A new week

“Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the somber colors are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.” Oliver Twist

After the ordeals this weekend (failures of transportation, teeth, internet, blackberry service – all the modern amenities!), I was ready to be done with living here. But, I got a couple nights of good sleep and a couple days now without any major catastrophes, and my spirits have picked up! Part of that is due to this being a new week, it’s always good to start things afresh, and my new apartment. My new digs are in a really nice neighborhood, and the walk to and from al-manara, the city center, is much quieter (and a little cleaner!).

The view from my new apartment kitchen window!

My new 'hood at sunset

This also means finding a new supermarket. I tried one out today right by my new place – not as close as the supermarket to my old apartment was, but close enough. They had a huuuuuge selection of stuff (and they were also unpacking a lot, as were all the stores in Ramallah, so there must have been a big import allowed through). But this supermarket had … dun dun dun… peanut butter!!!! It’s the first time I have ever seen peanut butter here!! It didn’t look very good, and I probably will never buy it (I’ll rely on my parents’ care packages, thank you very much), but I definitely laughed out loud when I saw it. They also had:

TIDE!!

Tide! Laundry detergent, transliterated of course.

It’s also exactly a month ago today that I left DC, and it’s crazy to think about how much I’ve been able to do, and travel, and see in just that short amount of time. But, it’s also a little incentive to really focus on what I came here to do – learn Arabic and do my research. We finally received our student IDs today, so I can access the university library. Not only is the library at the university supposed to be a really great resource, it also has AC… which might change my life forever.

Craziness (and a dentist!)

“On one occasion, during a lull in the shelling, a TV news reporter approached the cellist seated in the square and asked, ‘Aren’t you crazy for playing music while they are shelling Sarajevo?’ Smailovic responded, ‘Playing music is not crazy. Why don’t you go ask those people if they are not crazy, shelling Sarajevo while I sit here playing my cello?'” The Moral Imagination

[Yes, to my IPCR colleagues, I just quoted JPL]

On Friday, we went to Masada, a UNESCO World Heritage site, a cliff side fortress in the Judaean Desert, overlooking the Dead Sea. Built by Herod a bazillion years ago (he reigned from 37-4 BC), Masada is the site of the last stand of Jewish patriots against the Roman army, in 73 AD.

But, beyond some interesting excavated columns/stones, etc – well, it’s hard for me to get excited every time I see some ruins, everything in this country has ruins – there were three interesting things. One, these beautifully intricate mosaics, very well maintained, from Herod’s time, had stunning colors and delicate designs. It’s crazy to think that something can survive for that many thousands of years, whereas buildings built now crumble at the threat of an earthquake. Two, the view was really extraordinary. My camera battery died, of course, as soon as we arrived, so I don’t have many pictures, but I should be getting some soon from my friend.

Dead Sea - and the mountains on the other side are in Jordan (taken from the bus)

View from Masada looking down, 450 meters, to the Judean Desert and the Dead Sea

Looking up at Masada from the cable car we took up (we walked down the snake path coming back)

But lastly, the story is wonderfully haunting. There was a Great Revolt of the Jews against the Romans, in 66 CE, and a rebel group conquered Masada and lived on the mountain. Masada was the last rebel stronghold; in 73 or 74 CE the Romans laid siege to the mountain. After a few months, the rebels lost hope, and their leader Eleazar Ben Yair convinced the leaders of the 960 members of the community that it would be better to take their own lives and the lives of their families than to live in shame as Roman slaves. So ten men were picked to kill the others, then one of those ten men was chosen to kill the other 9 and finally to kill himself. Supposedly two women and five children who had been hiding in the cisterns survived the mass suicide and told the Romans what happened that night, which was also the first day of Passover.

So a depressingly beautiful place, and you really feel alone while you’re there (there are a decent number of European tourists, but looking out into the desert – there is nothing). It was really really hot, and our decision to walk down the snake path at 12:30 in the middle of day was not the smartest. But we survived and after a hugely disastrous attempt to return to Ramallah, we finally made it Friday night.

On Saturday, yesterday, I was reading the newspaper and eating some cereal, when I felt something crack off my tooth. I have a mild (… ok, really an intense) freak out, when I realize I really need to do something about this. The university has a clinic for students, so I decide to head up there, even though it’s already 1:00 pm on a Saturday afternoon. While the university is open on Saturday, it’s Ramadan and so things are really only open until 2:30. Well, I figured, I might as well try. So I get there right around 2, and walk into the clinic and ask for the dentist. “She’s just finishing up now. You can sign up for an appointment on Monday,” I was told. “Monday?!?! I really need to see a dentist now, something cracked off my tooth!” “Well, there are appointments available for Monday morning,” the receptionist insisted. So I ask for a referral of a dentist in Ramallah. She replies, “Yes, there are many dentists in Ramallah, you can go now and find one.” Somewhat frustrated at this point, I try asking again for the name of a dentist. Confused, she reiterates that there are many. I attempt to explain to her that I don’t know where they are, or which dentist is perhaps better than the others, or might know English, and then ask her if there is some way I can look up, or search for, a dentist. Stubbornly, she insists, “There are many dentists, you can find one.”

Really, I wanted to break down and cry. So I sign up for an appointment for Monday after class, and head over to my program’s office to see if I could get a referral there. But, of course, the office is closed down already. So I head back to Ramallah, as actually I was supposed to be moving to my new apartment yesterday. I get home and pack my stuff up and get into a cab. Once I’m at the new place (after some confusion with the taxi driver over where I wanted to go), I get a text back from my friend, who is in my university program and had a filling put in by a dentist last week, who gave me the name and number of her dentist. At this time, it’s 4:30pm, and I’m skeptical that anyone would be open for business, but I give it try. And actually, the dentist answers! She tells me to come in whenever, she’s in the town of Birzeit, I tell her I’ll be there in an hour, and I bolted out the door.

So, all in all, I got it fixed and paid only 80NIS, which is something like $20, for the filling and for the anesthesia. Unbelievable. Then, because I finished right at the time of iftar, there were no services to Ramallah, so I grabbed a taxi, which charged me almost the exact same amount of money (70NIS!!!!) to get back to Ramallah!! I was so mad, and argued with him (as best I could in colloquial!), but alas I ended up paying him. Then again, I was planning on paying so much more for the dentist that I felt not so bad paying that much for a cab.

So my first encounter with the medical system here in Palestine, and it seems, like everything else in this country, you just never know what will happen. Your dentist might be open at 5:30 on a Saturday night, while a wedding procession is going down the street in front (yes, that did happen).

Free bananas!

“…human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars.” Madame Bovary

Most of the time when I speak Arabic now (both the formal and informal), I feel like speaking as a cracked tin kettle – kind of grating, I want to wince a little as I butcher what I know I want to say. My vocal chord memory – as there are sounds in Arabic that you just don’t have in English – hasn’t been as quick returning to me as, say, the vocab or listening, and I can write really well. So I’ve been embarrassed, in class, on the streets, talking to people. Because I know what I want to say and I know that I know how to say it and yet that gap, between knowing and actually forcing the sound to come out of me sounding correctly, is sometimes quite vast.

So today, I was absurdly happy, when I bought bananas. Here’s how it went down: in my colloquial class, we’ve been learning what seemed to be pretty random words – looking through my notebook, I see vocab in one day, “three, mosque, university, happy, angry, the location in Egypt for Sudanese refugees, student, skirt, table, address, envelope, and lucky.” But, over the past week, we’ve learned some pretty useful words – “banana, half, good, to speak, to eat,” etc.

And today I really needed bananas (il moz would be transliterated, I think). My usual fruit vendor guy was not there, so I looked around and saw across the street a vendor with a table full of bananas. So I went over and waited while the family in front of me bought like 6 kilos of bananas – well, maybe not that much, but it was a ton. Granted, I don’t really know how much a kilo of bananas is, but that’s what people measure here in. When my turn comes up, I step up and ask for “nuss kilo” which is half a kilo, and when he asks me again, “nuss kilo?” to verify, I replied yes in the colloquial (“aywa”). He then said to me, in colloquial, you speak Arabic good – it’s a rough translation, but even just last week I would not have understood him! I didn’t know ANY of those words in colloquial Arabic last week. So I was pretty thrilled that I understood him, at the least, and that he thought my Arabic was good, though I’m realizing now that I didn’t really speak much to him. But, people are THRILLED here when you even attempt to speak in Arabic – like they are anywhere in the world when you try to speak whatever language of the country you’re in. So I laughed and replied in Arabic, “good? a little, a little,” after which he laughed. We’re standing there giggling at each other, (well, probably I’m just giddy at someone complimenting my colloquial), then I ask, in colloquial, “how much?” and he replies in English, “normally… but today, you’re my friend,” and gave me the bananas for free!!

It was my FIRST full conversation in colloquial, the first time I understood and was able to respond in what apparently was relatively well-pronounced colloquial Arabic, AND I got free bananas. Good, good day.

Peace talks

“There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.” The Jungle

So recently I haven’t done anything interesting so I won’t bore you with mundane details. Instead, I’ll write about the news that seems to dominate what I’m reading online in American newspapers: the declared resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Image via Wikipedia

The Palestinian side agreed on Friday to come to the talks based on a statement of principles issued by the Quartet (U.S., U.K., Russia, EU), which calls on the parties to resolve “all final status issues,” like Jerusalem and refugees. It also calls for “a settlement that ends the occupation which began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state.” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, however, has not confirmed these Quartet principles in agreeing to join the Washington talks. Instead, Netanyahu is said to have explicitly rejected the language of the Quartet statement.

One side is responding to one letter of invitation; the other is answering to a slightly different request. It has gotten both sides to the table, but it emphasizes the enormous differences that exist between the two sides, and that could crash the talks.

People are pessimistic, honestly. There is a definite lack of enthusiasm with which both Palestinians and Israelis approach the talks. There is not even a modicum of trust, which severely restricts the ability of negotiators on both sides to make concessions. There is really no sign that Palestinians are willing or able to accept less than a viable, territorially united state in the West Bank, including a capital in East Jerusalem and some political solution on the refugee issue. There is no sign that Israel’s government is willing to accept anything more than a symbolic Palestinian “state” consisting of disconnected autonomous areas, with Israel in full control still of the borders, air space, water supplies, etc. Prime Minister Netanyahu has stated clearly that this is what he means by a “two-state solution,” and has declared often that Israel intends to keep all of Jerusalem and a long-term military presence in the Jordan River valley.

There are roughly 500,000 Israeli Jews living outside the 1967 borders, and I can’t imagine any Israeli government evacuating a significant fraction of them. Even if Netanyahu wanted to be more forthcoming, his coalition would not allow him to make any meaningful concessions. There is also the question of whether the moratorium on Israeli settlement-building, which is set to expire in late September, will be extended. American officials are clearly hoping that once talks have started, Netanyahu won’t want to resume settlement activity [aka won’t want the political disaster of being seen as undermining the US-led peace effort].

And lastly, the American government is just not willing to put meaningful pressure on Israel. They can twist Mahmoud Abbas’ arm as far as it can go (which is why he’s agreed to the talks, even as Israel continues to take pieces of the territory of a future Palestinian state), but the US has long abandoned the pretense of bringing even modest pressure on Israel.

So there is definite pessimism surrounding these talks, which most major newspapers have missed, in my opinion. There are some good analysis pieces which I’m linking to below.

Related Articles

• Netanyahu: Peace ‘Difficult But Possible’ (online.wsj.com)
• What it took to get Israelis and Palestinians to agree to talks (washingtonpost.com)
• The “Peace Process” is Still Going Nowhere (foreignpolicy.com)
• The Daunting Prospects for Mideast Talks (cfr.org)
• In letter to Obama, Palestinians say new peace talks will end if Israel renews settlement work (foxnews.com)
• Netanyahu: Security before borders (aljazeera.net)

In contrast

“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” Adventures of Tom Sawyer

So we’ve been having the heat wave of the century here. It’s oppressively disgustingly hot. And there’s rarely relief here, buildings don’t usually have AC, and the breeze just blows more hot air around. Classes are tough, without any AC, and I’m now used to standing up with wet pant legs from all the sweat.

Needless to say, we got outta Dodge and went to Jerusalem. I had an appointment with the American consulate there on Friday morning, but we went on Thursday night, not only to get out of the heat in Ramallah (not like there’s no heat in Jerusalem, it only being 10 km south, but there are more places with AC!), but also because of Friday morning traffic between Ramallah and Jerusalem. It’s not just rush hour traffic. Because it’s Ramadan, a lot of Muslims want to attend Friday prayers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City in Jerusalem. Al-Aqsa Mosque is the second oldest mosque in Islam after the Qa’aba in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) and is third in holiness and importance after the mosques in Mecca and Medina (also in Saudi Arabia). Al-Aqsa holds up to 400,000 worshipers at a time. During Ramadan, the area is filled to virtual capacity.

And yet. This year, Israeli police “will restrict the entrance of Palestinian worshipers to the prayer session at the Temple Mount compound.” Men aged 45-50 can enter only with a special permit; men over the age of 50 can enter freely. Women aged 30-45 can enter only with a special permit; women over the age of 45 can enter freely, as can worshipers with Israeli (blue) identity cards. In fact, Israel closed the Qalandia checkpoint (the checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem) last Friday morning, not allowing cars to pass from early morning until late afternoon, and it was expected that the same would happen yesterday (haven’t heard from anyone yet on this). So transportation is ground to a halt between Jerusalem and Ramallah on Friday mornings.

So we were lucky enough to have a place to stay in Jerusalem for the night and went down Thursday early evening. We arrived right at the call to prayer to break the fast, and got the most delicious shwarma from a vender right in front of the Damascus Gate.

On Friday morning, bright and early, I headed over to the American consulate. It was my first time, visiting my consulate or embassy in a foreign country. A very interesting experience to say the least! There was security all over the entire street in front of the walled compound, and only a veryyy small door with a little sign over the top saying “American Consulate.” [Side note: most countries do not recognize Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as the capital of their country, to not legitimate territorial expansion by military conquest. The UN Security Council has declared the Israeli annexation of greater Jerusalem as “null and void.” So most countries have their embassies in Tel Aviv, and then some have consulates in Jerusalem to deal with citizens in the West Bank.] There were black SUVs all on the sidewalk in front of the compound (really, not too different from the rest of the cities in this area – everyone just parks on the sidewalks), but the amount of polo-wearing, muscled guys with sunglasses was amusing. They wouldn’t let me in until the person I was meeting came down to escort me through security, but inside the walls was just a beautiful oasis, really. Everyone was really friendly and it was nice to be around professional Americans again!

Yesterday was kind of a wasted day, after that, however. My local phone stopped working and then the battery died, so I had to walk around around in the disgusting heat trying to find a place where I had enough signal to call, thank goodness I was in the Israeli part of town where I could at least drink water in public! I was going to head to Bethlehem today, but decided it was just too hot, and I hadn’t been home since Thursday evening. Maybe I’ll do some studying…

Related Articles

• Israel steps up Jerusalem security at start of Ramadan (cnn.com)
• Restrictions for First Friday of Ramadan in Jerusalem (israelnationalnews.com)
• U.S. Policy toward Jerusalem (fpif.org)

…Homework?!

“I like them to talk nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen.” Crime and Punishment

Between yesterday and today, I probably made over a hundred and fourteen mistakes! Though I’m not sure I’m even close to the truth yet… Yes, Arabic classes have started. Yesterday, there was some confusion over the location of our fusha class, so the professor ended up canceling it before 5 of us, who had been waiting in the building listed, finally went back to the office to ask after 30 minutes. So that was a little frustrating, but it gave me an extra day to review some grammar and vocab, which was much appreciated.

So because classes start at 8am, I leave my house around 7am to walk the 15 minutes to just a little past al-manara, the center square of Ramallah, to the service parking lot. Because there are so many people (students, professors, admin) who take the service to and from Ramallah and Birzeit, there is a separate parking lot just for that. Which makes it nice – I don’t have to go up to each bus and ask where they’re headed – they’re all headed to Birzeit. Now, there’s a town next to the university that is also Birzeit (bir in Arabic means well and zeit means oil, so it translates to well of oil, referring to the wells in which its inhabitants historically stored virgin-pressed olive oil). So, the service driver will ask, just before the university street, if people in the service want the “jam’a” – colloquial for university, it’s good I figured that out early on…), and if we do, then he drives up the hill and drops us off right at the student gate.

A lot of the students in my program are living in the housing provided by the university in the town of Birzeit. I went to a house of a student in my program, and the views were breathtaking:

Looking out from their house

Again

Yesterday, the first day of class, since my first class was canceled, I only had the colloquial class, which seems very basic and will be a good review, while learning how to actually speak to people on an everyday basis. Then, after class let out, I had to get back to Ramallah to get a passport photo taken, which I was only vaguely aware of one store that some other students had gone to, though none of them could remember exactly where it was located. Thankfully, after just wandering down two streets, I found it! It was a lot of running around, back and forth to the university and to Birzeit town, plus a little stop at the Arab Bank (yes, again! and no my money was not there yesterday, but I was reassured it would be there by today. I didn’t have the heart to check!)

Something I really love about being here in Ramallah and the West Bank, as soon as shopkeepers or even students you talk to on the service discover that you’re from the US or Europe, they immediately say, “Welcome to Palestine.” And not in a touristy-trap kind of way, but genuinely, you are welcome in Palestine. It’s so crazy, you would never hear an American in the streets of DC tell a clearly foreign person, “Welcome to America.” I just would never think of that! But the hospitality and happiness (?) that Palestinians show to foreigners is something I’ve never experienced before. Now, on the other hand, sometimes when I’m walking by a group of young men on the street, as they’re staring me up and down, they will say in a more “sexually-nuanced” way, “welcome to Palestine,” but it makes me think of the creepers who go up to little kids in the streets and try to lure them away with candy or a balloon… I really want to tell these guys that that’s not the way to catch a girl’s attention!

So yes, like the post title says, I do have homework and should be going to do it.

Adaptation

“The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.” Vanity Fair

Today, the world was frowning at me – or, I at it? Something that has been an adjustment for me here in Ramallah is the concept of time. There really is no such thing. When I first arrived and was attempting to set up a bank account, I was at the bank 5 days in a row, the first two just to figure out what documents were required [after waiting about 45 minutes each day], and the rest trying to reconcile good ol’ Bank of America with the Arab Bank. Because money that is transferred to Palestinian bank accounts has to go through multiple governmental checks (US, some European country – I think BoA goes through Switzerland -, Israel, and then finally the Palestinian Authority), this takes a while. Little did I know. Plus, because I’m not getting paid directly to my Arab Bank account, they would not give me an ATM card, so I have to sit and wait interminable hours just to check how much money is in my account or to withdraw money. Last week, I was at the bank at least 2 hours each day for three days straight. I’ve received two confirmations from my BoA that my transferred money has gone through to the Arab Bank. When I checked last week (again, concept of time…) they somewhat chuckled at my American impatience and said “not yet, give it some time, check next week.” So, today, my last day before classes start, I leave somewhat early in the morning (it is Ramadan, so nothing is really open before 9:30 or 10) to do a bunch of errands. I get to the bank first, thinking, great, I’ll get this taken care of first. I grab my ticket as I enter, and look down at my number – 326. I look up to see what numbers are being served – 89. You have got to be kidding me. So yes, three hours later, I go up to the window teller to check my balance and hopefully withdraw some money. But of course, the money that I transferred is not there yet! So after all of that, the money is still not there, I couldn’t withdraw any from that account (well, I could have, but I’m supposed to keep a minimum balance that I’m already below), and it’s already almost closing time for the bank because of Ramadan hours. So I can’t even go upstairs and check with the accounts managers.

Frustrating?! To say the least. But, there’s always tomorrow, if I can get out of class on time and catch the service back to Ramallah. I was able to do almost all of the other errands on my to-do list (yes, I still like to carve my time up into to-do list time slots, even though I’m learning to more go with the flow…), so I feel relatively accomplished. Though, looking back on what I wrote, and knowing how today actually went, it’s a miracle that, here, I feel accomplished for doing tasks that I’m used to taking maybe 45 minutes. So perhaps I’m adapting to this time thing better than I’m giving myself credit!

I did spend some time looking through my Arabic readers for tomorrow’s classes and was pleasantly surprised at how much of the formal fusha I could understand in the first text. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow!

Here also are links to two reports on demolitions of Palestinian housing in the West Bank: one new report by UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and one by B’Tselem, the Israeli information center for human rights in the Occupied Territories. Two well-known, as neutral as you can get, organizations with interesting reports, if you’re interested!

Back to school

“Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble? Making life means making trouble” Pygmalion

Sorry for the delay in writing another post! Classes at university start on Monday so it’s been a busy couple of days at orientation, taking the Arabic language placement exam and, oh, right, making friends. I’m posting some pictures of the university and of the view – Birzeit is set on 200 acres of a hill/mountain. It’s just 7 km north of Ramallah, so it’s a quick 10 minute service ride there. Birzeit was the first institution of higher education established in Palestine. It’s really a beautiful campus and these pictures unfortunately don’t do it justice.

A building on campus

Looking out from campus over the hills to Ramallah & its outskirts

Birzeit also houses the Right to Education Campaign, based on the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, a multilateral treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966. This underlines the fact that “Education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realizing other human rights.” This R2E campaign documents cases of systematic obstruction of education in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. During the first intifada (1987-1992), Palestinian education was made effectively illegal and all Palestinian universities, schools, and kindergartens were shut down by military order for almost 5 years. Students are often arrested or detained on their way to university, and holding any sort of student leadership positions almost guarantees a prison term (I guess 3 of the past 4 presidents of the student council at Birzeit have been arrested and charged for at least year-long prison sentences, for offenses as vague as “inciting political life on campus” or something – often the charges and the files against Palestinian students are closed/secret and unavailable to the defense lawyers, as the cases are made in Israeli military courts).

Hopefully no such closures will happen during my time here! But it’s always a possibility. If I’ve learned anything in my two weeks here so far, from both my experiences and from people I’ve talked to, you can never expect anything from this area. You just never know what will happen, whether it’s trying to open a bank account, trying to enter Israel at Ben Gurion, trying to register for classes. Between 2001-2003, the road from Ramallah to Birzeit was closed by the Israeli military. Again, there are these “flying checkpoints” when soldiers and jeeps block the road, for “security” but really to prevent access to students and teachers trying to reach their classes. There are hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank (see UN OCHA map here). It strangles normal life here.

Last night, because of Ramadan, there were no direct buses to Jerusalem from Ramallah, so we took a service to the Qalandia checkpoint, and then had to walk through it – so my second checkpoint this week. Both of them have not been “real” experiences, as I’ve gone at off-times and have not experienced the real waiting/frustration during “rush hour” if you will. But it’s still a degrading feeling, like you’re being herded through metal walkways and x-ray scanners.

On a happier note, classes should be hard but good, and it’ll be great to have a real schedule and I have the hope that soon I’ll be on my way to knowing Arabic! The other students in my program (all internationals) are a big mix of European and maybe 6 Americans, so it’s been fun to hear about where they all come from. So many of them are taking Arabic and other social science classes here at Birzeit to fulfill bachelor’s degree requirements from their home university, which makes me one of the older ones here… which is also a bizarre feeling!

Adventure!

“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.” Great Expectations

Where to begin?! Yesterday, we went to Hebron (al-Khaleel in Arabic), which began with a most ridiculous wait at the service (pronounced ser-vees) terminal. It’s this dark parking multi-level parking garage full of orange Ford or Volkswagon vans. There are no signs, of course, so you have to ask someone (preferably a driver and not someone just waiting around – differentiating the two can be fun) where to stand depending on where you want to go. Since we wanted to go to Hebron (south of Bethlehem), we were told to wait in a corner where all these other people were going. After waiting maybe 5 minutes, a service pulls up – without any real marking except some tiny Arabic on the passenger door – and the crowd all surges forward to try to grab one of the 7 seats. Of course, all the guys push to the front and get in – and that happened for the next 4 service that came through. Finally, one of the other drivers took pity on this Palestinian girl and us, and when the next one pulled up, he pushed all the guys out of the way and let us get on – since we were going only to Hebron and not to Bethlehem. I have never been more terrified in my life. These service are ridiculous! Going 140 km/hr in a posted “70 km/hr” zone, granted no one is going 70, but still. Flyyyyying around these curves – and there’s no way to describe these roads. Up and down these hills – ummm, more like mountains – SO incredibly steep, zig-zagging up the side, maybe 40 degree angle turns. Palestinians are not allowed to use the Israeli roads, which are more direct from city to city, so we were driving on all these back roads, quite a round-about way.

But finally, we made it to Hebron, and went to a friend’s house for a traditional Palestinian dinner. It was so nice to get a home-cooked meal, some meat and rice, salad, soup. Even though not everyone in the house spoke English, everyone was very welcoming. The views were gorgeous:

Looking down at Hebron, from the house in the NW of the city

Sunset in Hebron

Then, the interesting part of the night started. Because we got to Hebron so late, we would have only had an hour there. So we stayed longer and after, we were driven to Bethlehem by one person in the family who has a Jerusalem ID and therefor has the yellow plates on the car and is allowed to drive there (another post will come about the inequities on the road). Because that was as far as they could drive, we walked through the Bethlehem checkpoint. What a maze. It’s this huge maximum security style checkpoint, multiple buildings to walk through, multiple turnstiles – and not the DC metro turnstiles, like military base turnstiles. The first ones are all controlled remotely, so you don’t even see any guards at first, you hear this huge buzzer, the light turns green, and you can walk through. (This was around 9 pm, so we waited for about 5 minutes before we could walk through the first turnstiles, there were only maybe 6 of us waiting – I can’t even imagine what this is like during the day.) Then, you put your bag through a conveyor belt just like at an airport, and you walk through a metal detector – again, controlled remotely, no guards around. Then you walk through some more maze-like paths, and finally you get to the passport check.

Once we were through, we had to grab a cab quickly to get to Jerusalem (only maybe 10 minutes away without traffic – yes, things are this close around here!), because we needed to catch the last bus at 10pm to Ramallah. Which, we did, thankfully, catching the last one as it was pulling out of the terminal station. It’s hard to believe it all happened in about 6 hours last night!

Then, because last night started Ramadan, we set our clocks back one hour for the “winter” time. It was a good thing the university emailed me about it, because orientation started today! It’s a beautiful campus, only a 15 minute drive from Ramallah (on another crazy service), set high on a hill, with just gorgeous views (pictures to come later). We have our placement exams tomorrow, then classes start Monday.

So far, I’ve only noticed that “rush hour” happens on the streets around 3pm, when all the shops and businesses close down for Ramadan. The streets were just as packed with people shopping for food to eat at iftar, the breaking of the fast after sunset. Both Ramallah and Birzeit have big Christian populations, so not everyone is fasting, but it’s still not respectful to eat or drink in public, which is easy enough to handle.

The more I see of the country, the more I love. It’s a beautiful place with a lot of history, all of it affecting the people who live here now.

Gearing up

“All is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear the most.” Crime and Punishment

I definitely feel more comfortable sightseeing than I do just attempting to go grocery shopping. Grocery shopping requires, to me, looking up the Arabic words that I want to remember (and because I don’t have a guidebook for Arabic, I only have my huge Arabic-English dictionary, this requires me google-translating from English to Arabic, then because I don’t really trust it, using the root from google translate and finding it in the dictionary and attempting to remember how to conjugate what I want to say). Then, it’s the standing in the aisle sounding things out and trying to figure out what to buy, and ultimately… trying to speak Arabic to the cashier, who inevitably will not understand me because I do not know the informal, colloquial. I don’t understand it, and I definitely don’t know how to speak it. So I’m standing there with my arms full of groceries, saying in the fusha, the formal, the equivalent of Shakespearean English, “o good sir, would thou please indicate the price of these goods?” The bewildered look of the cashier would be funny if it were not directed at me.

Last night, we went to Jerusalem, the City Center this time, which is outside the gates of the Old City and is much more modern/new. The sidewalks/streets are still cobblestone, but it’s beautiful and everyone is out walking, eating outside at restaurants, talking, drinking. We went to get out of Ramallah and get a good meal and this ice cream that my roommate had been talking about for an entire day. We also had this chardonnay from the Golan Heights Winery – very tasty! And Goldstar, an Israeli beer, which is a little darker than the Taybeh, the Palestinian beer. It was really nice to walk around and not be ogled at for looking so out of place, and just relax a bit. I really liked this part of Jerusalem – lots of shops and it’s easy to walk around. Apparently, there’s been this streetcar-type public transportation that has been in the works for like 7 years now (which reminded me of the H St. NE streetcar debacle in DC), which looks like it would be a nice way of getting around – it seems like a lot of the track work is already laid, right in the middle of the main street.

Today I got an email saying that if Ramadan starts on Wednesday (tomorrow) then time in Palestine goes back one hour. If Ramadan will start on Thursday, then the time goes back one hour on Thursday. It’s still iffy when exactly Ramadan will start, as the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, as opposed to the solar Gregorian calendar that Westerners use, and Ramadan begins when the first crescent of a new moon is sighted. So sometime in the next two days, I’ll only be 6 hours ahead of DC!

Tonight, we’re headed to Hebron, which should be very interesting. It’s the West Bank’s most conservative city and also has the most people. There’s also a huge ultraorthodox Jewish population and subsequently a very large presence of Israeli military guards.

And then tomorrow, orientation for school! Only if today I can find the bus station to get up there…