Ramallah: 2010

Happy Holidays!! …belated greetings everyone. So it’s been a while since my last personal update – sorry for that. Things have been incredibly busy out here.

At the end of November was the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, or “Greater Eid” – a celebration of the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj). This meant a 5-day holiday for the teachers at the Conservatory! For the occasion, I traveled to Tel Aviv with a fellow colleague. This was my first time in Tel Aviv since landing at Ben Gurion so I was excited to see the city.

Tel Aviv is so different from both Ramallah and Jerusalem. It reminds me of Miami with a twist of Edmonton’s White Ave thrown in. There are fabulous little cafes and shops everywhere you go plus a giant shopping centre reminiscent of downtown Toronto. And of course there’s the beach! Fortunately the weather was beautifully warm all weekend and I took full advantage of this fact by going for a dip in the Mediterranean – idyllic!

Following the holidays we had student exams. And a few short weeks after that the teachers put on a concert at the Conservatory. It was my first public performance in quite some time so I was definitely nervous. I also wasn’t sure what kind of a crowd we would have since I didn’t know how keen people around here are towards Western Classical music. So it was a pleasant surprise that we packed the house and everyone absolutely loved the show.

And then it was time for my big holiday: two weeks off from work. Almost all of my friends here were leaving to go visit friends in Europe. And since it was too expensive for me to go home, home came to me – my parents came out for 2.5 weeks, and what an amazing 2.5 weeks it was!

Honestly there are so many stories to share that I hardly know where to start. Well I’ll begin by telling you the general outline we followed: Tel Aviv – Jerusalem – Ramallah – Hebron – Jerusalem – Jericho – Nablus – Jerusalem – Eilat – Petra – Eilat – Ramallah – Jerusalem – Tel Aviv.

The trip to Hebron was an incredible experience. For those who don’t know, Hebron (also known as Al-Khalil) has a Jewish settlement in the middle of the city. The 500 settlers in Hebron are “protected” by about 2000 Israeli soldiers. The settlers are known to walk around on the Sabbath to make their presence known. At this time they have been known to shout at Arabs and spit on people. The settlers are also free to carry weapons: I will never forget a picture that my roommate took when she went to Hebron - an Orthodox Jewish family, the man with sidelocks and a kippa, the woman with a long skirt and her hair covered, pushing a baby in a stroller. The man had a machine gun strapped around his back. Unreal.

In the Old City of Hebron, where the Arabs have their shops, the streets have a fence above your heads because the settlers throw their garbage down upon the Arabs. When you look up you see things like chairs, diapers, plastic bags and bottles, etc. The settlers have also been known to throw bags of urine onto people walking below – a friend of mine had the unfortunate experience of witnessing this firsthand.

In Hebron a family invited us up to their roof where several Palestinian children were playing. A solider was standing on an outpost approximately 20 metres away, guarding a settlement house. The destructive nature of the Hebron settlers was made evident by the water tanks on the roof of the Palestinian house: there were several bullet holes in each one at the base of the tanks, rendering them completely and utterly useless.

My friend, S, a Palestinian, traveled with me and my family to Hebron since he was from there. S is a clean-cut, well-dressed and articulate young man (and traveling with 3 Canadians), so it was a surprise when he was pulled aside at the checkpoint to enter the Ibrahimi Mosque. S was asked to present his papers. My family was told that we could proceed but we made it quite clear that we would be waiting with our friend. The soldier took S’s documents, stood aside, sipped a coffee for 20 minutes, spoke into his radio for about one minute, called S over, dismissed him, continued to drink his coffee, spoke into his radio again for a minute, called S over and told him he was free to enter the mosque.

While my family and I were waiting for S to be “cleared”, one Israeli soldier came up to me and said “You have really beautiful eyes, you know that.” I hardly knew what to say. Here I am waiting for my friend to finish being humiliated and this is what a soldier comes up to me and says?! It was seriously mind-boggling.

Later on in Hebron, after my family toured the Mosque and the Synagogue on the other side of the mosque (where the same Israeli officers pleasantly greeted us with a “Shabbat Shalom!”…) I witnessed something special: Two young Jewish men were seated with a Palestinian shopkeeper apparently discussing the situation at hand (S told me this since they were speaking in Arabic). It was an interesting and hopeful sign that people in this tense city were willing to enter into a civil conversation about things.

When my family went to Jericho, we also made a stop at the Dead Sea. We went to Kalia Beach which is surrounded by old decrepit army barracks of the Jordanian military. When we arrived we were told that we would have to wait about 20 minutes before going in the water because there was going to be an explosion on the beach. We were puzzled by this but stood around waiting like everyone else. As my family and I were talking to a very nice brother and sister from Australia we were cut off by a huge explosion across the water. You could feel this explosion in your chest and in the ground. Looking over the distance you saw a huge cloud of smoke rising from the earth. Not ten seconds later we saw another cloud begin to rise and we all covered our ears before we heard the second explosion. I’m not entirely sure what was being detonated but it’s possible that the army had discovered some dormant land mines. Some 20 minutes later, after everyone was back in the water, there was a third explosion!

I have to admit I was nervous to go to Nablus. On December 26th, the Israeli army invaded the city and killed three men ( http://palsolidarity.org/2009/12/10000 ). The men were apparently wanted in connection with the death of a settler. I urge you to read the article. If you do, you will see that the army did not attempt to question or detain the unarmed men – instead they shot them pointe blank after confirming their identity. The army also shot a pregnant woman in the foot. The houses of the families were completely destroyed by live ammunition and rockets. Each man left behind a wife and several children.

I had never really been afraid of the military presence before I read about this incident. It really rang home to me that the guns I see everyday actually get used. I sincerely hope I never have to witness it, though…

Despite this tragedy and a feeling of anxiety, my family and I visited Nablus. I teach in this city every week but this was my first chance to actually walk around. Nablus is an incredibly beautiful city. It is located in the valley between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal (for those familiar with the Biblical narrative). We drove up one mountain (not entirely sure which one…possibly Gerizim) and were given an amazing view of the valley. Then one of my students led us around the Old City. Nablus is famous for producing sweets and we were taken into a few shops that were making things like Turkish Delight and knafeh. We went to the oldest sweet shop and had truly amazing knafeh – the tradition in Nablus is to put the knafeh into a piece of pita bread and eat it that way, but that seemed like way too many calories at a time!

After Nablus we headed South for our trip to Petra! We spent one night in Eilat (where we saw the latest blockbuster, Avatar – quite a good movie, even if it did steal the core of its story). The next day we headed to the border and then on to Petra. It takes an hour and a half to drive to Petra from the Arava crossing, but it took us much longer since the climb up to Petra/Wadi Musa was so entrenched in a cloudy fog that we had to crawl along at about 20 km/hr for quite a while.

Highlights of Petra: our great taxi driver, Mohammed, who really took a shine to our family and accompanied us all through Little Petra (he said he usually doesn’t spend time with his customers because he doesn’t usually like them); Petra by Night, which involves walking from the entrance of Petra to the Treasury (about 2 km) on a path lit by candles, followed by a concert of traditional Bedouin music while being served sweet tea (truly a beautiful evening and made even more special because when the clouds cleared they revealed a full moon! Also, my dad stretched out on the mats and when he did, a friendly cat came and parked itself on my dad’s chest where it stayed for about 45 minutes); Big Petra - WOW! This place is truly amazing…there are so many caves and paths to explore and mountains to climb. I got myself into some very crazy places which definitely put my parents on edge, but fortunately I survived; riding a camel; enjoying the truly beautiful Bedouin men (dark skin, white teeth, long curly hair, and these amazing eyes that are dark and light at the same time); singing with my dad in a chamber with fantastic acoustics; and last but certainly not least, being invited to dinner by a lovely young girl (Sahar) who sold my mom some socks (and we did go to dinner and were served the traditional and amazingly delicious dish of Maklouba)!!

I was extremely nervous about crossing the border to get back into Israel. My heart was beating like crazy, but fortunately I kept my cool and my family and I were permitted to pass (although the guard seemed quite suspicious of me). The officer stamping my passport said she wasn’t supposed to give me another Visa because I should really go to the Ministry of the Interior if I want to get my tourist Visa extended (ya right). She said she would give me the Visa but since she wasn’t supposed to, I shouldn’t do it again (do what again? Leave your country and then come back!?) . Getting a Visa here is such a gong show because it seems there are really no clear-cut rules for renewing tourist visas (or at least each border crossing guard will tell you a different story!), and it’s really and truly all about who is sitting behind the desk and their mood that day.

Some more brief highlights over the last few weeks: going to see the Tel Aviv Philharmonic (brilliant); attending a reform synagogue on Shabbat, followed by Shabbat dinner at a new friend’s house; eating bagels and cream cheese with my mom in the Old City; a tour of Silwan with an Israeli pacifist (more on this next time, Inshallah); enjoying my growing Arabic vocabulary; riding a camel in Petra; having a fantastic holiday with my wonderful parents; and tea with mint, tea with mint, tea with mint!

Well, I do have more to say but I think this post has been sufficiently long enough!

Okay one more short story: So I wanted to find some new bags to put in my vacuum (“hoover”, as my French roommate calls it). I was walking around Ramallah and stopped in at a spice store and decided to ask the owner if he knew of a shop that sold vacuum bags. He said that his friend had some. He walked me down the street to a hole-in-the-wall-store that had remote controls in the window. He spoke to his friend in Arabic and the man reached underneath a shelving unit to pull out several different kinds of vacuum bags. Unfortunately they weren’t the ones I needed, but it’s just an example of the random assortment of things people sell in their shops!

I hope everyone is happy and healthy and enjoying Canadian winter. As one of my friends reminded me, you can always feel alive when you inhale a deep breathe in a winter on the prairies!

Things I miss: family and friends (always), driving a car, running/going to the gym, Indian food, my bed, and hoar frost in the morning.

Things I continue to enjoy: the muezzin’s call to prayer, warm weather, cheap fruit and vegetables, the endless challenge of teaching and creating music, and the mere fact that I am living in such a different world – I am always amazed at this when I think about it.

Salaam – Shalom

Hillary