Ramallah

On the bus from Jerusalem to Ramallah. Two countries at war, but you can take a bus to the other side. It's the number 18, everything is in Arabic and the colour is green. There are two nuns with thick glasses, several men, women with hijab, and without.

My friend Fadi will meet me when I get to the bus station in Ramallah. We are travelling through East Jerusalem. It's all white bricks, broken-ness, half-built. New developments; Jewish homes. I think that to do this journey, to travel this land, is to begin to understand.

We cross. I am on the other side of the wall. Here are boulders and dust; clouds rise white from the street. I am outside the fortress where once I felt so safe. The first time, returning from Tulkarem, I breathed a sign of relief as I stepped onto the Israeli side. Now it is the other way.

There is graffiti - English, gidon levi, Arabic, change your politic. A dead dog lying in the middle of the road.

They tell us not to come here, we are so scared. I call Fadi like 50 times this morning, every step of the way. I'm coming alone, is it ok? I'm getting the bus now, is it ok? Will you meet me? Is it ok? Is it ok?

'It's ok,' he says, every time. 'No problem, fine, even with a blue ID.'

You just take the bus to Ramallah from Jerusalem. From West to East. The sheitels give way to hijab, the shades to suntanned, wrinkled skin, and you are stripped, alone.

FADI is waiting as we pull into the bus station. It was only a half-hour drive, through the checkpoint without a stop. Getting into Israel is the part that's hard - no one cares if you leave. Adam, a friend from the States, is waiting too. We kiss both cheeks in the boiling sun and walk through central Ramallah to the Star and Bucks cafe.

Adam has already been here for two days. It's not his first trip. A while back he spent three months learning Arabic at Birzeit. Now, he's staying with Nabil, a Birzeit friend. Adam is Jewish. He admitted this to his Palestinian friends only towards the end of Birzeit - they laughed and said they'd guessed. But this time things have changed. Nabil was two months in an Israeli jail, and there's a fracture to their fragile trust. 'You brought Israel to our house,' is what Nabil said.

As we ascend to the coffee shop, Adam tells me to go first. This is in case someone, on the narrow crowded stairs, tries to grope me. 'It happens a lot,' he says. That's strange because so far I've noticed only quiet respect.

Nabil's wife is from Canada. She is Palestinian, and Israel won't let any Palestinians return so every three months she goes to Israel to renew her tourist visa, which last time they refused. This is married life.

It's sweltering outside and the light seems unbearably bright. People wander in and out of cars, travelling at a snail's pace, all over the road. It's a free for all, no horns. And everywhere, on the pavements in clusters, are groups of young men. They hold hands and touch each other to make a point. We pass too close and Fadi brushes his palm along the shoulders of an unknown man. No one bats an eye.

We sit in a shwarma place - the family area upstairs. There is air-conditioning. We rest. A man and his wife sit opposite. His hand creeps between the buttons of her jilbab. She has white skin, white hijab, big pale eyes. Eats shwarma like us. The man sees me see, does it again. I try hard not to look.

 

 

WE GO on a walkabout. Fadi returns to his office at the Ministry of Social Affairs. Adam wants to show me something. It's a monument to a Palestinian man killed here last week by the Israeli army. It's hard to know what happened, exactly, but I try to understand. 'The army comes in whenever they like. The Palestinians try to resist,' says Adam, 'but they don'€™t have the weaponry and if they shoot, the army just kills them. That's what happened to this guy, I think.' Fadi's version, later, is that the man was 'wanted' and the army executed him.

A man was shot dead last week on this street on this spot. And here are plants, his photograph and a small handwritten sign.

Opposite, is a women's clothing store. The owner and two friends are sitting outside on stools. We have a bit of a chat, then the owner wants a picture taken with me. He saves it to his phone wallpaper. 'Don't show that to your wife,' says Adam. 'It's okay,' says one of the friends. He's not married. Got some issues.' The men all laugh.

IT'S TWO O'CLOCK - time to meet Fadi at his work. We take a taxi to the Ministry of Social Affairs, passing the Muqataa, the Palestinian government buildings, a huge white compound heavily guarded, on the way. Out of the centre, there are wide and peaceful streets, fewer people and lots of space. Everything is sun-bleached green and white.

I see a Jewish star etched onto a wall. No one has covered it. Then another, spray-painted black onto a green bin. 'Soldiers leave them as they go past,' says Adam. I can't believe they've just been left there and no one's painted them out.

The Ministry is empty - most people finish work by two. Fadi, who's in public relations, meets us with his deputy. We drink coffee with lots of sugar from little white cups. They'd introduce us to social affairs minister Saleh Zidan, only he's in Gaza right now, so we go to the roof and look at Ramallah, the whole of it, baking in the sun beneath. I take pictures, one of which Fadi makes me delete, because in it, as he gestures to the settlements in the distance, he is smiling.

This is where social programmes are organised - widows, orphans, a shelter for women beaten by their men. No one's been paid for quite a while (the Hamas embargo, and Israel's withheld tax). Well, sometimes something comes through -€“ maybe 750 shekels a month.

BACK TO THE CENTRE in a taxi, the news comes on - and just like in Israel the volume goes up. Except here, the word you hear is Isra-eel, over and over again, instead of the Phlistin-eem that they repeat on the news in Tel Aviv.

On the corners, we hang out. We chat. We meet people. Friends know friends. Everyone is saying hello. We stop for tea and a chocolate eclair at the Urobian, talk to Jihad, the owner, and Bassam, an employee. I think about Tel Aviv. There are so many beautiful women; here are so many -€“ their skin, I notice, is very white, despite the scorching sun. Light and hungry eyes, diamond blue and green. They walk. Tight tops, jeans, sexy mane of hair. No one bothers them. 'They're Christians,' says Adam. So? 'Well, the Muslim women are supposed to be more pure. The Christians are known as loose.'

Salam and Nabil are standing on a corner. Adam's friends. Salam wears a brown suit and tie, even in this heat, with combed-back hair. He is a journalist. We talk about Alan Johnston. 'He was kidnapped, but he was a friend,' Salam says. Back in the Star and Bucks Adam smokes nargila and we talk. 'Could you have a friendship with another woman, not your wife?' Adam asks the men.

'Well, it's okay for me to sit and have a coffee with my colleagues,' says Salam. 'But more than that is not allowed. Once you have signed the marriage contract you can't be intimate with any woman but your wife. In the villages, though, if you even talked with another woman, it would be bad. You can say good morning, but nothing more than that.'

AS I SIT on the bus to Al-Quds I see a kite, a ragged kite flying in the dusk-blue sky. One, then two kite-tails, then hundreds sailing over the mounds of rubble under a huge pale setting sun.

I'm on the number 18. It stops at Qalandia and the Palestinians get out. The rest of us stay put. A soldier gets on, throws a quick look around, descends. We drive through and wait for the Palestinians on the other side. I see the flag of Israel flying above huge enclosures covered with barbed wire, and lanes, and traffic in lanes, and soldiers, Jewish soldiers in green with guns.

Up ahead is the wall. We build. The wall we build to keep them out; the watchtowers, cameras and speakers to keep us in. And the same pale setting sun the other side.

Comments

[sharon]

i just read this post - very interesting - i was in the mukata'a about four or five years ago. there was a big meeting that gush shalom had organized there to meet with arafat, arafat kissed my hand...

[Ruth]

Beautiful account of a very unreal reality. Chilling to think that in a matter of days after this visit Palestinian reality changed even more, and so drastically... Very thought-provoking - the window you give to the little things in Palestinian city life that hardly anyone on this side of the fence is aware of. People rarely think about these things, and when we do, we realize how little we know.

[Uri ZACKHEM]

Liked the one before last picture of the mannequins with hijabs and sunglasses.
Interesting report.
Uri (in Minneapolis now).

[lisoosh]

I've stopped by your blog a few times. You write absolutely beautifully, and I love the personal perspective and your willingness to expose your own thoughts and emotions.

[Leila]

sharon, thank you

ruthie, thanks - that's kind of what i had in mind

uri, thanks, hope to see you soon, back

lisoosh - thank you very much, this feedback means a lot to me, and keeps me writing

[Ramin]

It is indeed another look. More focused on ordinary details which then get new dimensions, without referring directly to the political backgrounds. Interesting.

[PP]

You're absolutely right, these journeys "across" are key steps in beginning to understand. But they are also key steps towards guaranteeing permanent confusion! And steps which few choose to take, for that reason and others... good for you. And great pics.

[Leila]

PP - thanks, specially since the photography is something I've been working on - glad you like it. The journeys do confuse - I struggle with that - but I think this is part of seeing a whole picture, and in the end it will make sense.

[Leila]

Ramin it was great to meet you in London and finally see 'Jews of Iran'. Hope we can work together. L

[mike marcus]

Its like taking the red pill isnt it?

I have to apologise. Its been a small struggle to finish reading the article. You know how it is, there is a tried and tested method in Israel of coping with the weight of concience. It involves shutting off the mind to all information that doesnt confirm to an overly simple and polarised explanation of the way things are. Sometimes breaking through that apathy takes some effort.

There are some things in my life that I find difficult to put adequately into words, my relationship to Israel and the political situation falls into this category. I find myself reading your descriptions of similar experiences to mine and articulating what I cannot.

Keep writing

[lulucampbell11]

Hi Leila, Thanks so much for coming to talk to us yesterday - it was lovely to meet you. I hope you didn't mind my queries about writing about key people you know, I should have explained that I was interested in doing the same thing (albeit about the suburban underworld) and had been wondering about how to approach it. Looking forward to being a regular reader. Take care, Lucyx

[Leila]

mike, thank you for your comment, sorry that it took me a while to be in touch. if i can do that, articulate, it must help some... i'm back soon. let's talk more then.

[Leila]

Hi Lucy - I really enjoyed it too. It was interesting to reflect, and the UK perspective changes - adds. Glad if I could help your questions, and didn't mind at all. L x

[mana]

ramallah is the best in the world!