the same time. yesterday i had a lot of trouble getting out of bed in the morning, thinking about the conversation and its implications for all of the people i know here. i hadn't really learned anything new during that hour - everything my friend said i had read in a book or heard about in a class or even heard about as "a friend of a friend..." here. and yet to hear it from a friend, a peer, and someone who considers himself progressive was, and remains, very difficult for me to process. how can i throw so much of my personal support and energy into a society that condones what i can only understand as violent sexism? can i ever adjust myself and adapt to these gender relations? do i even want to? the answer to this last question is no, i don't want to, and i won't.

this part of palestinian culture is something that i do not and will never approve of. in the past few years a number of progressive women's groups have formed in palestine, as well as in other arab countries, and are beginning to ask these questions and challenge the power structure. like all cultural change, these adjustments will have to come from inside - democracy is not a blueprint that can be placed on the ruins of a broken dictatorship, and gender-relations cannot be tipped to equality simply by evening a scale, particularly not in a society whose cultural integrity is constantly threatened by extinction at the hands of occupation. as an activist seeking peace in the region, i can advocate for national independence while also supporting minority movements (gay and lesbian voices are only beginning to whisper in the region, but their presence is known if not acknowledged) and hope that peace and stability will eventually provide a stage upon which these fringe groups can fight for social reorganization according to their own dreams.

sweet jerusalem

2006-12-14T15:09:00.000-08:00

i met a man today in jerusalem who speaks seven languages. he is an armenian christian, born and raised in jerusalem, so for his whole life he has spoken a combination of arabic, hebrew and armenian. he attended a french school in jerusalem, where he learned french and spanish, both of which he now speaks fluently, and his mother is italian. he attended university in the united states and speaks english so perfectly that on the phone i thought he was american. seven languages, one life.

in the first moments of our conversation, i asked him question after question about the solid facts of his existence - where he grew up, where he lives now, what language he uses most frequently, what kind of ID he has here, what kind of citizenship he holds. eventually he laughed, and told me that, "you americans are always trying to simplify, always trying to place things in neat categories. it's simpler for you to understand that way, but it doesn't always work, does it?" i had never stopped to consider how i analyze the world and my experiences, but when he said this, i immediately knew that he was right. the concept of a person without a dominant national identity is almost impossible for me to understand, and even if subconsciously, i was completely unsatisfied by this man's seemingly fluid identity. living abroad, my perception of myself as an american is permanent and ever-present - it is the first thing people ask me, and the first piece of information i offer upon meeting someone. the concept of identity in this conflicted land is completely different, though, solid and flexible, personal and political, real and fabricated.

there are israelis and there are palestinians. most israelis are jewish, and most palestinians are muslim.

and then there are muslim and christian and druze israelis, and christian palestinians.

and there are russian-jewish israelis and european-jewish israelis and arab-jewish israelis and african-jewish israelis, and all of them have a special place in the social and economic hierarchy.

and there are greek-orthodox christians, and roman catholics, and latin catholics, and armenian christians, and ethiopian christians, and some of them have been here as long or longer than the jews and the muslims, and some of them are only here as visitors, and some of them are not religious at all, but their religion is what distinguishes them from the rest.

there are west bank palestinians, and jerusalem palestinians, and gaza palestinians, and palestinians in exile, and palestinians who identify as refugees, and palestinians who don't.

and everyone draws all or part of their identity from their land, or their lack of land, or the land that they perceive to be theirs. a refugee in a camp in bethlehem may never have seen his family's land in the galilee, but ask him where his home is, and he will tell you the name of his village, and promise you that his family will return home some day. a young israeli who has lived his entire life in an israeli town may try to understand the history of war and occupation in his country, but what is he to do if his identity is also so closely tied to his home, his land? if a person lives away from her original country for a long enough time, can her perception of homeland actually change, or is she permanently tied to the place where she was born?

at the same time, identity here is derived by arbitrary divisions and categorizations superficially designed to ensure security. jerusalem palestinians can't travel in the west bank, and west bank palestinians can't travel to jerusalem, nor can they travel in yellow-plated cars - cars driven by foreigners and israelis. and israelis can't travel in the west bank without a permit, and vice versa.

and there is fateh and there is hamas. and in gaza, there is not enough killing already, so these groups have started to attack one another. their political loyalties result from their oppression, their animosity toward one another is derived from the absolute desperation of their situation.

in the united states, our perception of identity may vary - gender, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, political party - but in comparison to the layers and layers of identities that people carry here, often wearing them on their sleeves, ours is a simple system of categorization. even in this system, potentially conflicted identities - a gay christian, a black republican - trouble us, confuse us, often make us angry. i'm slowly learning that here, conflict is such a permanent staple of life that it is necessarily wedded to one's identity.

The first of December

2006-12-01T23:27:00.000-08:00

For the first time in my life, I woke up on the first of December and ate breakfast at a picnic table in the sun. In the early morning hours the air had not yet warmed from the desert night, but our sweet tea, warm bread and spread of vegetables kept us warm as we feasted and chatted about our plans for the day. Friday is a holiday here, yet each week the village is bustling with activities on that day - debka lessons, art projects, visitors coming in and out, renovation projects that develop into theatrical performances audienced by the entire village.

The first day of advent marked the annual tree-lighting ceremony, of sorts. All but six of us in the village are Muslim, and yet Christmas is celebrated with the enthusiasm and excitement of a good Irish Catholic family. After breakfast, a huge cherry-picker backed into the driveway and we all watched as he methodically draped the blinking lights around the closest thing we have to a pine tree. At first we were just a few - myself, my host mother, and a few children who had dropped their footballs at the sight of the huge machine. Gradually, though, more and more children poured out of the houses to watch, administrators took a fifteen minute break to witness the commotion, and suddenly I had a cup of coffee in my hand and was sitting comfortably on our balcony, "the best seat in the house". The novelty of the project, as well as the shared excitement of the coming holiday, was fascinating to me, and in some ways made me think of our North Wayne Carol Sing or Columbia's Tree-Lighting Ceremony (minus PrezBo and Kenneth Jackson waxing poetic about Expansion and the Christmas Spirit). I left the village yesterday feeling truly excited about Christmas almost a full month early - I haven't felt that in a while.

After the Christmas spectacle I met up with some European friends in the hopes of visiting Jericho, the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world (how's that for a claim to fame?). As usual, we planned to meet up at the checkpoint - its crazy how normal that phrase has begun to sound for us, but realistically it makes the most sense. Anyone living in Bethlehem or Beit Sahour who wants to get to Jerusalem has to go through the same checkpoint, from which he can take a bus to the Old City in Jerusalem, and from there travel almost anywhere in the West Bank, provided he has the right papers.

I haven't yet described in detail what it's like to move through an Israeli checkpoint, so I'll try to be as detailed as possible today. First, the road to the checkpoint, called Hebron Road because for centuries it was the main connection between Jerusalem and Hebron, is abruptly interrupted by a 28 foot cement wall that surrounds the West Bank. Graffiti art and messages cover the lowest six feet of the wall, scrolled in different languages but all generally sending the same messages of desperation, anger, and a call for peace. One stencil makes me stop and think everytime I see it. It reads: "Warsaw: 1939, Compton: 1992, Bethlehem: 2004" The parallels are interesting to me on a number of levels, but particularly because the categorization of Warsaw and Compton as "ghettos" is pretty much universally agreed upon; the categorization of Bethlehem as such is not. In fact, that is exactly what Bethlehem has become: an enclosed, overcrowded area in and out of which residents cannot freely move, and which cannot sustain any real economic activity.

We enter the checkpoint through a long narrow metal cage, after which we pass through a door in the wall and enter a large, clean, neon-lit building. We wait in line to pass through the first turnstile with anywhere from 2 to 30 other people, depending on the day. Today, it is just us, a Palestinian man and two Palestinian women, so we move through more quickly than usual. At the metal detector, the women remove all of their jewelry, keys, coins, and shoes. The man takes off his belt as well and steps through the detector. It beeps. The soldier sitting in the booth instructs him to turn around, re-check for metal items, and go through again. Meanwhile, I place my bookbag on the conveyor belt and walk through. I also set off the detector, but I show her my passport and point to my watch, and she waves me through. I leave three others behind me, retying their shoes.

We then pass through another turnstile which is locked until the next soldier presses a button to open it for us. Again, I flash my passport, she smiles, and I walk out of the building back into the fresh air. I turn around and see the same wall from the other side - this face is clean and bright, and adorned with a huge banner that reads "Peace Be With You" in three languages. Where Hebron Road has been cut off, a neat little circle and garden have replaced it, giving the impression that you're looking at some circle in San Francisco.

And that's the checkpoint. I've written a lot now, so I'll save my account of Jericho, the 10,000 year old city, for another day.

Teaching and Learning

2006-11-21T12:50:00.000-08:00

I've been lazy about posting since I actually started teaching - working with children might be the most wonderful yet tiring experience I've yet had. My schedule isn't even that rigorous - two hours of organized class a day, then a few hours of visiting houses, playing English-language games and speaking with the children - and yet by the end of the day all I want to do is collapse into bed with my book and a cup of tea. It's cold at night now - my tiny space heater barely heats the room, I sleep in a sweatshirt under three blankets, and the cold linoleum floor startles me to consciousness in the morning. I fall asleep to the sound of wild dogs barking and wandering through the fields, and I wake up to 100 high-pitched voices boarding the bus to school at 7 am.

I'm learning that teaching is all about learning to accept criticism, especially the harsh, biting criticism of 8 year old children. If I thought I was comfortable with failure before, I was totally wrong - some days I leave class feeling like I should just pack my bags and go home, that the kids would be better off without me as their teacher. Other days though - the days when the kids come running from their houses asking what time class begins, the days when I sing Head-Shoulders-Knees-and-Toes one hundred times over with a bunch of seven year olds, and they still want to sing it again, the days that end with me sitting on the floor in one of the houses, sipping tea and watching Barcelona kick Mallorca's butt with a group of 12 year old boys - those days I can't imagine being anywhere but here.

And then there is the ever-looming presence of occupation always creeping its way into the everyday lives of the people here. On most days, the people in Bethlehem's SOS village are able to carry on life without close incursion - they watch the violence elsewhere in Palestine on their televisions in the morning, then head to work or school or play, happy to be part of an international organization that has and will continue to withstand the destruction that is slowly eating away at Palestinian society. Yesterday, however, was not one of those days.

Government schools opened two weeks ago after having been on strike since the beginning of the school year. On the first day of school, you could almost smell the sense of relief in the air - everyone was happy that, at least for the short-term, life would continue normally for the students. Only two weeks later, a group of Israeli soldiers blocked off the main road passing by one of the schools, preventing buses from entering the premises to take the students home. A few (clearly not very thoughtful) students began throwing stones at the soldiers, in my estimation because of a mix of anger, frustration, desperation, and humor. Among those boys were three SOS kids - boys who grew up in the village where I live and now live in youth houses in downtown Bethlehem.

We didn't find out until later last night that one of the boys was shot. Fortunately, the bullet only grazed his stomach and arm, and a short operation has restored him (or will restore him) to perfect health relatively quickly. I just keep thinking that one inch in either direction and he could be dead, a more accurate shot by the soldier and he could be dead, any person - young, old, boy, girl - who picks up a stone and throws it in the wrong direction could be dead.

The world doesn't hear very much about these daily instances of physical violence - let alone the continuous structural violence that permeates every corner of life here. We read about the big events, like last week's massacre in Beit Hanoun. We read that an Israeli security team "inadvertently" killed 19 people in the Gaza town, mostly civilians, and that Palestinian military groups are threatening retaliation. We read that every country in the world except six agreed to publicly condemn the massacre, but no public condemnation ever happened because these six were able to prevent it. Perhaps if we read about these daily tragedies, we might not be so quick to pin the "terrorist" tag where we do.

this is life - i want to live.

2006-11-04T12:33:00.000-08:00

today i traveled to sa'eer, a small village about twenty minutes south of bethlehem. im tamir's uncle passed away three days ago, and though i'm not sure of the exact purpose of today's gathering, i know that all of her relatives gathered to pay their respects and share lunch. sa'eer is near hebron, a city known for its proximity to a very large israeli settlement and the tension and violence which results from this pairing. sa'eer, though, is so quiet and peaceful and simple, i felt as though i was worlds away from any kind of intrusion from the outside. the roads have yet to be paved, herds of goats wander the streets like people, and the mountainside is only sprinkled with white stone homes, the remaining view filled with olive trees and vegetable gardens and a sky as blue and clear as a calm sea. from where we entered town, i could see no more than thirty homes, all of whom i gathered belonged to not-too-distant relatives of im tamir's family.

when we arrived this afternoon, im tamir (my "mother" here) and i were quickly separated from the men in our group, and shuffled to the party of women gathered in a nearby home. we removed our shoes and sat on cushions lining the floor, our feet covered with home-woven blankets to shield us from the fall breeze. blended scents wafted through the windows, a mix of animal and dust and fresh herbs from below, and the sound of babies crying and women chatting filled the high-ceiling-ed room. a few of the younger women were breast-feeding or rocking babies wrapped tightly in blankets, while i sat between im tamir and a distant relative, the oldest living member of her family. she wore traditional palestinian dress: a black dress with green, pink and yellow embroidery on the chest, and a white scarf over her hair. she briefly removed the scarf to show me her traditional headpiece. im tamir jokingly guessed that she is the only woman left in palestine to wear this - she may be right, because i asked around and still couldn't figure out what the hat was called. her eyes glowed warmly when i sat down to greet her, and when she took my hands in her own, i felt the wrinkles and callouses of a life of farmwork and children and hand-made clothing and cold winters and hot summers. she is like a living monument to an age past, to a culture and a people both barreling forward and desperately clinging to its roots.

after tea with the women, we walked up the hill to the house of im tamir's niece. im tamir's family owns a stone factory in the town, so all of the relatives are able to build very luxurious homes inexpensively. at the top of the hill, we entered the villa property, and walked a bit further through a garden of cabbage and mish mish (apricot) trees. the house itself was beautiful, though in places not quite complete. every room was of white stone, and the floors shone with the luster of brand new tiles. only the salon and the master bedroom were furnished, the other rooms all sported make-shift dressers of boxes and suitcases and mattresses and pillows substituted for beds and sofas. from the third-floor balcony we could see all of sa'eer, from the stone factory at the top of the mountain, all the way down to the strip of lush farmland in the valley. i watched the sun set and felt as though i was witnessing the transformation of some great piece of art, like monet's series, the same scene snap-shotted in different lights, each independently beautiful in its colors and minute details.

driving home, the chilly fall breeze slipped through the windows, and i closed my eyes and felt like i could have been driving through rural pennsylvania at night, it was so quiet. when we re-entered the bethlehem area, though, we were greeted by rows of israeli military cars and soldiers at the beit jala checkpoint, usually empty. the other three in the car whispered to one another in hushed voices, and i sat quietly in my corner, unsure of what to expect. we passed a hospital between beit jala and bethlehem and saw more israeli vehicles and crowds of palestinian men standing outside. when we arrived back at the village, we heard that a building nearby had been destroyed. israeli security patrols the streets at night, but in recent years they've rarely done more than arrest people (in this area: the story is different elsewhere). for some reason, though, an israeli construction crew began bulldozing the building at 3 am today, and worked well through the morning. in the disturbance that this action obviously caused, two palestinians were killed and one injured, including a teenage boy and an elderly woman. the building was on the same block as one of the SOS youth houses, where 15 teenage boys from the village live. when we returned to the village close to 8 pm, the boys were still hanging out here, uncertain about walking home.

i sat in the office downstairs this morning and chatted with a co-worker - jamal, also a former SOS kid - over coffee. as usual, the conversation inevitably turned to the political situation, and jamal told me about his childhood, first in a refugee camp in ramallah, then at SOS in bethlehem, about his studies at birzeit university, and about his current work in the village. i asked him if he ever thought about leaving palestine, and he answered with a definitive no. he said: "this is life - i want to live."

Qatf az-Zeitun

2006-10-29T01:51:00.000-08:00

I met a bunch of clowns yesterday. They were traveling through Bethlehem on a tour of the West Bank with Clowns Without Borders, an organization which, after I looked online, I found is a fairly large and well-known organization throughout the world. Some of the clowns have professional training and have gone to clown school, while others are actors and performers by trade, and every once in a while they take month-long trips to war-torn parts of the world and perform clown shows in refugee camps and cities. These clowns were from Sweden, which obviously means that they were a funny cross between clown and eurotrash hipster - their hair varied in color from pink to bleach-blond to aquamarine, and the five of them collectively sported no less than 20 piercings on their heads/faces. They did about three shows in Bethlehem, one just on a Thursday afternoon and the other two at the Olive Harvest Festival, an annual event held in the center of the Old City.

The one on the left bears an uncanny resemblance to a friend of mine from Egypt (not an Egyptian friend). When he took off his nose it was even eerier.

So the olive-picking (qatf az-zeitun) thing is pretty big here. It's an age-old tradition which now has come to symbolize Palestinian heritage and nationalism, especially since so much land that was once used to harvest olives has now been taken by Israeli settlements, and the resource is slowly disappearing. I went with some of the boys from the village to Sa'eer, a small town south of Hebron where the school director's family owns over 200 dunums of empty, olive tree land. The trip was a day-long process. I didn't realize it at the time, but we brought a camping stove, a tea set, ingredients for tea and coffee, an arguila (sheesha, hookah. etc.) and enough food to last us a week should we need it. We had only been picking olives for about 1/2 hour before the men retired to a clearing up the hill and smoked and sipped coffee and chatted while we scrambled around on the tarps picking up olives. The more conservative women with us, who were wearing full hijab, hiked up their dresses and tied them around their waists, creating big sacks into which they pitched their pickings - they had it figured out. Compared to them, I felt about as efficient as the six-year olds (thats becoming a trend for me) who were meticulously filling up little plastic cups before dumping them into the big sacks, ultimately dropping half of their findings in the process. By the end of the day we collected two and a half huge sacks (three feet tall) of olives, loaded them into the car, and headed home just as dark clouds started to roll in, casting their grim shadows across the landscape.

It's beeing raining on and off here for the past two days. It's beautiful. Every morning smells like that first spring rain, the scent of rainwater mixing with dust and grass and slowly rising from the pavement. The rain is interupted by brief periods of bright sun, during which the children all emerge from their houses and play briefly before the next cloud moves in. When it started on Friday night, I was eating dinner in a house only about 20 meters from my room, but the children insisted that I spend the night there - they couldn't conceive of me walking home in what to them seemed like terrential rain. It's difficult to explain here why I love the rain so much - it reminds me of being at home. I kept my windows open last night, despite the chilly air, and let the sound of raindrops on the patio lull me to sleep.

another first

2006-10-23T15:48:00.001-07:00

my next-door neighbors (really, my family here - i eat with them, watch tv with them, do my laundry in their house) have six children. the oldest is 22, followed by 20, 17, 15, 12 and 5.

sarah, who is 15, has a heart of gold. when i arrived, she quickly decided that no one in the family was allowed to speak with me in english, even though they all can, and yet is always the first to offer a reassuring word or two in my language when she notices my eyes beginning to tear up because i'm so overwhelmed that i can barely say hello. she speaks slowly so that i can understand, and offered me nescafe every morning during ramadan, even though she knew she couldn't touch it herself for another eight hours.

i've had a lot of "firsts" over the past fourteen days, and i'll call tonight my first experience with the emotional strain that the situation here inflicts upon people. sarah spent her summer at seeds of peace in maine with high school students from palestine, israel, jordan, egypt and the united states. i believe (though i don't know for sure) that jimmy carter founded the summer camp to bring students together in an effort to bring together future "leaders in the peace process". whether or not the camp meets this lofty goal is irrelevent for now; what it does do is bring people together and forge friendships that last long after the last day of camp.

tonight sarah was chatting online with an israeli friend from seeds of peace, whom i assume lives in jerusalem. the two girls reminded me of my little sister, chatting back and forth rapidly about their lives in unintelligable abbreviations and dancing smiley faces and smooching lips. her friend suggested that they meet up, and asked if sarah could come to jerusalem.

palestinians need a special permit to go to jerusalem, and though sarah's father's position would probably help her to obtain such a permit, the process is long, tedious, and inaccessible to most palestinians. instead, sarah suggested that her friend come to bethlehem and visit her home - she even offered to have a car pick her friend up at the checkpoint so that she wouldn't have to be alone on the palestinian side.

israeli citizens are legally forbidden to travel inside the west bank. while decisions at checkpoints tend to be arbitrary and the law is not consistently enforced, a sixteen year old girl will almost definitely not be allowed to visit here. so sarah and her friend won't get to see each other unless the laws change or unless they both leave the country.

and they only live 20 minutes apart.

welcome gifts

2006-10-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

items obtained (as gifts) in the last 36 hours:

one (1) blue off-one-shoulder party top with pink stripes up arms,

one (1) hand-me-down navy blue sweater,

one (1) hand-me-down blue and green striped polo shirt,

two (2) mother of pearl hand-carved dove pins,

one (1) rosewood rosary,

one (1) pink plastic bracelet,

one (1) banana hair clip with yin-yang/heart design,

one (1) chocolate-covered marshmallow puff,

one (1) greek orthodox aluminum wall-hanging image of christ with bleeding heart.*

*will hang above my mirror for the duration of my stay here.

hong kong and calcutta

2006-10-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

i'm quickly learning that nothing here is ever as simple as you expect it to be.

on my second visit to jerusalem, the bethlehem checkpoint was closed to palestinian travelers for the day, two days before the last friday of ramadan (an important day of prayer for muslims). i approached the checkpoint to find no less than 150 people waiting to go through, some sitting on the pavement, others pacing around anxiously, others heading for home in disappointment. i had heard of another road to jerusalem through beit jala, a nearby town, so i decided to try a new route; i had heard that the beit jala checkpoint was not nearly as stringent as bethlehem, anyway.

just outside the beit jala town limits, the road came to an intersection where we waited for a bus. an israeli military base - more like a bunker, actually- loomed nearby, hung with nets and camouflage, surrounded by barbed wire. five minutes out of town the bus pulled over and we were all told to climb down to have our papers inspected. we lined up on the side of the road, and two soldiers moved slowly down the line, staring blankly at our passports and work permits, never uttering more than a grunt or unfurrowing their brows. we climbed back onto the bus, and two older women were asked to climb down again. i figured they would simply show their papers again and climb back on - i couldn't imagine them walking back up the steep hill we had just descended in the midday heat. still, the door slammed shut behind them and we continued to jerusalem.

the difference between bethlehem and west jerusalem is shocking. the two are so distinct in demographics, appearance and WEALTH that it is difficult to believe they are so geographically close. fatima, an employee at the french consulate in jerusalem, and one of my new acquaintances (there are so many these days, it is sometimes hard to keep them straight), described the contrast as "hong kong on one side, calcutta on the other." the comparison is a bit extreme, but it serves its purpose. i sat in a cafe on jaffa street, (i think) one of the main drags in west jerusalem, and sipped an iced coffee amidst tables full of families and couples, some loners hovering over laptops or newspapers - i might as well have been in new york again. for a moment i felt like i was back at hungarian - the crowd, though slightly less self-involved, was certainly similar. physically, i fit in. still, i didn't feel comfortable knowing that life is so different and so much more difficult so close by.

i haven't been writing as much as i'd like to, because i'm having trouble deciding how to best convey my experiences here. i didn't intend for this blog to be inherently political, though i'm slowly learning that the politics are unavoidable. today a friend compared palestine to a prison - the people are not free to travel as they wish, cannot attend school, cannot send or receive mail, cannot even visit jerusalem, without the constant struggle and reminder that what was their land is somehow no longer under their control. my life is no where near as difficult as theirs is - my biggest problem these days is that i speak arabic like a six-year old and can't figure out how to say no when someone heaps more food onto my plate. but every day i see a little bit more of the reality that is living in palestine, whether it be a personal experience or a story told.

so consider my writing here not a political statement (though i suppose in reality that is what it is) and not a diary of my experiences, but a small view into a reality that in america we cannot otherwise access.

the first week

2006-10-16T23:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked the end of my first week in Bethlehem, and it was definitely not as I had expected. I don't think I ever really sat down and prepared myself emotionally for what it would be like to arrive totally alone, to start completely from scratch in a new language and to build up a support network from the ground-up. Even when I went to Egypt, I had a friend with whom I could commisserate, and was surrounded by other American college kids, all of us heads spinning and eyes wide. Here, I walked into a completely normal life, peaceful in its own right, and relatively uninterrupted for years. I am starting to settle in, but it is certainly going to continue to take time before I really feel like I belong here.

Slowly, as I get to know the children, I'm starting to get an idea of how they ended up in the village. One girl, Inas, is maybe 15 years old. She lives in the girls' house with the other girls who are older than 14. Though she speaks perhaps less English than I speak Arabic, we managed to have a broken conversation about her childhood, and I learned that she came (with her older brother, who is also still here - he loves to hug her and tell me she's his girlfriend) when she was about 8 after her father was killed in Jordan. Their mother couldn't provide for them anymore, so they came to Bethlehem where they would have all of their necessities. Another boy's family lives right in Bethlehem - I actually met his biological father when we went to church together on Sunday - but they rarely see him, and he doesn't visit very often.

My legs are in constant pain from walking up and down the hills in and out of town, but every day I take a new street and feel a little bit more comfortable. Yesterday took me back to the cell phone store for the third time this week; the owner obviously recognizes me and sort of chuckles every time I walk in. He knows I have another silly question about how to use my phone. I also tried to buy some envelopes yesterday so that I could start mailing letters - though I had directions, I couldn't find the store, and ended up wandering into a small tailor shop and trying to describe to the old man inside what it was that I was looking for. "I am looking for a small....(box shape with hands)....for letters. If I want to send a letter, in the mail...I put it in a....small suitcase, for the letter?" I managed to get my point across, and rather than pointing me in the direction, he stood up and walked me the half-block or so to the store. Typical Arab warmth. It turned out that he had actually seen me a few times before in town (this town is smaller than Wayne!), and he invited me to come back if I ever needed help again.

As it turns out, I managed to buy the envelopes and find the post office, but, like the public schools, the postal service is on strike. I am not sure yet what this means for sending and receiving mail, but I'll find out.

The children are starting to know me and take an interest in me; its nice to be walking along and suddenly feel a small body attached to my leg, or to be sitting reading and have a tiny pair of hands cover my eyes. I eat dinner with a different house every night (though during Ramadan most meals are taken outside, with everyone together), and some of the children ask me who I'm eating with each day, and when am I going to eat with their houses? It feels nice to be slowly breaking into a community, but I would still like to make some friends my own age; as fun as 10 year olds can be, theres only so much personal connection you can have with them.

The nights are getting colder; when the sun starts to go down, everyone disappears into their homes and reemerges later with a sweatshirt or jacket. It seems so strange to me that I was sweating when I arrived in the car last week, and now I huddle on a porch at 6 pm sipping tea to keep warm, and yet for everyone here it's completely normal. That's not a very profound statement, but it is a very interesting experience watching someone else's routine so closely. The details that I find so exciting are so simple and automatic, as I'm sure my own are when I'm at home in Wayne or New York.

walking and talking

2006-10-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

For the first time today I wandered off the grounds of the village and walked for a while through Bethlehem by myself. The surface purpose of the visit was to get myself some food and a hot pot so that I might be able to eat during the day before 5 pm (there are only four of us in the village who are not fasting for Ramadan, and I feel guilty imposing on the other three for food everyday). In truth, my days thus far have been fairly empty, since everyone else is in school and busy with Ramadan preparations. I won't start teaching for another week or so, so my only job right now is to "get to know the village"...this leaves a lot of hours in the day to their own devices. We all know how well I don't do with free time, so I decided to take a walk.

As I trudged up my first hill this morning (Bethlehem, like most of Palestine/Israel/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, is all hills, all the time) I noticed the number of construction sites left unfinished. It seemed like every other building was either only half-built or undergoing some kind of restoration, but only a few actually had people working on them. I get the impression that, since the EU and the US cut funding to the Hamas-led government, most of the municipal projects have stopped or have been significantly slowed. As a result, the only projects that can continue are those that are funded by individual donors or by humanitarian organizations. Overall Bethlehem is a beautiful town; it's sad to see it deteriorate at the hands of a power-struggle.

After iftaar this evening, the employees and some of the older kids played a ping-pong tournament. They take their ping-pong very seriously here...At times I felt like I was watching an Olympic match. At any given moment there were no less than 25 spectators watching the games anxiously, and each point was followed by yelps and cheers. A lot of these people have known each other for their entire lives; for example, the director of one of the boys' youth houses, a really friendly guy of about 35, I guess, grew up in the village, went to college, and came back to work as a supervisor. These kinds of ties make it difficult to break in as an outsider, but at the same time I'm so impressed by the comfort and closeness of the community.

After the tournament ended, I had a long conversation with one of the activities coordinators here about his life in Bethlehem. He has lived in this part of the West Bank for his whole life, and just started working at the village last year (he explained to me what he did before coming to SOS, but my Arabic skills aren't yet honed enough to pick up the details...). The village is on top of a hill: looking out onto the glowing landscape, he showed me Jerusalem, the big football stadium nearby, the checkpoint separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem, and the nearby Israeli settlement, the largest of its kind in the West Bank. Since Israeli security tightened during the intifada, most Palestinians cannot pass into Israel, and only a few can obtain permission to work in Jerusalem.

When I first arrived, the village director explained to me the relationship between life as a member of the village and life as a member of the Palestinian community, socially and politically. He said that they are always aware of the political situation, but that once inside the village, it is no longer a primary concern. I wasn't sure what exactly he meant at the time, but I see now how the community in the village acts almost as a shield from the politics and conflict that exist outside. On the one hand, the two are inseparable: the conditions under which the children arrived in the village are a direct result of the political violence, and their education and medical services are slowly deteriorating as the situation worsens. On the other hand, once inside the village, the children develop in an environment that focuses not on conflict but on preservation of Palestinian culture and produces educated, tolerant individuals comfortable with diversity. Even though these first few days have been somewhat lonely and a lot overwhelming, I'm learning something new from them everyday.

min al-awwal

2006-10-11T13:54:00.001-07:00

I've been getting a lot of requests for some material on this thing, so here I go, I'll start from the beginning (min al-awwal).

After a long and harrowing trip through Frankfurt to Ben Gurion airport, I surprisingly made it through security with no problems at all. My customs official, a sour-looking girl with dark eyes, must have been at the end of a long shift, for after a series of questions (the answers to which she didn't seem too concerned with), she stamped my page and let me through. The drive to Bethlehem from Tel-Aviv is surprisingly short - less than an hour with some traffic, and by 3:30 pm (9:30 am my time, exactly 24 hours after awaking on Sunday morning) we arrived in SOS Children's Village, Bethlehem, Palestine.

SOS Children's Village is part of an international organization that was established in 1949 in response to the growing global need for support and education for orphaned or otherwise parent-less children. The first Children's Villages were established in Europe in the aftermath of World War II, but the organization quickly expanded and is today active in 132 countries. The Village in Bethlehem opened in 1966, and was soon followed by a small grade school which serves both children in the Village as well as from the larger Bethlehem area.

The Village is organized, literally, like a small village. There are roughly 120 children living here, split up amongst 13 houses, all in close proximity to one another, like a little gated community. Each house is supervised by a volunter mother, most of whom have degrees in psychology or social work. Children live in these houses until they are 14 years old, at which point they move to a youth house (two boys' houses and one girls') where they have another "parent" who specializes in adolescent psychology. In addition, there are 4 or 5 volunteers who coordinate after school activities for the children, as well as an office of administrators who oversee the Village's activities, curricula and funding.

So far I've been most stricken by the closeness of this community, and their willingness to welcome me almost as a new family-member. Of course I speak Arabic like a 6-year old and the girls all think I dress like a slob (which I sort of do, I guess), but still, everyone, from the youngest child to the most experienced mother, treats me as an equal, helps me with my language, and expects me to pull my own weight. Once I begin my work full-time, as the only native-English speaker here, I'll be working with children to improve their English talking and pronunciation skills.

Only two hours after I arrived, I was invited to participate in a Village-wide iftaar, the evening meal shared every day of Ramadan after a day of fasting. Most of the children here are Muslim, and they all take their places at the dinner table 15 or 20 minutes early, licking their lips at the sight of the massive plates of food sitting in front of them. I always think it's funny that kids seem to have the same sense of humor everywhere - a funny face is a funny face is a funny face and a celebration yields the same excitement in every culture.

Usually, the children attend school for full days, 9-2 or 3ish, just as we do in the United States. However, since the EU and US decided to cut funding to the newly-elected Hamas government earlier this year, teachers in government schools have not been paid enough and as a result, public school children only attend school for half-days, if at all. This is a problem in particular for the middle and older children (12+ years), many of whom are hoping to attend private high schools or universities in the next few years. As with any form of government sanctions, the ones who suffer the most are those who have little or no power, and who need the most help.

This afternoon I visited every house, met the mothers and children, and tried desperately to remember at least one child's name from each house. With so many kids, so many smiling faces, and so many names that I can't even pronounce (the more determined kids make me repeat their name 10 or 20 times to make sure that am saying it correctly), I'm afraid I'll never be able to remember everyone. For now, a lot of them can't remember my name, so they call me Al-Ajnabiyya, foreigner. Other variations include: Katie, Cat, Cat-E, or, my personal favorite (which dignity dictated I nip in the bud immediately) Cat-Cot (Kitten or Kitty Cat). I guess until I learn their names, I can't fault them.