Eid in Jenin

There's really a lot to report this holiday season. First off, last week was the Eid. Eid Al Adha to be specific and I got to spend one day of it in a village north of Jenin. Danielle and I visited a colleage of hers in his village, and of course, whenever you leave your house around here, you return with stories to tell.

First off, when we arrived we were greeted by everyone as per semi-usual: father, kids, brothers, mother -- the wives and sisters were in the next room, apparently laying low due to the presence of a not-quite-close-enough male family member. The unusual part was that they were sitting in what was slowly becoming a pretty dim room. I could just barely make out faces. By the time it got unequivocally dark, I was actually used to it and forgot about how weird it was to be sitting in the dark with a bunch of strangers, but then someone mentioned that the power was out, something that apparently happens quite frequently, and that they were hoping that any minute it would be restored. Meanwhile, the woman of the house (our host's mother) lit a small lamp of sorts and all began to make sense.

The sad stuff: The not-quite-close-enough family member was the husband of an absent sister. And the story that follows his family is as follows. He is one of those one-plus-something-million Palestinians living within Israel's semi-internationally accepted borders. He is from Umm Al Fahem and has Israeli citizenship and is pretty much free to travel anywhere except for those countries boycotting Israel (Syria, Lebanon, Iran.. maybe/probably more) and, due to one of many of Israel's laws that are designed to divide and conquer, Palestinian Authority areas. However, he said that since today was Eid, Israel relaxed that law in question and he was able to visit family on the other side of the Green Line. His wife, however, was not. She's not an Israeli citizen but rather a West Bank ID holder. Apparently, after some negotiation though the Israeli courts, she was permitted to live with her husband and kids in Israel despite her West Bank residency status, however, she can't go back and forth. So Eid Mubarak! She's stayed at home with a little one while dad took the other two kids to visit grandma and grandpa.

More sad stuff: It was kind of hard not to notice the photo-montaged poster that included a guy holding a pretty big gun, hung right up in the living room alongside more photos of the same guy, posing in your average family snapsot style settings. There was actually the same photo-montage in a sort of permanent light box display right outside the house's front gates. Unfortunately, it gets pretty easy to recognize a martyr poster and so it soon became apparent that this guy was the missing brother of our host. He was assassinated in his home by some Palestinians collaborating with Israeli intelligence. His wife went back to live her her parents along with their 25-day-old kid. According to our host, when collaborators don't have information to satisfy their bosses, they make up whatever will make them happy. My guess is that he also had the bad luck to belong to one of those many political parties that Israel just plain ol' won't tolerate, even if you are just a tile-worker, which he was. The symbol on the poster belonged to Islamic Jihad... and you thought Hamas was radical

Anyhow, there's more. One brother was there with his kids while his wife was locked away in prison, and then there's our host, who - when he's not visiting his extended family in Jenin - he's living in one of those liminal spaces between the wall and the Green Line. Two different kinds of IDs living in the same house means he pretty much has to stick to that liminal space unless he doesn't mind splitting with his wife.. and don't think the landlord doesn't know that. Depending on where they are, hard to define spaces fetch a pretty penny (or agora).

Meanwhile, Danielle and I were the center of attention. Talking all night in our mix of Arabic and English really did a lot for my vocabulary, but after a bunch of sweets that kept on coming, and what I calculated to be six hours of non-stop politics (and what Danielle thought was more like eight) I had an amazing headache. That night, we slept on the floor of their living room, and a few days later, I realized that I got to know this family in the same way you get to know characters in a movie. Each one has his story, which you get to know pretty intimately, but in the end, you're just watching them from the audience. For a reason I can't put my finger on, I feel guilty about this method of getting to know someone. Witnessing suffering as cultural exchange? Nonetheless everyone seemed thrilled to have us around, we were left feeling guilty that we didn't stay longer, Danielle's friend took care of our cab fare back to Ramallah, and I got a phone call just yesterday with a second invitation.

Again, sorry that there's not much humor to share today. It's these kinds of situations coupled with food poisoning, a crashed hard drive, the flu, a broken camera, a 1000 shekel fine (which I'll mention in the next post), an ultra-zionist spammer (which I may also mention, unless I can bring myself to forget it), and the accompanying nightmares are just a few of those pesky things that have been getting in the way of a good time these days. I think I might be back in the US pretty soon.