The Space Between

I love space - the feeling of endless space (the view from a mountain), the feeling of limitless space (the ocean), the feeling of nurturing space (anywhere calm and quiet). When I was searching for an apartment here, I was longing for space; not the internal dimesions or square footage of a place, but the external horizons. Somebody recommended that I find an apartment in a building close to another building so that it wouldn't get too cold in the winter. That idea made me chuckle. In any case, in the end, I found a place with a wonderful, uninterrupted view of moutains, city, and sea. Not bad.


But the feeling of being in limitless and nurturing space still escapes me here. When I uneventfully cross the checkpoint over the greenline, I somehow anticipate that I will find these feelings there. Instead, I feel like I am invading somebody else's space - I don't speak Hebrew, I don't belong to the identifying relgion, and at every turn literal and figurative signposts remind me that I am not necessarily welcomed in this space. And yet the reason I cross the check point is in search of space.

Maybe the concept of space is not physical, and is all "in my head". There's no reason for me to feel like my movements are restricted. I am relatively free to come and go wherever and whenever I choose. But not entirely. There's a famous quote, "Freedom denied one, is Freedom denied all" For now, I'm not entirely certain where to find the experience of space that is most comfortable.

How do you spell Hope?

"How do you spell Hope?" my son yells out. He's drafting an email to a friend and can't figure out the spelling. But I think its a good question. It sustains a lot, and the absence of it, breaks a lot.

My neighbor had a housewarming party yesterday, a variety of people were in attendance from the aid community. All ages, backgrounds, nationalities. I start talking to a couple who live in Jerusalem and are telling me stories of inefficient bureaucracy that dominates their life in Israel. They say they feel burnt out on that inefficiency, and they've lived all over the Middle East. I ask how long they've been here and they tell me 3 months. Another young woman arrives at the party and a friend congratulates here on surviving her stay here so far - she's going on 5 months and doesn't think she'll make it until 6. I'm in for another 10 months...is it really that bad?


It makes me feel guilty to say this, but its easy to live in isolation and suspended belief that everything around me is normal. Its just a matter of getting to know places and people, and I'll feel right at home. But around every corner is something new. Something odd, something strange, something that will defy all logic. Realizing that nobody seems to have any power over changing or influencing the situation, it is somehow easier to think it doesn't exist.


My son spells hope by counting the days until we take our Christmas break to the States. Or by promises of a new toy as a part of a bribe for some good behavior. Hope for me is a reconstitution each day of what I believe my purpose should be for the next 24 hours. Sometimes its to get through the day with enough energy not to collapse. Others, its to orchestrate a multi-location circus of logistics among which the actors are continually changing. A day without a surprise, or without a change of plans is very very rare. The feeling of powerless breaks down my hope.

Welcome

Historically, Arab culture is one of the most hospitable cultures in the world to foreigners. The word for "welcome" in Arabic is "Ah'lan" and is used in a variety of ways.

 

If somebody gives another person something, before the other person can say "thank you", they are told "you're welcome". It always throws me for a bit of a loop, "Here's your coffee, you are welcome" " Well, thank you!" "You're welcome"

 

At a recent work meeting, we had some visitors from a partner organization. We were discussing which projects we had and where they were. One is in a town near Bethlehem, and one of the woman from the partner organization said, "Yes, I know where that village is, I'm from Bethlehem." And my colleague replied, "You are welcome." The subtext being.: "You are a visitor here in Ramallah, and so I welcome you." I had to suppress a giggle – they are both Palestinian, Bethlehem is 25 km from Ramallah, and this woman has probably lived in Ramallah for 10 years. But apart from religion, the most important identifying factor is the town you are from. And so, you must always welcome an outsider.

Happiness

I'm always amazed at the happiness and opportunities for laughter that the people around me find, every day, every minute. When I hear some of the personal stories, I wonder how they find these moments. Almost all have lost family members in tragic stories – parents shot and killed in front of their eyes, brothers pulled from houses at night and never seen again; sisters imprisoned who can only be visited when specific permission is granted. At first, I thought these were all stories of exaggerations. But as I get to know these people better, hear more details of their lives, it's obvious that they cannot be. Its easy to separate myself from it in confidence that my passport and birth protect me somehow.

 

The other day, I was having a conversation with some colleagues where we were each discussing our favorite "mural" that has been drawn on the Israeli-constructed "security wall" (known on the red side of it as the "separation barrier"). It was if we were discussing the latest style of shoes – laughing, joking, comparing. In retrospect, it seemed like such an absurd conversation to be having. Whenever I pass the tall, stark gray wall I get this sinking feeling and I can't take my eyes off of it. The Berlin wall, the apartheid wall, the big eyesore, or affectionately known as "the wall." A recent addition nearby the office is most amazing. At a point where we can pass across it, there is a clear view that shows how it literally winds down the middle of a small neighborhood street. From this perspective, I can't keep track of which side is in or outside the wall. It's a bit like walking down a secular street in Jerusalem, or Haifa, or Tel Aviv – you can't tell who is who, but the feeling runs deep that somehow you should be able to know the "differences" by the look of people.

 

This week I was roaming the streets of downtown Ramallah, and I saw a Jewish couple walking down the street. I could tell they were Jewish by their dress. I was completely in shock, and noticed that everybody was watching. They were across the street from me when a man stopped them, offered his hand, and must have said something funny or, as I like to imagine, welcoming, and they smiled, laughed, shook hands, and moved on. Apparently, this cross-border traffic was much more frequent before the wall. That the populations within Israel moved much freer across boundaries and the polarization wasn't ingrained as much as it is now. If people can't mix and mingle freely, without such stark physical barriers, would not much of what exists today in form of low level conflict be absent? A question in "if" history, perhaps.

A series of questions

I am very uncomfortable with how people choose to categorize others here. I went to get my son's pants tailored (shortened) today. If my son had a non-Arab/Muslim name, I'm sure I'd avoid half, if not all, the questions that strangers feel no inhibition to ask. Or maybe I should just pretend I don't understand as much Arabic as I do.


The seamstress began her line of questioning with the benign, "Do you have any other children?" A common question in the States. When I answered "no", she then asked quite bluntly, "Why?!" I have no idea how to say "divorced" in Arabic, I should learn it, it is always a conversation-stopper here. But no, not with this woman! I tried to describe the word through other basic words in my Arabic vocabulary. She finally got it. Then the next question almost knocked me off my chair..."What religion are you?" "What religion was your husband?"


A friend has recommended I develop a "script" for these conversations. The thing is, the conversations almost never follow a patern which I can follow. But, I have been imagining ways I can add an element of surprise to the conversation....what if I told them I was no religion, or Buddhist - I wonder what reaction that would cause in this mono-theistic-centric culture. I just am not comfortable with religion being the identifying lense through which all are categorized here.

Give me a Hand

I think it is the absolutely absurd when a Muslim man refuses to shake a woman’s hand. Perhaps it’s one of those religious customs I habituated myself to in a more conservative working environment, but now that I’m mostly in a fairly liberal work environment, and that I’ve come to know many facets of Islam, I just think it is one of the most empty and rude gestures to refuse to shake a hand. I think all the gesture does is show the man’s narrow mindedness. A colleague refused to shake my hand the other day when I was thanking him for his hard work. I don’t understand what the withholding of a hand is supposed to avoid – a sexual invitation, the “dirt” of a woman’s body? Please! But this is a country full of meaningless religious gestures….in my all out, no hold back, honest opinion. I prefer the more mundane gestures of showing somebody you think positively of them.


Yesterday, Friday, the only day of the week both my son and I share as a weekend, a friend called us at 8:30 am, and told me she was making crepes, and if it was OK, she’d be at my house with her two boys in 5 minutes to have breakfast with us. I was still in my pjs, there were dirty clothes literally scattered throughout the house (since I was finally getting around to doing laundry after 2 weeks), and emptied packing boxes blocked my front entry. Without hesitation, I told her to come right over! After we ate, we went to my upstairs sunroom and terrace (with the view into valleys of olive trees and down to Tel Aviv) and sipped our coffee as the boys amused themselves with my son’s toys. I told her how glad I was that she called so spontaneously because it’s a custom I miss. It’s a common custom that I think has to do with a combination of being in the Middle East, where these drop bys are expected and usually welcomed, and the fact of living in a small expat community where everybody has a fair idea of where you are and what you are doing at any given time. Life in the States can be overscheduled and these opportunities for sharing mundane moments are more widely-scattered.


This friend, who I met only 3 weeks ago, is a single mother to 2 boys – 4 and 7. Her singling mother days are coming to an end, and even though I just met her, I am madly jealous of this fact. At least, for the moment, it feels nice to know there is somebody nearby who I don’t have to explain the ups and downs of my recent life. Yesterday, she offered me a hand – I could go out and run errands while she watched the boys, give me a break. But because Friday is the only day I have fully with my son, not to mention not much is open on Fridays before noon to “run” to, I declined. There’s lots of things I could use a hand with – trying to find reliable after-school care for my son, getting through these 8 loads of laundry, remembering my son’s bathing suit on the days he has swim class (big woops!), or basically, just listening to my string of rambling worries about how things will settle out here in the next few months.

What is this all about?

I was talking to a colleauge today who was encouraging me to write about my experience here. Frankly, its been difficult to write because its hard not to witness things I see and go on a political tirade about everything in this part of the world. I was reading a blog by an American in Jerusalem, it was a great blog, but then she got angry with something she saw and wrote this dead-honest post, and now her blog is gone. Whether she took it down on her own accord, or somebody accused her of crossing some boundary and it was taken down, I don't know. Anyways, its a fine line. But there's things I see and experience that I think have nothing to do with politics, so yes, I can try to concentrate on those and hope its not too mundane.


I'm looking for a digital alarm clock to put on my bedside table. It's true that in the Middle East time has another meaning that in the western world. My habit of being a 15 minutes late to appointments kind of puts me in my natural habitat here. I rarely schedule meetings here, most work meetings are more like, "shall we talk about it this afternoon?" "yeah, that sounds good. maybe sometime after 1pm?" "Yeah, sure, anytime, anytime, I'll be around." and then maybe the meeting happens, maybe it doesn't. It makes me feel so undisciplined. Anyways...back to the digital alarm clock - impossible to find. I'm desperate for it to help me with my morning routine. I'm a clock watcher during my normal routine. You know, do I only have 5 minutes instead of 10 to do my hair? Again, I feel way too undisciplined without a clock.


Tonight I was returning to my house after seraching for a digital clock, and as I pulled up the road near my son's school, I saw these guys standing in the middle of the road with a big gun. It was dark, and I couldn't tell if the guys had uniforms (police) on or not, but as I drove closer, I realized these guys were rather young (maximum 20 years?)and had no uniforms. I live in one of hte most affluent neighborhoods of Ramallah, so can't figure out what this is. Believe it or not, play guns are rampant here, and are made to look very much like real ones. So as I approach these guys, and the one starts pointing the gun at my car, my heart goes to my throat and I slow down. When he kind of moves to the side and waves me on, I tell myself, "it's a play gun, it's a play gun" and then I look out the rear view mirror and see the guy pointing it directly into my rear window. I swerve, make a quick move with the car and turn down a side street so I come up to my house from behind it. I give my landlord a call, and luckily he's at home and comes out to meet me on the street. He takes his car and goes down to talk to the guys. Sure enough, they are toy guns, the kids come and apologize to me, and the landlord asks them where they go to school. "Ramallah Friends School" - the school of Palestine's elite who are on the ivy league schools in the States track. I am in shock.


I explain to my 6 year old son what has happened (luckily he didn't see the kids when we were in the car, so had no idea what was happening really). He says to me, "Mom, those boys aren't very safe." I chuckle, tell him how right he is and then after a short lecture on gun safety with my son, I tell him, "Neither are those boys very smart."

The Nothing-ness of Newness

Communicating with friends who live the overseas life permanently, I've come to realize just how long and drawn out the adjustment can become. I moan, I groan, I'm crabby, I'm bored, I'm turned inward. Everything is great...honestly. Life is settling, but I don't have to be happy about it, do I?


I can't believe it - I just wrote a whole, crabby, venting post and it was deleted by Blogger. Ugh. I give up.

Getting Grounded

Today marks my fourth week here. I never thought it would take at least 28 days to settle in. The last four weeks have felt completely groundless and unsettled. With Ramadan dominating daily life here (changes in school and work schedules, openings of business, etc, etc), I have managed to successfully avoid bringing any rhythm or routine to my life. This may have been a good thing in younger phases of my life. But with a young child, it has made my life he&* at times. The only way I've gotten through the past 28 days is just taking each day as it comes.


There are countless ways I know I am in this groundless state - dreams are one. The first two weeks I was here, I was haunted with nightmares on the subject of the packing and moving of my household goods. It was bad enough to actually live it once in reality, but to have to live it over and over again in my dreams was unsettling. Another way is my I know I'm groundless, is my inability to focus on what needs to be done, and the inability to add structure and priority to the things that do need to be done. The groundless-ness not only comes from the lack of routine, but also the lack of having a place I can call home at the moment.

In two days, I'll be moved into my new house. My 400lb air shipment arrived Thursday night with 1 box missing. My heavier sea freight (furniture and such) arrives today. And my official move into the new place will occur the day before a a week long holiday. Perfect timing!

My normal "grounding" routine consists of a daily practice of morning meditation and yoga. The addition of a strong cup of coffee mid-morning is also a help. My yoga mat was packed in the air shipment, and coffee is absent during Ramadan.

As if the climate echos the changes that have happened in the past month, the dry, summer season has ended. Thick fog, rain and winds moved in last evening and at moments this morning, I could barely see the road outside the hotel. Ramallah is on a hilltop so it enjoys a cooler climate than Jerusalem in the summer . That also means the coastal breezes regularly enshroud it with go during the winter. It also reminds me of the world outside the walled West Bank.

Please Listen to Me

It can be frustrating many times over to communicate your needs in a place where not only do you struggle with the language, but where also the culture does not recognize you (either as a woman or a westerner), as having needs that are worthy of their own value. And so, getting myself listened to can be a time-consuming effort.


Recenlty, I went to the barber to get my son's haircut. While my son had his own particular ideas about what he wanted, and I had my own ideas, I thought I might be able to have success with hand gestures and what not. So I walked in and told the owner very clearly, "Short, but NO razor. Razor only on edges" (pointing and gesturing while using my son's head as a model). They of course nodded lots of "yes, yes"es in return, and I thought we'd be OK.


Then a young man walked out of a backroom, and began to cut my son's hair. There was some communication between him and the owner, so I figured all was communicated onward with no problems. The young man soon enough started taking the razor to my son's head. It was the back, so I clarified what I meant, but at that point figured no harm was done, and just told them to keep going with the razor on the back, but keep the top and front longer. Again, this was all done with a spattering of a few words in Arabic, and hand gestures.



When the young man got to the top of my son's head, he started chopping, and kept chopping, and chopping. I realized I was getting close to being in big trouble with my son. So, I asked the guy to stop, it was short enough. He waved me off with what I thought was a, "Ok, ok, just trimming a little more" gesture. And kept chopping and chopping. I started grumbling to myself, "Why, oh why is it so difficult to be listened to!!!" I thought I'd telepathically try to communicate my needs by giving him a hard stare behind his back. Then he made a quick turn around my son and I suddenly saw that he was wearing hearing aids in both ears. Now I was the fool.


I was being so sensitive to this issue based on recent experiences of both school and house hunting - everybody had their opinions, and were trying to convince me that their opinions were what I would feel most comfortable for myself. There was no recognition of, "Whatever will make you happy." In any case, I left the barber pretty happy with my son's haircut, he was unhappy....for a day, and then he decided it was cool!

Searching for a school

I had the option of living in Jerusalem or Ramallah. The commute is not that bad between the two, but I'm all about simplicity in my life, and simplicity would mean living in Ramallah. So the most urgent task at hand was finding a place to enroll my son, an entering first grader. Public schools in this part of the world are severely over-crowded and under-resourced with out-dated teaching methods and poorly trained teachers and administrators. Teaching methods are almost exclusively wrote learning, with no emphasis on building critical thinkers. Basically, they are everything the schools where we are coming from are NOT.

So my only viable option seemed to be the private school route. But given the condition of public schools, complemented by the high value all parents place on education here, finding a spot in a private school was not going to be easy. Private schools, to my great surprise, also suffer from the same issues as public ones. I found this even more disturbing than the stark state of the public schools. In my very-American logic, if a school is charging students a large fee for attending their school, would the school not be responsible for ensuring their teachers are trained in up-to-date teaching methods and providing the best, competitive curriculum? I guess as the demand from students outstrips the supply of schools, it is not really a "buyer's" market.

I hit an all-low point in my search when I visited a school that had been established by an American couple some 20 years ago. I became suspicious from the minute I walked in the door. First, the windows in the doors of the first grade classrooms were covered with black construction paper, making it impossible to see what was going on in the classroom. And my requests to see the classrooms or meet the teachers were met with a firm no. Only after 1 hour of charming the administrators, did they let me briefly visit the classroom which consisted of wooden benches and chairs and a teacher standing in front of a blackboard with chalk and a pointer. One of the American founders of the school then tried to sell me on the curriculum. A web search on the curriculum revealed that it was a home-schooling, full-on christian-based curriculum which lacked creativity. Wonderful! I then learned another important fact - secular education is almost non-existent in this part of the world, even if most student bodies are mixed-religions.

I tried to remain open to the possibility of sending my son to the school until the last 15 minutes of the visit when the director repeated a half of dozen times, "I know your child will be very happy here." Oddly enough, it reminded me of a guy I recently dated who kept imploring that he could make me very happy. How can another being possibly be sure of the fact that they will be able to fulfill your happiness? And if they failed, how would they deal with that? I vowed to run from anybody ever attempting to make such promises. So, with that, I checked off this school from the list of possibilities.

After another round of visits to a handful of schools resembling that one, I then expressed to the universe at large (in the presence of a patient colleague), that what I really desired was to visit a school where children at the elementary level were seated around round tables and not at wooden benches and desks. It seemed like such a trivial request. But I was also becoming worried that I wouldn't be able to find a place where I knew my son would be safe and well-taken care of (being academically challenged in a creative environment seems a little too much to ask for here, so I'll have to provide that at home).

A colleague told me about a private school were his three children had just enrolled and seemed very happy. He also mentioned the facility had an indoor swimming pool, at which my son's ears perked up. I decided to give the school a try, even if the curriculum was mainly in Arabic. The school is located on top of a open, green hill in one of Ramallah's more posh neighborhoods. I was greeted in a friendly manner, with everybody immediately wanting to interact with my son - asking him his name, his age, etc.. My request to visit a classroom was granted immediately with a thorough tour of the entire premises. They opened the door to one of the first grade classrooms, and there sat a bunch of smiling, young faces around a series of round tables. I smiled back, and my colleague (who accompanied me for translation purposes) whispered in my ear, "They have the tables you wanted!" And with that, my decision was made!

Whose time is it anyways?

There are a few infamous episodes in my life that have to do with jetlag and time changes. I'll spare the details here, but suffice to say they usually involved either car accidents or missed appointments due to poorly set watches. So imagine my dismay, on my second day of arrival in country, when I set out a very well-timed schedule of meetings between the West Bank and Jerusalem, only to discover during the preparation of my first meeting of the day that, overnight, the West Bank has fallen back 1 hour behind Jerusalem time.

Really, the focus of this post is to describe how something so relatively insignificant can take on so much meaning here. Ok, maybe time is not totally insignificant.

Let's take the reason behind the time change first. The time change is to put the clock on "winter time" - why winter time when the 100 degree weather outside does not even hint at how cold winters can really get here? In actuality, it has nothing to do with the season, but everything to do with the holy month of Ramadan. By moving the clock back one hour, in essence, the sun sets one hour earlier, basically shortening the hours of fasting by making the assumption that people will sleep in during the bright morning hours. As somebody who is not Muslim, but not a stranger to Ramadan fasting either, this just outright feels like "cheating".

Islam has well answered questions as to how fair it is for Muslims all over the world to fast whether they are in more equatororial locations vs. the extreme hemispheres. As the Islamic calendar is a lunar one, the month of Ramadan shifts about 10 days every year, meaning in a person's lifetime, they will fast several times in winter and summer, thus "equalizing" out the time all Muslims fast across the world. That sounds reasonable to me. So....why the need to change the clock? And how fair is it when you have muslims on the other side of a wall who have to fast one more hour? But the real question is, why make it more confusing for everybody by changing the time?!<

It is certainly kind of nice to arrive here and settle in here in the month of Ramadan, or so it would seem. Things generally move at a slower pace. Then again, it can be frustrating as....things move at a slower pace. Suddenly the "it is Ramadan" excuse pops up as a response to even the most insignificant requests. But it also gives me a nice excuse to take it easy a bit!

We bring the faith

There's no easy way to interpret what one sees or experiences in this part of the world. Its difficult to remain objective, difficult to remain positive, difficult to not let it all get under your skin. I'm concerned about keeping myself grounded admist all this, and to keep a pulse on my own values. This seems especially important in a place where people bring a tremendous amount of faith to the land, their actions, and their life.

Oddly enough, the older I get, the more faith I have, but the less religion I practice. Visiting Jerusalem's old city during a previous visit, I had to wonder at my inability to feel anything when visiting the major sites of the world's three major religions.

Picking up everything I own, everything I value, and everything I care about, then moving half a world away to a place like this took a ton of faith in between those few moments of lucidity. Jumping off a cliff, throwing myself into a pack of lions - all that fear and a small bit of exhiliration. Among all that, I had to convince myself to have faith, not in a history, or a belief, but in myself and the world that somehow, will support me. Faith convinces me that I'm going to land feet first!