A letter about sometimes mundane things, October 8, 2004 By Skip Schiel (Written at the request of Louise [my partner] who asked, “How about writing about the sometimes mundane aspects of your experience?” I’ve intended to accompany the words with pictures, but because of my scattered and unpredictable computer access, the best I can do is promise to add a new collection to my website and inform you how to find it later. Please feel free to forward to anyone who might be interested in my often quotidian stories.) First, the weather, for folks far away from the site of the weather, maybe not of much interest but for those of us living in it, of pivotal importance. It’s been hot here in Ramallah, hottest September on record I’ve heard, I’d say in the upper 80s (F), dipping only to about mid 60s at night. Plus, the sky is unremittingly blue. Sunny and blue. A rare and shout-aboutable day when clouds appear. Might be windy, might be still. People remind me that soon the rainy chilly season will envelop Palestine. I’m aware that New England has suffered the peripheral effects of hurricanes. Indeed, hard to imagine here, a storm. Second, where I live. In an apartment provided by the university, 3 bedrooms, 1 huge living room with 2 sofas, 2 stuffed matching chairs, a large echoey kitchen. On the first floor so I can hear every footstep and child’s shout in the hallway outside the living room. They play basketball and soccer. I hear every thump of the ball. On the other side of the apartment, outside the kitchen window for about one week, kids made a slide from wood they’d discovered in a construction site across the road, fashioned various protections for their bottoms, and giggled throughout the endeavor. I waited for just the moment to engage them frontally and forthrightly to make photos, but the moment refused to appear. So I made a few photos thru my windows. Until 2 days ago I had 1 housemate, Sebastian, a professor of spatial studies (aka urban development) from the University of Dortmund in Germany. His 3 weeks are up teaching at the university. Next month students he taught last year thru this exchange program will visit the University of Dortmund with reports on their final projects. We’ve become good friends (I trace my heritage and general identity to Germany and Austria). I will miss him, as I do his colleague, Mark, with the same mandate, who left 2 weeks ago. Sebastian and I share notes on the struggles for human rights in our 2 countries. He told me how--before Germans pulled down the Berlin wall (a reminder that most walls eventually fall or are breached)--East Germans fled to West Germany, not directly, but thru safe passage provided by Hungary. Today, I expect a new housemate. Third, my routine. Mostly rise before 6, 2 hours of wash and brush, yoga, meditation, breakfast, while I read whatever book I’m studying, write in my journal, then read more of the Gospels. After all, where am I but in the Holy Land, in fact, within a few km of where Christ is rumored to have taught or slept. All that accomplished, then I walk for ½ hour to Ramallah center, called Al-Manara, where I catch a shared taxi to Birzeit. Walking allows noticing and thinking, remembering and planning. I play an awareness game: what can I notice new today along the route I travel most every day? What might I photograph of what I notice? The myriad limestone ledges, the ubiquitous olive trees, a ruins of some mysterious sort, the occasional cloud, a flower, a woman carrying groceries on her head, shops, taxis, purely spontaneously and without theme. I linger to sniff the jasmine and honeysuckle. The taxi to Birzeit University is another 20 minutes, assuming the Israeli army has not flung down a flying checkpoint (which has happened twice since I’ve been here) and assuming we survive the speedy flight up and down many hills. Thank god for the speed bumps. Cost: 3 shekels, equivalent to about 80 cents. Work at the university till it closes at 4 (it closes completely, everything locked tight), retrace my route, maybe stop by the fruit drink emporium for a guava-banana-apple-ginger combo, and arrive home about 5. To rest, read, eat, read, chat, read, wash, and sleep. A full 8 hours each night. But I must say something about sleeping in Ramallah. The night is often noisy. At about 4:30 the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer. This is usually sung, and I understand that the words are from the Koran, the music seems improvised and is often melodic and sweet. It is about the only music I hear on a regular basis except for radio music in taxis. In addition, sometime after dark, running sporadically until sometime after light, dogs frequently howl and growl and bark and shriek. This started about 2 weeks ago. I see dogs during the day, respectfully asking them what is troubling them. No answer, during the day they are polite and quiet. During the night, their other side emerges. So I am in bed for the full 8 hours, but how long I actually sleep is a question I can’t answer. Now, walking so much, I meet people. Here are a few of those I’ve met. The carpenter with the series of small shops along Jerusalem Street. He wears a white Arabic cap, always dresses in clean tan shirt and pants, is probably in his 70s, looks fully engaged in his work, and so I couldn’t say no to the prospect of photographing him. Now I say hello each day as I pass by--marhaba. After photographing him, he pointed across the street, and led me to believe (speaking virtually no English, me virtually no Arabic, yet, tho I have few hopes I’ll come anywhere near being able to compose actual sentences) I should visit his friends across the street, introduce myself and ask if I can photograph. A very traditional shop, he or a friend indicated. His friends stuff fabric with wool, making the Palestinian equivalent of the futon. I couldn’t merely drop by. They invited me to sit, served me sweet coffee and grapes, others entered the shop, some with quite good English, and we conversed, then I photographed. Now, walking, I say to these friends as well, marhaba, or saba el-kheir, good morning. On another day, nearing Al-Manara, I stopped to look at the local market near the main mosque. A man greeted me in English, explained that he was born in Palestine and has Jordanian and US citizenship, he’d lived many years in the States, but the Israelis won’t give him more than a 3 month visa. Which means: he has to leave the country before the period elapses, travel the long road in and out of the Jordan valley to Amman Jordan, reenter the country, and get a new visa. This might require 2 days and about $50 Israeli exit fee plus other expenses. Most astonishing. That some agency capriciously and without accountability exercises this power over this peaceful man. However, he illustrates a reality: a powerful force against an immovable object. Tho the Occupation has the effect of making him and other Palestinians pay for the Holocaust, he is resilient and resolute. He could have stayed in the US, he could have raised his kids there, but he chose to bring the family home, educate the children thru Friends Schools and Birzeit University, and make his stand here. He is not alone. He had lots to say about the US role in perpetuating the Israeli state, also about the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. I recorded his voice, with the proviso that I would not disclose his name nor use his photo publicly. How’s my health? Good, I’m over the Travelers’ Sickness (mushy BMs) that I acquired in my one week stay in Cairo. In Ramallah I drink the tap water, eat the street food, wash my produce, and have yet to suffer a recurrence. (You might be the first to know if TS strikes me again.) How’s my safety? For the moment, good. Ramallah is a relatively safe place in Palestine, compared, say, to Gaza where nearly 80 Palestinians, mostly civilians have been murdered by the Israeli army in the past 2 weeks, along with several soldiers and Israeli innocents, a small massacre. In response, twice in the past week, Ramallah shops and schools closed in mourning or solidarity. Locally, the army sets up damnable checkpoints periodically, they harass Birzeit students where they live in the village of Birzeit, they enable the 2 settlements that perch ominously on hilltops around Ramallah. Recently I learned that yesterday either official army soldiers or Israeli militia attacked 2 Palestine young men, killing them in a super market. One of the Israelis was also killed. But more than the actual violence--one of the facts on the ground--is the prevailing uncertainty, anxiety, fear, unpredictability of life under occupation. I write about this in one of my weekly missives, #4, about the settlement Pesagot. And my work, finally, what I’m here to do, how’s that progressing? Slowly, ever so slowly. I’ve met twice with my team of advanced photo students and graduates at Birzeit. We’ve discussed our ideas for individual projects, each expressing our own personal reflection on the how occupation affects the right to education. Thru the Right to Education Campaign we hope eventually to make a book. This project stems from the highly successful video the Campaign made last year, A Caged Bird’s Song, by Sobhi Zobaidi. It features the Surda checkpoint that I experienced when first here last year. The Israelis removed the checkpoint--really a road block requiring a 1.5. km walk--in December 2003, ending this major impediment of nearly 3 years, but at any moment they might decide to reinstate it. Birzeit has a reputation of fostering political awareness and resistance. For good reason, I suppose, the authorities might wish to close this facility. They did for 3 years during the first Intifada in the late 1980s. The teaching I thought I might do has not yet materialized. Teaching might be limited to small group discussions with the team. Two issues have surfaced that are a bit dicey. One, as part of my introduction to my photography, I showed a selection I’d made from my first Palestine-Israel trip last year, noticing too late that they showed mainly Israelis--peace activists, dissidents, refusniks--but not Palestinians. The project’s coordinator, Helen, later upbraided me. “I couldn’t believe what you were showing, so insensitive, where are the Palestinians in your story?” Examining my selection later after I’d stopped trembling, I realized I think what I did was base the selection to maximize the audience, to incorporate Israeli and US Jewish perspectives and sensibilities. Big mistake, for this showing. Two, my idea for what I’ll do for the project is feature peoples’ faces, faces suffering, faces not suffering. For instance, the face of a young Birzeit student stranded at a taxi stand because of a checkpoint, and the face of a child singing at the Friends School in Ramallah. One shows the reality of the occupation, the other shows what could be, that other world that World Social Forums refer to when using the slogan, “Another World is Possible.” Students reacted harshly to the idea of not concentrating solely on the occupation. We discussed imagination, hope, vision, but I do not sense much support for my hope to point to life after the Occupation. I’ve not been able to make firm connections yet with other organizations which might utilize my photography. But I hope to visit at least East Jerusalem and its neighbor Abu Dis, along with Hebron and Nablus in association with the Campaign. Maybe Gaza, if the situation allows. All this to examine the effects of the Occupation on education. (With a group of international students studying Arabic at Birzeit, I’m going to Bethlehem and Hebron tomorrow. This will help ground me for later, more photographically intensive trips.) Meanwhile, all deliberation aside, I photograph freely. Some I’ve mentioned earlier, the various people I meet while walking, also the settlement, day and night, buildings, Al-Manara, and a rapidly growing collection from the Friends Elementary school. I visit weekly on Mondays when they have chapel or assembly. The kids and teachers see me, and thanks to the principal, Diana Abdel Nour, I’ve been able to freely enter and photograph any group that attracts me--singing, English, math, recess, computers and the chapel. I conclude my long letter about sometimes mundane matters with one little story. The Iron Shirt story. Traveling here I packed light. I brought only 4 t-shirts, 2 light dress shirts, 2 heavier dress shirts, and 3 pairs of pants. Which means during the past 3 warm weeks, I’ve drawn each day from a miniature wardrobe. I’ve longed for more clothing. I learned that new clothing bought in regular stores is expensive, a reflection of the Occupation: no or little clothing made in Palestine, all imported, often from Israel, expensive, and purchases support the Israeli state. People laugh when I ask about used clothing. But one day I was wandering thru the big Ramallah market where all merchandize is sold from carts or the ground. I saw shirts. Long sleeved shirts for 10 shekels or $2.50 and short sleeved shirts for half that. I’ll take one of each. Got home, tried on the long sleeved “Italian fashion” shirt and it fits and looks fine on me, merges with one Palestinian style, brown and black and red plaid. But the short sleeved shirt, solid yellow, turns out to have what might be permanent creases. Has it been stored for centuries? Is this the local style? Soaking in hot soapy water all night and hanging to dry made no dent. Sebastian, my German friend, said, “we call those Iron Shirts.” I wore it to university, felt each of the thousands of students were looking and laughing at me as I strolled by in what I’d hope would be a big improvement on my boring attire. Now what? What can save this shirt? Maybe the local dry cleaner, a special press. I’ll try that, adding another 4 shekels to the cost. Should this succeed I’ve added significantly to my wardrobe, at a cost of $2. New photos from the Levant: A letter about sometimes mundane things |