Take One

I love watching movies. I love watching good movies - usually ones that are based on a true story of some ordinary person defeating emotional, physical or environmental impossibilities to achieve extraordinary things. Those movies are tear jerkers, and provide an incredible uplifting message that gives you a sense of hope and wonder as you wander out of the dark screening hall into the daylight.

If I were to make a movie, or write a book, I have a friend who would make the perfect central character for the film. She's a 38 year old Palestinian woman who has three children aged 3-10 years. Her family is from Nablus, a large city in the northern West Bank. Her one brother and one sister, both younger than her, live in the States and were recently married to Palestinian-Americans. Her husband is from Jerusalem. He is a Jerusalem-ID holder while she is not.

The Israelis make it extremely difficult for Arabs to maintain and acquire Jerusalem-IDs, and yet it is so critical to Palestinians to maintain that status if they have it, as Jerusalem is the capital of their future state. And that is the center detail of my friend's story, from which all her woes emanate.

First, is her house. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband, since if he didn't live in Jerusalem he couldn't maintain his ID status. She has applied for what's called a "family reunion" permit that allows her to live in Jerusalem, but the permit is 2 years in the waiting. Instead, she has a permit from her employer which expires every 6 months. And when that happens, she needs to find a place to stay, usually in Nablus with her parents. As the Israelis make it impossible for an Arab to buy or construct new property in Jerusalem, even if they are Jerusalem ID-holders, her home is her husband's family home. Her mother and father-in-law live in the ground floor apartment and she, her, husband and her three children occupy a space of no more than 150 meters on the second floor. The Israelis claim that half of their house is illegally constructed, and every few years they have to get together about $35,000 to pay to the Israeli government so that their extra 75 sq meters (which consists of a bedroom, living room and balcony) are not demolished.

Connected to her house is her second woe - her mother-in-law. Arab mother-in-laws are infamous for their poor treatment of their daughter-in-laws, often making them slaves to their whims and moods. While not unique, my friend's mother-in-law does have a particular talent for insulting my friend for every lifestyle choice (although my friend would hardly consider them choices) she makes. In fact, her husband's brother faced the threat of divorce by his wife after just a year of marriage if they continued to live under the same roof with this lady, so they made the choice to move to Dubai. For two months, the mother-in-law has refused to step foot inside my friend's home, unless of course my friend isn't there, in which case she snoops endlessly. The mother-in-law also shamelessly recruits her granddaughters into service as her messengers, creating another layer of tension to the entire situation. The latest was that the mother-in-law was completely aghast that my friend had left dirty dishes in the sink overnight, despite the fact that because of clashes and closures at the West Bank checkpoints, my friend only arrived back to her home near 8pm, requiring her to compact all the evening duties (dinner, homework, bath time) into two hours.

And that leads naturally into the third woe - her job. She is not allowed to work in Israel, but since she is so smart and competent she easily found a job with an international organization in Ramallah. She has no choice but to work - her husband also works, but in order to keep up with the Jerusalem taxes, fees, and childcare and school costs, she has no choice but to work. Her commute to Ramallah on a good day takes 1 hour each way, in three different modes of transportation, and through a minimum of 1 checkpoint at which there are often delays. Her day starts at 5am and ends around 11pm. She is the executive assistant to a program with 35 staff that spends about $1 million in construction works each month. Her job consists of keeping track of all the paperwork for the contractors, the donors, and most of the program staff. Not to mention, the troublesome internal staff who don't have half the sense of responsibility for their job as she does. She regularly endures the verbal abuses of staff and contractors, but at least she has a kind boss who compensates her fairly for the hard work.

Perhaps her last woe is her husband. Her husband, typical of most Palestinian men, provides no support in any of the household duties - he doesn't cook, doesn't provide any child care support, and lives his life nearly completely independent of any concerns of the needs and ongoings of the children. My friend has spent many nights in the past year in the emergency room of the local hospital with her children - cuts, fevers, a broken limb. My friend has no direct support from her immediate family, and only sees them rarely as her duties are towards her husband's family. In the movie, the husband would be a side character rarely on screen. Oddly enough, if she wasn't married to him, perhaps all the other woes would not be hers either.

What makes my friend extraordinary is that she does this all with so much respect and cheerfulness and a sense of humour. When others would crack, she moves on, remembers what's important in her life, and takes one step forward. Her only weakness is the one cigarette she allows herself at the end of the day.

Yesterday she had some girlfriends over her house for a meal and while we shoo-ed the children out into the garden to pick olives with the neighbor, we laughed and lamented over the irony of life and what it throws us. After dinner, my friend makes a statement about drinking coffee and a round of laughter and hand clapping erupts among the girls. I learn that my friend "reads" the coffee grinds left over on the bottom of the cups of Arabic coffee. So my friend also has some psychic abilities!

We drink our coffee, swirl the left over coffee grounds in the bottom of the cup, and then tip the cup over to drain which leaves a trail of grounds along the sides of the cup which is then "read." The girls hoot and holler as the readings are done. In mine, she sees a high mountain that I've overcome with a lot of tears, a horse running to victory, three people remembering me and talking about me, a man in his 40s thinking of me, a hidden fact that I will reveal in the next two months, and a culmination of white happiness which she interprets as a new marriage. A friend remarks that none of her readings carry any unhappy or sad news. My friend remarks, "No, when I feel the sad feelings coming during a reading, I push them away and I move toward the happy ones."

It says so much about her outlook on life. So, I await the extraordinary parts of my life and my friend's life to reveal themselves so we can complete the storyline of the movie.

The Walking Wounded

There is a lot of pent up anger and unhappiness in this place. People and their families have been abused, imprisoned, and beaten down by so many internal and external forces. When a car cuts me off or the driver behind me is honking his horn in impatient annoyance, I try to remember this and to bring empathy to the situation.

I have been unfortunately feeling a bit like the walking wounded myself lately with what I've experienced at the hands of others: a colleague screaming at my consultants at the top of her lungs, another colleague insulting my work via email (I kind of give the other colleague more credit doing it face to face even though the delivery method still could have been approved), another colleague creating an entire web of lies just so she wouldn't have to face my disappointment at the truth, a "friend" once more throwing her selfishness and unreliability in my face. Oh, how many times I have to learn the same lesson! I wish life was kind of like how we learn simple addition in school - once you learn the concept, you don't have to face trying to learn it over and over again.

My son's teacher had the mandatory beginning of the school year parent's ("mother") meeting this past week. Even though I can only understand about 50% of these meetings, I still attend to send the message that I take my child's education seriously. Also, I had received a note home earlier in the week about his behavior at school so I wanted to meet the teachers face-to-face. The English teacher was first up on the agenda, and after presenting to the parents all the different teaching methods she's using, she came over to sit next to me to discuss my son's recent antics at school. My talkative son has also apparently been discussing with the English teacher my not-so-professional babysitter who talks on the phone and lays down on the couch for a rest occassionally (an issue which I have been dealing seperately on my own). The teacher concludes confidently to me, "Your child needs much more attention at home!" She gives me a pat on my knee and walks out the door leaving the floor to the Arabic homeroom teacher.

I sit in my seat, numb, fighting back tears. For 5 nights I have not cooked myself dinner because I've been spending all my free time in the evenings with my son, trying to support him through the adjustment of school, trying to plan a rather simple birthday party, and just trying to make sure I have whatever I need to get through the next day.

I looked around the meeting room to see what kind of other mothers (who for some reason in this culture are held 100% responsible for looking after their children's education) were in my company. I couldn't help but notice two mothers in particular. Sitting next to each other, they resembled twin versions of Barbie. They obviously had had a lot of plastic surgery, especially in their faces, their hair is straightened, dyed blond, and they're each wearing *bling bling* 6 inch heals. I notice their perfectly manicured nails and their slim figures.

I'm jealous, so jealous....obviously these women have the time to spend on themselves. Obviously, since they're not getting any special attention from the teachers their children must be getting enough attention at home to be so well behaved. Obviously, these ladies are not working 50 hour weeks, managing a limited household budget, feeling anxiety about the mental health of themselves and their children, trying to provide everything that is needed in an environment where they have trouble communicating their needs, being verbally abused by colleagues and taken advantage of by friends. However, there may be one area that we have in common.....our low self esteem. We are the walking wounded.