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.