Kufa Romana, which means eggplant, is a village of 1,000 perched and carved into a hillside about an hour from Nablus and from Sebastia. We drove there from the festival in Sebastia, late Friday afternoon. Khitam had an idea where it was, but an idea is not enough to get you through the twists and turns that lead to so many hillside villages, so she asked directions of several people along the way: "Kufa Romana, wayne?" Where is Kufa Romana?" "Kufa Romana, dugerie?" Is Kufa Romana straight ahead? Eventually we reached it, or thought we had: "Haida Kufa Romana?" Is this Kufa Romana? "Na'm." Yes.
It is an old village. The stone and cement houses have been here a long time. The roads were probably originally paths for donkeys. There was no city planner! So the next question was, do you know where Abed Othman is. People she asked knew him and directed us to a very narrow street that ended at one of his small stone artist's houses.
Abed looks a bit like a white-haired Picasso, or maybe that is just who I imagined when I met him. We got to the end of a narrow dirt road crawling between small stone houses and Abed appeared, descending stone steps from a stone house above. He welcomed us; he knows English well and he and Khitam have known each other for a long time but have only seen each other two or three times in the last twenty-five years.
He welcomed us effusively in a quiet way. I didn't hear him raise his voice once during the two and a half hours we spent together. I assume his persona is who he is: he was wearing worn khaki pants, a simple pullover shirt and sandals. His white hair increased his height by an inch or two, especially when he brushed it back with his hand. We brought chairs out of the stone building in front of us, which I think is going to be an artist's residence when finished, and sat outside. Abed rolled a slender cigarette, flicked what looked like a BIC lighter, and we began to talk.
He works in Cologne, Germany, as a journalist for a well known German newspaper. He is also a village beneficiary - he was born and grew up in Kufa Romana - a philanthropist, visionary and old hippie. At some point recently in his life, he decided he wanted to: start an artists' retreat in abandoned houses in his village and develop a program to improve Palestinian journalism.
Palestine is a small, would-that-it-were country, occupied by Israel since 1967. The north, far from Jerusalem, is unknown to many people. Now, occupied by Israel, it is even more cut off from other parts of Palestine and from the rest of the world, an area easy to neglect, to shrug your shoulders and not give another thought. "I wanted something here that would offer Palestinian artists in the north an opportunity to develop their art and to offer something to the children in the village," he told us.
So he decided to build an artists' retreat, a place where artists can come live in small restored houses and do their work: write, paint, sculpt, think, choreograph, compose, mime, whatever they needed time and space to do. The fee? Abed asks them to spend a few hours a week with the children in the village, sharing their art. "No one does this in the north. This isn't Jerusalem or Bethlehem." He might have said it was a new frontier. He sees value in supporting artists' developing their work without conditions. "Here," he's saying, "is a place you can focus on your work and sleep and eat without demands." They have to bring or buy their food and share their art in some way with the village children; the rest of the time is there to develop and create. There is no final exam.
His other project is to educate Palestinian journalists. "Palestinian journalism is not developed. Someone writes an article about an issue and calls it journalism." I don't remember his words but I do remember their essence. Local journalism is not not responsible or reliable. He wants to develop that sense of responsibility in journalism here and give journalists the tools and opportunities to use it. He has started an on-line program and many aspiring and current journalists have signed onto the project. He plans to expand it to Gaza soon.
This is a huge undertaking for one man, but I think he would say, "Someone has to start it. I know what good journalism is. I can initiate a program to develop it." This is his approach to a problem or a lack, a need, in his community. Go to work on it. He works alone. Khitam and I agreed he needed someone to publicise his work and raise money - so far he has used his own. He also needs volunteers to work with him in the village, reconditioning the houses for artists.
Abed's strength is his vision and his artistry and his journalistic knowledge. He wants to make something happen that will change his village and begin a change in Palestinian journalism. He'll work in the village for as long as he can, then go back to Cologne to work. "I go back and forth. Lately, I've been spending more time here." He looks like someone who has retired to paint in the village, not like he is attempting two remarkable and creative projects. I asked him if he made art. "Oh, I have. I painted for a while, then I stopped." I don't remember the other, maybe sculpting, and then he stopped that, too.
We had brought food, so Khitam suggested we share at his house. We sat in his garden, outside a stone house his parents had owned. He had been a two room house. He has added two rooms, improved the kitchen, added a bath. A lone light bulb hung on the branch of a tree above us. A cat prowled under the table and on the railing of the deck. "She just had a litter so she's suspicious of strangers and protective if another cat comes around." He made Arabic coffee after we ate and talked. We drank it together, packed up the leftovers and said good-bye. Saturday, the next day, he was hosting a group of Palestinian clowns who were coming to the village to perform for the kids. While he was showing us around the buildings for his project, he made a phone call: "I paid a guy to clean up the area where the clowns are performing tomorrow. He hasn't done it. I told him to do it tomorrow morning or give me the money back."
Fateh is the political party of the village. "No other party is going to come here. Fateh wouldn't let them. They used to say they were doing things for the village, for the kids, but they weren't. When I started programs and then had some parties for the kids, things began to change. Fateh hosted a big party for the kids and the kids loved it. I'm fine with that. If they'll do things for the kids, I'm all in favour of it, and I'm the only leftist in the village!" I asked him if he felt more German or Palestinian. "Both," he said.
We said good-bye and both of us said we'd like to come back and do something with the kids. Maybe we will.
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