A little more than two weeks ago. Jericho. The cool, below-sea-level city at the east side of the West Bank -- the Muslim majority town with a large refugee population -- where Palestinians go on vacation because it's quiet there and it can be challenging/impossible to get the permits or money to go anywhere else.
Ancient city of barely post-glacial-period hunter-gatherers, early Neolithic agricultural settlements, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Hasmoneans, Romans, Byzantines, Arab Caliphates, Crusaders, Mamluks, Turks, modern Israelis, Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, Muslims, Christians, Jesus, and one thus-far uncorroborated but still provocative anecdote about trumpets and falling walls.
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Me and the other volunteers had just come back from a cable car trip up to the mountain where tradition says Jesus was tempted by the devil (but which is now topped by an Israeli listening post). Thus we'd just come back down the mountain, and were working our way toward the exit and the parking lot, planning to move on next to Hisham's Palace, which was some sort of mansion for Islamic higher-ups in the Umayyad Dynasty in the 700s A.D.
Unfortunately, those dastardly cable car operators had made the clever strategic decision of rerouting the only way out of the building through the gift shop.
Forewarned and forearmed, we readied ourselves to dash for the exit. No overpriced souvenirs or gaudy but reasonably high-quality jewelry for us -- or so we whispered to ourselves, urging our willpowers to stay strong.
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The adrenaline wasn't really actively pumping through me yet, but my nervous system had been formally notified and was already circulating some pretty fierce intra-office memos. It was on alert, you might say -- just for the thrill of dashing through a tourist trap.
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All of a sudden, I am on the defensive. I stop mid-dash to field a question. My interest in people forwards some angry notes and overpowers the previous order to "rush through the inconveniently-placed souvenir shop like a bull desperately trying to avoid buying any china."
"Me? I'm from America." (I can introduce myself in Arabic like a rock star.) I stay on alert to resume the dash the second he tries to sell me something.
"But where in America?" (A common enough question, but not common enough for me to change my stock answer to the "Where are you from?" question.) I can't tell if the man works there or if he just happens to be chilling in the watches section to stay out of the hot Jericho sun.
"The state of North Carolina," I say. "In the South," I add, trying to be helpful.
"I know North Carolina," he says. *Awkward pause* "That's where it happened."
Someone in my nervous system was already weirdly panicky about souvenirs. Now they pull the office fire alarm. Adrenaline sprints out of the bathroom and jumps in the pilot seat.
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Perhaps he even clarified. He might've added, "Yeah, North Carolina -- that's where the shooting happened." Or, "That's where the Muslims were killed." It wasn't accusatory at all -- he was just stating a fact. He might as well have said, "I know that state! That's where three innocent American Muslim students were shot to death in their apartment two and a half days ago." (But at this point he was responding to my broken Arabic with broken English, so I doubt he was quite that articulate.)
And even if he did clarify, which he might have -- it wasn't necessary. I knew from the way he said it, the unreadable but obviously still slightly readable look on his face, and the abrupt pressure change (in the normally quite breezy city of Jericho), that there was no other "it" he might've been talking about.
I really can't tell you exactly what he said -- the whole thing is a whirlwind-y adrenaline-filled blur. I started talking so fast I'm not sure exactly what I said either.
All I can do is tell you what I tried to say.
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I started in Arabic, but I switched to English somewhere along the line when a woman in hijab who'd joined the conversation told me in a soothing "don't strain yourself" kind of way to "just speak English."
I tried to tell them that I'd lived there -- not (just) in North Carolina but in Chapel Hill -- for the past four years, and that the community there meant a lot to me.
I tried to tell them that this is not what that community is about.
I tried to tell them that I know many people there, and all of them are in shock. Are angry. Are shocked that this happened and angry that it was allowed to happen. Shocked that people can do this and angry that things have come to this.
I tried to tell them about the rallies, the vigils, the celebrations of the lives that were taken, the cries of solidarity, the tears of sympathy and the many of all different backgrounds and faiths trying to stand up against violence and hate and xenophobia, refusing to let one act of random aggression and mad hate tear down anything built firmly out of human love and kindness.
Somewhere along the line I think I told them I was sorry. Sorry for what -- I have no clue. Sorry for the random acts of one unstable individual, sorry for being a part of the community, the culture, the country that -- one way or another -- allowed it to happen, sorry for America and its history of what many would call hypocritical meddling and brutal intervention in this region and in the Muslim world? I have no idea.
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Equally cryptic as my apology, the lady in hijab responded to my inarticulate word-spilling with a simple but sincere, "Thank you." Whatever she meant, it's the only thing that satisfies me enough to stop me from filling this fuzzy, mostly blank memory with doubt and regret. Perhaps I said what I was supposed to say.
It all happened so fast in such an adrenaline-filled, shockingly short, rushed period of time, that I have no clue what the man said, or how the conversation ended except that I'm sure I rattled through my list of conventional Arabic goodbyes. "God give you safety; God keep you; go in health; Peace; God be with you." Somewhat redundant or repetitive, but somehow satisfying.
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Two lessons. Or, thoughts, or something.
1) Perhaps this is why I'm here. To give America a human face and to speak for my communities stateside in saying "That is not us. That is not who we are."
And at the same time to add my voice to the many voices already trying to do the same thing for the dehumanized Arab/Muslim/Arab-Muslim communities.
2) People here are listening. They're often less ignorant of what goes on in America than we are of what goes on over there. But at the same time, they only hear the bad -- just like us! If all we hear is that "they" "are violent and they hate us" -- well oddly enough the primary, overwhelming message they get about "us" is that "we're violent and we hate them."
100% honestly there is a not insignificant amount of people here who are super afraid to send their kids to schools or anywhere in America. Not even because of anti-Arab sentiment or Islamophobia, but because of shootings and crime.
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And if anyone's caught up in the shooting and the nitty-gritty he-said she-said speculation and motivation and whatnot about why those murders actually happened: Even if the Chapel Hill shooting was 15% "parking dispute," 15% insufficient gun regulations, 40% untreated mental illness and stigma/general struggle with life and coping and being unable or unwilling to get help, 20% generalized hatred of all religion and only 10% motivated by specific anti-Islamic or anti-Arab hate -- it's kind of irrelevant.
That's like an Arab Muslim saying, "I shouldn't have to apologize for my religion -- it's only being used as a recruiting tool and justification when the real causes of terrorism are political and socioeconomic!"
It might be 100% true, and it might be quite reasonable -- but at a certain point it doesn't matter anymore.
http://bit.ly/1vNSmMh
(Of course it should matter, and I believe it does matter, but yeah. At a certain point it's irrelevant.)
(I'm putting some of "the nuance" down here at the bottom so it hopefully doesn't dilute or weigh down the punchiness.)
(Hopefully that ending came off more pragmatic and even-handed than just straight-up depressing or callous.)
(Sorry if that got unpleasantly political. Let me know if you want to argue.)
(Or just talk. You know. As you like.)
(miked3592@gmail.com)
(Originally posted March 1st, 2015)
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Race and Religion in the Holy Land
Something to add to the long list of shared characteristics that makes Israeli and Palestinian society weirdly similar. (Along with generally conservative social norms and mores, gender-segregated social circles, and an inability to form lines.) (To be fair I'm sure they can form lines just fine, I guess it's more of an apathetic *shrug,* "That seems like a lot of work, let's just all try to go at once and see what happens.")
(Spoiler: Often dealing without lines ends up going just fine, with perhaps an occasional setback and delay. Maybe it encourages people to be assertive? Plus it makes people rely more on social courtesy and respect instead of being able to rely on people simply "following the rules."?)
That thing to be added to the list that I haven't gotten to quite yet: The centrality of religion! As an idea! As a category that you are defined by.
"Religion" appears nowhere on the U.S. Census (our primary category for "people-sorting," it turns out, is race.) Which perhaps makes sense too, because it seems like the majority of Americans are in that vaguely secularish gray area where you don't go to church but still have a medley of religious beliefs floating idly and uninspected around your house.
In Israel and Palestine, however, that is simply not the case.
In Israel you essentially exist first and foremost in the eyes of the state *as a member of a specific religion.* You can be a secular Jew, or a secular Christian, or a secular Muslim, or a secular *other,* but you can't just be a secular because that's not a thing.
And maybe that's because religion is seen almost as an ethnic category (especially in the case of the Jewish identity). It's something you simply are by merit of being born into a specific family.
My family is Christian, and thus I am Christian. This individual is Muslim or Jewish because their family is Muslim or Jewish.
Two things that are sort of results of that or perhaps partly columns in that system that help make it continue to make sense:
1) The American cliche of the child, probably born to a lax Christian or Jewish or secular background, who grows up and gets interested in one of those cool-sounding Eastern religions that they really have no authentic experience with -- is almost nonsensical and confusing to think about in this context. Conversions in general "don't happen," which might just mean it's something totally not cool to talk about or acknowledge.
Just like
2) intermarriage! By which I mean interfaith marriage. Something else that totally just "doesn't exist" over here, by which I mean is taboo and kind of frowned upon.
So yeah, that's interesting.
But at the same time it sort of makes sense. Even if many secular Americans wouldn't want to identify with any of these specific faiths, their cultures and upbringings in all likelihood have been thoroughly shaped and influenced by these religions.
And I can't say for sure if it's better or worse than "race" as a divider of people, but frankly neither are looking great right now.
(Also I'm not saying there isn't racism here. Cause oh my gosh.)
(Spoiler: Often dealing without lines ends up going just fine, with perhaps an occasional setback and delay. Maybe it encourages people to be assertive? Plus it makes people rely more on social courtesy and respect instead of being able to rely on people simply "following the rules."?)
That thing to be added to the list that I haven't gotten to quite yet: The centrality of religion! As an idea! As a category that you are defined by.
"Religion" appears nowhere on the U.S. Census (our primary category for "people-sorting," it turns out, is race.) Which perhaps makes sense too, because it seems like the majority of Americans are in that vaguely secularish gray area where you don't go to church but still have a medley of religious beliefs floating idly and uninspected around your house.
In Israel and Palestine, however, that is simply not the case.
In Israel you essentially exist first and foremost in the eyes of the state *as a member of a specific religion.* You can be a secular Jew, or a secular Christian, or a secular Muslim, or a secular *other,* but you can't just be a secular because that's not a thing.
And maybe that's because religion is seen almost as an ethnic category (especially in the case of the Jewish identity). It's something you simply are by merit of being born into a specific family.
My family is Christian, and thus I am Christian. This individual is Muslim or Jewish because their family is Muslim or Jewish.
Two things that are sort of results of that or perhaps partly columns in that system that help make it continue to make sense:
1) The American cliche of the child, probably born to a lax Christian or Jewish or secular background, who grows up and gets interested in one of those cool-sounding Eastern religions that they really have no authentic experience with -- is almost nonsensical and confusing to think about in this context. Conversions in general "don't happen," which might just mean it's something totally not cool to talk about or acknowledge.
Just like
2) intermarriage! By which I mean interfaith marriage. Something else that totally just "doesn't exist" over here, by which I mean is taboo and kind of frowned upon.
So yeah, that's interesting.
But at the same time it sort of makes sense. Even if many secular Americans wouldn't want to identify with any of these specific faiths, their cultures and upbringings in all likelihood have been thoroughly shaped and influenced by these religions.
And I can't say for sure if it's better or worse than "race" as a divider of people, but frankly neither are looking great right now.
(Also I'm not saying there isn't racism here. Cause oh my gosh.)
Friday, June 12, 2015
BBQs, Pop Music, and Long Travel Times
So I have a little less than a month left before heading back stateside -- thus I've been trying to at least blog a little every day. But I didn't blog yesterday, so this is an extra-special make-up blog.
Yesterday evening I didn't manage to blog because I was at a graduation party in Beit Jala, the western neighbor of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Distance-wise, Beit Jala is fairly close. (Google says it's about 13km as the crow flies.) But it can take an awfully long time to get there, mostly because of having to find the specific checkpoints to go through the 30-foot tall security wall.
I managed to cross back from Beit Jala to Jerusalem at the end of the evening (because my program coordinators happened to be at the party, and they have a car with the right color license plate -- meaning they can drive back and forth through the wall.), but Palestinian buses in southern East Jerusalem are unreliable and poorly scheduled, and the Israeli buses weren't running because the Jewish shabat/sabbath starts Friday at sun-down. THEREFORE I spent the night at coordinator's house in the Palestinian Jerusalemite neighborhood of Beit Safafa.
Transportation here is challenging and confusing sometimes.
But yeah! Barbecue! Fun and games and dancing! Parties are fun.
Here's a taste of Arab pop -- the kind of stuff you often hear at parties here.
Fares Karam -- IlHamdilla
Khaled -- C'est La Vie (this one might sound familiar)
Yesterday evening I didn't manage to blog because I was at a graduation party in Beit Jala, the western neighbor of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Distance-wise, Beit Jala is fairly close. (Google says it's about 13km as the crow flies.) But it can take an awfully long time to get there, mostly because of having to find the specific checkpoints to go through the 30-foot tall security wall.
I managed to cross back from Beit Jala to Jerusalem at the end of the evening (because my program coordinators happened to be at the party, and they have a car with the right color license plate -- meaning they can drive back and forth through the wall.), but Palestinian buses in southern East Jerusalem are unreliable and poorly scheduled, and the Israeli buses weren't running because the Jewish shabat/sabbath starts Friday at sun-down. THEREFORE I spent the night at coordinator's house in the Palestinian Jerusalemite neighborhood of Beit Safafa.
Transportation here is challenging and confusing sometimes.
But yeah! Barbecue! Fun and games and dancing! Parties are fun.
Here's a taste of Arab pop -- the kind of stuff you often hear at parties here.
Fares Karam -- IlHamdilla
Khaled -- C'est La Vie (this one might sound familiar)
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Street View, Toaster Cookies, and More Goats
Thought #1: I baked more than 70 cookies in a toaster oven this Tuesday. It was a long, vaguely pain-staking process, but fairly successful and delicious.
Actual "ovens" are somewhat rare here.
As are "actual measuring utensils," so I got to do a lot of guesstimating.
Then I put in a lot of light-brown sugar before I realized that that's just sugar that's a little brown and not actually brown sugar. So long story short, I put a lot of extra sugar of many various colors in these cookies.
Thought #2:
Here's some pictures of main street of Beit Hanina, mostly taken from the bus one day as I was on my way to work.
My lovely local coffee roaster shop, hidden behind a bus stop.
My normal grocery store, which is only that by merit of it being conveniently located.
I often by hummus and falafel from the store on the end on the left there. There's another place out of the frame to the right that I usually get dinner pastry type-things from. (Little mini vaguely-calzone like things with just cheese and sauce.) (And little small pizza like things except usually with just egg and sausage and maybe creamy cheese.
There'll be thick rows of stores and stuff and then randomly a side of a whole block will be undeveloped. (Hard to get permits to build in Arab neighborhoods here.) (Also Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem are notoriously economically depressed.) (Did I mention there's usually at least one dumpster full of burning trash?)
Thought #3: PART TWO OF EPIC MOUNTAIN&GOATS ADVENTURE IN JORDAN
Actual "ovens" are somewhat rare here.
As are "actual measuring utensils," so I got to do a lot of guesstimating.
Then I put in a lot of light-brown sugar before I realized that that's just sugar that's a little brown and not actually brown sugar. So long story short, I put a lot of extra sugar of many various colors in these cookies.
Thought #2:
Here's some pictures of main street of Beit Hanina, mostly taken from the bus one day as I was on my way to work.
Thought #3: PART TWO OF EPIC MOUNTAIN&GOATS ADVENTURE IN JORDAN
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Coffee, a Wonderful Snack, and a Cozy Bookshop
So I live in Beit Hanina, an Arab Palestinian neighborhood 15ish minutes outside of the Old City of Jerusalem, which is the actual place that the Torah, the Bible, the Quran, Roman historians, the Ottomans, the Mamelukes, the Ayyubids, the Sassanids, Flavius Josephus, etc. etc. were talking about whenever they said "Jerusalem." (It has walls and everything!) Than the Mount of Olives is basically a big hill to the east of the Old City.
Most of my life this year has orbited around this odd and exciting triangle. I live in Beit Hanina, work on the Mount of Olives, and do everything else around the Old City. That's where the Arab Palestinian Lutheran Church of the Redeemer is, and thus where I attend service and coffeehour and whatnot, but around the Old City is also "downtown," so it's a natural place to hang out in general.
One place I end up at a lot is a cafe/public-culture-meeting-place-type-thing/bookstore called the Educational Bookshop. And it's on Saladin Street, which is named for the famous Arab Muslim leader-hero who drove the foreign Crusaders out of the Levant. (He's kind of a big deal historically speaking.) (Almost like El Cid or Charlemagne or something? National hero from a 1,000 years ago type thing?)
But yeah, Saladin Street is the main street of East Jerusalem (whereas Jaffa Street is the main street of West Jerusalem).
And because I like books, and I like random lectures and meeting authors and hearing people talk about politics and culture and stuff, and most of all because I like coffeeshops -- I spend quite a bit of time there.
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Also I brought my family there so here's some pictures of us on the upper floor cafe area!!!
When you're actually drinking/eating it though, it comes off more like a delicious, hot rice pudding -- thickness and sweetness wise -- although of course there is clearly no rice in it.
It's especially fantastic when it's cold outside. Although if it's hot outside you can just chill it after you make it and that's fantastic too.
Here's dad with a friend of mine named Mahmoud, who's part of the family that runs the bookstore.
They're looking at a silly book I believe my dad now owns that translates and explains Arab folk-sayings.
The other thing I do a lot of at the Bookshop is drink coffee. (of all kinds!)
But most often I'm drinking Arabic coffee, which is super strong, served boiling, and in which you can usually find a thick pile of very fine grains of murky coffee ground at the bottom. (Also not in *huge* quantities) Flavored with cardomom (which is ground in with the coffee beans) and with varying amounts of sugar too. (It's pretty great.)
And another informative link or two that I didn't find a good place to fit in.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Side Effects, Goats, and Everyday Life (not in that order)
Thought #1: Over-The-Counter Medicine in Israel/Palestine! All of the fun of unintended side effects without having to give up those fun, original symptoms you've gotten so attached to!
Not quite sure why that is, and it's probably all in my head, but yeah, that.
Thought #2: Here's a little glimpse of what my neighborhood is like. (It's about a 5-10 minute walk from my apartment to a bus stop on the main road.)
First my street! It's called Abu Madi, which in Arabic as far as I know could mean either "father of the past," "father of the signatory," or "father of the last." The last one is my personal favorite, (Father of the last) because fathers in this region are traditionally known by the name of their eldest son, so "last" would be a cool reversal.
And that's what my apartment complex looks like in the snow.
And here's the streets (and cool views from those streets) between my flat and the main road -- at various times of day and sometimes with snow.
A car dealership. The owner was probably really proud of their English title. I guess it's one of those things that's supposed to be really clever. (And by "supposed" I mean "suppozed," not "suppost,") (Say them out loud repeatedly if you don't catch the difference.)
Thought #3
Here's the first episode of a short series about our experience climbing a random rock/mountain/hill/cliff face thing in Jordan in the desert. I'm thinking of pitching it to HBO, maybe throw some historical drama in there, probably featuring Tom Hanks. WWI is fashionable right now, right?
(Enlarge video to maybe catch a glimpse of the actual goats!)
Monday, June 8, 2015
Playtime in Palestine: Police Brutality and a Child's Imagination
I've had the wonderful opportunity to watch a lot of kids at play this year in Jerusalem/East Jerusalem/Palestine/Israel, and often the even more wonderful opportunity of getting to play with them.
It warms your heart, entertains, creates a fulfilling sense of human connection far quicker than any "adult conversation" usually does, etc. etc., reasonably good workout, laughter, childish sense of wonder and imagination -- unburdened by the real world or any of the concrete knowledge of aforementioned world that you usually soak up as you spend your life floating around in it.
(Which eventually deadens you and leaves you a useless, gross, dried-up but otherwise quite worldly kitchen sponge.)
But on top of those things and that one unfortunately cynical tongue-in-cheek tangent, watching kids at play is also interesting and insightful in its own right -- partly because you get to see what "knowledge" the kids have already soaked up.
A lot of play, especially anything that involves some element of make-believe, can be pretty revealing of values, ideas, experiences -- whether they be based in wider culture, the kids' personal lives, or a wacky dream they had once.
Which makes sense! As little human beings, they've only been here so long, and there's a lot to figure out about this world, from physics to biology. (i.e., learning to live with gravity, and figuring out what in the lord's name all that stuff that keeps falling off of trees is.)
And at a certain point everyone around them just assumes they should be able to name animals and identify colors and apply their abstract "counting exercises" to actual objects at a 3-year-old level, which is a lot of pressure and probably kind of stressful actually.
But as it turns out, one helpful study tactic is to take ideas/roles/identities you've seen or otherwise picked up on in the world around you and act them out -- literally playing with them.
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It warms your heart, entertains, creates a fulfilling sense of human connection far quicker than any "adult conversation" usually does, etc. etc., reasonably good workout, laughter, childish sense of wonder and imagination -- unburdened by the real world or any of the concrete knowledge of aforementioned world that you usually soak up as you spend your life floating around in it.
(Which eventually deadens you and leaves you a useless, gross, dried-up but otherwise quite worldly kitchen sponge.)
But on top of those things and that one unfortunately cynical tongue-in-cheek tangent, watching kids at play is also interesting and insightful in its own right -- partly because you get to see what "knowledge" the kids have already soaked up.
A lot of play, especially anything that involves some element of make-believe, can be pretty revealing of values, ideas, experiences -- whether they be based in wider culture, the kids' personal lives, or a wacky dream they had once.
Which makes sense! As little human beings, they've only been here so long, and there's a lot to figure out about this world, from physics to biology. (i.e., learning to live with gravity, and figuring out what in the lord's name all that stuff that keeps falling off of trees is.)
And at a certain point everyone around them just assumes they should be able to name animals and identify colors and apply their abstract "counting exercises" to actual objects at a 3-year-old level, which is a lot of pressure and probably kind of stressful actually.
But as it turns out, one helpful study tactic is to take ideas/roles/identities you've seen or otherwise picked up on in the world around you and act them out -- literally playing with them.
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One thing I've seen this year is a lot of animals. (There was one month-long period where pretty much every day this boy would proclaim himself a lion/tiger/fox/dragon (depending on how he was feeling), and proceed to eat my fingers, often narrating for me while doing so.) Eventually that progressed a bit, and so after maiming me he would switch characters and be a doctor for a little bit.
That all seems normal, and potentially more or less universal. Animals, ouchies of various severities, and people that fix the ouchies.
Then there's food! Thus every day of playtime in the sandbox ends up being an hour of "Let's pretend to cook things for Michael!"
Child: CAKE! (nearly shouted, as they proffer some dish or shovel-full of well-groomed sand at me)
Me: Ooh, nice, thanks! (*pretend munch*) (Turn to child #2) And what are you making?
Child #2: CAKE! (Puts shovel up to my mouth, dumping half the sand in my lap in the process)
Me: Oh wow! What type of cake?
Child #2: .... cake.
(The road to more creative interactions seems to be closed that way (occasionally an older child will sprinkle dirt on their sand and call it chocolate cake, but that's the only specificity we get.), so I usually satisfy myself by making really weird eating noises.)
(And I've gotten weirder through the year. I started in the fall as a very polite teatime snacker, and now I'm more like that grind-y garbage disposal thing some people have in their sinks.)
So yeah, Palestinian children apparently see/eat a lot of cake. And they know what animals and doctors are.
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But here's an example of something a little more unusual (in relation to my experience) that I've come across.
First of all, there's the interesting way the stories go when one of the boys rambles out long, vividly imagined but clearly fabricated tales of the events of the latest weekend. Usually something about his mom (or other family member) getting shot (or otherwise hurt or killed) by police and him then hitting someone with his sword (ostensibly the police officer responsible for the attack).
Then there's this friend of mine and this not-horribly-irregular game:
This seems like a fairly innocent random playground scene at first, right? Complete with a baby eating grass. Well it is that, but what else is it?
A not-quite-3-ish girl pretending to be a police officer and shooting me in the face.
Oof. (My baby friend was, however, indeed trying to eat grass.)
Fun, right? The playground setting and the "playtime" feel of this sort of thing makes everything feel like inconsequential fun and games -- but then occasionally I think back moments to hours after the fact and it's weirdly horrifying.
A not-quite-3-ish girl pretending to be a police officer and shooting me in the face.
Oof. (My baby friend was, however, indeed trying to eat grass.)
Fun, right? The playground setting and the "playtime" feel of this sort of thing makes everything feel like inconsequential fun and games -- but then occasionally I think back moments to hours after the fact and it's weirdly horrifying.
"ANA SHURTA!" --> "I AM A POLICE OFFICER!!!" She says, in a voice usually reserved for Godzilla or cheesy cartoon villains. (For the record, this altercation was entirely unprompted, the police officer identity just sort of gets put on sometimes -- BUT it is a somewhat regular "make-believe character" that I see.
And yes. More often than not with that same voice and that same level of unprompted violence.
"fee ayndak dam!" --> "You're bleeding!" She says afterward, in the same announcement/FYI voice she used one time to inform me that she'd noticed there was blood on my lip. In this make-believe scenario I can't tell if she's actually trying to be helpful or if I'm supposed to read that more as a "clean yourself up scum" type thing. Or maybe she stepped out of the make-believe for a moment so she could narrate and catch me up a bit.
Later that day she shot me a couple more times (this time with a "hand"-gun instead of the big orange-y thing.) (WATCH VIDEO HERE) I asked her why -- she seemed to think about it a little bit, then told me something along the lines of, "because you didn't understand." Which is sort of cryptic and sort of horrible. (But also funny because I didn't totally understand it as an explanation and I'm still not certain I'm hearing her right...)
(If I just managed to get video of these two specific pieces of a larger episode, imagine how many times I've played this game before without filming it. After many episodes of it, eventually started thinking about it and realizing I should try to videotape it.)
(If I just managed to get video of these two specific pieces of a larger episode, imagine how many times I've played this game before without filming it. After many episodes of it, eventually started thinking about it and realizing I should try to videotape it.)
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But why is this a thing? Why are these Palestinian Jerusalemite children's perceptions of police officers so starkly different -- and far more violent and manifestly unjust -- than the happy image of police officers much more common in my home environment of comfortably-well-to-do majority-white American suburbs?
Well let's see.
For one thing there's the fact that the police officers in Jerusalem are Israeli. They speak Hebrew, and they have Israeli citizenships, and they have Israeli rights. Whereas more often than not, Palestinians in Jerusalem don't speak Hebrew, don't have Israeli citizenship, and most decidedly do not have Israeli rights.
East Jerusalem is controlled by Israel, and its Palestinian residents are forcibly separated from the arms of their own government, the West Bank's Palestinian Authority. They're a marginalized community with crowded neighborhoods, horribly neglected by the municipality and all its services and funds. Also they're essentially under martial law. They can be shot and killed with only the slightest extremely subjective cause for suspicion by police or military officers, and there will be no questions asked. Even children of as young as 8-12 can be detained for long periods without justification and without real oversight of their treatment while in custody.
Then there's the fact that the Israeli security and military sectors have a firm, unwavering institutional record for responding to non-violent protest with brutal force and violent suppression. This often succeeds at turning non-violent protest into violent protest, but even when it doesn't, it's not what you'd call pleasant.
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So the thought process that led to this violent make-believe --> it's perhaps justified, but tragically unfortunate. Especially because I know confidently that there are countless military and security personnel in Israel that are wonderful people only trying to do their job and support their families and their nation.
And without positive interaction with many Israelis, a horrifying image of "the Israeli police officer" can easily become the violent, terrifying stand-in for Jewish Israelis in general. Which is misleading and untrue, and also incredibly unhelpful for breaking down the massive separation walls of fear and hate and concrete that cut up this beautiful land into ugly broken inefficient pieces.
But we can't condemn this seemingly common image of the "horrifying, brutal and unfeeling Israeli with a gun and a uniform" without simultaneously recognizing the frequent individual, family, and community experiences that create this concept and give it a prominent and clearly-defined place in a child's imagination.
-----------------------------------------
And it might be important for us to take this opportunity to reflect on my comfortably-well-to-do majority-white American suburban community as well. I grew up in a home where -- I might not have been especially excited or happy about police officers -- but I felt I could trust them. I understood they were there for people's safety, or, um, speeding tickets? Never quite figured that part out.
But I never felt any reason to fear them or to question the assumption that they were there to do good, that they were there to help. And most Jewish Israeli children probably feel the same way!
But that's not the case for many Palestinians, and that's not the case for many marginalized communities in the United States, especially in African-American communities, but also throughout many minority communities and probably in many lower-income communities regardless of race.
And just like here, in Jerusalem with the Palestinians, our job is to open our ears, open our hearts, and seek out the stories of those around us. To understand, to bridge those divides, to join the slow work of healing those walls of separation -- wherever we are.
These two children are valuable and fascinating and loving individuals that mean a lot to me and whom I will miss dearly. (Even if Señor GrassEater below hasn't had enough time to fully develop into an "individual," per se.)
I will be going back to America in a month, but these kids won't. This is their home, this is their future, and this is their reality.
I will be going back to America in a month, but these kids won't. This is their home, this is their future, and this is their reality.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
English vs. Arabic: The subversive mutt and the meticulous purebred
English is a mutt language. It seems like it just sort of *happened,* and all the logical and orthographical consistency & coherence to it is put and kept there by sheer force of will. (If we all close our eyes and imagine really hard that "i before e except after c" to be true, then perhaps it makes our language real and rational and not just a weird jumble of things people said and the eccentric ways they decided to spell them.
(Which then got arbitrarily made official and unchanging because we seem a lot cooler and more respectable if we have one solid thing that can be called a "language" and "nation" and "heritage" and such.
French conquerors, British barbarians, and an assortment of vikings all got together and babbled for a while, thus the European lovemass of linguistic incest spat out an under-developed latin/greek/germanic/celtic mass, which we've spent centuries polishing and putting in dictionaries.
This "mutt" quality becomes especially visible and remarkable when compared to Arabic. Good gosh does this language MAKE SENSE. It's a well-organized, supremely logical system, even with the thousands of years of colloquial wear and tear and the way the language is uncomfortably split between formal and street language. It's the foundations that matter -- and it has those! While English doesn't.
Every verb has a form and a shape and a root, and there aren't huge separate sets of vocabulary that seem to operate according to entirely different sets of rules (like Latin and Germanic stuff in English, for example.) Once you know how the system works, you can take any word apart and figure out what's going on, and sounding it out isn't a problem. (Unlike though and enough, for example.)
It's kind of refreshing actually. But at the same time, this doesn't mean I prefer it, or that if I could've chosen my native language I'd have picked the admirably logical and consistent Arabic. Not at all. (For one thing, the radical split between formal and colloquial language (they're essentially two different languages) does horrible things for a culture of reading.) (Imagine having to look really really hard to find a single modern novel or poem that wasn't essentially written in Shakespeare-speak.)
I enjoy and am amazed by the profound depth, beauty, and coherence of the system of the Arabic language, but the primary reason I much prefer English -- and am deeply glad that this is the language my brain was raised in & through is because of that "mutt" quality. For one thing, I think that chaotic mass of mixed traditions and cultures and irrational ways of spelling is a much truer vision of the world. We impose our own order.
Thus as a language and thus as a way of thinking and being in the world (cause pretty much all of my conscious thoughts and words are filtered through this language), it's helpful for adapting -- and it's also a heck of a lot more fun.
And while it might be easier to think of a purebred, consistent system like Arabic as being "beautiful" in a way, and it is, I think that mixed, chaotic, perhaps even broken systems like English are beautiful in perhaps an even more profound way. I think in a very clearly *human* way as well.
In English it's clear to see that there is a long tradition of doing w/e the heck you want, saying and writing things however feels right or seems appropriate or hilarious in the moment. Have fun with it. That history of language fun and language experimentation is an inspiring reminder to not get hung up on comma use or spelling.
Arabic grammar nazis have some good arguments. They've got something solid to stand for and on. English grammar nazis? Don't make me laugh.
(Which then got arbitrarily made official and unchanging because we seem a lot cooler and more respectable if we have one solid thing that can be called a "language" and "nation" and "heritage" and such.
French conquerors, British barbarians, and an assortment of vikings all got together and babbled for a while, thus the European lovemass of linguistic incest spat out an under-developed latin/greek/germanic/celtic mass, which we've spent centuries polishing and putting in dictionaries.
This "mutt" quality becomes especially visible and remarkable when compared to Arabic. Good gosh does this language MAKE SENSE. It's a well-organized, supremely logical system, even with the thousands of years of colloquial wear and tear and the way the language is uncomfortably split between formal and street language. It's the foundations that matter -- and it has those! While English doesn't.
Every verb has a form and a shape and a root, and there aren't huge separate sets of vocabulary that seem to operate according to entirely different sets of rules (like Latin and Germanic stuff in English, for example.) Once you know how the system works, you can take any word apart and figure out what's going on, and sounding it out isn't a problem. (Unlike though and enough, for example.)
It's kind of refreshing actually. But at the same time, this doesn't mean I prefer it, or that if I could've chosen my native language I'd have picked the admirably logical and consistent Arabic. Not at all. (For one thing, the radical split between formal and colloquial language (they're essentially two different languages) does horrible things for a culture of reading.) (Imagine having to look really really hard to find a single modern novel or poem that wasn't essentially written in Shakespeare-speak.)
I enjoy and am amazed by the profound depth, beauty, and coherence of the system of the Arabic language, but the primary reason I much prefer English -- and am deeply glad that this is the language my brain was raised in & through is because of that "mutt" quality. For one thing, I think that chaotic mass of mixed traditions and cultures and irrational ways of spelling is a much truer vision of the world. We impose our own order.
Thus as a language and thus as a way of thinking and being in the world (cause pretty much all of my conscious thoughts and words are filtered through this language), it's helpful for adapting -- and it's also a heck of a lot more fun.
And while it might be easier to think of a purebred, consistent system like Arabic as being "beautiful" in a way, and it is, I think that mixed, chaotic, perhaps even broken systems like English are beautiful in perhaps an even more profound way. I think in a very clearly *human* way as well.
In English it's clear to see that there is a long tradition of doing w/e the heck you want, saying and writing things however feels right or seems appropriate or hilarious in the moment. Have fun with it. That history of language fun and language experimentation is an inspiring reminder to not get hung up on comma use or spelling.
Arabic grammar nazis have some good arguments. They've got something solid to stand for and on. English grammar nazis? Don't make me laugh.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
An Average Wednesday in the Holy City
Instant news updates are helpful in a city that has lots of regular instant news events to keep track of, but I rely fully on wifi, so I got both of these (roughly equivalent) headline notifications hours after they would've been any use at all to me.
On a directly related note, I was two and a half hours late to work today! I got to take a longer bus ride than normal, walk a ways, take another taxi, and then get a ride from a Kindergarten parent.
Here's why: Maan News (the English one of the two notification headlines circled above) (Disclaimer: I was never personally in any danger whatsoever, it's just that them soldiers got roadblocks fo' days, and I happened to be stuck behind them.)
For an interesting comparison, symptomatic of a whole bushel of things, here's a popular Israeli paper's take on the incident from Israel Hayom. (counter-balancing the Arab news agency)
(Also Israel Hayom is a freely distributed newspaper everywhere in Israel cause American billionaire Sheldon Adelson basically pays for the whole thing. Another claim to fame might be that he spent $150 million on Mitt Romney's campaign in 2012.)
And for my take on the incident itself, here's a little context for fairness:
1) Israeli citizens have been intentionally targeted in vehicle hit-and-run attacks before.
2) Israeli soldiers/police officers have shot and killed innocent Palestinians for far less suspicious behavior (erratic driving & attempted U-Turns included)
3) I'm sure that the police officers 100% legitimately were afraid for their lives. But does being afraid, whether rationally or irrationally, always justify retaliation? (And we can up the ante in a very relevant way by rephrasing that as "But does being afraid, whether completely rationally or supremely irrationally, always justify immediate and lethal retaliation?" Given it's kind of hard to pick apart that rational v. irrational fear thing, and that's true throughout the Israeli/Palestinian context.
(Also I think this question of fear as a justification for immediately shooting a sucka down is perhaps relevant to the discussion of police violence in Amurka as well maybe?)
And for those who aren't on Facebook (and thus saw this already), this also happened today:
(Start reading from the bottom cause that's chronological cause that's how notifications work)
I giggled.
On a directly related note, I was two and a half hours late to work today! I got to take a longer bus ride than normal, walk a ways, take another taxi, and then get a ride from a Kindergarten parent.
Here's why: Maan News (the English one of the two notification headlines circled above) (Disclaimer: I was never personally in any danger whatsoever, it's just that them soldiers got roadblocks fo' days, and I happened to be stuck behind them.)
For an interesting comparison, symptomatic of a whole bushel of things, here's a popular Israeli paper's take on the incident from Israel Hayom. (counter-balancing the Arab news agency)
(Also Israel Hayom is a freely distributed newspaper everywhere in Israel cause American billionaire Sheldon Adelson basically pays for the whole thing. Another claim to fame might be that he spent $150 million on Mitt Romney's campaign in 2012.)
And for my take on the incident itself, here's a little context for fairness:
1) Israeli citizens have been intentionally targeted in vehicle hit-and-run attacks before.
2) Israeli soldiers/police officers have shot and killed innocent Palestinians for far less suspicious behavior (erratic driving & attempted U-Turns included)
3) I'm sure that the police officers 100% legitimately were afraid for their lives. But does being afraid, whether rationally or irrationally, always justify retaliation? (And we can up the ante in a very relevant way by rephrasing that as "But does being afraid, whether completely rationally or supremely irrationally, always justify immediate and lethal retaliation?" Given it's kind of hard to pick apart that rational v. irrational fear thing, and that's true throughout the Israeli/Palestinian context.
(Also I think this question of fear as a justification for immediately shooting a sucka down is perhaps relevant to the discussion of police violence in Amurka as well maybe?)
And for those who aren't on Facebook (and thus saw this already), this also happened today:
(Start reading from the bottom cause that's chronological cause that's how notifications work)
I giggled.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
I Wonder What Middle-Eastern Listservs Look Like...
It's been a supremely long and full year so far -- and by that I don't just mean spiritually, emotionally, physically, schedule-wise, and in terms of having sufficient mental capacity for fully processing experiences-wise. But email-wise as well.
Even my gmail inbox has not been free from the enormous figurative scale of this year and the massive amounts of ideas, content, figurative clutter and political noise and controveries that have been constant fixtures of my life here.
So just to give you a taste of what my gmail's life has been like this year, here's an assortment of various listservs and auto-group-distribution type things I've found myself on the receiving end of this year.
(This isn't a particulary content-ful blog post, BUT, hopefully it's still a little interesting, and it might be an opportunity for you to follow some of these links and check out a Middle Eastern listserv for yourself! Or just look around their websites to see what they do.)
(All of these below I get some sort of at least vaguely regular email contact from. Also I'm fans of many of them on Facebook, which means I see their stuff there too!)
Al-Monitor: Excellent, reliable political coverage from local correspondents throughout the Middle East. I get daily briefings/collections of headlines from them.
A billion YAGM newsletters from all over the world: It'd be kind of ridiculous and irresponsible to put all their email addresses up here, but it is possible for you to join these mailing lists! Look for them, or just ask me to help you if you're that interested. Also here's a link to other YAGM volunteer blogs.
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Churches for Middle East Peace Sends out briefings every couple of weeks with the major news updates on the general Israel/Palestine context. Good way of keeping up-to-date with the basics, and there's good resources on their site too. Also it's an organization made up of American churches working for "Middle East Peace," so that's cool, and provides easy opportunities for getting involved, advocacy/activism-wise.
B'Tselem (occasional e-newsletter) B'Tselem is a prominent Israeli organization that monitors human rights abuses in Israel's occupied territories. (East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza) Lots and lots of good internet resources too.
Combatants for Peace Organization of militants from both sides of the conflict who've come together to advocate for peace and an end to endless cycles of violence and occupation. They send me something every now and then about events they're planning.
Breaking the Silence: Organization made up of Israeli soldiers who, after finishing their military service, decided to speak out about the things they saw and participated in. They do a lot of education and tours and such, and you can find many testimonials from individual soldiers on their site. Their newsletters are just updates on what the organization has been doing from month to month. (They also released a large report on testimonials from soldiers who were in Gaza last summer.)
Kids4Peace: This organization gets kids together of all three Abrahamic faiths, from all across the political, racial, and socio-economic spectrums here in Israel/Palestine, and they go through a 6-year program of dialogue, co-existence, peacemaking skills, etc., and they spend a lot of time with youth in America too. I blog for them occasionally and I get cool newsletter updates.
Emek Shaveh: Emek Shaveh is an organization of Israeli archaeologists fighting against the way the Israeli establishment uses archaeology as a political tool to aid in the continuing confiscation of Palestinian land and the slow expulsion of Palestinians themselves that goes along with that.
Wadi Hilweh Information Center: One of the biggest current arenas of this politically-charged archaeology/confiscation/expulsion thing is the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in Jerusalem. (Emek Shaveh has a lot of good information on this too.) The Wadi Hilweh Information Center is the outreach and education wing of the local Palestinian community center in Silwan. (Here's the main community center page although I don't think I get any emails from them.)
Zochrot: Zochrot is an Israeli NGO that works generally in outreach and education to raise awareness of the Palestinian Nakba in Israeli society. The Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic) refers to the massive displacement and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the destruction of their villages in 1948 when the state of Israel was established. (The existence of this event and its legitimacy is not usually recognized by any governmental Israeli organization, and many many Israelis are similarly unaware or critical of it.)
Tourist Israel: The events and tours it talks about are usually way too expensive for me and my volunteer stipend, but this organization is about exactly what it sounds like.
CJS Tours: The Palestinian Center for Jerusalem Studies does cool educational tours on the many complicated layers of history in the Old City and Jerusalem! Attached to Al-Quds University. (Al-Quds is what Jerusalem is called in Arabic. Literally means "The Holy," but is short for "The Holy City."
Shutterfly: Seems silly to link to this. We have a fancy photo site for pictures of the kids in the kindergarten, but it's private, so if you want pictures of the kids make sure you're on my newsletter list! More of that coming soon.
Redeemer Lutheran Church: Arabic (daily) & English (weekly) newsletters: Oh my gosh I'm running out of steam so fast. Ask me if you're interested in these. (You can also sign up for regular (I think quarterly?) updates on the English congregation and local goings-on, specifically for people who actually don't currently live here.)
Haaretz popular Israeli newspaper
Yabous Cultural Center
Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem
The Lutheran Magazine
Tantur Institute Notre Dame satellite ecumenical center in East Jerusalem
Oud for Guitarists
Interfaith Encounter Association
The Parents Circle: Bereaved Family Forum
Rabbis For Human Rights
Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture
The East Jerusalem French Institute
Search for Common Ground
(And this was just listservs, mass e-communication. The interpersonal communication here has gotten complicated over time for a somewhat different reason -- namely that whole "language" thing. By which I mean "Arabic," because neither my spoken nor my written ability in Hebrew is beyond the please/thank you courtesies and the occasional "shalom" salutation tag at the end of emails/postcards. But for Arabic I end up having to switch to my phone whenever I want to draft an email or respond to someone on Facebook who doesn't speak English.)
Cause while I *can* type Arabic letters on my computer keyboard, it's not a fun time. (It involves a lot of guess-work, you might call it trial-and-error word-processing.) For younger people there's a whole common internet e-slang style of writing Arabic with non-Arabic letters, but that gives me a massive headache. So instead I downloaded an Arabic keyboard on my phone.
Even my gmail inbox has not been free from the enormous figurative scale of this year and the massive amounts of ideas, content, figurative clutter and political noise and controveries that have been constant fixtures of my life here.
So just to give you a taste of what my gmail's life has been like this year, here's an assortment of various listservs and auto-group-distribution type things I've found myself on the receiving end of this year.
(This isn't a particulary content-ful blog post, BUT, hopefully it's still a little interesting, and it might be an opportunity for you to follow some of these links and check out a Middle Eastern listserv for yourself! Or just look around their websites to see what they do.)
(All of these below I get some sort of at least vaguely regular email contact from. Also I'm fans of many of them on Facebook, which means I see their stuff there too!)
Al-Monitor: Excellent, reliable political coverage from local correspondents throughout the Middle East. I get daily briefings/collections of headlines from them.
A billion YAGM newsletters from all over the world: It'd be kind of ridiculous and irresponsible to put all their email addresses up here, but it is possible for you to join these mailing lists! Look for them, or just ask me to help you if you're that interested. Also here's a link to other YAGM volunteer blogs.
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Churches for Middle East Peace Sends out briefings every couple of weeks with the major news updates on the general Israel/Palestine context. Good way of keeping up-to-date with the basics, and there's good resources on their site too. Also it's an organization made up of American churches working for "Middle East Peace," so that's cool, and provides easy opportunities for getting involved, advocacy/activism-wise.
B'Tselem (occasional e-newsletter) B'Tselem is a prominent Israeli organization that monitors human rights abuses in Israel's occupied territories. (East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza) Lots and lots of good internet resources too.
Combatants for Peace Organization of militants from both sides of the conflict who've come together to advocate for peace and an end to endless cycles of violence and occupation. They send me something every now and then about events they're planning.
Breaking the Silence: Organization made up of Israeli soldiers who, after finishing their military service, decided to speak out about the things they saw and participated in. They do a lot of education and tours and such, and you can find many testimonials from individual soldiers on their site. Their newsletters are just updates on what the organization has been doing from month to month. (They also released a large report on testimonials from soldiers who were in Gaza last summer.)
Kids4Peace: This organization gets kids together of all three Abrahamic faiths, from all across the political, racial, and socio-economic spectrums here in Israel/Palestine, and they go through a 6-year program of dialogue, co-existence, peacemaking skills, etc., and they spend a lot of time with youth in America too. I blog for them occasionally and I get cool newsletter updates.
Emek Shaveh: Emek Shaveh is an organization of Israeli archaeologists fighting against the way the Israeli establishment uses archaeology as a political tool to aid in the continuing confiscation of Palestinian land and the slow expulsion of Palestinians themselves that goes along with that.
Wadi Hilweh Information Center: One of the biggest current arenas of this politically-charged archaeology/confiscation/expulsion thing is the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in Jerusalem. (Emek Shaveh has a lot of good information on this too.) The Wadi Hilweh Information Center is the outreach and education wing of the local Palestinian community center in Silwan. (Here's the main community center page although I don't think I get any emails from them.)
Zochrot: Zochrot is an Israeli NGO that works generally in outreach and education to raise awareness of the Palestinian Nakba in Israeli society. The Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic) refers to the massive displacement and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the destruction of their villages in 1948 when the state of Israel was established. (The existence of this event and its legitimacy is not usually recognized by any governmental Israeli organization, and many many Israelis are similarly unaware or critical of it.)
Tourist Israel: The events and tours it talks about are usually way too expensive for me and my volunteer stipend, but this organization is about exactly what it sounds like.
CJS Tours: The Palestinian Center for Jerusalem Studies does cool educational tours on the many complicated layers of history in the Old City and Jerusalem! Attached to Al-Quds University. (Al-Quds is what Jerusalem is called in Arabic. Literally means "The Holy," but is short for "The Holy City."
Shutterfly: Seems silly to link to this. We have a fancy photo site for pictures of the kids in the kindergarten, but it's private, so if you want pictures of the kids make sure you're on my newsletter list! More of that coming soon.
Redeemer Lutheran Church: Arabic (daily) & English (weekly) newsletters: Oh my gosh I'm running out of steam so fast. Ask me if you're interested in these. (You can also sign up for regular (I think quarterly?) updates on the English congregation and local goings-on, specifically for people who actually don't currently live here.)
Haaretz popular Israeli newspaper
Yabous Cultural Center
Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem
The Lutheran Magazine
Tantur Institute Notre Dame satellite ecumenical center in East Jerusalem
Oud for Guitarists
Interfaith Encounter Association
The Parents Circle: Bereaved Family Forum
Rabbis For Human Rights
Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture
The East Jerusalem French Institute
Search for Common Ground
(And this was just listservs, mass e-communication. The interpersonal communication here has gotten complicated over time for a somewhat different reason -- namely that whole "language" thing. By which I mean "Arabic," because neither my spoken nor my written ability in Hebrew is beyond the please/thank you courtesies and the occasional "shalom" salutation tag at the end of emails/postcards. But for Arabic I end up having to switch to my phone whenever I want to draft an email or respond to someone on Facebook who doesn't speak English.)
Cause while I *can* type Arabic letters on my computer keyboard, it's not a fun time. (It involves a lot of guess-work, you might call it trial-and-error word-processing.) For younger people there's a whole common internet e-slang style of writing Arabic with non-Arabic letters, but that gives me a massive headache. So instead I downloaded an Arabic keyboard on my phone.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
The Holy City of a Thousand Requisite Dietary Restrictions for the Purpose of Maintaining Holiness
The biggest mistake I made this year?
I ordered oatmeal during Passover (a week in early April) -- specifically at an Israeli cafe.
The cashier grabbed a nearby staff person and urgently whispered in Hebrew. The other guy shrugged. I imagine the exchange went something like this:
1: Dude. This guy just asked for oatmeal. Like... what do I do.
2: What?? Does he have any idea what he's doing?
1: Probably not, but it'd be really stressful to try to explain the problem in English. I don't know how to say "unleavened bread," and I can't even begin to explain the whole "grain products that are fermented or can cause fermentation" subclause. And the lines way too long for this to become a whole lecture on Jewish life and customs anyway.
2: Yeah whatever. But wait? How do you even *make* oatmeal that's Passover-kosher? Like, what is it?
1: No idea. Get creative I guess.
2: Aye aye captain.
All they did towards me was smile and ask for my money, and I wasn't awake or alert enough to wonder about the whispers at the time. I was just an unsuspecting victim -- until the oatmeal actually arrived. And even then, things took some time to finally become clear.
My first clue that something was wrong was the thick blanket of what looked to be sesame seeds -- apparently the closest thing to oats that didn't get cleaned out in the intensive pre-Passover kitchen scouring and scrubbing. (Which is a real and really incredibly intensive process -- it's been described to me as the prototypical spring cleaning, except instead of dust, mildew, mold and clutter, the targets are every crumb, speck and residue of leaven/yeast, which often entails pretty much boiling every thing you can figure out how to boil (kitchen utensils, counters, microwaves, etc.))
There was yogurt in the "oatmeal" too, so that was ok. And there was fruit too, although not especially fresh or varied (I don't know if stale, dry cantaloupe can be successfully blamed on the annual ritualized celebration of the Jews' escape from slavery in Egypt).
But those portions of the dish were sort of enlarged to make up for the total absence of "oatmeal" as such, and then liberally sprinkled with various ingredients that might've been thought to appease me in the oatmeal's absence. Thus, sesame seeds, unidentifiable nuts, etc.
I'm sort of stuck between the majority Jewish country of Israel and the majority Muslim country of Palestine (in the murky, magical but horribly tense liminal in-between zone of East Jerusalem), so unusual (for me) dietary restrictions have become a regular thing.
It means cheeseburgers are a rarity in Israeli areas (Kosher here often means separate restaurants entirely for dairy and meat.) Or in the best case scenario, you need a friendly non-Jewish McDonald's cashier to secretly slip you a slice of cheese under the table, and then you have to finish your meal and come order again to get the milkshake. (Sometimes you have to go find a milkshake place next door.)
It means sushi -- when you can find it -- is almost always fully cooked, never raw.
It means if you want alcohol and you're in an Arab-Palestinian area, you have to hunt down the one Christian grocery store in the whole neighborhood. Or settle for "Bavaria." (A popular non-alcoholic malt beverage: available in a wide range of "flavors," including: Apple, Peach, Ivory, Raspberry, and Premium.)
And for pork you probably have to call ahead from an undisclosed location and then "accidentally" stumble into a Christian butcher shop in Palestine or a Russian supermarket in Israel -- both of which might likely have to import or special order from a few fancy domestic pork farms where the pigs are kept on weird rabbinically-approved platforms that keep the pigs from ever touching the ground.
You also have to know the days to not be eating or drinking or driving a car or various things in public in certain neighborhoods. Yom Kippur and weekly shabat in the religious Jewish neighborhoods, and Ramadan in Muslim neighborhoods (Actual restrictions differ for each of these three times, not necessarily all three of those forbidden things listed above). Mostly cause you'll just really irritate people and be insanely disrespectful as you do, but ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhoods might throw rocks at you if you drive there on shabat (or at the very least they'll just scream angrily.) And rocks are a given on Yom Kippur.
Some of the more Orthodox Christian groups have some restrictions too, including some fasting & required vegetarian-ness during Lent and whatnot, but some of the more western-based Christian sects sort of just mind their own business when it comes to dietary restrictions. "Moderation," and whatnot perhaps.
As an outsider here, who definitely comes more out of that western "ehhh... eat what you like," tradition -- (Unless you count the ethical strictures of animal rights groups or the "nutritional science establishment" and their do's and don't's as modern western dietary traditions. Which maybe we should count those? Although when it comes to those I'm still pretty "non-observant," and while I try to keep those things in mind, I don't really follow them "religiously," per se.) ha.
But yeah. As an outsider here, my first instinct might be like, "Well that's weird. I just want a bacon cheeseburger, is that really too much to ask?" (quite often it is.)
But it's been really worthwhile to get to know and develop a respect for these traditional dietary regimens, or whatever you want to call them. Eschewing the boundaries and just saying "we in the west use the enlightened path of 'moderation' instead of primitive food taboos" is one thing -- but I have serious doubts about how well we follow that path of "moderation" when it comes to reality.
And perhaps "moderation," -- if it's the ideal that we're replacing these restrictions with -- and probably failing to live up to -- then the term should refer not only to what we specifically put in our body and how much of it, but how much our society invests in and does or doesn't take care of the environment/world/creation from which we draw these resources.
And maybe, like I mentioned before, the real replacement for these codified group dietary restrictions in our society isn't "independent individuals engaging in moderation," but "MAKE SURE YOU EAT SUPERFRUITS," and "ONE GLASS OF RED WINE EVERY EVENING" and "CAREFULLY POLICE THE BORDERS OF YOUR STOMACH FOR PROPER SODIUM INTAKE, THESE ARE THE SKILLED EDUCATED FAT DEMOGRAPHICS WE WANT AND THESE ARE THE FATS WE DON'T WANT, THESE ARE THE POLITICAL REFUGEE CHOLESTOROL(S) WE WANT AND THESE ARE THE UNSAVORY CHOLESTOROL(S) WITH NOWHERE ELSE TO GO THAT WE SHOULD JUST LEAVE FOR OTHERS TO CLAIM."
P.S. Olive oil is way better than butter in pretty much every way. Go Mediterranean, make the switch, never look back.
P.P.S. That got weird at the end there -- not really sure what happened.
P.P.P.S. I blame the sudden change in diet. Food does weird stuff to you. Nutrition is important.
I ordered oatmeal during Passover (a week in early April) -- specifically at an Israeli cafe.
The cashier grabbed a nearby staff person and urgently whispered in Hebrew. The other guy shrugged. I imagine the exchange went something like this:
1: Dude. This guy just asked for oatmeal. Like... what do I do.
2: What?? Does he have any idea what he's doing?
1: Probably not, but it'd be really stressful to try to explain the problem in English. I don't know how to say "unleavened bread," and I can't even begin to explain the whole "grain products that are fermented or can cause fermentation" subclause. And the lines way too long for this to become a whole lecture on Jewish life and customs anyway.
2: Yeah whatever. But wait? How do you even *make* oatmeal that's Passover-kosher? Like, what is it?
1: No idea. Get creative I guess.
2: Aye aye captain.
All they did towards me was smile and ask for my money, and I wasn't awake or alert enough to wonder about the whispers at the time. I was just an unsuspecting victim -- until the oatmeal actually arrived. And even then, things took some time to finally become clear.
My first clue that something was wrong was the thick blanket of what looked to be sesame seeds -- apparently the closest thing to oats that didn't get cleaned out in the intensive pre-Passover kitchen scouring and scrubbing. (Which is a real and really incredibly intensive process -- it's been described to me as the prototypical spring cleaning, except instead of dust, mildew, mold and clutter, the targets are every crumb, speck and residue of leaven/yeast, which often entails pretty much boiling every thing you can figure out how to boil (kitchen utensils, counters, microwaves, etc.))
There was yogurt in the "oatmeal" too, so that was ok. And there was fruit too, although not especially fresh or varied (I don't know if stale, dry cantaloupe can be successfully blamed on the annual ritualized celebration of the Jews' escape from slavery in Egypt).
But those portions of the dish were sort of enlarged to make up for the total absence of "oatmeal" as such, and then liberally sprinkled with various ingredients that might've been thought to appease me in the oatmeal's absence. Thus, sesame seeds, unidentifiable nuts, etc.
----------------------------------------
It means cheeseburgers are a rarity in Israeli areas (Kosher here often means separate restaurants entirely for dairy and meat.) Or in the best case scenario, you need a friendly non-Jewish McDonald's cashier to secretly slip you a slice of cheese under the table, and then you have to finish your meal and come order again to get the milkshake. (Sometimes you have to go find a milkshake place next door.)
It means sushi -- when you can find it -- is almost always fully cooked, never raw.
It means if you want alcohol and you're in an Arab-Palestinian area, you have to hunt down the one Christian grocery store in the whole neighborhood. Or settle for "Bavaria." (A popular non-alcoholic malt beverage: available in a wide range of "flavors," including: Apple, Peach, Ivory, Raspberry, and Premium.)
And for pork you probably have to call ahead from an undisclosed location and then "accidentally" stumble into a Christian butcher shop in Palestine or a Russian supermarket in Israel -- both of which might likely have to import or special order from a few fancy domestic pork farms where the pigs are kept on weird rabbinically-approved platforms that keep the pigs from ever touching the ground.
You also have to know the days to not be eating or drinking or driving a car or various things in public in certain neighborhoods. Yom Kippur and weekly shabat in the religious Jewish neighborhoods, and Ramadan in Muslim neighborhoods (Actual restrictions differ for each of these three times, not necessarily all three of those forbidden things listed above). Mostly cause you'll just really irritate people and be insanely disrespectful as you do, but ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhoods might throw rocks at you if you drive there on shabat (or at the very least they'll just scream angrily.) And rocks are a given on Yom Kippur.
Some of the more Orthodox Christian groups have some restrictions too, including some fasting & required vegetarian-ness during Lent and whatnot, but some of the more western-based Christian sects sort of just mind their own business when it comes to dietary restrictions. "Moderation," and whatnot perhaps.
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As an outsider here, who definitely comes more out of that western "ehhh... eat what you like," tradition -- (Unless you count the ethical strictures of animal rights groups or the "nutritional science establishment" and their do's and don't's as modern western dietary traditions. Which maybe we should count those? Although when it comes to those I'm still pretty "non-observant," and while I try to keep those things in mind, I don't really follow them "religiously," per se.) ha.
But yeah. As an outsider here, my first instinct might be like, "Well that's weird. I just want a bacon cheeseburger, is that really too much to ask?" (quite often it is.)
But it's been really worthwhile to get to know and develop a respect for these traditional dietary regimens, or whatever you want to call them. Eschewing the boundaries and just saying "we in the west use the enlightened path of 'moderation' instead of primitive food taboos" is one thing -- but I have serious doubts about how well we follow that path of "moderation" when it comes to reality.
And perhaps "moderation," -- if it's the ideal that we're replacing these restrictions with -- and probably failing to live up to -- then the term should refer not only to what we specifically put in our body and how much of it, but how much our society invests in and does or doesn't take care of the environment/world/creation from which we draw these resources.
And maybe, like I mentioned before, the real replacement for these codified group dietary restrictions in our society isn't "independent individuals engaging in moderation," but "MAKE SURE YOU EAT SUPERFRUITS," and "ONE GLASS OF RED WINE EVERY EVENING" and "CAREFULLY POLICE THE BORDERS OF YOUR STOMACH FOR PROPER SODIUM INTAKE, THESE ARE THE SKILLED EDUCATED FAT DEMOGRAPHICS WE WANT AND THESE ARE THE FATS WE DON'T WANT, THESE ARE THE POLITICAL REFUGEE CHOLESTOROL(S) WE WANT AND THESE ARE THE UNSAVORY CHOLESTOROL(S) WITH NOWHERE ELSE TO GO THAT WE SHOULD JUST LEAVE FOR OTHERS TO CLAIM."
P.S. Olive oil is way better than butter in pretty much every way. Go Mediterranean, make the switch, never look back.
P.P.S. That got weird at the end there -- not really sure what happened.
P.P.P.S. I blame the sudden change in diet. Food does weird stuff to you. Nutrition is important.
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Popsicles, games, cheers, and letting kids be kids (link and re-post)
(This blog post was originally posted on the Kids4Peace official blog -- this is an official re-post. The original one has pictures so it's better.)
There's nothing so simple and joyful as just watching kids at play. You give them the space to run and jump and laugh and express themselves, and everything else seems to just fall away. But sometimes it's not as simple as it seems.
On Friday, April 17th, I spent the day with the 66 newest members of Kids4Peace -- the latest crop of 6th-graders that just started this January. It was field day at the Beit Safafa School in East Jerusalem, and that meant a day of popsicles, games, cheers, and letting kids be kids.
And that's what they did. At first glance (or at first listen -- as you approach the school playground from a distance and hear only the giggles and shouts as they drift out into the famously resonant and echo-friendly city of Jerusalem), it was indistinguishable from any other group of 6th-graders discovering lacrosse for the first time or getting into a game of tug-of-war.
But this was so much more than that. For one thing, it was the start of a six-year journey with Kids4Peace.
These kids are evenly split between the three Abrahamic religions that call Jerusalem home. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and even within those categories there's remarkable diversity: Palestinian, Israeli, European, Arab, religious, secular, wealthy, poor, and all the seemingly endless ways each of those identifiers can mix and match and combine to form fascinatingly different but uniformly adorable and engaging children.
All of that plus the occasional language barrier means there's still some awkwardness and clumping. The social circles that form organically when the kids sit down on the pavement for lunch aren't exactly fully inclusive -- and if you're watching closely you'll notice that "random selection" when picking teams for baseball often leaves the sides suspiciously unbalanced.
But you can't expect 6th-graders not to *cheat* a little bit to be on the same team as their friends. And -- in true 6th-grade fashion -- these self-selected teams and lunch groups were divided by gender far more often than by anything else. (Especially considering that, without the occasional hijab or crucifix-necklace or kippah, the non-gender based differences can be a lot harder to spot.)
At this point, when the kids are still wearing nametags, when they're still struggling to find the best, most comfortable ways to communicate somewhere in the chaotic mix of Hebrew, Arabic, and English -- it's hard to imagine that these kids really know what is in store for them.
Sixth grade means 11 or 12 years old. They're teetering on the edge of the "kid world" that dominates in elementary school, beginning to drift dangerously into the emotional, socially-stratified world that follows, populated by teenagers and adolescence.
As if middle school wasn't enough, these kids have the troubled world around them to contend with as well. They haven't necessarily fully come to terms yet with what the Israeli-Palestinian context will do to shape their lives, and they surely have no idea what the next six years in Kids4Peace might mean for them.
There will be powerful friendships, challenging emotions, painful dialogues, and difficult but ultimately worthwhile coexistence -- and who knows what else. But for now there is play.
One of the four stations of the day is for assorted silly games, especially ones that require a lot of running. Tug-of-war is a big hit, although it leaves some guys a little shamed and disappointed. (The girls crush them every chance they get, while the boys sit idly by and wait for their own growth spurts.)
At another station the kids learn the traditional Kids4Peace cheers, shouting their way through them alternately in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. As the years continue, this cheer will become more and more significant and unavoidably loaded with emotion and energy of one kind or another -- but for now it seems like little more than a mildly amusing chore. One boy laughs as he helps lead another round through the chant, but then wraps his arm around his buddy and remarks loudly, "I'm not having fun!"
Only an hour later, however, the boy is running bases in his first experience of Baseball. "This is the best game ever!" he exclaims to no one in particular as he lands on second.
The last two situations are thus reserved for Baseball and Lacrosse -- two pure American imports that produce some funny looks on kids' faces, sometimes amused, sometimes frustrated, sometimes just confused. But there is no "This is stupid," or "I don't get it." They dive in, joyfully and eagerly getting into something new. They do some quick training as the volunteers from the Baseball and Lacrosse organizations show them the basic skills and rules, and the game is on.
The newness of the sports means no child is an expert. Even if they've seen it on TV before, most kids have probably never swung a bat. Everyone feels a bit silly, and maybe the slightest bit uncomfortable as they get used to swinging this weird Lacrosse stick around -- but they're learning together, and that's what this is all about.
http://k4pblog.org/2015/04/20/popsicles-games-cheers-and-letting-kids-be-kids/
There's nothing so simple and joyful as just watching kids at play. You give them the space to run and jump and laugh and express themselves, and everything else seems to just fall away. But sometimes it's not as simple as it seems.
On Friday, April 17th, I spent the day with the 66 newest members of Kids4Peace -- the latest crop of 6th-graders that just started this January. It was field day at the Beit Safafa School in East Jerusalem, and that meant a day of popsicles, games, cheers, and letting kids be kids.
And that's what they did. At first glance (or at first listen -- as you approach the school playground from a distance and hear only the giggles and shouts as they drift out into the famously resonant and echo-friendly city of Jerusalem), it was indistinguishable from any other group of 6th-graders discovering lacrosse for the first time or getting into a game of tug-of-war.
But this was so much more than that. For one thing, it was the start of a six-year journey with Kids4Peace.
These kids are evenly split between the three Abrahamic religions that call Jerusalem home. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and even within those categories there's remarkable diversity: Palestinian, Israeli, European, Arab, religious, secular, wealthy, poor, and all the seemingly endless ways each of those identifiers can mix and match and combine to form fascinatingly different but uniformly adorable and engaging children.
All of that plus the occasional language barrier means there's still some awkwardness and clumping. The social circles that form organically when the kids sit down on the pavement for lunch aren't exactly fully inclusive -- and if you're watching closely you'll notice that "random selection" when picking teams for baseball often leaves the sides suspiciously unbalanced.
But you can't expect 6th-graders not to *cheat* a little bit to be on the same team as their friends. And -- in true 6th-grade fashion -- these self-selected teams and lunch groups were divided by gender far more often than by anything else. (Especially considering that, without the occasional hijab or crucifix-necklace or kippah, the non-gender based differences can be a lot harder to spot.)
At this point, when the kids are still wearing nametags, when they're still struggling to find the best, most comfortable ways to communicate somewhere in the chaotic mix of Hebrew, Arabic, and English -- it's hard to imagine that these kids really know what is in store for them.
Sixth grade means 11 or 12 years old. They're teetering on the edge of the "kid world" that dominates in elementary school, beginning to drift dangerously into the emotional, socially-stratified world that follows, populated by teenagers and adolescence.
As if middle school wasn't enough, these kids have the troubled world around them to contend with as well. They haven't necessarily fully come to terms yet with what the Israeli-Palestinian context will do to shape their lives, and they surely have no idea what the next six years in Kids4Peace might mean for them.
There will be powerful friendships, challenging emotions, painful dialogues, and difficult but ultimately worthwhile coexistence -- and who knows what else. But for now there is play.
One of the four stations of the day is for assorted silly games, especially ones that require a lot of running. Tug-of-war is a big hit, although it leaves some guys a little shamed and disappointed. (The girls crush them every chance they get, while the boys sit idly by and wait for their own growth spurts.)
At another station the kids learn the traditional Kids4Peace cheers, shouting their way through them alternately in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. As the years continue, this cheer will become more and more significant and unavoidably loaded with emotion and energy of one kind or another -- but for now it seems like little more than a mildly amusing chore. One boy laughs as he helps lead another round through the chant, but then wraps his arm around his buddy and remarks loudly, "I'm not having fun!"
Only an hour later, however, the boy is running bases in his first experience of Baseball. "This is the best game ever!" he exclaims to no one in particular as he lands on second.
The last two situations are thus reserved for Baseball and Lacrosse -- two pure American imports that produce some funny looks on kids' faces, sometimes amused, sometimes frustrated, sometimes just confused. But there is no "This is stupid," or "I don't get it." They dive in, joyfully and eagerly getting into something new. They do some quick training as the volunteers from the Baseball and Lacrosse organizations show them the basic skills and rules, and the game is on.
The newness of the sports means no child is an expert. Even if they've seen it on TV before, most kids have probably never swung a bat. Everyone feels a bit silly, and maybe the slightest bit uncomfortable as they get used to swinging this weird Lacrosse stick around -- but they're learning together, and that's what this is all about.
"Everywhere we go (echo)
People want to know (echo)
Who we are (echo)
So we tell them (echo)
We are Kids4Peace
Mighty Mighty Kids4Peace
Tired of the fighting
Time to do the right thing
We can do it better
We can live together
Shalom Salaam
Salaam Shalom
Kids! 4! Peace!"
http://k4pblog.org/2015/04/20/popsicles-games-cheers-and-letting-kids-be-kids/
Sunday, April 12, 2015
That One Weekend In October I Didn't Write About
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| On the way north! |
Probably marks the moment at which I really realized how beautiful this land is. Like actually. It's kind of crazy.
I was sort of glued to the window the whole time.
My companions for the trip were Margo -- the director of the kindergarten/nursery/joyful den of chaos that I work in -- and my fellow volunteer in the kindergarten: Ben. He's German, whereas I just get the exciting job of being the American everyone assumes is German because I'm here with the Lutheran Church.
We were visiting the family of a child from the kindergarten. The particularly precious one who chatters a lot (without me understanding) and who takes a strong, stubborn stance on which name/nickname she prefers -- although it tends to vary by day.
Mountains, sky, SIDEWAYS TREES, and then a lot of trash. The nicest roads in the West Bank are the ones maintained by the Israeli government to carry Israelis back-and-forth to their houses in the internationally-legally-quite-questionable settlements (Palestinians aren't generally allowed in those roads and can't live in those settlements) but the prettiest views are in the Palestinian areas (although that means trash cause often no money or access for bringing people to clean that up.
Also because Israel has security control over all but 3% of the West Bank, and there's a solid 70ish% with no Palestinian (A)uthority at all, which kind of makes infrastructure even harder to work out. (And even that 3% under full Palestinian control still has Israeli soldiers waltzing on a daily basis so that might be misleading too, lolz.)
Whatever -- back to the views.
TOPOGRAPHY. visceral, emotional, gorgeous, topography.
Also lots of dust.
This was October, so my Arabic skills were to the point that I could at least put together phrases longer than "I don't know," but I was still barely beyond the versatility of a 1.5 year old or one of those plastic wheel toys with buttons that shout things like "Cat," or "Sheep," or "E-I-E-I-O."
(But on the bright side I could at least generally understand my fellow 1.5-year-olds when they begged me for their "bottle" or "mama" or "THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS" (as they point furiously at the paper-cut-out bee decoration hanging from the ceiling)).
On the way we saw some vegetables, so we stopped to ask a farmer if we could buy some! Margo gave them some Kayak (Jerusalem Bread) as a gift (delicious, and Jerusalem is the spiritual and vaguelypolitical capital of Palestine, and most Palestinians aren't allowed to go there, so the bread is thusly even more significant).
And then they gave us a pile of peppers and squash and enormous eggplants for free!
Here's Margo and Ben doing a little bit of picking and wandering as the kind Palestinian farmers let us explore for a bit.
We took our time, but it was still reasonably early morning on Saturday when we arrived, and we'd be staying until Sunday around noon-ish. We were loved, taken care of, fed until we nearly burst from the built-up internal pressure of all that tender affection, delicious food, and the firm, insistent, but compassionate shouts of "EAT. EAT SOME MORE." (Yup. That happened.)
But the primary photo event of the weekend was, of course, olive picking.
Which is pretty much the only type of thing you get invited to in October.
Because nearly everyone and their grandma has their own patch or orchard or mountainside of Olive trees.
And now for some beautiful pictures of olive picking and family and new friends!
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| (This is Kheirieh, the mom from the kindergarten who invited us -- she's also a nurse at the hospital next to the kindergarten!) |
 |
| OLIVES |
You might be aware of the fact that I'm not much of a fan of olives, but spending a lot of time with my face in olive trees this fall (and thus in a cloud of olive essence) has made me generally a lot more friendly and affectionate with these important and healthy agricultural products.
But no, I still won't eat them.
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| AND MORE FOOD! Also ladder cuz giggles. |
Also also, you have not lived until you've had legitimately fresh fresh olive oil. By which I mean murky, nearly opaque olive oil that's weirdly spicy.
It seems that many families in Palestine will basically fill every glass/plastic container they have lying around with fresh olive oil every fall, which is funny to me.
(Why is our sprite so oozy and Mediterranean and sticky today?)
 |
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| sorting olives! and throwing away crappy ones! |
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| These are a different color! |
(L->R) Here's Mahammad and Aman, two new friends I made there, despite the rather large language barrier. I stumbled through some basic Arabic, and Aman struggled through some basic English.
Two things! The watch on my wrist is now lost. I lost it somewhere roundabouts February-ish, and I planned to replace it until mid-March, at which point I promptly forgot about it. Now I've acquired a rubber band at some point to accompany the yellow strings, which I sort of compulsively play with and wrap around my fingers in odd ways, but which gives me no assistance in telling time.
My problem is that watches (unlike strings and rubber bands that get weirdly tangled with string) are easy to take off. Thus when I leave Michael alone idly for a couple of minutes, the first thing he does is notice stuff on his wrist, the proper response to which is apparently to immediately take the watch off.
And so that's what I do. Usually I'm good at catching myself and putting the watch back on when I come back from whatever I was doing, but all it takes is one time in which Michael outsmarts me for my watch to be gone forever.
I probably took it off on a bus at some point and just left it there.
I could use some more discipline.
Second thing: Mahammed, on top of the ladder: Notice the tiny orange rake-type thing in his hand! That's what I affectionately call an "olive rake," and I became very familiar with them in October. You rake olives with it. Out of the tree. For hours. Until the plastic orange-tined fork becomes like a crude, flimsy extension of yourself and you are totally absorbed in the act of harvest and finally reunited -- one with the fruit of the earth and its cycles and thus fully reunited -- one with the earth itself in all its beauty and topography.
Either that or the olive fumes are more potent than I realized.
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