It's later, Monday, Israel's Memorial Day. The sun is out, the temperature is probably in the mid-sixties, higher in the direct sun. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
I'm still waking up at 4:30 to the dueling muezzins from the neighborhood mosques, but I'm getting back to sleep faster and rising early, well rested. The dogs have shortened and muted their early morning prayers. Khitam says about the early calls to prayer: "Why do they go on, reciting the Koran? They're supposed to call people to prayer, that's enough. Then be quiet and let the rest of us sleep!" She prays through her work and whoever's up there must see that, nod and smile.
Saturday, after the lunch I mentioned in yesterday's blog, rewritten this morning, Khitam and I headed for Bethlehem and were soon there. We stopped in yet another Armenian pottery shop that she likes, got a sales pitch from an inebriated fellow who may or may not work there, then had tea and picked out a few small items and had a brief but impassioned discussion with the young man who gave us a good break in the price of our items. He has relatives in Syria and hopes the US will stay out. "Look," he says, "Sadam Hussein killed 30,000 people, the Americans 100,000 and look at Iraq now. Of course Assad's a bad man, but which is worse if you look at the results in Iraq?"
We then drove to the edge of a huge refugee camp where The Edward Said National Music Conservatory of Music was presenting the concert version of Bizet's "Carmen." Over sixty young Palestinians and young musicians residing in Palestine comprised the orchestra, and forty-five singers from Switzerland's Choeur St. Michel, Fribourg and young Palestinians were the chorus. And what a wonderful concert it was, performed in a beautiful new auditorium that seats over 3,000. There were few empty seats and after an introduction that was well-meaning but too long and in two languages - Arabic and English, the crowd settled down, almost, and the concert began. In less than a minute the hall was hushed and the applause at the end of each piece was enthusiastic and grateful. Khitam and I felt that by the end of the evening, when the crowd was on its feet applauding, an audience that was at least 75% Palestinian on the edge of a huge refugee camp in an occupied land, had been moved and united by the gift of music delivered well by young national musicians. We were both tired but we smiled the whole hour's drive home.
Then, last night, Khitam's nephew Inas, stopped in and spent the night. He has just switched jobs from the CEO of a tech firm hiring Palestinian engineers who are well trained but unemployed because of tribal discrimination to CEO of a new NGO aimed at finding employment for 10,000 unemployed Palestinian. The project is supported by an international Jewish foundation and the
government; I don't know if there are other sponsors. Inas started in December and now has sixty or seventy people working for him, setting up training centers and looking for job opportunities. This, he believes, is a rare opportunity to support the economic development of Palestinians.
Though he is excited by his new job, excited and sometimes exhausted, he spoke more about a remarkable music program in the area he lives, north of Haifa. In a fairly small community with a lot of marginal living, a philanthropist has started a music program for young people. The program includes lessons, band and orchestra work, music theory and concerts. Each year, musicians from the program's staff, scour the area for young people who are interested and select fifty for full scholarship work in this program. Inas and Hanady's three daughters take lessons in the program and the second daughter is in the symphony. Four young people from the symphony played in the orchestra Khitam and heard the night before! Inas may be more excited about this program than about anything else in his life other than his family, and listening to him talk about it, I can understand why. Having heard the ESNCM orchestra play the Carmen concert, I can't imagine not being excited about such a program for young people.
Yesterday, after Khitam's work with elementary and middle school teachers in a lovely old building on the edge of the old city, we headed to a restaurant on the edge of Jerusalem to meet Rafat for lunch. Rafat is a young Palestinian, now twenty-five, who spent a summer in Maine, living on the Bald Head Road and attending our teen summer program at The Theater Project. He has a full time job, is finishing his college education, wants to go on for an MA and wants to come to the States again. We had a big and delicious lunch, way too much food, after which Rafat and Khitam shared a narghile and Rafat treated. For the whole lunch! He would have none of our paying it or sharing the cost. Typical Palestinian hospitality, even from a young man who should be saving for his own expenses.
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