A potpourri...

Khitam

     I'm back in Arrowsic, Maine, in my house on the Kennebec River.  It's damp today and not warm, not yet.  The weather is similar to Palestine's the first few days I was there, and then it warmed up, as I expect it will here.  That's what happens in Palestine, if you spend some time there.  At first it may seem cold, or cool, because you don't know anyone, they're speaking a different language and they didn't expect to see you.  Then you ask someone a question and get a helpful answer; you pass a shop and the shopkeeper invites you for coffee; you have a conversation with someone and he or they invite you for dinner and insist.  Palestinians are more hospitable than most people I know, and their hospitality could not be more genuine.  I miss my friends and new acquaintances there and am glad to be back in Maine with friends and with family and others I love: emotionally, one foot over there and one foot over here.

Palestinian village

     My friend, and the friend of many, Abed is very clear about his goals: to preserve the lives of young Palestinians; to offer educational and artistic opportunities to the people in Aida Camp for Palestinian refugees; and to practice what he calls "beautiful resistance," a form of non-violent protest against Israel's occupation.  Abed founded and runs a remarkable program at the camp, offering instruction in everything from theater to sewing traditional Palestinian designs; from the first physical education program for Palestinian women to teaching digital photography; from a library to a pre-school program and more.  Now he has begun construction of a new building for developing, producing and marketing educational toys.  He has his Ph. D. in biology from France, teaches storytelling at Bethlehem University, travels Europe and the United States to raise money for his projects at Aida Camp and is married with five lovely children.

On the bus

     He and his family have a house near Aida, where he was raised, and an apartment in East Jerusalem.  His children go to school in Jerusalem, so they are in Bethlehem with him on the weekends and often he would drive to Jerusalem to be with them after a day's work.  That is no longer possible.  When the Pope visited Jerusalem several months ago, he came to Bethlehem and wanted to go to the wall.  He stopped his car near Aida Camp, where Abed and many of the young people in his program were ready to greet him, should he arrive.  They carried signs asking for the Pope's help gaining their freedom from occupation and the wall.  Abed spoke as the Pope approached the wall to pray.  As a result, Israel has forbidden him to go to East Jerusalem, claiming he was making trouble.  Now he sees his family only on weekends when they come to visit.
     I met Khitam's friend Antoine on the street in Acre, when we were visiting Khitam's family.  He speaks fluent English and is a Palestinian Christian.  When he was in high school, he met and fell in love with Taghreed, a young Muslim, and she fell in love with him.  Their love blossomed and they eventually decided to marry.  Antoine's father was furious and kicked him out of the house.  Still he and Taghreed were determined to get married.  When Khitam's mother, a devout Muslim and a widow then, heard about Antoine and his father, she decided to step in.  There is a tradition before a wedding of the groom's friends giving him a bath, a dose of the local version of Old Spice and generally making sure he was all spiffed up for his wedding.  Since that was no longer possible at Antoine's house, Khitam's mother held the ceremonial bath at her house, making sure Antoine knew he had a second home there.

Budding artists waiting to make art on the bus

     Antoine and Taghreed have been married for over thirty years and have three "beautiful grown children," Khitam told me.  Antoine's father eventually realized that his son and Taghreed were meant to be together and has since celebrated the marriage.
     I attended two concerts with Khitam and Cotton, the second the night before I left, which left me sleep deprived but exhilarated when I got on the plane in Tel Aviv.  The musicians were The Trio Jubran, Palestinian brothers who play the oud and are accompanied by Youseff Hbeisch, a remarkable percussionist I had heard at an earlier concert with the Oriental Ensemble.  The Trio Jubran tours extensively and no longer live in Palestine.  They played three concerts in two days while there, one in East Jerusalem and two in Ramallah where we heard them.  They had come from Oman and were headed to Russia with Palestine sandwiched in between.

Jihad and Rima'a

Warm up in a teachers workshop

     The hall was packed with an audience of 800 - 1,000, and when the three walked on stage with Youseff, the crowd erupted.  They started right in and the crowd was with them every beat of the way. When they stopped to talk to us, people listened intently and applauded often at what the oldest brother, their spokesman, said.  The music was infectious, and Cotton and I soon found ourselves moved, massaged and exhilarated, along with everybody else.  It was clear that the musicians and the audience had an intense and mutual love affair.  At one point, Hbeisch took a solo, playing Arabic drums, bongos, cymbals, tambourines and more, all with his hands; eventually the three Jubran brothers came over and, each taking a percussion instrument from the stock around Hbeisch, began playing with him, to the crowd's delight.  Later, the three of them teamed up somehow to play together on one oud.  The energy and joy in the hall infused the walls, ceiling, seats and all of us.  'Twas a memorable last night in Palestine.

Teachers at a workshop in East Jerusalem

     And there is a spray of memories: erratic traffic where the concept of lanes seems not to exist; kids racing around Zada's house in Naher; trash by the side of the road.  In Ramallah, Rima'a and Jihad and their "Adel Fair Trade," where they sell organic food grown and produced by farmers and elderly women who needed support and now have a growing cooperative business, with farmers markets that Rima'a and Jihad are helping farmers develop.  Hospitality that is gracious, sincere, insistent and generous to a fault unless you are very hungry.  The beauty of the countryside with its olive grooves and rambling Palestinian villages.  Check points with young IDF soldiers who tend not to acknowledge the humanity of the people they stop or wave through and settlements on hilltops, walled and watered.  And always, the wall...

Take the #@# picture!  I'm in a hurry.

Just a light evening snack in Zada's kitchen

     I am left with the glow of Palestinian hospitality and a sadness at their plight.  I am disappointed and frustrated by an American policy toward the Middle East that falls all over itself to be Israel's friend and does not acknowledge the rights of Palestinians: the Israelis are human beings like us, the Palestinians are terrorists.  The latter could not be further from the truth.  The fact is, Israelis and Palestinians are human beings like us and they are also different, both.  Israelis come from Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, Ethiopia, some Middle Eastern countries and Palestine.  Palestinians come from Palestine, what is now Israel and occupied Palestine.  These peoples have many different customs and yet they could all live together, but the United States government seems more and more determined in its uncritical reverence for an Israel that is moving inexorably to absorb the rest of Palestine, or so it seems.  Meanwhile, contrary to unspoken diplomatic rules, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to accept US House Speaker John Boehner's invitation to address a joint session of the US legislature, to lecture President Obama on US foreign policy and Congressmen and women raced to see who could stand first and most often and who could clap loudest and longest.  A cab driver

The next generations in Khitam's extended family

picked up my friend Cotton at a check point near Khitam's house.  He spoke fluent English and when they began talking about our government's policy, Cotton mentioned "the US Congress." The driver interrupted him: "You mean the Israeli Congress."  "No," Cotton said, "the US Congress." "There is only one Congress there," responded the driver, "the Israeli Congress."  This from a Palestinian cab driver who is barely getting by, driving a cab near Adahya.  Of course we have an independent Congress, but how independent when it comes to our policy regarding Israel and Palestine?  That's a difficult conversation with Palestinians over the meal they are sharing with you.  They don't make it difficult for me.  My trying to make sense of it makes it difficult.

Zada, Tel Dan Nature Reserve and the Golan

     I'm back in Adahya, where Khitam and Ahmad live, after two days and nights in and around Acre where her five sisters and four out of her five brothers live.  Which reminds me to correct an earlier blog: three of Khitam's sisters are widows, not all five of them and all five are hajis. women who've been to Mecca.  This will be my last blog from Palestine.  It's Saturday evening and I leave early Monday morning.  I hope to write one more, reflecting on my two and a half weeks here, after I return to Maine.

Zada, Khitam and Ahmad

     Wednesday and Thursday nights we spent with Zada, the youngest of Khitam's five older sisters.  She is closest to Zada, who was a second mother after their mother died when Khitam was seventeen.  Zada is the toughest of the sisters and the most outgoing.  I told Khitam Zada was very welcoming and strong and that I doubted I would want to get on her bad side.  "Oh no, you don't want to get Zada angry at you!" she said.

Nisreen, Zada, Ahmad and Khitam and a "light supper"

     We arrived around 5:30, Wednesday, after our delicious and very filling "lunch" at Naseba's.  I assumed we wouldn't eat again - silly me!  Within an hour, the house was packed with family.  Inas arrived; he is one of Zada's sons, married to Hinadi and they have five children.  They have a house near his Zada's but live during the week in Haifa because he and Hinadi both work there.  Nasri and his wife Zuzu were also there with their two young daughters; he is Inas' brother and he and his family live between Zada and Inas.  Zada's other son lives upstairs with his family.  Zada's daughter Nisreen was also there and a few others I don't know.  Everyone ate: there's was a mezza with plenty of food for everyone.  Family lingered and talked, watched TV, let the children run the show until they were worn out and in someone's lap.

Eleventh century Acre

     Villages like Naher, where Zada and most of her family live, seem randomly assembled with neither rhyme nor reason; however, there is reason and it's based on the family.  Often, villages had large plots of land owned by a family, maybe the grandfather of those who live there now.  After a son found work and married, he would likely build a house for his own family on his father's land.  The same would happen with the next son and the next if there were more.  Daughters would move to a house their husband would build on his family's land.  And so the traditional village grew, not from a town plan but from family plans.  As a result, village and town roads are often challenging for cars going in opposite directions and horns are essential before rounding the corner of a building that abuts the street.

Khitam's brother, Wahib, who, when he was a boy...

     Thursday, Khitam, Ahmad and I headed for the Golan, that area that sticks into Syria like a peninsula and was once Syrian and Palestinian but has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 war.  It's a beautiful drive.  The countryside is dotted with Palestinian villages and olive grooves.  There are several Palestinian villages where Muslims, Christians and Druze mix easily.  We hiked for an hour and a half in the Tel Dan Nature Reserve in the Golan, a natural park maintained by Israel's Parks Authority.  It is lovely, with the Dan River rushing full of melted snow from Mt. Hermon.  In this part of the world, water is very important, as it is becoming in more and more of the world.  There were several groups of Palestinian students in the park with their teachers and leaders.  These are Palestinian residents of Israel who comprise 20% of Israel's population.

…jumped off the wall, like this!

   When we got back to Naher,  Zada was already hard at work on dinner.  It was ready an hour and a half later: on a tray that was at least two and a half feet in diameter maklouba was piled, a delicious mix  of rice, carrots, onions and chicken all cooked together.  There was enough for a week unless you were at Zada's house.  It would all be gone in a couple of days with sons and daughters and grandchildren and nephews and nieces coming by to eat.  Zada also put on the table a large salad, roasted cauliflower, stuffed grape leaves, yoghurt, olives, bread and probably more I can't remember.  As we ate and after, family members stopped by, had a little or a lot to eat, and moved outside or to the living room or porch to talk, the kids to play.  Tonight there will be more family to sit down and eat; tomorrow there will be little maklouba left, if any.

Habib, Khitam, Ahmad and Minerva

     On our way home from Naher yesterday, we stopped in Rama, one of those mixed villages I just mentioned, to visit with Habib and Minerva Daoud, a Palestinian couple who have run a small restaurant there for twenty years.  We had fresh lemonade, Arabic coffee and a light creamy pudding that Habib had made that morning.  He is the cook in their restaurant, offering "traditional Palestinian cooking with a contemporary twist."  He asked Ahmad about his work and Ahmad told him he had just found something in the Acre area but his real love is wine - he lived and worked in France for twenty-three years - and he'd like to find wine-related work.  His goal is to be a sommelier.  Habib called an Israeli wine-maker in the area, a friend of his, told him about Ahmad's interest and set up a meeting for the two of them.  He also offered to host wine-tasting dinners at his restaurant.  It's all who you know!  We left without paying; Habib and Minerva wouldn't hear of it.

Jericho

     I have probably already mentioned, and perhaps more than once, how generous Palestinian hospitality is.  It's also filling, because it usually involves a meal.  I am staying with Palestinian friends, so I am usually full.  Fortunately, the food is very fresh.  We just had a tomato dish with tomatoes Khitam and Ahmad bought in Jericho a month ago, and the tomatoes, which have been sitting on enclosed porch, are ripe and delicious and will be for several more days if not for a couple of weeks.  Khitam hasn't cooked meat since I've been here; we've had chicken four or five times, fish once, and eaten in Jerusalem a couple of times.  The rest of the meals are fresh vegetables, rice, lentils, eggs and no one is leaving the table hungry.  I'm a guest and not allowed to cook or maybe they don't trust me!

Nasser, Hazzem & Nadya

     Jericho is not a bread basket; it's a vegetable basket.  The vegetables there are freshly delivered by farmers in the Jordan Valley, plentiful and inexpensive.  And Jericho is where the parents of one of the boys I've worked with in Nasser's group at Husni al Ashab Middle School wanted to take Nasser and me.  Nasser had told me that Hazzem and Nadia Showaki wanted to take us for an outing.  I had a lot to do that evening, or I thought I did, so I told Nasser I had to be back around 6:00.  When Hazzem and Nadia picked us up at the school, the first question for Nasser was: "When does Al have to be back?"  Nasser told them and Hazzem said: "6:00?!  We won't have time to go to Jericho!"  Nadia asked if I could stretch it to 7:00 and I agreed, figuring I had tied, if not won. 

Dome of Greek Orthodox Church

     So off we went to Jericho, a forty-five minute drive.  Hazzem, who has his own construction business, speaks Arabic and probably Hebrew.  Nadia, who lived for twenty or thirty years in Brazil, speaks Portuguese and Arabic.  Each knows as much English as I know Arabic, so Nasser did a lot of translating and I used a lot of gesture and mime, punctuated with the odd Arabic phrase, and some of them were odd!  We all managed.  They asked if I'd been to Jericho, and I told them I'd been a couple of years before with Khitam and that I'd been when I lived in Lebanon in the 1960s and early 70s, the first time by motor scooter.

     They asked me if I'd seen the mosque of Musa (Moses).  I hadn't so that was our first stop off the road into Jericho.  When we arrived at the mosque, Nasser greeted several people as old friends, some of whom seemed to be midway through a recovery of something.  Nasser then told me that he had worked as a substance abuse counselor there.  The ancient mosque had a space for counseling sessions and Nasser has been one of the counselors.  

Interior of the church

     Then we were off to a reconstructed temple and some lovely gardens, a reproduction of a theater Alexander may have commissioned and an ancient Greek Orthodox Church.  After all that, it was time for dinner and a return by 7:00 o'clock was less than unlikely.  Dinner was half a chicken - "Don't you want a whole one?!" - a mezza of hummus, baba ghanoush, cabbage salad, garden salad, a spicy garlic dip, pickles, olives, Arabic bread, radishes and…  After dinner, Arabic coffee, small and strong, some conversation with the waiter who seemed to be an old friend of Hazzem; in fact, most of the people we encountered seemed to be old friends of either Hazzem or Nasser.  "Something sweet?"  No room.  No room!

     After a few more exchanges, we got in the car and an 8:00 o'clock return looked possible; well, it did until we got to the fruit and vegetable open market.  We stopped and for about half an hour, Hazzem and Nasser and Nadia picked at and picked up fruits and vegetables.  We finally left with a trunkful.  While we were shopping, Hazzem had extended conversations with two or three people in the market.

Mosaic in church floor

     Then, we were on our way…up and down a series of neighborhood roads to a building site.  Hassem was near the end of the construction of a lovely house with a pool for someone from Oman; I'm guessing a Palestinian who made good money there.  He showed us around the site for half an hour, pointing out the lovely touches that the owner had required and got.  He invited me to jump in the pool, but there was no water in it yet!

     From there, we really were on the way home.  They dropped Nasser at a bus that would take him to Bethlehem where he lives in a camp with his wife and four boys.  Then delivered me to Khitam's around 9:15 after fun and friendly and filling evening with our Palestinian hosts.  The work I had planned to do could wait another day, as long as I didn't get another invitation for a little outing and something to eat!