I arrived last night at TelAviv's airport on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul. Good flight, good food - they fed us constantly on both flights and I couldn't go to the gym! Dinner was at 2:00 AM, brunch at 7:00 AM, and dinner around noon on the flight from Istanbul. Add seven hours to catch up with the time here.
Khitam met us at the airport. Customs was slow because there were several flights in at the same time but easy; no difficult questions and there was Khitam! For those who don't know, Khitam is Palestinian, an old friend whom I met about twelve years ago through a mutual friend. I invited her to come to Maine and work with me in our summer program. She was doing similar work in Palestine. She came for a few weeks that summer, returned for several summers and then decided to finish her BA at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. Once she'd done that, she decided to continue in a Masters program for Creative Arts Therapy, which she completed, then returned here to work as a Creative Arts Therapist. She now works with primary school teachers and goes to villages in Artbus to work with kids. She does remarkable work and loves it. She's my Palestinian sister.
Although we had eaten every three hours on the planes, it seemed, when we got home in Adahya, where Khitam and Ahmad, her husband, live, she proposed a little food: fresh tomatoes, labneh with olive oil, zatar and olive oil for some fresh Arabic bread and delicious white cheese that is made locally. An hour later, 1:00 AM, we finished talking and eating and went to bed. Ahmad slept through it all.
The stop in Istanbul, where I will return for four days on my way home, reminded me it was fifty years ago that I first went there. Margy and I were living in Beirut, she was pregnant with Wendy, and her dad, Ray, had come to visit us. They took a train to Istanbul and I was going to drive there to meet them. When I got to the Syrian - Turkish border, I discovered I didn't have the necessary papers for our third-hand VW bug, so I couldn't get into Turkey. I returned to Beirut and flew to Istanbul the next day. In those days it was not difficult to get an inexpensive ticket for a flight on short notice. As a result, I got to Istanbul two days before Margy and Ray and wandered around the city with a guidebook. The two days were full of visual wonders and chance meetings. The last time I was there was in 1998 with Tom Weaver, a teaching colleague who had come home to Ohio after a lifetime of teaching in Syria and Lebanon. I'm looking forward to returning and rediscovering the city, which is three or four times the size it was when I first visited.
The trip over this time was long but no longer than usual, just a different configuration. The most excitement came with a head wound to a steward. I don't know how he got it but assume he bumped into something. The stewardesses gathered around him, two doctors who were passengers came to his aid, and we had an emergency medical scene played out which was better than anything on screen. He was fine, but after they bandaged him up, he looked like he was swathed by medieval medical quacks.
At the airport in Istanbul, we encountered a tour group from Texas going to the Holy Land. Cotton talked with one of them and urged him to talk to Palestinians while here. When people come to "the Holy Land," they tend to see only Israel and sites under occupation. To get an idea of the whole scene here, it is important to visit "both sides." Most people don't do that, and the result is that Palestinians are faceless people if they are people at all to Americans.
Now that I am here, I am reminded how senseless this situation is, and how senseless similar situations are: Israel - Palestine, North and South Korea, Sunni - Shia, Turkey - Armenia… What about one state here and in Korea; mutual recognition by Turks and Armenians, Sunnis and Shites and on and on. I think also of negotiations with Iran and our failure to recognize how suspicious Iran must be of us. It was, after all, the US with the British who overthrew Iran's fist democratically elected government. Somebody has to break the cycle of suspicion. Hmmm…
Time for a picnic with Khitam and Ahmad and friends. No photos this time and not much news. I hope the blogs will get more interesting.
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