Nasser and Badu'

  It's clear I'm not going to master blogging on my iPad.  I reread my last blog, the one with the gap before the radiator tale, and noticed funny typos like:
   "relier" for "relief";
   "talked among the crashing waves" instead of "walked";
    the faux Italian phrase: "to a meet us":
   "ran out" instead of "rang out";
                                                      all in a daze work!
   Yesterday I met Nasser, a social worker and counselor in the neighborhood school a few blocks from Khitam's house.  Nasser is a devout Muslim about 5'8," stocky with a short white-flecked beard and sparkling eyes.  He's warm and open.  His English is good, better than he thinks it is, and he is not hesitant to use it.   In the short walk to the school, responding to my get-acquainted questions, he told me a lot about himself.  He grew up in a refugee camp in Bethlehem and has spent eight and a half years in Israeli and Palestinian prisons for demonstrating against the occupation.  He was first imprisoned for a few weeks when he was fifteen.  Later, in prison for a longer stay, he read widely, learned about non-violent resistance and learned to accept those who are different from him in their beliefs.  "I learned the Christians, like me, believe in God and in many of the same rules for living; and Israelis are people, like we are.  I learned not to hate."  He also taught himself better English.
   His work and work ethic are remarkable.  He is a counselor at the neighborhood school with over 400 students through middle school.  He also does counseling three days a week in Bethlehem in the camp: addiction, sexual abuse and family issues.  He runs an after school program, a summer camp and he is educating young people to help with social issues in the camp, all of this with no pay.  He is paid for his school counseling job.  When people say they can contribute to the summer camp, he asks for materials, only taking money when he can use it to buy lunch for kids who can't afford it.
   He started a drama program for kids with problems: family issues, abuse, learning disabilities, hyper activity.  We worked with twenty-five middle school kids, and they get it, know that he cares about them and listens to them.  It's middle school, so they're full of beans, but they listen to him and respond, if not the first or second time, the third, and he doesn't raise his voice.  He gets them with his eyes and his "I'm waiting" pauses.  They're working on two pieces to perform on the day Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are recognized.  One piece is mimed and tells about people trying to get through a check point, ultimately climbing the wall and celebrating its coming down.  The other, with dialogue, is a scene in Israeli court.  But are clever, patriotic and impassioned AND non-violent.  Working with Nasser and the kids was a treat I get to repeat tomorrow, my last day here.
   With typical Palestinian hospitality, one of the teachers invited me to join Nasser and others after school to celebrate the birth of a new baby in his family.  He lives in Badu', about an hour from the school.  We piled into three cars, drove the half hour to Ramallah - half hour because of traffic, not distance - then transferred to a local bus, vans that travel set routes throughout Palestine and cost seventy-five cents to a dollar for a ride almost anywhere.  The bus ride to Badu' took another half hour.  Our host, the father and a teacher at the school, welcomed us into a room with maybe fifteen men, all teachers, sitting around the periphery, all but Nasser, the new father's brother-in-law and I smoking.  Twenty minutes later, some of the men left to pray.  Nasser smiled and asked me if I wanted to pray, and others who weren't praying laughed along with Nasser.  We'd been there less than an hour when the new father invited us in to eat: "Ahlan wa sahlan.  Tfuddalu."  
   All of us were seated around a table big enough for eight or maybe ten, so we were cheek to jowl.  Everyone had a plate, a spoon, a small bowl of chopped salad.  In the middle of the table were platters of rice with spices and pine nuts and roast chicken and piles of fresh Arabic bread about a foot in diameter.  The drinks offered were Pepsi and a red soda.  We dug in, all of the men.  I caught a glimpse of the host's wife, some of their kids and the brother-in-law's kids and wife.  Other than that, all men.  
   After the meal, people got up, washed or went back to the sitting room to smoke and talk.  The brother-in-law (I'll get his name from Nasser tomorrow) sat with me and talked about life in the States.  He had lived in Maryland for four or five years, had gone to school, studied engineering, returned to Palestine and couldn't get back to the States.
   "You'd like to go back?"  (to be continued)