Picking Olives

Prior to this trip I imagined the olive harvest in Palestine to be a bit more of a discrete, definable ‘event’. What I’ve found is that it’s far less organized and centralized. You might see a few people picking their olives here and there, but I’ve never seen a massive crowd fill the trees in one particular area. Despite there being a set date when harvesting should begin, people in this village have being picking in a very piecemeal fashion. This might be because of the lack of rain, which many people wait and hope for at this time of the year to clean the olives. Who knows…

Anyway, this weekend, a friend of mine who lives in Abu Falah, a village so far on the edge of the Ramallah district it’s about half way to Nablus, invited me to help his family pick olives. His father picked me up on Friday in his private taxi, and after an hour crawling around Ramallah looking for non-existant Friday lunchtime business, we drove back to Abu Falah just as midday prayers were ending. We then made the rather bumpy (and comical) ride from H.’s (my friend) house to where their trees grow, with a giant wooden ladder balanced on the wing mirror and H. and I, arms out of the window, holding the ladder up. (Later in the weekend, Abu H. arrived at the house dragging half an olive tree behind his car, with the trunk wedged in the boot of the car).

Abu Falah (literal translation: father of success) is high above sea level, hence the date for their harvest was much later than other villages. Although the “entire” village was picking their olives, I only made out a couple of other families in the area where we were, although the sight lines didn’t extend very far. In fact it was usually the sound of voices which drifted towards us.

When we arrived, H. family where already there and had started to pick olives from a small sapling. I asked H. how people knew which trees belonged to which families but he wasn’t sure. He was adamant that the trees we were picking belonged to his family though. (When I say family, I’m referring to the immediate family, not the extended family). We spread the tarpaulin sheets beneath one of the three big (and hence old) trees that belong to them and the aforementioned ladder, which turned out to be slightly asymmetric, was propped against the tree precariously, but securely. I actually preferred climbing the tree to the ladder, since the branches were strong and could support an adult human with ease. (Perhaps this contributes to the mythology of olive trees around these parts, which also provide people with economic support). With everything in place we began to pick the olives, which involves using pulling your hands down the branches in a stripping motion. There were also a couple of small plastic rakes, which do the job more effectively. As the olives fell on the tarpaulin they made a pitter patter sound like light rain. Wearing a hat is advisable if you’re on the ground to keep the olives dropping from above from hitting your face.

H. has a typically large family (eight sisters, two brothers), although only four sisters were helping both brothers and his parents with the harvest. (Schools and universities have midterm exams at this time of year). They seemed curious about me (as a foreigner) at first, and then after the obligatory ‘how do you see Palestine’ questions quickly became amused by my accent and laugh. (H.’s youngest sister, eight years old, mimicked me with amazing accuracy. In return I taught her how to pronounce the letter ‘p’. Anyone who has traveled in Arab speaking countries - where there is no ‘p’ in the alphabet - knows this is no small achievement. She still pronounced Sprite, su-brite though). When they weren’t laughing at me or trying to teach me Fairouz songs, they were generally asking if I was hunger or thirsty. I found it hard to understand their village accents, which are thicker than the Ramallah (city) dialect. H. younger brother, who forgot my name constantly, eventually said it was a nice name. I suggested he should called his first son old man, and then he could be abu old man for the rest of his life.

Although we all picked olives together, we ate lunch separately according to gender. Our picnic consisted almost entirely of homemade (or grown) foods, ranging from wheat bread to boiled egg, falafel, tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles, something like tzaziki (except made with lebana not yoghurt) and of course some olives (although not the ones we’d picked that morning of course). After lunch H. father went back to work driving his taxi.

After a section of the tree has been picked, the tarpaulin sheets are carefully moved to under another section of the tree. We then had to pick up the olives that had narrowly missed the tarp in the previous spot and landed amongst the soil and rocks, although this job seemed largely assigned to the younger girls. When enough olives had fallen, H. mother would scoop them into a bucket, and then holding the bucket high above her head tip them into another bucket. If this process coincided with a strong breeze, the leaves that were mixed with the olives would be blown out of the mixture as they fell. That’s technology! I tried this myself on Saturday, but half my olives missed the bucket on the floor!

As the day wore on I became more confident climbing the tree and reaching the higher areas. Climbing trees, bracing with your legs and holding branches with your arms is tiring, although I wasn’t as exhausted as I had anticipated. The branches graze your hands and forearms, and these little red lines are accentuated by the dust that turns your hands a pale dirty white colour, except for the odd patch of mud. Your clothes get dirty too, and I have a great big purple olive stain on my t-shirt now. By the end of the day I had some how managed to acquire a kuffiyeh from H. youngest brother, which I wore around my neck to protect it against the sun. A number of olives fell into its folds, and I even found an olive in my pocket on Saturday. The weather was sunny on the whole, although not scorching hot. The trees also provided shade.

The sun disappeared behind the mountains quite early and we finished working before sunset, itself before 5. The 15/20 walk across stone covered tracks back to the village was more tiring than the work itself, and we were hurried along by a flock of sheep following close behind us. H., his youngest sister and I returned home before the others to wash and relax. We were joined by a friend of H.’s from the village who spoke good English, and worked on a building site in Ramallah. Then, with his other brothers, we ate ma’luube prepared by his mother who had been picking olives with us all day just as we had. After an evening of music and dancing (mainly by H. youngest brother) I slept well until the muezzin woke me, and the mosquitoes conspired to keep me awake.

The next day we return to pick two more trees and a couple of saplings. Our numbers were down from day one, since H. brother has returned to university in Jenin, and his father worked the entire day. When we’re finished there are enough olives to fill six UNRWA sacks that originally contained something else, although I can’t remember what now – maybe rice or grain. These will be taken to the press, where they’ll be cleaned and pressed. H. mother told me they pick enough to sell some and send some to relatives abroad. She also told me my accent reminds her of her relatives who live in London. She cooked H., his younger brother and I mu’sachken for dinner that night.

After dinner I hear the story of a man in the village who has died the previous day after he was run over by a horse. Apparently the teenage rider was inexperienced, and the horse was scared of cars. Having thrown the rider, the horse bolted up the main street of Abu Falah. The man, in his mid-sixties was hit pushing two young girls to safety. Apparently it was the impact of fall on the stones that caused the multiple fractures and breaks. He was in a coma for two weeks, and as a diabetic his recovery was always in doubt. He lived in Brazil for thirty years. It was a tragic accident.

A short history of W.

W. is a friend of mine who has lived in the village for 4 years now. He is originally from the Tulkarem area and provides an interesting snapshot of the population dynamics here in Palestine, and particularly the Ramallah area at the moment. After a period in catering college in Amman, W. came here with his brother who was attending the University of Birzeit. His brother is now working for Jawal and another brother now lives here and studies at the university.

When I first met W. he was working as a chef in a restaurant owned by a local man who had many years of experience in this line of work. The restaurant subsequently shut due to financial issues and W. worked on some building sites, then as a gardener in Ramallah, then as a waiter in Al Beirah. I returned to find him now the owner of a restaurant in the village once again, which he says is doing ok at the moment. He married a woman from a nearby village in May, and his wife is now four months pregnant with a girl. He told me prior to finding out the gender that (unlike many men) he would like a girl, but didn’t know why. He intended to call her Amani, which he tells me means ‘dreams’.

I frequently see him and his assistant sitting outside or just inside the entrance to the restaurant, which gave me the impression business was not good. However, when I went there for coffee, they both sat with me there despite the fact they had customers inside (albeit a pair of university couples who probably didn’t want to be disturbed). The restaurant opens sometime during the morning, and seems to stay open until late at night. W. says his wife isn’t happy about this, but it’s a new business so what can he do. When I asked him if his wife works, he says she stays at home. He claims they don’t need the income – a claim that makes little sense here, especially when you’re renting a house and have a baby on the way – and then perhaps more revealingly says he doesn’t want his wife to work and looking after an infant will be work enough.

Despite not growing up here, he knows many of the villagers, which he puts down to working in restaurants where they would be customers, and also working on building sites around town. (Building sites being places to build social relations as much as houses). He tells his assistant he has known me for five years (even though it’s only been two) and that I’m a good man. He also wouldn’t let me pay for my drink.

Some random Ramallah notes

Did I mention the new traffic lights popping up all over the centre of Ramallah? I know there were a handful when I was last here 14 months ago, but now they’re all over the place and people are actually quite good about obeying them. Maybe it’s all the police Abbas has put on the street.

A friend who has graduated from university is thinking about getting married. It’s amazing how different this process is here. He’s from a small village and he wouldn’t even be able to talk to his fiancé until they got engaged. I still can’t figure out what expectations village guys have here when they get married, beyond sex. It’s social convention to get married when you finish education, and I suggested he could go to the university to meet girls and actually get to know them before getting engaged, which a lot of under/graduates do now, either during or just after their time at university. This suggestion just seemed like too much effort for him though. Our mutual friend who was with us also thought the university idea was a much better option, although he plans on traveling so he has no desire to marry at the moment.

I was speaking to a friend who works for the World Bank in Ramallah, as one of six coordinators running the Social Safety Net Reform Project here in Palestine. The project gives roughly 1000 shekels a month (divide by 4 for dollars and 8 for pounds) to the poorest families in Palestine, and currently supports about 50000 people. My friend said that although the donations were spread all over Palestine, there were a lot of poor people in the villages around Khalil (Hebron) who used to work in Israel before the intifada closures prevented them from doing so. Each district of Palestine has roughly 6 field researchers who assess the families every six months. Apparently a number of other donor organizations have been using their database to target charitable projects. Despite being fully aware of the dubious politics of the World Bank, he said the work they do here is mainly focused on children’s health and education, so it avoids the ‘hidden politics’ as he terms it. He makes $800 a month, which is an excellent wage here in Palestine.

Beating school children

I met some friends in Ramallah yesterday who work for the Ministry of Education, meaning they’re teachers in public schools. One was telling me he had to dye his hair, because the stress of teaching is causing him to go prematurely grey. He teaches English to classes of around 40 students. His friend is the equivalent of a school counselor and says his jobs involves dealing with fights between the pupils, and also fights between the pupils and the staff. I’m somewhat taken aback by this idea, but my friend say he hit an eighteen year old guy across the neck and slapped him in the face the other day, and then this kid wanted to fight and they had to be pulled apart by staff and pupils. Part of me found this hilarious, especially since my friend isn’t someone you’d expect to be violent, but I also told them a teacher would be sacked and thrown in prison for hitting a pupil where I’m from. By contrast my friend was sure you’d get thrown in prison for kissing a girl (in public) here in Palestine. Sex, violence and geography.

(p.s. I’m know all my teacher friends and relatives back home are all probably now thinking that the education system isn’t so bad in Palestine if you can hit kids).

Searching for Dr Nasser

Dr Hanna Nasser is a very esteemed gentleman around these parts. He was the first president of Birzeit University and is now the chief commissioner for the Central Elections Committee. I’ve been trying to speak with him.

Easier said than done.

First I tried asking around the village to see if anyone knew him. Of course, everyone ‘knows’ him, but no one has his mobile. Then I get his home phone number from directory enquiries. I call frequently for two days and get no answer.

So I call the Election Committee office. First time, no one is answering the main switchboard. Second try, I get through to a secretary before the line goes dead abruptly. Third try I get through to a guy who says Dr Nasser is busy and I should call back in five minutes. On my fourth try I have a conversation with the secretary, who says Dr Nasser has left the country for a week, but takes my phone number.

I don’t think I’ll be talking to Dr Nasser.

A lot of the time research is fun. But often it’s really hard work too.

A review of Michael Taussig’s ‘My Cocaine Museum’

My Cocaine Museum (henceforth MCM) is a fascinating book, and I have held that opinion since I first read it a few years ago. After multiple re-readings and engagement with other work, I want to try and articulate why I find it such a compelling and challenging text, and ultimately a mode of scholarship worth emulating.

Providing a synopsis of the book is a challenge in and of itself, and speaks to the wide variety of subjects and issues that Taussig’s work tackles. It is at once a parody of the Gold Museum in Columbia’s central bank, the Banco de la Republica, in Bogota, a journey that is both literal (from mountains to the coast and out into the sea) and metaphorical (from past to present, from capital to violence and death), and a montage of the histories and geographies of gold, cocaine, slavery, colonialism and many other ‘things’. And it is a whole lot more besides.

I like to think about this book as a work about bodies. These bodies include those of humans, in all their sweaty, spit filled glory, but also the bodies of rivers, stones and swamps. We might even think about the economies, buildings, codes of conduct and islands that Taussig writes about as bodies: things that circulate and affect one another. By quite literally presenting all these bodies (as the Gold Museum presents its gold), Taussig traces and follows the multiple connections have with each other, and particularly with gold and cocaine. Hence I think another way of summarizing this book would be to suggest that it presents us with the complexity of a life that is at once politics, histories, economies, materials and desires, without these terms being collapsed in on one another.

MCM also takes the aesthetics of presentation very seriously, which means the poetics of the text are not simply their to make it readable – although like all the best books MCM is hard to put down. As Taussig well knows, the poetics of a text are also its force. What is a book if it is not another body, circulating in world full of them, while affecting some of them. Perhaps.

While not immediately obvious, (or perhaps not as easy to articulate at first – I’ve read the book three times now) is the brilliance of this theoretical contribution. Taussig refuses to reduce his work to generalizing signifiers (‘space of exception’, ‘actor-networks’) because he refuses to stand outside of the flows and process of which he is a part (but suggesting his work is particularistic would be a grave misunderstanding). While many advocate ‘modest’ theorization, few actually have the confidence to practice what they preach.

In my own work I have tried (and inevitably failed, but tried nonetheless) to write like this. Powerful, critical and evocative, Taussig’s work is for me exemplary (social science) research.

“This is my magic and this is why we write and why we write strange apotropaic texts like My Cocaine Museum, made of hundreds of spells, hundreds and thousands of spells, intended to break the catastrophic spell of things, starting with the smashing of vitrines whose sole purpose is to uphold the view that you are you and over there is there and here you are – looking at captured objects, from the outside. But now, no more!” (p.315)

Architectures (of buildings and social life)

I was talking with a friend who lives in Ramallah on an almost permanent basis, and he was telling me about the new apartments and houses being built in Ateera, a suburb of Ramallah that is rapidly expanding the city northwards. Apparently, and I have glimpsed this myself, the buildings are following the identikit terracing style of Israeli settlements. This colonial mimesis is fascinating, and mirrors an earlier example where affluent Palestinians used (and continue to use) red roof tiles to decorate their houses. These tiles, which are another distinctive feature of Israeli settlements, date back to the British Occupation of Palestine. I would be fascinated to learn the extent to which the use of the tiles on settlement buildings draws on this colonial history.

My final Thursday night story is about my final experience at the bar we were in. As we were leaving, we (and I emphasize the collective nature of this experience) saw a woman near the entrance who was wearing shorts (kind of skirt like ones). Although many people at that bar were Westerners, and have seen many women wear shorts and short skirts, this sight was stunning. People were literally stood still staring at her. The reason is that women always cover their legs in public in Palestine. Even in liberal Ramallah, where tight tops and jeans are the norm, this was an unexpected (and for me unprecedented) sight. It was also interesting to reflect (the next day) on the ways in which a place can socialize the people that constitute it (rather than the other way around). Even though this would have been the most banal and ordinary event if I had been in Europe or North America, a different space produced an entirely different affective and cognitive response.

Thoughts about Occupation

I wanted to get outside today because people have started to harvest their trees, but I woke up with a mind full of thoughts, which has inspired me to do a great deal of writing instead.

On Thursday night (start of the weekend) I went to one of the bars in Ramallah that caters to the city’s Westerners and anyone else who wants to spend their social time in a mixed-gendered space where you can drink alcohol and meet foreigners. During the course of the evening I was talking with a Swedish girl, who like some of the foreigners who visit Palestine (but rarely stay for the long term) is a true zealot of the Palestinian cause. (This isn’t to suggest that every other foreigner in Ramallah doesn’t support Palestine, just that they aren’t zealous). As we sat there, in the middle of this bar which is like most other bars in most other countries I’ve lived in, this girl bemoans how miserable life in Palestine is.

Was this a deliberately ironic statement, made to foreground the social inequality in Palestine and further suggest that this inequality allows a few folks in Ramallah to exist in a bubble? The answer was no, it wasn’t that sophisticated. Instead I think it reflects the way in which most people view Palestine as simply a space of Occupation. This is easy to do when you’re not living in Palestine, because all the media (both corporate and activist) tell you about is different forms of violence and/or high level political processes. However, when you actually come here, and see people who like to celebrate, have to go to work, and have traditions stretching back (and also modified by) centuries, I for one find it harder to simply view life here solely through the lens of Occupation. Yes, the Occupation has affected Palestinian society profoundly, but sometimes people like to have a drink on a Thursday night because it’s fun to socialize and relax after a week’s work. You don’t necessarily have to be ‘escaping’ anything, although I’m sure there are those who do. It really speaks to the strength and power of particular representations of Palestine when foreigners visit, are confronted by a variety of different material and social circumstances, and still reproduced the same distanced, myopic narratives. (Of course many Palestinians will often encourage these perspectives, but that’s a different story).

This leaves the question of whether it is only a privileged few are enable to enjoy this ‘richer’ experience of life. I would suggest however that it takes a certain type of arrogance/ignorance to propose that just because you’re poorer, you don’t like to socialize and relax over the weekend. The bar, like many other places in Ramallah, is most definitely a manifestation of the social inequality here, but mostly everyone loves Thursday night.

Some preliminary notes on the olive harvest

It’s the last day of Eid today – since the first day of the holiday fell on a Friday (the weekend), they add the third day on today – so it’s very quiet this morning (no school, no university buses, fewer taxis).

I found out last night that the olive harvest begins on a certain date each year, which depends on the environmental conditions and growth cycle of the olives. This date is chosen by the agricultural committee in each village, which is just one man here, and I don’t know if he’s set a date or what that date is. However, as I was walking around the village this morning I noticed a few people had begun to pick olives. Despite the fact that the village is ‘famous’ for its olives (isn’t every village in Palestine?), and while many villagers own large amounts of land covered with olive trees, few of them actively farm their land these days. They now work in Ramallah and the surrounding area, or live in the US, which begs the question who then picks the olives? A friend whose five brothers live abroad told me that many people pay people from the North to pick their olives now. He is thinking about asking his neighbours to pick some of his olives too and then split the proceeds fifty-fifty. Another interesting tit-bit I found out during the course of this conversation was that the olive press in the village, an old one made of stone, is no longer operational. The owner moved to the US, and it has remained shut since he left. Now villagers have to take their olives to be pressed in a neighbouring village. The disadvantage of this is that they use a newer metallic press, which doesn’t produce the same flavour as olives pressed by stone.

Jobs for the boys

When I was in Ramallah a couple of days ago, I bumped into a number of old friends, who have graduated from university since the last time I was here and are now working. Three of the guys got bachelor degrees in the same subject that I study. One is now working as a truck driver at a concrete factory. Another is a waiter in a restaurant in Ramallah. The third is working for the Palestinian Central Bureau for Statistics. Only the last job requires a university degree.

I’ve also met a couple of friends who graduated with business degrees and now have jobs for Jawal, the mobile phone company. In fact Jawal is pretty much the only Palestinian company of any size. It also has a monopoly over the phone market, although another company is starting up soon. (Or you can go with Orange, although the reception isn’t good unless you’re near a settlement). The selection process for Jawal is incredibly drawn out, involving an interview, apprenticeship and then another interview, and it’s great for that my friends eventually got jobs as salesmen and marketers. However their achievement is something of an anomaly in an economy in which a paucity of jobs leads university graduates to wait tables and drive trucks.

Ramallah During Ramadan

When I passed through Ramallah last week – in the morning – I noted how quiet it was. Yesterday I went to meet some friends in the afternoon, and the contrast was vast. The city was full of people wandering between all the shops and market stalls. The police had even closed off one of the streets leading off the Manara (town centre) so that an impromptu Eid street market could take place there. Eid – the end of the month of Ramadan, indicated by a new moon – is only days away (Friday or Saturday). It’s also perhaps the biggest day of celebration in the Islamic calendar, so everyone was busy buying sweets, new clothes and toys for the big day. Actually I didn’t see that many people making purchases, but there were a number of people carrying bags, and all those stalls wouldn’t set up shop there without some commercial return (would they?).

What mostly everyone in Ramallah was doing was walking around and window-shopping. I think people love to walk around just to see other people walking around, who themselves are doing the exact same thing. It’s also a chance to bump into friends and I think it’s a great time if you’re a small child, especially if your parents buy you a helium balloon, some sweets or a novelty whistle. (In fact I would like to ask one mother why she decided it would be a good idea to buy her son a novelty and very high-pitched whistle, but that’s another story). Walking is also something of a curse during Ramadan, since all of the many coffee shops and restaurants are closed until sunset, (except for some of the Western restaurants). There is simply no place to sit, unless you want to ruin your trousers, so walk you must.

After a few hours of walking, talking and some standing with my friends, they decided to have the iftar (break fast) in Ramallah, so we reserved a table in a restaurant before doing some more walking. By 5 o’clock, Ramallah was emptying as people went home to eat. I was really tired, and looking forward to just sitting down, so we went to the restaurant and joined the many other people who were sitting there, waiting for sunset (roughly 5:30) as indicated by the muezzin. I guess I’d never really thought through what the iftar was actually like, but in this packed restaurant, it was quite surreal. People sat at the tables they had reserved, with little plates of salad, juice and water in front of them, and in some cases their entire meal, just staring at the food, each other, or out into space. In some ways it was reminiscent of a scene from some kind of school (or Oliver Twist) where the staff had told the pupils they must not eat on pain of death, and then placed mountains of food in front of them. Even though I’m not fasting, and had eaten lunch, the anticipation was almost unbearable. The very constraint of not being able to do something, amplified by the smell of chicken, potatoes, rice and freshly squeezed orange juice, made eating and drinking suddenly the most incredibly desirable thing to do. I don’t think this is really the point of fasting during Ramadan, which seems to be more about asceticism and cleansing the body/soul, but I haven’t been fasting for a month.

I don’t know if people waited for the muezzin (I couldn’t hear it), or simply waited until their watches showed 5:30, but all of sudden like the proverbial cork being released, everyone tucked in. Although some people had their food orders served before the breaking of the fast, we had to nibble on salad and bread for a while, and when I food eventually came they forgot one of our dishes. In fact I think it was testament to the process of rising anticipation and then eventual consummation that I enjoyed the meal, rather than the quality of the food itself. Afterwards we went for some knafe (sweet desert) and by the time we hit the streets for some more walking – although this time my full stomach welcomed the opportunity – Ramallah was full of people once again. The shops that had shut for the iftar opened, the coloured lights went on, and the walking and (window) shopping routine resumed. After a while we went to a coffee shop, which was quickly filling full of guys who wanted to watched Bab el Hara (the incredibly popular Ramadan soap opera which reaches its conclusion tonight). Since I haven’t been following the series though, I went home, and in doing so was one of the few people who was actually leaving Ramallah at that time.

Sounds, Sights, Smells, Tastes, Touches

This blog is a space for my research notes, so here some I made today:

The enthusiastic babble of school children, before, during and after school.
The faint trickle of water dribbling down the street as someone hoses their car.
Men’s voices. Shouting.
The rhythmic tap of a builder's hammer.
The loud and chaotic thud of articulated trucks thundering through streets barely wide enough for them.
The mechanical whine of refrigeration units on trucks delivering foods.
A rooster somewhere in the distance. A flying insect close by. The crickets late at night. A dog’s bark. The faint but constant twittering of birds.
The valley as an amphitheatre of small sounds magnified.
The occasional mummer of a toddler and a mother’s response.
The tinny sound of music coming from a radio, or perhaps a mobile phone.
The church bells marking the hour and the muezzin calling prayers.
The pungent odour of garbage, rotting in road side carts.
The dust winds that races along just behind trucks and ends up in your nostrils.
The pebbles and stones beneath your feet, that you occasionally kick as you walk along the street.
The densely packed buildings of the Old City that cling to each other and the contours of the ground.
The newer buildings, more dispersed, and sometimes five or six storeys tall.
The distant sound of an aeroplane heading elsewhere.
The occasional smell of donkey shit.
The hum of idling motors coming from cars queuing at a checkpoint, punctuated by a single car horn. The rising purr as they are suddenly all allowed through at once.
The smell of my own sweat, and the sensation of dampness where my bag rests against my t-shirt.
Cigarette smoke.

Quick Hits

Strike!
The lecturers and staff at universities across Palestine went on a one day strike today over pay. When I was last here during the economic boycott, the staff worked for no pay at all for an entire summer. I'm sure their demands deserve to be heard. I suspect the administrations are in a bind though, because of students not (being able to) pay(ing) fees, or for public universities, not getting money from the PA, since they don't have any either.

Adel Imam
There's a TV where I use the internet, and some channel was advertising an Adel Imam film night. (Think Robert Redford, except still really popular non-Arab readers). The ads consist of Imam romancing various women who are at least 1/2 (maybe 1/3) his age. (Wikipedia says he's 67). Why do the directors keep coming up with such ludicrous romances for such an old guy. (Maybe it's his control over the scripts that's the real reason). The strength of the Yacoubian Building was in showing how pathetic this old man is; the weakness was of course he got the girl (again).

Tourists? Tourists!

This morning a tourist bus pulled up outside the largest church in the village, and out stepped a group of elderly, white tourists, who milled around in the courtyard for a while before entering the church. My interest was pique, so I wondered down and started talking to one member of their party, who revealed that they were from the diocese of Birmingham in England, on a ten-day missionary tour of the ‘Holy Lands’. They had begun in Jerusalem before moving on to Bethlehem, where they were staying in Sheppard’s Fields. (I’ve no idea which side of the wall this is – can anyone enlighten me?) They hadn’t visited the Church of the Nativity though. This morning half of their group, which includes the Archbishop had gone elsewhere, while they came here for the morning service. The guy I talked to also wasn’t sure if they were visiting other churches in the West Bank. I had no idea that this village received visits from touring parties, but I’d be fascinated to learn if this sort of thing happens frequently.

An amusing aside (if you can appreciate my sense of humour): I asked if the service was going to be bilingual, and the guy I was talking to said he didn’t know, but he reckoned the locals who speak English had been actively encouraged to attend.

Anger Management – Ramadan Style

Yesterday I met up with my friend S., who’s from Jenin, works in Nablus and was visiting Ramallah over the weekend. We met at Birzeit University, where he had graduated 18 months ago and spent a few hours strolling around and catching up. The new Arts building is almost complete. Some classes are being held there although none of the departments have yet moved into their offices because some final touches are still being applied to the upper levels. A very elegant archway frames the entrance, and the atrium has a beautiful marble floor. When I asked S. where the university gets the money to build such nice buildings, he simply said ‘donors’ without elaborating.

S. also explained that bus and taxi drivers use their car horns to compensate for cigarettes during Ramadan. Hence the frustration that is caused by a sudden shift from two packs a day to none before sunset manifests itself in anger behind the wheel and subsequent noise. While the car horn is every driver’s friend here, it would certainly explain the situation in Al Quds two days ago.

S. was also telling me about the poor olive crop in the North this year, due to the lack of rain. Apparently the last few years have been cyclical, alternating between good and bad crops. He also said that economic circumstances are so bad these days that people have begun to steal olives during the night, which they then sell for money.

Redefining ‘Man-crush’

For readers with a good memory, you may recall that I have little enthusiasm for traveling to Al Quds (Jerusalem). However, yesterday I wanted to meet a friend, R., who was leaving town today, so off I went. What I fully didn’t appreciate was that going to Al Quds on a Friday morning during Ramadan is not really a good idea, because thousands of others also want to go to the Al Aqsa Compound for midday prayers. The Israeli Occupation Forces decided to deal with this swarm of people by erecting barriers and barbwire in front of the checkpoint, and then letting people through to the checkpoint one by one. (When I say checkpoint, at Kalandia you have to picture something more akin to an international border, with turnstiles, security glass and x-ray machines, but no immigration officials). However, another set of barriers were set up in front of these ones so that the Occupation Forces could control the flow of the crowd through to this point. They only let people through sporadically, and I think it was only the presence of some journalists and peace activists that ensured this was happening. Since no one really knew what was going on, everyone just piled forward, causing a moving man, woman and child crush. I say moving, because for every forward surge, there was a reactive surge in the opposite direction as those at the front avoided the barbwire. Eventually I was carried towards the front of the mass, and eventually got through to the ID document checking stage. After having my passport examined by two border policemen and one soldier, all at different barriers (I counted four before you were finally through the checkpoint), and passing soldiers eating lollipops (disrespecting a population who are fasting - who spends time coming up with such petty insults), I was able to get on the bus to Al Quds. I would say I was one of the lucky ones, but of course it wasn’t by luck that I was able to get through with my foreign passport, and seemingly anyone with a green West Bank ID card wasn’t, regardless of whether they had a permission granted by one of the Occupation Bureaucracies or not. I think the whole ordeal, including traffic jams in Al Quds, took around two hours (compared with the hour an hour to forty five minutes it usually takes).

Thankfully, R. knew about the Austrian hostel in the Old City, whose unmarked door was hidden behind a market stall, and I was grateful for the peace of their gardens and the snacks in their café. We made sure to leave the Old City before the end of midday prayers (which last about three hours), but after walking around, ran into the crowds at the bus station anyway. It’s amazing how people think that honking their horns will suddenly solve traffic gridlock. It was therefore even more of a relief than usual to leave Al Quds, and despite another delay at Kalandia and more traffic congestion after, get back to Ramallah. During Ramadan both the services and buses stop running during il iftar (the breaking of the fast), so you to plan your traveling accordingly. I also got a little sun burnt in Al Quds, but that’s par for the course here or anywhere else in the world when the sun comes out. I’ve got my factor 30 on today.

The Little Differences

It’s a good measure of how familiar you are with a place when you can appreciate the little differences upon returning. A friend has sold his shop to another villager who lives in the US. This fact is made tangible by the bright new colours of paint (yellow and blue) that have brightened up a previously inconspicuous black façade. The interior floor plan has undergone a complete 180-degree reversal, and there is no longer an upstairs, or at least the stairs have been blocked off. This friend is also engaged to a woman from Nablus, who works in Ramallah.

There is a new stone plinth in the centre of town, with Saddam Hussein's image and an Iraqi flag on, although I haven’t had time to stop and read it yet. Another friend has opened a new restaurant in a building that was originally a house seventy or eighty years ago. The price of a service ride to Ramallah is now ½ shekel more expensive. I forgot how sweet and crisp the apples are here.

Returning

The airport was still the same. The immigration officer asked where I was going, and after repeating my answer three times, she just said ‘Jerusalem?’, so I agreed, and was on my way. Due to both Jewish and Muslim religious holidays, Jerusalem was empty. The bus to Ramallah drove through the checkpoint – I don’t think it’s possible to drive around any more. Ramallah was also quieter than usual due to Ramadan. I don’t know if the market and food stalls opened later in the day, closer to il iftar (the breaking of the fast at sunset - roughly 5:30), but they weren’t open in the morning. Then on to my destination, where a misunderstanding left me homeless for a couple of hours until I sorted it out. Despite extreme fatigue, there was a problem with the plumbing, and so I sat like a zombie, waiting for them to finish, until finally crashing at 1pm, and sleeping fitfully for 16 hours. My accommodation is much nicer than last time. A family who are in Jerusalem used to live here I think, so it’s much more like the other houses in the village (except for the lack of television and oven) as opposed to just a roof with four walls and some basic furniture. I’m living opposite a school and a restaurant, and on one of the main roads through town, but my fatigue has been far greater than the noise so far. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep in past 7:30 though, except on Fridays. Now that I’ve slept well for two nights I feel better, and I’m happy that I’ve returned.