Toujan, Duha and Sami and Khalil

Toujon, second from left, & family

 Khitam brought Toujan to Maine six years ago with Amneh, two Palestinian girls from old Jerusalem.  She was fourteen then.  That summer, I spoke with her mother on the phone and she said: "Al, when you are coming to visit us?"  I finally got there.

   Sunday, Khitam and I met Toujan in the old city, where, like Mohammed and Rafat, she lives, and she took us to her home.  Like Rafat's, it's hidden away.  Once inside, we were unaware of the hustle and bustle in the narrow byways outside.  She lives with her mother, a kindergarten teacher, her father, three brothers, an older sister and the sister's baby and husband.  A lot of people in a small apartment, but they make it work.  They're a happy close-knit bunch and were very hospitable to Khitam and me.  We were with them for three hours, which included a meal, of course: lebneh, two kinds of bread, mane'eesh (sort of an Arabic pizza with olive oil and zatar - thyme), tomatoes and cucumbers, hummus, baba ghanouj, homemade jam, olives, pickled veggies and more.  Afterwards, coffee, a few gifts, and we left.  They are a warm welcoming family - "Al, now you have two homes in Palestine: Khitam's and our house."  You want to be hungry whenever you visit a home here.

Sami & Duha

   Sunday I went to Ramallah to visit Duha and Sami.  Duha is a kindergarten teacher at the Friends School in Ramallah.  I met her when I did workshops there in 1998 and she and her two girls came to Maine that summer and stayed with me while Duha and Rana, then a seventh grader, participated in our theater summer camp.  Dana, the younger daughter, was too young so she came every day with Duha. 

Rena & some old guy

   They live in a beautiful home on the edge of Ramallah.  "I don't go out," Duha says.  "I take a taxi to school and after I come home."  She loves to cook, garden, teach kindergarten, work with the community and enjoy her family.  We talked and talked while she prepared "lunch," a large dinner anywhere else.  When Sami came home, we talked more and had a wonderful meal.  Even Rana, vastly changed from that seventh grader I knew, stopped by to say hello and then hurried back to work.

   I remember how Rana often wore a Chicago Bulls t-shirt and loved basketball.  She told me she still does!  Our daughter Wendy said: "Dad, if you want people to know the Palestinians and their story, the best thing you can do is have Rana stay here for a year, go to the junior high, wear her Bulls t-shirt and play basketball.  Then people will see that Palestinians are like us."  

   Duha and I talked long about Palestine and their life while she cooked.  She said a lot of wise things.  "We need open child raising, not closed.  And we need to pay attention to the children, listen to them and encourage them in school.  Too many teachers say the children are lazy, don't care, don't pay attention."  We agreed that a teacher's primary objective is the children's success, not their failure, proof that they're not trying or not smart.  She also talked about the way communities used to cooperate to get things done and how that tendency is disappearing, so she is working to bring back that spirit.  She wanted a public recreation space in the middle of town so she got the municipality to donate a space and then she began working with the community to raise money for the playground.  Now there is a marathon walk every year and the walkers get sponsors and donate the money to the new space, which is in the works.  She has also helped organize a voluntary green movement in the elementary schools.

   I have to take a moment, here, to write about olive oil.  Duha uses fresh ingredients: spices she grows or finds, vegetables she grows or from the farmer, and olives and olive oil she purchases as soon after their preparation as possible.  I tasted two fresh olive oils and each was DElicious, a flavor unlike any I  

fresh olive oil, hmmm...

have tasted before!  The oils are still a little cloudy because they are so fresh.  One is from a village near Jerusalem, the other from Beir Zeit ("zeit" means olive oil), near Ramallah.  They were rich and peppery.  I could have had nothing but fresh Arabic bread and olive oil, a glass or two of wine and maybe a piece of fruit and I would have been very well served!

   Sami came home while Duha was showing me her garden.  I had met him earlier on this visit when Khitam and I joined them and two others for dinner in Ramallah.  Sami had not come to the States with Duha and his daughters because he was in Israeli prison at the time.  He is a warm, bright and articulate, very interesting man, and I feel lucky to be getting to know him at last.  He is also a Palestinian patriot, and in the past, a non violent activist for Palestinian independence.  He was imprisoned by the Israelis several times because of his activities for an independent Palestine, until after the first Intifada, which ended in 1991 with the Madrid accords.  He told me a story I'll pass on.
   When the Palestinians who were in the Israeli prison with Sami heard about Madrid, they got very excited because they thought - they hoped - it meant they would be out of prison in a matter of days.  One day the commander of the guards called Sami over.  "Sami, why are they so excited?" he asked.  He spoke with Sami because Sami could translate for him and the Palestinians.  "Because they think they're going to get out soon and be free."  "Sami," said the commander, "I'll tell you a story."  This is the story.
   One night, a mother went to bed with her baby next to her.  In the middle of the night, the baby started to cry.  The mother endured it for a while, then moved to the other side of the bed.  The baby continued to cry and the mother endured it for a while, then pulled the covers over her head.  The baby continued to cry and the mother endured it for a while, then put a pillow over her head and then the covers.  The baby continued to cry and the mother couldn't get back to sleep so finally she got up and fed the baby.  "Sami," the guard said, "we are the mother and you are the baby.  We're not going to give you your freedom so easily, not until you make us give it to you."
   "Al, that's when I knew we were not strong enough.  A freedom fighter has to take prison as a normal part of fighting for freedom.  Of course you'll be put in prison.  You have to accept that.  When I went into prison, I went with a smile on my face.  When I came out of prison, I had the same smile on my face.  And I am never violent, never!  I was not violent in the streets and I was not violent in prison.  I don't want to hurt anybody.  I want to work for freedom for my country.  But when I got out of prison, Duha and I talked for three months, and I decided to leave the movement and start working.  And you know, Al, I know now I made the right decision."
   When I left Duha and Sami late that afternoon to have a coffee in Ramallah with Rafat and Ahmad and their friend Ehab (I thought it was spelled Ahad because it is pronounced that way), I told Duha and Sami what a good day it had been for me to spend with them and they said: "Remember Al, you have two homes now in Palestine: Khitam's and ours.  You are always welcome."
   After coffee and an Arabic sweet with the boys in Ramallah, they drove me back to Khitam's in Arram.  When we got to the check point, traffic was backed up and hardly moving.  That, of course, is when I realized I needed a bathroom.  As we inched forward, I was reminded yet again how "inconvenient" the check points are, and my Palestinian friends pass them every day, going and coming.