up on the roof!

I have this feeling like I've written before about the roof top. Yes, I think I have. But it's a special place. There's a photograph of my grandfather on the roof when the house was being built. The roof is the last part of the structure that gets put on....he was standing there, looking toward where the restaurant now stands. And there was a couple of guys working on it. I guess he was managing the progress. I don't know.

I never met my paternal grandfather, and like so many other people, I sit and wonder what he was like. What is it about my family history that got me to where I am now? Made me the person I am today? I escape to this spot, far from chatter, far from prying eyes (though I'm sure someone sees me, those sneaky bastards). I come here, and I imagine that he stood in this exact spot. That's about as close as I can get to his body, his realness. I ask people about him. What was he like? Oh, he was a great man. Everybody loved him. That's a generic answer, always. So I pry a bit more. Was he quiet, or did he crack jokes all the time? He was a jokester, and that makes a lot of sense to me.

Oh family history. What have you done? Are you sorry for the ills you've caused? Proud of the happiness? Are you even aware of the consequences of your actions? Probably not. Your members now sit in their homes, their small lives, not realizing that that ripples can become waves that wash away possibility, wash away innocence, wash away responsibility.

I'm sad, but nothing can be done to right the wrongs. Nothing but to take what I'm learning
and try to turn the tide.

These water metaphors, though cheesy, are apt in a place where every drop is precious.

Everything gets stolen - land, water, my friend's sleeping bag, my other friend's bracelet that her grandmother gave her. You can take things, occupiers, but you can't take my love, and you can't break our will.

Waiting

In just a couple of days, two great friends will be here with me in Palestine. They are coming to see me, to see the place, to see the situation, and it'll be life changing for the three of us. We've all experienced imperialism and colonialism on various levels -- me a Palestinian living in the States, Angie a Hidatsa Mandan, and Lani, a Hawaiian. We will have the conversations and experiences of a lifetime.

I haven't been writing. I've been living -

spent some time in West Jerusalem among Jews who can't identify the arabic language when they hear it.

went to Majdal Shams in Golan Heights, Occupied Syria -- a most magical place. We watched the sunrise over hills in Syria while a fog bank came drifting in from the west like a gently lumbering giant.

speaking arabic like a champ, falling in love with this land, and the good and bad in it

wish i could live here forever.....

Light

On the 18 bus from Ramallah to Jerusalem with a Palestinian man born in Baghdad. He's asking the man next to him - is that a settlement? Is this the Arab part of town? It's his first time in Palestine and he's on his way to Haifa today. He seems a complete man here, a man with a tiny bit of satisfaction, a man who wants to know his land. I understand where he's coming from. We diaspora Palestinians have the same mythical sense of this land. Some folks who live here resent that about us. But it makes me sad to think about people all around the world who are not allowed to live where they want to be.

I get off the bus and head to work. I am filled up with that feeling I always have here - a mix of opposites. I pass a group of women having an intense conversation, trying to figure something out among themselves. There's the guy who sells ca3k and gigantic Jerusalem style falafel, which is stuffed with sauteed onion. I get to Bab el Amoud (Damascus Gate) and for a moment, I get this sense that all is well. It came and went in a split second, as if I had a peek into the past, maybe the future. Two boys kicking a soccer ball back and forth as the morning sun shines down on them. A Franciscan monk stands looking across the street. People are going about their business...the scene wasn't much different than everyday, but in that tiny slice of time

the universe opened up, enter a parallel universe
dark clouds parted
pierced
by a persistent shaft of light

Discovering a favorite place

On the roof top of the house my grandfather built, I'm (somewhat) far away from everyone. I have privacy, and sit in relative quiet. I come here to think and be away for a little. Plus, up here my phone gets reception and I have a better internet connection.

Men in Palestine

I’ve noticed some very beautiful things about men here. One thing is that they love kids. It is the norm to play with kids, to take care of them, to hold their hands, to carry them. They also take care of people. I missed the last bus to Ramallah one night so I had to take the bus to Qalandia and transfer to a servees (communal taxi). I’ve never done that before, and didn’t really know the system. I was asking questions about how to do it without making it seem obvious that I was a tiny bit nervous. (I’m always nervous when I do things for the first time, and it was late, and the bus was full of men, etc…) A couple of guys hung around to make sure I wasn’t going to stand in the street by myself. When they saw that another man was also going to wait for the servees, they told him to help me out. But the guy looked slightly shady, so they hung around and waited til the servees came. This in a place whose social fabric is slowly falling apart because of occupation, under- and unemployment, and rising food and gas prices. It says a lot about the people here, and it made me so happy to be Palestinian, and so happy to be home.

Glimpses

On the bus on my way to work in Jerusalem:

A man puts bunches of mulkhiyeh (called ‘celulot’ in the Philippines, ‘jew’s mellow’ in the US) while his young son and I exchange curious glances.

Layers and layers of indecipherable graffiti covers a wall.

Kids push a small red car while one stands on the bumper for a ride.

A young man is asleep on a recliner set outside of a store that may or may not sell furniture. But I think it does.

At Qalandia – just as a truck passes a couple of soldiers at the checkpoint, one of the soldiers lifts the rifle and holds it in both hands. I took this as a deliberate act to show the young boy in the passenger seat of the truck that he has power.

the 80 year old hajja

This morning when I was crossing through Qalandiya, we went through the normal process of figuring out who has foreign passports and Jerusalem ids and those with Palestinian ids . The driver discovered that this old old lady didn't have permission to cross through, but was on the bus anyways hoping they would let her cross because she was so old. Everyone got distressed because it meant we'd get delayed and likely have to watch her get kicked off the bus and returned to Ramallah by foot, etc. It would be physically and emotionally tiring for her, and emotionally tiring for the rest of us who would have to witness such inhumanity.

We braced ourselves and waited to see what would happen, praying to God. These two really kind looking soldiers got on the bus and the woman asked the hajja "hold old are you?". She replied, 80, but it's likely that she has no idea. Regardless, she's super old. The soldier let her pass, and we all breathed a sigh of relief, people saying "Allah karim" , and talking in excited voices. I felt this deep sense of sadness. Occupation is so part of our daily lives, that people have come to accept what is permissible and what is not. This old lady wouldn't let it stop her, though. She wanted to get to Jerusalem, so she tried and made it through.

I let the soldiers see the tears well up in my eyes. They were tears of sadness, but they were also strategic. They seemed kind and empathic people. Maybe they'll take what happened and continue to be kind. I understand they don't have power in a larger sense, but it's the everyday experiences that determine the quality of life. They couldn't look at me, averted their eyes.