When you travel with a camera, it is best to pass everywhere twice: once to experience it and once to photograph it. Similarly, when writing a blog, it is best to experience without trying to write, then reflect and write. Perhaps if time stood still... I really don't want to write a travelogue, but this blog tends to slip into one. The same is true of my journal. Since time won't stand still, I'll keep writing and hope to get better at it.
Last night, when we got home from a dance performance and a drink in Jerusalem, Khitam talked to a friend who told her a bomb had gone off in Boston. She turned on CNN and we watched the account of the two bombs - "Or were there three...?" There's some irony in my being in Palestine, watching CNN's account of a bombing at the Boston Marathon. I feel sorrow for the deaths caused by the bombs and for the serious injury and anger that someone has caused this destruction. I am also aware that far greater destruction has occurred almost daily for over ten years in other parts of the world, and is still occurring and much of it is the result of US action in wars, from drones and indirectly by providing billions of dollars worth of arms to warring countries. It is good, if painful, for one's perspective to get outside the country and our media to experience other points of view.
Yesterday, we went to Ramallah to visit a couple of friends and former co-workers of David Whittlesley, a friend from Bowdoinham, Maine. Nisreen and Manar work with Interpeace and the UN to encourage dialogue among different groups of Palestinians to establish goals for the nation. "What do you want Palestine to be, to stand for?" That may be what they are trying to get Palestinians to resolve. "Everyone wants an independent Palestine, but they don't agree on what they want this nation to be." So they work with groups of former prisoners, with young people, with other groups they get together to seek answers, to get them to seek and find answers. Their office is in a UN building that is well fortified and like other UN buildings, I suspect, and US government buildings is almost unapproachable, and, once approached, almost impenetrable. We were fortunate that Nisreen was wait outside for us to facilitate our getting in and up to their offices. Once there, Palestinian hospitality ruled and we had a good conversation about their work and a consideration of ways Khitam or I or the two of us together might do some work with young people or teachers and counselors or both. The meeting was too short but better than no meeting at all.
We drove a short distance to the memorial and grave of Mohammed Darwish, Palestine's leading poet. The site is lovely but we couldn't get in. Khitam was guessing the gate-keeper left to go pray. This is a site that should be open all day every day and some evenings! Darwish means a lot to this people. He was a brilliant poetic spokesperson for the land and its people. Khitam mentioned that before they built the memorial museum, it was always possible to visit Darwish's grave.
Ramallah is a boom city with buildings going up everywhere, helter skelter with no thought of city planning. In that way it reminds me of Beirut. Soon there will be no land for parks or recreation, at least not much land. I wonder if the boom will last. It's fueled by NGO's related to Palestine and gives Ramallah the air of a hub, the center of Palestinian governance. The problem with this for Palestinians is East Jerusalem, which they consider their capital. Israel refuses this, says Jerusalem is one city and is the capital of Jerusalem. This is a long term controversy unlikely to end soon. Israel's development in and around Jerusalem, like the growth of settlements on the West Bank, make any sort of unified Palestine with an East Jerusalem capital unlikely if not impossible. This hardly bodes will for peace in the area, in spite of Israel's vast military dominance.
I have to stop here for another adventure. I'll write the next installment tonight if I'm awake long enough.
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