Last one

Khitam's nephew Inas, brother Khalid, sisters Amira & Zada

Umar & Nasra

   This will be my last post on this blog until I go "back to the Middle East" again, which I will.  I have a lot to think about, and, as most experience teaches us, figure out what I learned about Palestine and Israel and myself.

Khitam & Ahmad

   Images I remember...
   Khitam and Ahmad at their party taught me how much energy and joy there is in these warm wonderful people, Khitam, Ahmad and their Palestinian family and friends.  The celebration of their marriage was a party like I can't remember.  The warmth of the applause and hugs and smiles when they entered the room.  Nothing was choreographed.  People just knew and felt!  And Khitam's and Ahmad's smiles gave back, returned the warmth.  The applause and hugs lasted ten or fifteen minutes and then the dancing began and went on and on before, during and after eating traditional and delicious food: hummus, baba ghanouj, tabouli, other salads, fresh shrimp, fresh whole fish caught locally, chicken, Arabic sweets and more.  I was included in this festival of family and celebration as a part of the family and know now that I am and had better behave when I return!  I'd also better improve my Arabic.

The wall...or is it a prison...

Sami & Duha

   The wall.  It imprisons.  It keeps people in and it keeps people out.  It is degrading and dehumanizing, on both sides.  It makes ordinary people who have done nothing wrong prisoners and guards.  In its stolid inaction, it acts to keep people from communicating with each other, from discovering the humanity in "the other."  Both sides house "the other" because of the wall. As long as the wall and the check points reflect the attitude of the occupier and as long as there is an occupier, there will be no understanding and there will probably not be any peace.  Remember Ronald Reagan's: "Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev"?  I doubt there will be any significant advance in an Israeli - Palestinian movement toward peace and ultimately, a settlement, before the wall is at least pierced if not torn down.

Toujan & family

   People: Khitam and Ahmad; her sisters, Muheba, Naseba, Amira and Zada - I didn't meet Subhiya; and her brothers, Mohammed, Khalid, Yousef, Umar and Wahib; former students, Rafat, Mohammed and Toujan, and Rafat's and Toujan's families.  Yousef Awad in Jenin; Duha and Sami in Ramallah; Haneen, living and working in Ramallah; Inas and Hanade, Nasri and Zuzu, Suraya and Ali, and more.  All of them were warm and welcoming.  Many are working hard to change the state of Palestinians.  As disappointed as they are in the present, they didn't waste a lot of time grumbling; instead, they were welcoming and they were busy with their lives, their children, their work, their future.  I can't say enough about Palestinian hospitality.  I can only advise visitors to be hungry whenever you visit a Palestinian!
   I remember reading in T. E. Lawrence's SEVEN PILLERS OF WISDOM; Auda's "hospitality was sweeping; except to very hungry souls, inconvenient."  He was referring to Auda abu Tayi, the great warrior of the Howeitats in the Jordanian desert, during World War I; he could have been referring to my hosts on this trip.
   If you need anything, anything at all, just ask, if you dare.  Your host will find a way of getting you what you need, even if it means going way out of his or her way.  Don't be surprised at the response to your "thank you."  "For what?"  You try to explain how much you appreciate the trouble your host went to for you.  "Trouble?" he or she will ask with a shrub.  "It was no trouble.  Please."  Of course your host got you what you needed.  Of course.  "Mush miskalee": no problem.
   I look forward to seeing many of these people again in Palestine.  I hope also to host some of them here in Maine.  Several have lived, studied and worked in the States.  

A friend of Ahmad's "sits in" on the oud

Khitam's niece Suraya & her husband, Ali

Iman ululating at the party

   48 MINUTES FOR PALESTINE, the 48 minute play I saw at Ashtar's theater in Ramallah, a two character drama with two actors dealing with displacement and loss, a powerful piece.  I talked with Iman, Ashtar's Artistic Director, about bringing the show to the States for a limited New England tour, limited because I am no impresario.  We talked about Ashtar's doing some workshops here, with young actors and with adults, professional or amateur or just people interested in theater as an agent for social change; and about my doing a workshop program in Ramallah, with teens from here and there.  Iman came to Khitam's and Ahmad's party, danced up a storm and at one point, took the micro-
phone to congrat-
ulate them with words and by ululating.
   I will remember the young IDF (Israeli Defense Force) soldiers at the check points who show no emotion and control the coming and going of Palestinians, most of whom are older than they and have lived in Palestine longer than they have been alive.  Only a handful of them showed any emotion as we passed through the check points.  I wonder if that helps them avoid considering the humanity of the people they are controlling.  We were only stopped once by soldiers at a check point where Khitam had never been stopped before.  There were four of us in the car: three Americans and Khitam, who is probably often taken for an Israeli because she is fair skinned.  A young woman stopped us with a small gesture, took our passports, asked a few questions, then took our passports.  We sat there for twenty minutes, no explanation, then a young man in the IDF returned the passports with no explanation.  "Have a nice night," he said.  We drove off and no one said anything until we got to our destination.  Palestinians are subject to this and much worse every day, never knowing when they will be stopped or for how long.  Ours was a simple delay and it was still unpleasant, as much for what it meant as for the inconvenience.

   The Dead Sea: floating on it, watch others in the water, including several conservative Muslim women in head scarf and neck to ankles clothes.  Men, including the rotund Russian immigrants, covered in greenish mud.  The heat and the salt, the sting when a little gets in your eyes and the relief when you rinse it in the cool running fresh water from a spring.

Mazhnoon bushes in Jericho

   The fruit in Jericho, the size of Jericho, no longer a sleepy little town, though Khitam says it is now a "sleepy bigger city."  And the lovely mazhnoon bushes: "mazhnoon" means "crazy."
   Yousef Awad's work with youth in Jenin: he raises money and organizes workshops in arts for young people: music, theater, drawing and painting, writing.  He also sets up workshops for adults in community organizing.  He and his wife and kids live together in a village not far from Jenin.  For too long, after the wall was built, his wife lived on the other side of the wall.  Recently, they have been able to reunite, though his wife's moving to "this side of the wall" is likely to result in her losing her Israeli citizenship.  Before the wall, this was not an issue.
   I will remember the settlements that have multiplied beyond anything I could have imagined before visiting.  Former President Sharon said they would forever alter the face of the land and make a unified Palestine pretty much impossible.  That is what is happening.  That is why many Palestinians are deciding one country instead of two is the only solution, unless, as often demanded, Israelis pull out of many of the settlements and trade the space of settlements that are allowed to remain in the West Bank area for other land.  If there is a two state solution anytime soon that retains all the settlements, there will be no tenable Palestinian state.

The Wailing Wall and Dome of the Rock

   And I will wonder what is going to happen and look forward to returning to Palestine to see friends and do some work.  And I will be eager - I'm already eager! - to learn how to do these posts so that what gets published is what I am seeing, with no script disappearing under the photos I post.
   I have a lot to learn about posting and a lot to learn about Palestine and Israel.    

Last post to Mr. Ridge's class

Ahmad & Khitam dancing later at the party

Ahmad & Khitam entering the party

My friends Khitam and Ahmad got married a couple of months ago in a simple ceremony and then celebrated their wedding last night at a big party in Khitam's home town, Acre.  I wrote about Acre in my last post.  This time I'm going to write a little about the party and post a lot of pictures.  Here goes.

   The party started with all of us going to a nice restaurant on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Khitam and Ahmad and Khitam's family had arranged to have the party.  We all got there around 7:30, when we thought they would arrive, but they didn't arrive until 8:00, when everyone was there.  I think they planned it that way!

Half of the musical combo

   When they came in, the musical combo played some Arab boogie music and everyone clapped while they walked between us into the restaurant.

The leader of the combo played the oud, an old instrument like a lute or a guitar that is traditionally strummed with an eagle's feather.  There were six in the group and they placed wonderful Arab music that kept everyone dancing for hours!  Arab dancing is fun but it looks easier than it is.  While shaking your hips, you also use your hands almost to paint pictures in the air while your feet do a sometimes complicated step.

Umar. #4 of Khitam's brothers

   Khitam, my friend who married Ahmad, has a very large family and she is the youngest at 48 years old.  She has five brothers: Muhammed, Khalid, Yousef, Umar and Wahib.  She has six sisters: Sa'ira, Moheba, Naseba, Amira, Subhiya and Zada.  Before the party, I had met all of the brothers except Umar; I had met two of the sisters: Naseba and Zada.  All of the brothers came to the party and three of the sisters came, so I got to meet Umar, the only brother I hadn't met, and Moheba and Amira, two of the sisters I hadn't met.

Zada, #6 sister

Zada is really the strongest of the six sisters, although she is next to the youngest; Khitam is the youngest.  Four of the sisters are widows; they have lost their husbands.  Some didn't come to the party because of sickness or other problems.  It was fun to meet the ones I didn't already know.

   The first one I met was Zada, who made delicious meals for us the first two nights we were in Acre. She is the youngest, except for Khitam; the six sisters were born before any brothers, and then after the five brothers, came Khitam.  So, here they are.

Amira, sister # 4

Wahib, brother #5

I'll put up photos of some of them and then a family photo that includes the people who were there when I took the picture.  Some had already left the party.

Yousef, #3 brother

   My favorite dance of the party, and the dancing went on and on and on, was the dance when the five brothers made a circle around Khitam and then the rest of the people made a circle around the brothers and each brother had a turn dancing with Khitam.  Everyone else clapped in rhythm to the music as Khitam danced with each brother.  The brothers, no matter how old or how they were feeling, had a great time dancing with Khitam, who is a very good dancer, and she and they loved it.  So did the rest of us as we clapped and clapped and watched the brothers and their youngest sister celebrate her marriage with this happy dance.  

   There were 140 people at the party and most of them were family!  I asked one person I met: "Are a lot of these people part of the family?"  She said most of them were.  "Wow," I said, "pretty big family."  "Oh, this is just brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces and uncles and aunts.  When we get the whole family together, it's much bigger than this."  Now that, I thought, must be SOME party!

Kitam, Ahmad, 5 brothers & 2 sisters

   The food was delicious and we were sitting right next to the Mediterranean Sea.  It was a wonderful evening to celebrate the marriage of my friends, Ahmad and Khitam.

   Tomorrow, Sunday, is my last full day here in Palestine.  Monday, before you get out of bed, I leave on a plane for the States.  I'll be back in Maine late Monday night and I'll see you later in the week.

   I hope you're having fun and learning something!

   Grampa Al

Oops!

Just a very quick apology for flaws in my posts, especially the last one.
  
   I don't yet know how to correct the photos overlapping the text.
   I had to rush-post the last one about the party and didn't have time to proof it.  Sorry about the typos and
   bizarre spellings!

The Party

Muhammed, brother #1

Lael "tangoing" with Khaled,  brother #2

Ahmad & Khitam, dancing

Amira, # 4

Ahmad & Khitam arriving

  The party's not over; it has started.  The party, that is, of Ahmad and Khitam's life together.  Actually, it started a while ago, but it officially started last night with a party of over 100 at a local restaurant overlooking the Acca bay of the Mediterranean.  As you can see, they were a handsome couple.
   What's a Palestinian celebration like?  There was a Palestinian combo playing oud, keyboard, dirbeke (the hand drum essential in Middle Eastern music; I have no idea how to spell it), and an instrument like an oversized tambourine.  When Khitam and Ahmad arrived, most guests were there.  The combo played, everyone lined up to form a path for them to enter between.  Everyone clapped with the music.  Khitam and Ahmad greeted people the was Obama does in Congress after a major speech to both houses.

Fish dish

   On the tables are a Palestinian mezza: hummus, baba ghanouj, tabouli, an arugala salad, fatoush (a salad with crisp Arabic bread croutons), shrimp, and a dish or two I've forgotten.  There is also wine, soda, water, and lots of Arabic bread.  This is followed, later, by a main course of either a whole fish, grilled fresh from the sea, or chicken.

Umar, brother #4

   Most of the people there were family.  All five brothers made it and three of the six sisters.  One was with a son in the hospital and two others didn't come.  The five men - Muhammad, Khalid, Yousef, Umar and Wahib - all had their families there.  The families of the three sisters who were there - Moheba, Amira and Zada - were also present.  Invite them to the Theater Project and we have half a house!
   For the rest of the evening, it was eating, dancing, greeting family members and friends and talking.  Limited by faulty Arabic,  any extended conversation I had was in English, and there were lots of English speakers there.
   The music was Arabic music, the dancing mostly Arabic in style, which meant neither ballroom nor boogie down.  Women and men danced with each other and in groups.  You might start with a partner and then move to another partner then into a group.

Khitam dancing

Sometimes it was hard to tell who you were dancing with and it didn't matter.  The movement is a combination of belly dancing, sinuous hand gestures, and very loose hips.  As when I tried learning some Latin American moves, I had trouble contacting different parts of my body to get them to move in concert with each other with any sense of rhythm, and as with my Arabic, people were more than tolerant.

Yousef, brother #3

   In the beginnning,when Khitam danced, people clapped, rhythmically.  Later, there were a couple of specific dances that were for the women, although some men eventually joined the circle.  This dance only happened a couple of times.  The most exciting dance to me was the one when Khitam danced with each of her brothers.  If you've been following the blog, you know that Yousef, the third brother who spent fifteen years in an Israeli prison and the night before we met him had been detained with others in a bus for two and a half hours at an Israeli check point, looked serious and not happy in a photo I think I posted with Khitam.  Look at him at the party in the "brothers dance.

Zada, sister #6

   There was magic in this dance.  There was one time when Khalid, brother #2, was dancing with Khitam.  He "got emotional," began to cry, and Yousef came over to cut in.  Khalid didn't want him to cut in and Yousef looked angry and then stood back and watched.  Later he cut in.  Khitam explained this morning that Khalid often gets emotional and Yousef worries about him. so he tried to cut in so Khalid wouldn't cry.  Khitam, not Khalid, told him to wait and Yousef responded, "No.  He'll get upset."  Khitam told him to wait, so he did.  "When Yousef sees Khalid upset, he gets upset, and he doesn't want to do that," Khitam said.  How easily we misunderstand what we see!

Suraya, Khitam's niece, and Ali, her husbandAdd caption

Moheba, sister #2 & Khitam

   The hospitality offered visitors "from away," as we say in Maine, was warm and sometimes playful.  Lael, who met Khitam in Jerusalem on a visit five or six years ago, was "tangoed" around the room by Khalid.  Several people said to me: "Oh, you're Al.  Khitam's has told us..."  Claudia, who lives in California but met Khitam in Jerusalem long before I knew her, knew several of the people there and was welcomed as an old friend.  And if it was people who had no idea who any of us was, they were just as warm.

A few words for Khitam & Ahmad

   I said to someone: "A lot of these people are family, aren't they," rhetorically, and she responded that they were.  "Big family," I said.  "Oh," she replied, "this is just brothers and sisters and their families.  If we had the rest here..."  This morning we talked about how
   Time to go.  I'm afraid I'll lose this blog if I don't post it now.  More later, if you're not bored with this...or even if you are.

Mr. Ridge's class Blog from Grampa Al

Anyone want nuts?

Famous mosque of Jezzar Pasha

Whose car is this?

   Do you have a cat?  There are a lot of cats in Acre, which the Arabs call "Acca," and the Israelis call "Acco."  The city must be confused!  If it could speak, what would it say its name is?

The old city from the sea

Looking into the old city

   Acre is a very old city.  Back in the twelfth century, Crusaders England,  France and Germany came here to capture the city .        Crusaders were knights - fighters - who believed that if they went to "the holy land," the land where Christ was born and crucified, and got it back from the Arab Muslims who controlled it, they would go to heaven.  Of course it was also a "holy land" for Muslims, as it was for Jews.  The first Crusaders captured Acre, then the Arabs recaptured it and then the next Crusaders captured it, and eventually, in the sixteenth century, the Ottoman fighters - the Ottomans were Turks, the people of what is today Turkey - captured Acre and the rest of this area, including Jerusalem.  And on it goes.  This is an area that has been alive in history for over 2000 years!  The old city of Acre, where I am staying with friends, is over 350 years old.  Here are some pictures of Acre from the sea and from inside the old city.  There's a new city, too, outside the walls that are 350 years old, and it's not so different from cities you know, except they speak Hebrew and Arabic and a little English.

A narrow street

   Imagine, some of the buildings that have apartments like the one I'm staying in are over 300 years old.  Others are 200 years old.  When they were built, there wasn't plumbing, but now there is.  There weren't electricity, but now there is.  There wasn't television or computers or cars.  You wouldn't want to have a big car in old Acre.  It wouldn't be able to squeeze through some of the streets!

Want some fish?

    There are also markets, like there are in old Jerusalem.  Do you remember my showing some of those pictures in my blogs from Jerusalem?  Here they have old markets, too.  You wander through them looking for whatever you want or need: a pot for cooking?  a new scarf?  maybe some pomegranate juice or orange juice or some nuts mixed with honey or an Arabic sweet - have you ever tasted baclava?  Maybe you're shopping for dinner and need a chicken and some rice and some vegetables.  All these you can find in the markets of the old city.  This is the way people shopped before supermarkets!

Inside the Jezzar Pasha Mosque
There is a famous old mosque in the Acre, the old city.  A mosque is the place where Muslims go to worship, like a church for Christians and a temple for Jews.  This mosque is called the Jezzar Pasha Mosque, named after Jezzar Pasha, a famous Muslim leader in the city.  It has a tall minaret, the tower next to a mosque from the top of which a muezzin calls people to prayer, five times a day.  The best muezzins have good voices and sound like singers when they call people to prayer.  Now, many mosques use a recording and loud speakers for the call to prayer instead of having a person climb to the top of the minaret five times a day for the call to prayer.
Okay, everybody, that's today's blog.  I have to get ready for the big party.  I'll do one or two more blogs for the class before I come back.  I'll see you sometime soon after I get back to ask if you have any questions.  I hope then to know the name of a school and teacher whose class wants to exchange messages with you on the internet.  I've asked a teacher I know to try to find a fifth grade!

Acre or Acca or Acco

Entering old Acre

   Welcome to Acre, an ancient and a modern city in Israel on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea above Haifa, a bustling port city.  Acre is called "Acca" by the Palestinians, "Acco" by the Israelis.  It was a Palestinian city before the war in 1948 when Israeli troops attacked and took Acre, and 13,500 of the 17,400 Palestinian residents fled.

Mosque of Jezzar Pasha

   I'm staying in my friend Khitam's family house, which is really an apartment, in the old city, Khitam, Ahmad and some of Khitam's friends.  We're a little crowded but I think that I, as "the elder," have the best space for sleeping.  I also catch the morning sun at around 5:30 which means an early rise unless I'm very tired.  It also warms the room and lets in the sounds of this 18th century waking up.

Inside the mosque

   This city goes way back.  It was a major city of the Muslim world before the Crusaders take it in 1104.  Saladin, the great Muslim leader, took it back in 1187 and then the Richard I of England led Crusaders back to conquest in 1191.  The Knights Hospitallers took over the city in 1229 and in 1517, the Ottomans conquered the city and it became part of the Ottoman Empire which lasted until the First World War.
   It's a great city to wander in, day or night.  During the day, there are the old markets, many of them now stocked with goods from China!  However, there are still sweets and pomegranate juice freshly squeezed, and hummus and baba ghanouj  (crushed eggplant and tahini) and scarves and...and...  It's not a big market, compared to Jerusalem and Damascus and Aleppo, but it's lively and very "old Arab."

Old Acre/Acca

   The old city is still a Palestinian city, with over 90% of the population Palestinians.  It has the feel of an Arab city.  The streets of this 18th century city are a warren of turns and doorways and shops.  In 1750, the walls of the city were begun, and later in the same century, Jezzar Pasha, a powerful and popular leader, began developing the city and the mosque bearing his name was built.

City walls in the old harbor

   The narrow streets are busy with shoppers, and, in the summer, with tourists, although it is very hot in the summer.  With the sea nearby and a modern city outside the 18th century walls of the old city, Israeli tourists also come to visit.  We have seen buses of young people wandering inside the walls.

Fish in the market

Two boys putting out a net in the harbor

   The fish here is fresh and good.  Last night, we went out to eat at one of Khitam's favorite restaurants nearby.  We had fresh whole fish grilled, calamari lightly friend and shrimp grilled. It was all delicious.  Of course we had hummus and baba ghanouj again and four kinds of salad.  Khitam's sister Zada, who is in her mid sixties and a widow of twelve years, joined us.  Zada is a haji, which means she has made the pilgrimage to Mecca.  She wears a head scraf and a long dress that covers her to her shoes.  She is a strong handsome woman and sometimes I catch a clear resemblance between Khitam and Zada.  Zada is the youngest of five sisters.  There are also six brothers, so this is not a small family!  Yesterday in the market, we met four of her brothers, one of whom I had met Wednesday.  More on the family after tonight's wedding party, a small affair of 150 or so.

Wahib's shop

A show with nuts and stuff

   Because this is a walled and ancient city, you are constantly reminded of the past.  You can still see the city walls from the 18th century with their dry moat (a moat without water between the outer wall and an inner wall) and everywhere you look there are remnants of the past mixed in with the present.  I got interested in history by wandering through cities like Acre.  Before I went to the Middle East right after college 150 years ago, I thought history was a bunch of columns that you named "Doric, Ionic or Corinthian" and some dates.  Then I learned that history was stories of people who lived somewhere and if they lived here, they ate dates.
   Here you see it and feel it.  History isn't dry.  It may become dry in the classroom.  It requires imagination.  "What was it like then?  What did people do?  How did they live?  Why did they fight?"  Stories.  The buildings, the temples, the remains of markets, those are the reminders that people shopped and ate and studied and played and made art and sometimes made war and then started over again.  If we studied history more as the story of man, would we learn how to change our behavior so that we don't keep destroying the civilization we built?

Wedding photos in old Acre

   People come to the old part of the city not only to look and shop but also to get married or, in the case of the couple on the right, to be photographed.  We congratulated them - "mabrouk" - but they didn't understand the term.  A shopkeeper said they weren't the couple celebrating being married; they just came to be photographed.  They lived and were married outside the old city.  When we walked out of our "alley," we noticed a police car had come with them.  They were Jewish and Khitam guessed the police came to make sure nothing happened to them.  Khitam shook her head at that.  "What's going to happen to them here?  Nothing."
   That night, there was a very long very loud wedding party in the square for a couple from the old city.  The music blasted and teenagers in the States would have recognized the vibe.  What they would have found strange was the men sitting on one side of the square, the women on the other, and only the women dancing.  Everybody was having a great time.  The style was different but the celebration had the same "vibe."  And the music?  Too loud, as it would have often been in the States.