the earthquake that shook Ramallah

Ramallah has been on edge lately due to the rumored coming of an earthquake. There were two last week (or maybe the week before), one of whick shook me in my bed just after midnight. So yesterday I headed over to work (the high school in Al-Tire where I'm teaching creative writing) and everyone is hanging around outside. One of my students runs up to me and jumping up and down, he tells me that an earthquake is coming. Is this kid putting me on? Can you really predict an earthquake? But the whole school is outside including the teachers, so I began to doubt everything I may or may not have learned in public school and I figure, I guess you can... My doubting sensibilities may be the cause for my eventual downfall, if I haven't already fallen, but that's another story. At least I learned a new word .. zilzal. So classes are eventually cancelled, and actually, this is the second cancellation out of the last four for this particular class. Number one was for the alleged "Independence Day" and the second was for the alleged zilzal. The latest rumor to accompany the rumored earthquake is that the whole ordeal was started by pay-by-minute Paltel & Jawwal, the Palestinian phone and cellphone companies. Nothing like an earthquake to get you reach out and touch someone.

In other news, Monday I recorded an interview with Said's mother about her life in Beit Nabala before 1948. Wednesday I took a nice walk up a mountain with a group of kids from Jalazone. And today I slept in cause I'm coming down with a cold. Till next time, I'll leave you with a song courtesy of Said's mom.

why am I still surprised?

I know that life here is made up of a whole lotta unfair shit... the stuff that war crime tribunals are made of...so why do I still get surprised when I hear yet another story? Today I was sitting in a sheesy coffee shop with a friend, reading a story she wrote about her chronic encounters with guys, young and old, who can't seem to avoid Israeli prisons no matter how much of an upstanding (non)citizen they try to be. In fact, it seems like the more upstanding one is, the more likely it is he'll get a knock at the door one evening. So as I'm reading her story, I see Mohammed, the roommate of a friend of mine come in. I said hey... thought you were going to Spain? I don't know the details but Mohammed was invited by some organization over there to give a speaking tour about the effects of the Wall. Turns out I was right, he should have been in Spain, but the Israelis wouldn't let him out of the "country"... or rather... over the bridge that connects the West Bank with Jordan. We all know that West Bankers aren't allowed to use the airport in Tel Aviv, so they use the next one a border-line away in Jordan. Or maybe not. He told me very matter-of-factly that he's required to have a meeting with an Israeli intelligence officer before he can leave, but when he showed up to his appointment, they just made him wait a couple hours before they said, come back later. Yeah. That's how it goes.

Closure: it's not only Israeli policy

Palestinians will impose closure on their own every now and then. Today Birzeit University closed. When I arrived all ready to pay my overdue library fines, I found a confused swarm of students around the closed front gate. I saw a long(ish)-lost acquaintance of mine named Ahmad (not the one who got his window smashed... another one) and he gave me the low-down. Apparently, some students affiliated with PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - a communist, secular party) gave some speeches on Saturday which offended some Fatah folks. Something happened, not quite sure what... but today students were pulling others out of classes and well... apparently it got bad. I heard beatings from one and stabbings from another but honestly, I have no idea who to believe. Meanwhile, I called my professor to confirm that class was indeed cancelled. It was. Then as I watched some guys jump the fence here and there, I talked a little politics with Ahmad (who's incidentally a Hamas supporter) and a friend of his, both of whom were upset over their wasted taxi-fare. Basically, the whole thing is sadly absurd. Ahmad's prediction is that all the shabab will be sharing hummus in the cafeteria tomorrow morning... provided the university re-opens... wataniya wahadi, I think is he how it put it. When I asked whether the culprits in this (the Fatah folks) would be expelled, he said "of course not" as did a new colleague of mine who teaches Arabic at a local high school here. Apparently, Fatah has, or can get, its fingers in anything and everything around here, including private predominantly-Christian universities, so unless someone dies, all will be forgiven, or rather, ignored.

wataniya wahadi = one nation

quick catch-up

Don't worry guys, it's all cool. So just a quick update:

Thursday was "Independence Day" in Palestine. Yes... you heard me, I don't get it either. I think the guy who smashed the window of Ahmad's SUV that evening might have also been upset over the premature celebrating.

It's starting to get cold here in Ramallah and the inside of our house is colder than outside, I'm scared for winter. And a shower that resembles a drooling camel isn't helping. Can I miss my American conveniences and be anti-America at the same time? I could really use a long American shower.

I met a guy who works at a shawarma place on Rukab St. who found an American passport on the street and asked me what should be done, like I'd know right? You'd think returning it to the US Consulate would be the best thing to do, but it's tough when you have to cross one of the largest checkpoints in the West Bank to get to there... something that's impossible without your passport... especially if you're Arab, which this guy was. So no thanks to the consulate, but rather to Ramallah's small-town-ness, though e-mails and word-of-mouth, we found the guy. It took 2 days.

I almost forgot

Ramallah, I hear, is the least occupied of all the occupied territories. So if all you do is shop around town and don't talk to anyone, it might be possible to forget what's going on. Last night, however, the series of reminders began. Coming back from visiting my Arabic professor with the rest of my classmates, we got stuck at Zataara for about 1/2 an hour. A fight broke out in the traffic complete with some scary punches, a big stick, and tens of people jumping out of their cars trying to break it up. Meanwhile, our driver (a relative of our teacher) is anwering his cellphone "ya habibi.... mabsut" all while people are close to being thrown on the hood of the Ford Transit. After the crowd disperses, he turns to me and asks me if I understood what just happened. He explains, they're fighting because of the Occupation. One car cut off the other in an attempt to be that much closer to the clogged up checkpoint... the soldiers at the checkpoint are the cause of the mess yet these poor guys are fighting each other.

Then today, I went to Jalazone and met some friends-of-a-friend and learned that everyone has multiple relatives in prison. I spoke (sort of) to a woman whose son is in one now and a man who served 7 years of a 20-something year sentence during the first Intifada. I also learned that two days ago, the Israelis entered the camp at 1:30 in the morning and took six more guys. And lastly, I met another woman who fled her village of Beit Nabala in 1948. And all this is being talked about over tea and cake....