Family visits, for Mr. Ridge's class

Toujon's family and a strange visiter

   What's a family visit like here?  You want to be very hungry!  With my friend Khitam, I visited Toujan's family in old Jerusalem.  Toujan came to The Theater Project's summer teen camp six years ago, when she was 14.  Now she's 20.  (I'll bet you figured that out.)  This was like visiting Rafat's family, except Toujan's family is bigger.  In the picture, Toujan is between her mother and her sister.  Also there are two of her three brothers, her mother and her father.  Her other brother, the oldest, is taking the picture so the guy in the red shirt can be in it.
   Toujan's mother is a kindergarten teacher, and I don't know what her father does.  Her oldest brother works for Avis Rent-a-Car in Jerusalem and the next brother, the one next to his father on the right, works for Hertz-Rent-a-Car, so they get into some friendly arguments.  The youngest brother, on the left, is finishing high school.
   For "breakfast," a late breakfast, we had Arabic bread and another, harder bread, mane'eesh - something like a pizza with olive oil and thyme on it, yummy! - hummus, baba ghanouj, homemade jam, flafel (deep fried small vegetable burgers), cheeses, olives, carrots and peppers and tomatoes and cucumbers, pickled beets, and several other dishes.  We sat around a table and helped ourselves to anything and everything we wanted.  After breakfast, we had Arabic coffee, which is very strong and very good for people who like coffee, and then Khitam and I had to go.  We had been there for three hours and we'd had a great time.  Before we left, they gave us presents.  "Oh, no," I started to say, but they would hear none of it and we had to take their gifts.  It's part of the hospitality of a Palestinian home.

Dami & Duha

   Sunday, I visited another home, Duha's and Sami's in Ramallah.  Duha, that's a woman's name, is a mother and a kindergarten teacher whom I first met in 1998, when I did some workshops at her school.  You pronounce her name, doe'-ha.  That summer, she and their two daughters, Rana - pronounced rah'-na - and Dana - like "Rana" but with a d - came to stay with me in Arrowsic and participate in the summer teen camp at The Theater Project.  Rana was 13 then, so she could be in the teen program.  Dana was too young so she came with her mom and watched.  Duha helped us teach and learned some games and exercises that she could take back to her school in Ramallah, where they live.

Rana

   It's a new house on the edge of town, away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Ramallah which has grown to maybe three times the size it was when I was there twelve years ago.  Duha was cooking lunch for us - she's a terrific cook - and while we were waiting for Sami - pronounced like our "Sammy" - we talked about teaching and living in a community and about her kids, who aren't "kids" any more.  I remember them the way they were the last time I saw them.  Now Rana is 25 and works in Ramallah after finishing college a few years ago, and Dana is 21, I think, and a senior at Guilford College in North Carolina.  While I was visiting, Rana came home to say hello and WOW, had she changed from the young girl who liked to wear a Chicago Bulls t-shirt when she and her mom and sister were visiting in Arrowsic.  She's now about as tall as I am and looks like this, and she told me she still loves basketball!
   Rana couldn't stay for lunch, but Sami, who came home from work while Duha was showing me her garden, and Duha and I had a wonderful lunch of chicken prepared a special Palestinian way, and a grain the texture of rice, but it's a Palestinian grain, and vegetables.  Hmmm, delicious!  In her garden, Duha showed me some flowers that she had taken from her grandmother's garden, who was 99 at the time.  She died recently at the age of 100, but she is still very much alive in Duha's memory.
   We had pomegranate for desert.  Have you ever tasted a pomegranate?  It's a large fruit that you break open and you eat the seeds - I think they're seeds - which look like little glass beads.  Duha broke two open and emptied the seeds in a dish and then gave each of us a little dish.  Again, delicious.  Duha said her grandmother said that in each pomegranate, God made one pomegranate seed a special seed, so she always makes sure she eats all the seeds, and if one spills somewhere, she finds it and eats it, because it might be the one God chose!  She thinks that was a way her grandmother made sure she didn't waste any of the fruit.  See how people can use stories to teach lessons?

delicious fresh olive oil - YUM!

   Have you ever dipped bread in olive oil and then eaten the bread, trying not to drip the olive oil on your clothes?  I LOVE olive oil, and at Duha's and Sami's I had some that was very very fresh and it was DElicious.  Oh my, if you like olive oil, you would have LOVED this oil.  Duha got it from farmers who grow the olives and press them locally.
   Duha had two different olive oils, one from a village outside Jerusalem and the other from Beir Zeit ("zeit" means olive) which is near Ramallah and the home of the university where Duha and Sami met.  I tried both, dipping fresh Arabic bread in them.  Oh, my, they were soooooooooooo good.  They were cloudy because they were so fresh and, after all, they're made of pressed olives, just like cider is made from pressed apples.  I would have been happy with a meal of fresh bread, those olive oils and some fruit or a salad.
   When I left Duha's and Sami's late that afternoon, they said: "Remember, now you have two homes in Palestine, Khitam's and our house.  You are always welcome here."  That's also what Toujan's mother said when Khitam and I left their home.  The hospitality here is very warm.  It's also a good idea to remember to be very hungry if you are visiting a Palestinian home because they won't let you go without feeding you,  and the food is awfully good!
   Today I go to Acca ("Acre" on a map, north of Tel Aviv on the coast of Israel) to Khitam's family home.  I'll be there with Khitam and her friend and family until Saturday and then come back here.  If they have wireless there, I'll write you another couple of blogs.  The next one will be about Khitam working with kindergarten teachers.
   Drink lots of water and read a book.  Oh, and have fun!  Grampa Al