As the temperature rises, most afternoons and evenings the air is full of the sound of screeching brakes and burning tyres from the car park behind our house. The 'Shabaab' - local lads from our area. Since I did the workshop with Syrian, Jordanian and Palestinian teenagers, I've been struck by how limited life can be for this age group in this region. Closeted by family and politics, and limited by the paltry education most receive from state run schools, it must be an impossible time - both for themselves and parents.
The screening of the films the girls made went really well. As all the mothers and aunties and sisters and cousins streamed in to the room - faces well made up, heads decked in bright headscarves, hot feet squished into high heels only just visible under long skirts, I wondered what they would all think of the films their daughters had made. They are honest and open hearted.
https://vimeo.com/98419422
https://vimeo.com/98615349
https://vimeo.com/98617519
There were more tears. And some effusive speeches afterwards, which assured us of the great need for initiatives like this for teenagers, which allow just a tiny avenue of mind broadening, skill building and escape within a world where very few of any of these are on offer.
Back in Jerusalem, it feels a bit like the summer of the London riots. There's a steady increase in temperature both environmentally and politically at the moment. The extremely worrying news about ISIS or Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham, taking Mosul and making their way to Baghdad is terrible news for this region. My Egyptian friend shook her head with great fear: 'Al Khalifa' (The Caliphate). 'You might as well consider it a new dark age if this one spreads'. J and I now have many, many muslim friends and acquaintances. And this, ISIS, or any of their precursors - Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and the rest. This is not Islam.
And now since the kidnapping of 3 Israeli teenagers and the subsequent rampage of Israeli security services through Palestinian communities, in a bid to find them, you realise that all it takes is a little spark, and this tinder box could go up again. There are loud bangs in the night, definitely not fireworks, Israeli police are everywhere and check points are clamping down more than normal.
While I don't condone kidnapping, when you look at what is happening to Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli police and soldiers, you don't have to use your imagination to see why people might resort to desperate measures:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqL048x4msM
Gran Gran has been staying and has earned herself the nicknames 'The Assassin' after her very effective ant killing foray, then 'Cervantes' after her epic tales made up off the cuff, as she entertained the dwarves on our way to the beach last weekend. Rashimi got to grips with his wave-o-phobia and we sat collecting shells, the water lapping, looking back at J, Gran Gran and the Lozenge barbecuing and getting the picnic out. This is it, I thought, with Rashimi's small, wet, salty body perched on my leg. This tiny moment on one particular day in an insignificant year. It's all that many people want from life. With no fear and no worries and no politicians or religious leaders telling you what you can and cannot do, think, say or wear. To have a worry free weekend with a family on a beach. Is it so much to ask?
Life is comparatively easy for us here, as internationals. We can breeze to and fro on a whim, from Israel to Jordan and back; our house is spacious and lovely; the schools aren't bad; we are invested in learning the language and find it easy to have a meaningful existence here.
The dwarves are still at a stage where we can look after them and they can have a care free time in these lands, without us wondering too much about the influences. But sometimes, maybe because of the nature of both J's and my work, and the difficulty of making real, local friends here and probably helped by almost anything you read, or anyone you speak to, you realise Arabia is perhaps not the place it once was. I'm reading 'Damascus, Taste of a City' at the moment, a wonderful book written by Rafik Shami and his sister, as she gives her brother a tour over the telephone, of the city they grew up in, and from which Rafik has been exiled. The narrative is interlaced with delicious looking Damascene recipes concocted by the friends and residents described in the book.
But what now? Where as these people and what is happening to the buildings, and its societal structure?
Are the recipes all that remain?
My mind often shifts to these stories, that we read in books, that I hear almost every day from people I interview, and that we witness around us. And on a tired moment I look at Lozenge's face peeping out from under his shaggy head of hair and wonder. What are we achieving by surrounding ourselves by all this? Is it rubbing off in a negative way at all, and how would we ever know?
But then, off and out we went one afternoon to the dwarves' favourite bit of open space below the city wall and the Cinematheque, dotted with 'toot' (mulberry) trees and large rocks. We ran fast downhill, tripping over ourselves, and kicked a ball around before noticing there were some Palestinian children doing the same. The five children - girls and boys spaced within about a year and a half from each other, belonged to a headscarved lady who was sitting up the hill a little way with her sister. None of them had any English, but before long we were making friendly conversation, albeit basic, and the dwarves were rampaging around the park with the five children - swapping bikes for balls and frisbees. There were some quizzical looks at the Lozenge's back-to-front pants, shorts and tee shirt ('But Mummy, I like it like this. You know I like to be different.') Making real friends doesn't happen overnight, and sometimes you just have to get out there and open yourselves, to meet local people, who probably aren't used to this kind of reception from foreigners. Children can be the vital glue.
We played a game of hide and seek, and while crouching behind a rock with Rashimi I saw the Lozenge start running down from far away on the other side towards us. He arrived panting and sweaty and gripped me around my neck in a breathless hug. 'I love you Mummy. I jutht came over to tell you that.'
The screening of the films the girls made went really well. As all the mothers and aunties and sisters and cousins streamed in to the room - faces well made up, heads decked in bright headscarves, hot feet squished into high heels only just visible under long skirts, I wondered what they would all think of the films their daughters had made. They are honest and open hearted.
https://vimeo.com/98419422
https://vimeo.com/98615349
https://vimeo.com/98617519
There were more tears. And some effusive speeches afterwards, which assured us of the great need for initiatives like this for teenagers, which allow just a tiny avenue of mind broadening, skill building and escape within a world where very few of any of these are on offer.
Back in Jerusalem, it feels a bit like the summer of the London riots. There's a steady increase in temperature both environmentally and politically at the moment. The extremely worrying news about ISIS or Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham, taking Mosul and making their way to Baghdad is terrible news for this region. My Egyptian friend shook her head with great fear: 'Al Khalifa' (The Caliphate). 'You might as well consider it a new dark age if this one spreads'. J and I now have many, many muslim friends and acquaintances. And this, ISIS, or any of their precursors - Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and the rest. This is not Islam.
And now since the kidnapping of 3 Israeli teenagers and the subsequent rampage of Israeli security services through Palestinian communities, in a bid to find them, you realise that all it takes is a little spark, and this tinder box could go up again. There are loud bangs in the night, definitely not fireworks, Israeli police are everywhere and check points are clamping down more than normal.
While I don't condone kidnapping, when you look at what is happening to Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli police and soldiers, you don't have to use your imagination to see why people might resort to desperate measures:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqL048x4msM
Gran Gran has been staying and has earned herself the nicknames 'The Assassin' after her very effective ant killing foray, then 'Cervantes' after her epic tales made up off the cuff, as she entertained the dwarves on our way to the beach last weekend. Rashimi got to grips with his wave-o-phobia and we sat collecting shells, the water lapping, looking back at J, Gran Gran and the Lozenge barbecuing and getting the picnic out. This is it, I thought, with Rashimi's small, wet, salty body perched on my leg. This tiny moment on one particular day in an insignificant year. It's all that many people want from life. With no fear and no worries and no politicians or religious leaders telling you what you can and cannot do, think, say or wear. To have a worry free weekend with a family on a beach. Is it so much to ask?
Life is comparatively easy for us here, as internationals. We can breeze to and fro on a whim, from Israel to Jordan and back; our house is spacious and lovely; the schools aren't bad; we are invested in learning the language and find it easy to have a meaningful existence here.
The dwarves are still at a stage where we can look after them and they can have a care free time in these lands, without us wondering too much about the influences. But sometimes, maybe because of the nature of both J's and my work, and the difficulty of making real, local friends here and probably helped by almost anything you read, or anyone you speak to, you realise Arabia is perhaps not the place it once was. I'm reading 'Damascus, Taste of a City' at the moment, a wonderful book written by Rafik Shami and his sister, as she gives her brother a tour over the telephone, of the city they grew up in, and from which Rafik has been exiled. The narrative is interlaced with delicious looking Damascene recipes concocted by the friends and residents described in the book.
But what now? Where as these people and what is happening to the buildings, and its societal structure?
Are the recipes all that remain?
My mind often shifts to these stories, that we read in books, that I hear almost every day from people I interview, and that we witness around us. And on a tired moment I look at Lozenge's face peeping out from under his shaggy head of hair and wonder. What are we achieving by surrounding ourselves by all this? Is it rubbing off in a negative way at all, and how would we ever know?
But then, off and out we went one afternoon to the dwarves' favourite bit of open space below the city wall and the Cinematheque, dotted with 'toot' (mulberry) trees and large rocks. We ran fast downhill, tripping over ourselves, and kicked a ball around before noticing there were some Palestinian children doing the same. The five children - girls and boys spaced within about a year and a half from each other, belonged to a headscarved lady who was sitting up the hill a little way with her sister. None of them had any English, but before long we were making friendly conversation, albeit basic, and the dwarves were rampaging around the park with the five children - swapping bikes for balls and frisbees. There were some quizzical looks at the Lozenge's back-to-front pants, shorts and tee shirt ('But Mummy, I like it like this. You know I like to be different.') Making real friends doesn't happen overnight, and sometimes you just have to get out there and open yourselves, to meet local people, who probably aren't used to this kind of reception from foreigners. Children can be the vital glue.
We played a game of hide and seek, and while crouching behind a rock with Rashimi I saw the Lozenge start running down from far away on the other side towards us. He arrived panting and sweaty and gripped me around my neck in a breathless hug. 'I love you Mummy. I jutht came over to tell you that.'
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