Lovely little things

Sometimes you just have to take a moment to savor the lovely little things in life. My friend Laura has dedicated an entire blog to this exercise. She's a great writer so you might enjoy reading her blog too! Today I'm honoring some lovely little things in my life.

The first is my Saturday yoga class. It's a women's only class which is simply awesome. Lots of public places here are only for men. For example, there are tons of street-side coffee shops here where you can drink strong Arabic coffee, smoke argelah (flavored tobacco in a water pipe), play backgammon and hang out for hours. But only if you're male. There really aren't a lot of public women's only spaces. So to have a yoga class for women only is pretty amazing. Especially because several of the Muslim women in my class cover their heads outside their homes, but since class is women's only, they uncover for class. (I haven't tried it, but I can only imagine how tricky yoga would be with a headscarf....) Their uncovering creates a very real sense of intimacy in the class. Plus these women have created a really supportive and creative community. In Sanskrit the yoga community is called the sangha and ours is fun! Sometimes to warm up we put on music and dance around before starting our practice. :-)

Since my yoga studio is near Al-Manara, the central square in town, during yoga we heard the sounds of some sort of rally being conducted at Al-Manara and moving past us on the street and down the hill. We couldn't see them but we stopped to listen for a moment and I noticed that the Palestinians grinned with pride while they explained to me that the people were chanting, "freedom". 

While walking home from yoga class, I enjoyed the bright, low afternoon sunlight of December. I have been told that soon and very soon the weather here will turn nasty; 30 degrees F with lots of cold rain. Yuck. So I'm very grateful to savor long, bright sunshine and 63 degrees F.

On the way home from my yoga studio I stopped to get some fresh pita bread, called khobs. When I say fresh, I mean the bread man took it out of the oven probably five minutes ago and it steamed up the bag he put it in. It's also always fun to buy bread this way because the man always gently teases Megan and I for buying only a few pitas at a time. While most people here walk out with probably 30 pitas, we usually get 4 or 5. Today I bought 2. It cost me half a shekel, approximately a seventh of a dollar. I took those pita home and slathered on some lebnah, a tasty cream cheese-like substance made from plain yogurt and sprinkled it with zatar (thyme). This traditional Arab snack is simply amazing.

Here's to a lovely afternoon and the little things that make life beautiful.

Zeitoun

This fall I had several opportunities to help harvest olives on the Lutheran World Federation campus located on the Mount of Olives. At the LWF campus there are several olive groves with beautiful olive trees in need of harvesting each year. The olives are harvested by volunteers and you are more than welcome to come to the Holy Land to help harvest olives next year! Please follow this link to learn more!

Using a rake to pull olives out of the tree

Harvesting olives is a lot of fun. We began by laying tarps down on the ground around the olive trees so that the olives could be pulled from the branches and dropped onto the tarp to collect later. Of course, this system means that one must be careful where one steps so as not to prematurely crush the olives. Using our hands or small rakes, we pulled olives from the trees and onto the ground. While some folks collect from the ground, others climb up into the tree to reach the highest olives.

My fellow YAGM Alma is quite the climber!

Once the olives have been removed from the tree, we gather them into the tarp and throw out any branches, leaves or stones. Then the olives are poured into large burlap bags and taken to the olive press in Latrun where they are, well, pressed to make oil. The oil sits for several months to properly age and then is ready for consumption! Are you interested in having some olive oil from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem? The LWF sells its olive oil as a fundraiser for the hospital and other amazing services. You can buy your very own bottle of oil complete with a beautiful glass jar, hand-blown in Hebron by following this link!

Me, olive tree and a bounty of olives!

In case you were wondering, olives fresh from the tree don’t taste good; whether black or green, the are quite bitter and leave an uncomfortable paste-y sensation in one's mouth. Although not recommended for regular consumption it is considered necessary to try at least one olive right off the tree while harvesting, just for the experience. :-) 


Olive trees are quite beautiful. They have a light colored bark and their trunks are elegantly twisted. The leaves have a waxy shine about them, though in fall they are often covered with the dust that so permeates this dry landscape. Olive wood is excellent for burning; with a clean-burning and long flame.


Olive trees are strong; standing close to the ground, they can withstand high winds and blowing sand. They can hunker down and survive through long droughts, a necessity in this dusty desert climate. They are also quite long-lived. The oldest known olive tree is in Greece. At 2,000 years old, it is still producing fruit.

Zeitoun, meaning both olive and olive tree in Arabic, is a common and very highly-valued word. During olive harvest time we had an entire unit in the Kindergarten dedicated to learning about olive harvest. The kids drew pictures of olive trees, brought in olives from their homes and ate lots of foods saturated in tasty olive oil. I have been told by more than one teacher at my school that I should drink a spoonful of olive oil each morning, "for my health". While I haven't actually done this, I understand the sentiment which honors olive oils' nutritional benefits, particularly as compared to other oils.

It is hard to explain the extent to which Palestinians value olives, olive oil and olive trees.The best comparison I can think of is the way Ents feel about their trees in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Palestinians feel for their trees. Since olive trees can live for a very long time many families have tended and harvested the same trees for generations. Unfortunately, when one becomes a refugee, often the beloved family olive groves must be left behind. Sometimes the Wall separates families from their trees, making it impossible to harvest one's own precious fruits. The olives then either go to waste or are harvested by someone else. Palestinians are as rooted in the soil of their homeland as the trees they so fervently honor. 

Living here for the past few months, I have come to highly respect olive trees as well as the people who so love them. Both are strong and able to thrive in the midst of long-term hardships. So here's to you Zeitoun and Palestinians; may your roots be deep, your trunk  strong and your branches nourished by sunlight.

Hospitality

A few weeks ago, the YAGM volunteers were invited to the home of a Palestinian family who are fast becoming friends with our program directors, Jeff and Julie. They are a Muslim family and speak little English (although arguably they speak a great deal more English than we do Arabic...), so we were a bit mystified by their desire to host the 8 of us, only one of whom knows Arabic (inshallah, this number will grow throughout the course of this year!). None-the-less we made the trek to their home one Tuesday evening a few weeks ago and were met with unbelievable and humbling hospitality.

The feast!

The hostess had spent hours (possibly a couple days) preparing a veritable feast: think Thanksgiving x100 + stuffed grape leaves. It was incredible. We sat down to piles of cold cooked chicken, a divine rice and meat dish, fresh salads, the aforementioned grapes leaves stuffed with rice and meat (a personal fave), yogurt, hummus, little tasty fried hush puppies with meat inside and sodas. That probably wasn't even all of it to be honest. I focused my attention on the grape leaves which were amazing, even by the high standards set in Palestine. The hostess was ever attentive; if anyone came anywhere near to seeing the bottom of their plate they were offered more. Actually even if you hadn't come close to seeing the bottom of your plate you were offered seconds, thirds, fourths...

A note for my fellow TIME '09 alums, I did you all proud. I ate like a Moroccan-host-family champ. :-)

The dinner conversation was very pleasant. It took a lot of translating and miming on each side to communicate, but the family was patient with us. After we had stuffed ourselves we washed our hands and retired to the sitting room where we had piles of fresh fruit and mint tea. Followed by dessert and Arabic coffee (a thimble-sized jolt of rocket fuel, far more flavorful than coffee in the US). I'm not even joking, it was  a double dessert special.

The YAGM with the generous family

In some ways, I'm still not sure exactly why the family invited us over. Most of us really couldn't communicate much and, other than Jeff and Julie, we didn't know this family very well at all. But in other ways, it makes perfect sense in this context. Hospitality toward guests is a fundamental way of life here. Guests like us are vulnerable since we are far from our family units. We therefore require extra looking after to make sure that we're well taken care of. In"biblical times", a traveler in need was literally in a life or death situation dependent upon the generosity of strangers. It's comforting to know that families here want to look after us.

This type of over-the-top generosity is a very humbling honor. Although we had trouble sharing a language with this awesome family, they were willing to go to the trouble to share a feast with us.  

Visa Extended!

Al Hamdulilah! As of this morning, my visa has officially been extended! As some of you may know, due to our visa trouble in August, we ended up arriving here with the promise of a year long visa, but only a one month visa in hand. The plan was to have an appointment at the Ministry of the Interior to officially get our year-long visas.

After much work and frustration, we managed to obtain a coveted appointment at the Ministry and so we headed into downtown Il Quds (Jerusalem) to get our visas (inshallah). After some waiting and processing we did manage to get our promised visas in hand, so we are now officially allowed to stay in country until late July! I am very thankful to our supervisors and everyone who helped us to jump through the bureaucratic hoops! Shukran!

It's A Small World After All

I know it's cliche, but seriously. It's a small world.

On Tuesday night I went to the Friend's (Quaker) Meetinghouse in Ramallah where a Swedish choir taught the Palestinian international choir with whom I'm singing a joyful, South African song, complete with choreography. Since the Palestinian international choir consists of at least five nationalities, (German, American, Swedish, Palestinian, Jordanian and Spanish), our choir alone is like the EU. Add in the South African song/dance, the Swedish choir and the Friend's and you have a regular global event!

On Wednesday our joint choirs performed the aforementioned song to a sizable audience in Bethlehem including one of my best friends who also sang in chamber choir with me in high school.

How's that for globalization? :-)

Why Travel?

On Thursdays I get to help out in the 9th grade English class with an awesome teacher. She clearly loves to teach English and is good at it; she brings in YouTube videos and songs to make the lessons more meaningful and fun for her students. She also manages the herculean challenge of keeping thirty-two 14-year-olds on task.

On this particular day the students were learning about explorers, like Marco Polo as compared to modern-day travelers. Please appreciate that I kept my composure as a professional teacher while the students learned the word diarrhea. Yup. Diarrhea. The teacher merely explained that this was "an illness", with no specifics on the dirty details. Having traveled before and had some pretty wicked cases of traveler's diarrhea, I could barely keep from laughing out loud as the students listened to me say diarrhea and repeated it over and over and over. The classroom resounded with the word diarrhea for approximately five minutes during which the teacher and I were the only ones aware of the specifics of what they were saying. I deserve a small medal of honor for my adult-like composure.

Next the class discussed why people explored during Marco Polo's time and why people might travel now. For Marco Polo, the students discussed learning about new cultures, opening up new economic markets and spreading religion. When discussing why someone might travel today, they talked about looking for jobs, for marriage and for fun. In some ways, I felt as though the discussion did not do justice to the reasons why I travel.

I have been to various parts of Europe and the Middle East. I have traveled abroad for as little time as a week and, until now, the longest has been a college semester. The major factor that sets me apart from the travelers the students were imagining is that the vast majority of my journeys outside the USA have been on study abroad.

My very first time traveling abroad was when I was 16 and had the incredible chance to travel to France with my high school French class. For someone who loves French, (the language, the food, the history, the poetry, the people) France was like an amusement park designed just for me. The newspapers were in French, the menus were in French, entire bookstores were filled with French books and someone had even convinced the small children to speak French in high-pitched little voices. Awesome! Plus I got to see some of the most amazing museums and sights in Europe. The grammar I learned in class became meaningful and quite important. History and culture from textbooks became a lived experience. It was incredible and wanderlust seeped in the moment I stepped off the plane.

One of the major reasons that I chose St. Olaf College for my undergraduate degree was its excellence in study abroad. I had the opportunity to learn over the course of a January term and a whole semester. I wish I'd had the time and money to do more.

Study abroad is not the same as being a normal tourist. Although you may go to similar sights, you enter into the travel experience in a different frame of mind. This is not a vacation. Attempting to learn as much of the language as possible, even just enough to say please and thank you, is key as you're hoping to learn about the people and the culture. I always carried a small notebook and pen so that I could take notes during tours, at sights and even in restaurants or on the street; using my notes to inform my homework assignments, papers and projects. I wrote reflections essays in hostel rooms and had to make space for textbooks in my 50 lb suitcase. I craved to understand the language, the people and the culture. I sought to understand the similarities and the differences. Studying abroad as an Anthropology major is particularly rewarding since the field is designed around examining and seeking to understand human beings, it is full of tools to suspend judgement and find meaning.

My history as a student of study abroad means that I cannot travel without seeking to understand. My goal is to learn as much as possible, to try to understand, to hear the perspective of someone else. Travel can be particularly illuminating about one's own country and culture. Suddenly things that seemed normal appear bizarre. Why do Americans eat so much processed food? It doesn't taste good. It's not good for us, farmers, animals or the environment. Not everyone eats so much of it, so why do we? Travel is illuminating for realizing our place in the global context. The immense power of being American is invisible only to Americans. Everyone else knows better than we how much power we have; economically, politically, militarily and in terms of our media.

Travel is a fantastic medium for learning and that is why I travel. Although I may have my bachelor's degree, by no means am I done learning. Study abroad will always be my mindset for travel.

If there won't be dancing at the revolution, I'm not coming

The other day I went through Qalandia; a large checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah that is infamous for its long waits and demonstrations. Perhaps what makes checkpoints particularly annoying is that you never know how long it will take to go through. Sometimes one sails through in less than 10 minutes but at other times it can take hours and hours to get through. You never know on any specific day what to expect. Checkpoints close spontaneously; blocking access from one side to the other unless one is willing and able to go all the way around to another checkpoint. Closures come without warning of time or location, adding to the frustration.

On this particular day, there was a long wait at Qalandia. For some reason, they were not having individuals get out of the buses to walk through the checkpoint on foot, rather they had everyone stay on the buses and checked all passports on the buses. I'm not sure if this was the cause of the delay or if it was merely a busy time of day to pass through. In any case, we sat at Qalandia for nearly an hour as our bus made its way through the checkpoint.

From what I have seen so far, the primary purpose of checkpoints is a symbolic one. They are intended to intimidate and frustrate those needing to pass through. They stand as a reminder of who wields military might in this country; a reminder that this might has the power to dictate geography. For those without this power a checkpoint is a place of submission, delay and annoyance. Checkpoints can be a place where one's plans might be thwarted or delayed just because they can be. It is no wonder they are often the sites of frustration and demonstration.

As I sat in the bus waiting, I looked over to a bus nearby that was literally rocking in place. A glance inside the bus made the source of the commotion clear; the bus was filled with older women all smiling, singing, dancing and clapping. I watched them on and off for the half hour or so that our buses were stationary beside one another. The singing, dancing and clapping continued throughout the time. These women were clearly enjoying this spare, and quite unexpected, waiting time by having a dance party. When it finally came their turn for a soldier to board the bus and check their passports, they continued to clap and sing until the soldier quieted them down.

In this place designed to impose military might, these women refused to be broken. They chose to dance and clap instead. That is resistance, and such a polite revolution too! This was not the type of event which would make headlines or even draw the attention of the soldiers, but it is the most important kind of resistance. These women showed that while they submitted in theory to the system, they refused to be broken by it. Rather than allowing the checkpoint to frustrate and annoy per its intent, they would use the opportunity to enjoy each other's company and have some fun. My Anthropology professor once quoted Emma Goldman saying, "if there won't be dancing at the revolution, I'm not coming". Sometimes the dancing itself is the revolution. These are the stories I want to tell of this place: stories of joyful and unconquerable souls.