Life in Ramallah

This is the original mass email I sent out when I first moved to Ramallah in October, 2009:

So for those of you who do not know, I moved to Ramallah, Palestine on October 4th to teach music at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music. I've been here for 2.5 weeks and I have to say that I really love being here. I'm teaching Viola and Violin to students in Ramallah and Nablus, and this month I'm doing a bit of teaching in Jerusalem as well.

I was definitely nervous to come here, no lies there! My biggest concern was getting through passport control in Tel Aviv. After all, I was supposed to tell them I was volunteering in Jerusalem, as opposed to working in Ramallah. Unfortunately my charm did not win over the passport guard and I was told to wait in a small room for interrogating. A lady came and asked me all kinds of questions: what I was doing, where I was staying, what my father’s name is, where my parents were born, what my religion was, what my parent’s religion was (she thought I might be Jewish), do I know anyone in Israel, how long will I be staying, will I be working with the Palestinians, why am I working in East Jerusalem (the Arabic area of the city).

It was a little nerve-wracking but I guess I did a good-enough job because they let me into the country! Unfortunately they ended up stamping my passport. I was hoping they would just give me my visa stamp on a separate piece of paper (well, they did that too, actually) because then I could have a clean passport to visit other Arabic countries. As it is now, if I want to go to Lebanon or Syria (or Iran or Saudi Arabia I guess) I will have to get a second passport since those Arabic countries do not recognize Israel and won't let you in if there is proof you have been there.

So Ramallah is a beautiful city. The streets are narrow and full of shops. It actually reminds me of Africa, and Italy too, come to think of it – the multitude of random stores selling colourful items, supermarkets on every corner, garbage piling up in alleyways, no traffic laws. Practically every five steps you take you come across a falafel stand or a juice store or a cart selling kahk (basically these giant sesame-topped bagels).

These past few weeks have been incredibly hot! The days get up to around 35 degrees and the nights cool down to maybe 29 degrees. I continue to wear what I would usually wear in Canada: shorts and tanktops, while everyone else is generally much more covered up. In fact I have never ever seen another pair of bare legs in the entire time I have been here. As such I provoke stares from just about everyone I cross pathes with when I walk to work. Generally this doesn't bother me. I either smile at people or look straight ahead and ignore the looks. Honestly it's just way too hot! Thankfully it has started to cool down over the last few days.

Some of my experiences in the city so far include: shopping at the insane fruit market where I was given nearly everything for free (!), playing my ipod for a random taxi driver who was so excited he had to call his friend right then and there to tell him about it, practically OD-ing on Knafeh (Middle-Eastern sweet consisting of sweet cheese topped with cornmeal and syrup), enjoying a concert of traditional Arabic music and being endlessly fascinated with what I was hearing, hearing a girl in a hijab say "It's so hot, why can't I wear that?" in reference to my shorts and my response to her "You can!", hitching a ride with a gravel truck driver one Friday when I was late getting to work, going out to the Conservatory branch at Bir Zeit where we sang songs under the stars and ate pomegranates, joining an impromptu street hockey game while waiting for a taxi home, singing along with my ipod to a bunch of guys watching me walk by, spending a few hours walking around the Old City in Jerusalem and praying at the Western Wall, seeing my students improve in only a few weeks, and (possibly the best thing I've done here so far) spending a day in the countryside harvesting olives with an entire Palestinian family - this was such a special experience for me, to get in touch with the "real" Palestine, not the garbage you see on the news, but the generous, funny, and kind people who work this land and who do not deserve having it taken out of their grasp more and more.

The garbage situation here is quite bothersome to me. There is no real system for garbage disposal except to occasionally throw things in the bin where it is taken to be burned somewhere. The streets are littered with garbage and the fields are full of plastic bottles - it's really quite heartbreaking! Unfortunately, getting a recycling plant into Palestine is incredibly difficult since transporting large machinery from Israel is a big problem.

The truth is that Palestine is an occupied country. They are surrounded by another territory that is entirely hostile to them. Many residents of Ramallah are not allowed to travel to Jerusalem, only 6 km away. Many of these same residents grew up in Jerusalem and had their homes taken from them by the Israelis. *sigh* As much as I would have preferred to avoid the political situation here, it's near-to impossible and the more I try to avoid it, the more I feel a bit idiotic. Because honestly, the situation is ridiculous - that so many people have had their land taken from them and are under such restrictions! Of course I don't have the answer to this problem but I sure hope that one day it gets figured out...

Anyway, that's sort of my preliminary thoughts on being here over the last 2.5 weeks.

The weather has finally cooled off - believe it or not, I truly miss the changing seasons! I also miss my family and friends, pizza, Canadian beer, East Indian/Vietnamese/Thai food, and organic nut butters.