That's What I Love About This Place

Kimberly Anderson’s Journal Entry - 2005

So here I find myself welcomed back into the Middle East once again. My host family is great! Arab hospitality is even more than its reputation likens it to be. There’s nothing like hearing the call to prayer, being honked at by every taxi driver recognizing you as a foreigner, getting food poured onto your plate until you really can’t eat another bite, and listening to the sounds of vibrant Arab life. The days wear me out because my senses are constantly being bombarded and overloaded by the surroundings. That’s what I love about this place- no matter how much you read and prepare yourself for your experience, nothing compares to that first catch-your-breath, excited feeling you get in your gut when you’re standing on the ground amidst it all. It’s such another world, and then at the same time it’s not. Parts of it seem so foreign and surreal, and others familiar, normal life activities.

Sometimes I take a minute and I’m trying to ponder and process my surroundings, and feel as if I’m in a fake world. A world where the problems have been dreamed up by some mastermind and that if only I keep reading and turning the pages I’ll eventually reach the end and everything will be OK; a world where all the characters live happily ever after. But sadly, that’s not the reality because the reality is here on the ground before me. Reality is that checkpoints exist, preventing many Palestinians from traveling easily. Reality is that a wall is being built all around Bethlehem and the entire West Bank. This wall will eventually cut my host family off from their own garden just a 3 minute drive away where I went with them this morning to pick fakous. (Fakous is a vegetable I can’t think of describing any other way than as a hairy cucumber. I think I’ve eaten it almost every day since I’ve been here.) Reality here in Palestine is often hard for me to swallow. It just doesn’t seem real sometimes because it’s too real. That may make no sense, but that’s the only thing I can think of to say to begin to explain it.

So tonight a couple of us hung out at Reem al Bawadi’s (most easily comparable to an American coffee shop- but still really different than that). My host sister and my friend’s host brother came with us. I love, love, love the chill relaxed atmosphere here. Even at work at my internship in the mornings we do work, but it’s in a much lower stress more relaxed manner. It’s a totally different mentality and way of life. It’s more personable. No surface level cordialities and merciless nose to the grindstone. Work is filled with tea, conversations and true acts of love and passion for these health workers to be doing what they’re doing. They’re passion and dedication inspires me. Everything about this place inspires me.

The streets here shut down at like ten and you see very few people out later than that. It’s a little difficult to find a taxi late at night unless you plan ahead. I don’t really like that part, but I guess when you’re in a town that’s accustomed to living under curfew and is living under an occupation, that that’s life and that’s just your routine. Tonight when we were sitting at Reem al Bawadi’s, above the table was a plaque with a picture of a young boy. His father works at the restaurant and the boy had been killed in the Church of the Nativity during the Bethlehem siege. It’s things like that that are the untold stories that hover over your experience and are such a part of Bethlehem. I mean there you are overlooking a gorgeous vista with illegal Israeli settlements in the background, listening to Arabic music, surrounded by stories and memories- told and untold. It can be an eerie and enchanting place at the same time. And I’m starting to realize that the stories are what makes Palestine, Palestine. The strange part is to understand that all the stories aren’t past, there are still stories of hardship and struggles that need to be told that are happening this very minute. I think my task here is to sit and listen to those stories and to observe the life here and what is taking place. I want to enjoy each day and soak in each face and every conversation. I feel so blessed to be able to be here and I don’t want to close my eyes to the realities here even when they are hard to swallow.

But amidst all this, the amazing thing is that life goes on. My sister’s here still worry about what they’ll wear to the big wedding this weekend, or their grades in school. My host brother still gets a thrill out of blowing bubbles and riding his bike with his friends down the street. Sure they’re living in the middle of one of the biggest modern conflicts in the world in a house under occupation, but they live on. They have to- what else can they do? And I too, like them will continue to watch, listen, learn from the Palestinian community and my time here in the West Bank, ensha’allah.

I feel as if everything I’ve just written is random and choppy. But that’s honestly how my head feels at the moment. Hopefully over the next week I’ll begin to have some more concrete thoughts and a little more clarity to my experiences.