We suffer from an incurable malady: Hope -- Mahmoud Darwish

December 10, 2007

I'm woozy by the time we reach Bethlehem and I can tell my green-tinted friends feel the same. However, the beautiful Old City and the huge chunk of religious history better known as the Nativity Church remedy the nausea.

Palestine has been a surprise for me; a newfound passion, really. History, religion, culture, language: in essence, everything that fuels conflict, politics, and individuality.

No need to be jealous, though. My time here isn't as exciting as most of you think it is. Mostly, it is loads of thinking mixed in with tiny bits of experiencing, observing, and an array of emotions that makes me feel schizophrenic at times.

My visa ends January 24, and I have to make a decision (something I'm not terribly good at doing). Either I can extend my visa through a consulate in the West Bank, which by the way, most of us never knew existed, or I can risk leaving the country and trying to return. I prefer the latter, although I am pretty sure I might be rejected, mostly because I would like to go back to Jordan for a few days and see some people. As horrible as this is, a little part of me hopes that I may be rejected so that I can head off to Morocco for a month to visit someone and spend a languid, lazy month in Rabat before finally heading home.

As usual, nothing will be decided until January 23.

Anyway, I am writing to let you know that I am OK, and I have been the worst at keeping in touch these last 7 weeks, and will be even worse the next two weeks. I am going to Ramallah this weekend so that a couple of friends and I will be able to go to Qalqilia (one of the most 'dangerous' cities in the West Bank) and get a good look at the hideous wall and concrete zoo. Saturday, I will go to my second Palestinian wedding, and Eid Al-Adha begins in about a week and a half.

We're going to Jerusalem on a tour with a man who speaks twelve languages and ending the day with dinner in a cave. The next day, half a dozen of us will head off to Bethlehem and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day there. Maria and I are still debating if we will join the others for Mass on Christmas Eve, which begins at midnight and lasts until 3 or 4 a.m.

Even Jesus can't hold my interest that long.

To end our holiday, Deirdre, Aline, Maria, and plan to take a road trip through Tel Aviv, Haifa, Akka, and Golan Heights. Mostly, I'd like to the territory Israel captured from Syria – the Golan Heights – and life in Haifa 18 months after the 2006 war. The damage, socially and physically, probably wanes in comparison to southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.


As for work, let's see. I work on a University campus, with a Human Rights campaign fueled through the Public Relations department of An-Najah National University (aka the "University of Terror"), located in Nablus (aka the "City of Terror").

When I am not writing reports, entertaining foreigners, giving presentations, running a long-term workshop on journalism and editing, and teaching diplomatic forms of rhetoric to a group of students that plan to travel abroad, I talk.

I talk to girls in niqaabs, flocks of students in hijaabs, the rebel boys in flashy clothes, the select few students that have been outside of Palestine. Actually, I listen. Never have I experienced so much of life through words. Words of frustration, anger, hope, and resignation.

The highlight of my time is the interaction with these students, people who are not much younger than me, but who have been stunted from expanding their knowledge and maturity, literally, by a wall. And occupation. And checkpoints. And raids. And gunshots. And curfews.

Picture Nablus: one of the oldest cities (and the most dangerous) in the West Bank cut off from the rest of the West Bank, let alone Israel, by three checkpoints, nightly Israeli raids in the old city and clashes in the refugee camps. Can you imagine not having the right to travel within your own country? Having to hear about cities in
your country from foreigners? They can't even go to Jerusalem, the city that should be their capital (By the way, Google Earth is wrong. The official Israeli capital is Tel Aviv). Checkpoints to go to school every single day, hours and hours of interrogation, and worrying because you are in Nablus with a Jerusalem ID card.

Yet, somehow, the students let me forget. When I am in the office, they stop by to say hi, ask if I'd like to take a walk, and chat. The girls tell me about problems with their parents, love interests, and how their aunt just called because some decent man would like to marry her. A guy walks in late to my rhetoric class and when I give him 'the nasty teacher' look, he merely grins and hands me a cup of coffee. The guys are all wannabe Casanovas, and I love every single one of them.

Then there is life outside of Nablus and the University. Maria and I spend most of the weekends with the girls in Ramallah, either by staying in the city or traveling to Jerusalem, Hebron, and Bethlehem, thus far. Sometimes, they come visit us and we walk around the old City and eat kanafah. Aline has an Arabic teacher, Ahmed, who is our age, and usually, we end up going out with him and half a dozen of his best friends when we stay in Ramallah. These are the moments, sitting around a table with six Palestinian men and our new friends, laughing and joking, and hopefully, they are able to forget.

Even if it is just for a few hours.


Maria turns to me on one of these nights and whispers, "You're right. I'm glad we don't live here. I would forget where I was if we did this every weekend or every night."

It's true. Ramallah, although encased in a shabby shell, has all the comforts and internationals of any other major city. I prefer Nablus.

I don't know what made me feel guilty, but all of a sudden, I turned to Ahmed and blurted out, "Don't you feel bad that we are here doing this," pointing to the smoke-filled room and laughing crowds, "When all of that is going on out there?"

Instantly, I slap my forehead. What a stupid and shallow question to ask!

But Ahmed has always been my favorite, and since the first moment we met, we get along smashingly. He just smiles and says, "Khushbu, I've mourned my whole life. I've mourned the last seven years [since the intifada]. I've learned that if I don't enjoy my time, I might die. Just die."

Then Kilany asks me to go dance to some Amr Diab, and that pathetic question is forgotten amidst the laughter as I try to convince Mohammed that he will regret this decision.

---
It's been nearly seven weeks since Pedro and I sat on the steps on the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem and then wandered over to the Wailing Wall. My aforementioned Portuguese friend has been traveling the world for three years, and we met in a chance encounter on the bus from the Jordanian border to the Israeli border. We both waited four hours at the security checkpoint, him because he had been to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Jordan. I had to wait because I had been to Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon.

While my list was not nearly as long or as 'complicated' as his, we waited the same amount of time because 1) honestly, he doesn't look Arab (and supposedly, I do) and 2) the IDF soldiers, who are all girls, at the border, could not get over his ridiculous good looks.

I just pretend that the girls wanted to help the good looking Latin man because the discrimination from that day still haunts me. It's only one thousandth of what happens to Palestinians on a daily basis, and I can barely think on that day without my blood boiling.

I don't how to end this, and honestly, I am telling you this because I don't know what perception I want you all to have of Palestine. Resignation? Hope? Curiosity?

I hope that it's the last one. I want you all to learn about the wall that 'separates' Palestine from Israel. I want you to know that there is a University (Al Quds University) that is separated by that very same wall. Imagine not being able to go to a class because it is on one side of a wall that your occupiers have built for 'safety' purposes. Instead, imagine a stifled economy and incomprehensible poverty. If all I can do for you all over there at this time is one thing, I would want it to be to make you think. Just think.