Stick on democracy and nativity scenes

There are moments in the flurry of activity leading up to Christmas when you wish it wasn't happening. As I sat trying to wrap up three Panetones (don't try it) at 11pm last night for the Lozenge's teachers from all the class - I sat back to inspect my work and realised it looked like Rashimi had done it. In fact, maybe I could use that as the excuse, I thought to myself. At the 11th hour the school asked if I could film the school nativity play. Never again! Even the widest of lenses failed to capture the diminutive shepherds at the sides of the extra broad stage. And with one camera it's hardly like you can achieve the zooms, pans and dolly shots most discerning parents will be expecting. The Lozenge told me he was a 'tholdier' and I wondered where they fitted into the Christmas story. It turned out he was an 'Eastern Dancer' in sucker tight black lycra with a pillar box red Fez. A couple of steps out with the other Eastern Dancers - I could hear the cogs turning in his head as he concentrated on the moves. Then they sat cross legged on the stage looking bovine and yawning while all the girls stole the show in winged chiffon. Still, it was a rite of passage - the first of (perhaps, many?) stage performances for the Lozenge. St Grace and Rashimi came along too - J sadly away - and not a squeak emanated from the normally verbose little brother. Star struck it seems. I heard one little girl in the audience ask: 'Mummy, does Mary came from Amaryica?'

We can't move for nativity scenes in the house. The Lozenge is now particularly good at drawing camels.

The first term of school is over and the Lozenge has a bunch of lovely little friends, and can now write his name. Last week, one of his favourites - 'Vera from Thweden' came over to play. They had their tea together - and as the Lozenge's back was turned, preparing the pomegranate and yoghurt for their pudding, Rashimi snuck off his seat to go and twirl one of Vera's blonde pigtails with a sticky hand. 'Next time, can Vewa stay for bathtime too?' Rashimi suggested.

One morning St Grace was looking uncharacteristically grey and downcast. It turned out that the Jordanian authorities had declined her 12 year old son's visa from Sri Lanka on the grounds that he wasn't travelling to Jordan with his parents. Since St Grace and her husband are based here - there was nothing they could do to convince them in time for his Christmas visit to see them here. J and I agreed she must go back to see him for Christmas instead, with her husband, so we arranged her plane fare so they can all be together in Sri Lanka for 10 days. The shine came back to her face and I can feel the excitement building. The curry, the heat, the palm trees, her only son. When I see how much love she puts into caring for our boys, I understand how much of it must be replacing the time lost with her own boy. She and her husband are making the ultimate sacrifice by living and working here to afford him more opportunities than they had. She told me, 'I went to the church [Holy Sepulchre] and I was asking God what I should do. And now my prayer has been answered  - and only 3 hours after!'

My working life has been flat out, but I've now reached what feels like a beautiful flat plain before the next hillock on the 2015 horizon, having finished off the short film about Gaza for the hospital and another for Save the Children. I've been all around the West Bank, working in villages near Hebron, near Ramallah and near Nablus.  A beautiful time of year to film - with icy yellow/blue skies, mists and golden leaves, with incongruous greenery sprouting after all the rain.

The latest project took me to a little village near Nablus where Nawal, an 8 year old girl is still psychologically recovering from an attack on her family's house by the Israeli military during the summer. She's been in counselling for 3 months, and as we interviewed her about her experiences, the wonderful Palestinian counsellor, who looked at the pretty little girl with eyes full of love, warned: 'Please don't ask her about the events of the night of the attack. It's taken me 3 months to get to this point with her.'

In August, the Israeli military shot and killed a 24 year old Palestinian man who lived next door to Nawal's family, and demolished their house. In so doing, they also destroyed most of Nawal's home with shells and bullets. Each family member suffered serious shrapnel wounds and they all thought they would die that night as the shots rang around their ears. They've rebuilt their house, but received no compensation for it and are now heavily in debt.

Nawal's mother and her youngest child on the roof of their rebuilt house

None of this stopped Nawal's mother from preparing enormous dishes of rice with almonds and chicken for us before we started work, followed by thick Arabic coffee and chocolates. It was what we needed as we'd had to leave Jerusalem at 7am in order to avoid check point trouble. The Palestinian Authority Settlement Minister, Ziad Abu Ein, had been killed by the Israeli military the day before - while he was planting olive trees in peaceful protest to the occupation. We drove past the site - protected by Israeli military vehicles ready to stamp on the next uprising.

Perhaps I'd understand all these stories more if we were in Iraq or Syria where there is a real war being waged. But Israel claims to be a democracy. Ministers are killed while tree planting, and girls of 8 years old cling to their bleeding parents while soldiers' bullets rain down...in a 'democratic country'.

Nawal is a deeply eloquent and gentle little girl who seems to have used her natural intelligence and lightness of spirit to get over the trauma, with the help of the loving counsellor who works full time and has 4 of her own children. On my way out of their garden, looking onto a beautiful view of their village, she picked me a delicately perfumed, velvety red rose which the dwarves plunged their button noses into when I arrived home. How stark the contrast of the lives of these children, I thought as I pictured her wardrobe door riddled with bullet holes, and our dwarves' peaceful bedroom with every safety blanket they could ask for.

I travelled back to Jerusalem with a young Palestinian lady from Hebron who translated for me in Nawal's house. She's one of 10 children, and wears an immaculately tied headscarf. I asked her if she worshipped in a mosque, 'Me? Nooo!! I'm not religious at all. I just wear the headscarf to keep my Mum happy,' she laughed.

Tomorrow we leave this extraordinary land, full of confusion and disfunction, but beautiful all the same, for our Northern European breakaway which one day we might call home. But for now is a holiday land. The dwarf snowsuits are on order, and we're hoping for some icy flurries to blast us into 2015 and 'beginaginMcFinnagin' as Rashimi and the Lozenge would say.

After nearly a year of life here, there are now moments when J and I have time to observe. The dwarves being that little bit more independent in themselves and happy to tinker about without us in the epicentre all the time. We are grateful for the tiny pauses to witness the results of recent team work.

The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan put it wonderfully in a diary from 1975: 'I caught K's [his wife's] eye across the lunch table (roast beef and burgundy) and felt for almost the first time that we were a family - i.e.  that each had tough and durable wires of sympathy connecting him/her with the other thre that he/she would never feel for any other person.'

We're looking forward to beginning again in this city after some Christmas capers.

Happy holidays!

Where there's a wall, there's a way

After the economic crisis in 2008, someone remarked that it was caused by the destructive human emotions of fear and greed. The impermeable bulk of the apartheid wall as it is known by Palestinians, must have come from a similar source. It was built to protect those who lived in fear, and now inspires fear in those who have to survive on the other side. And its 700km form was supposed to snake along the 1949 Jordanian-Israeli armistice line, or 'green line', but the border constrictor that it is, has greedily consumed 10 per cent of West Bank land, leaving further chunks of fertile land, formerly farmed by Palestinians, (up to 60 metres in some places) of exclusion area - now wasted terrain. It has severed communities, and blocks access for Palestinians to services, livelihoods and religious and cultural centres. Its stranglehold is felt by West Bankers and East Jerusalem dwellers in equal degree, whether they live near it or not. 

The only redeeming quality of this wall, is the fact that it is visible, unlike many other walls the Palestinians contend with in daily life. And as such, has been used as a giant canvas for free expression by local and international artists (notably Banksy), and anyone else who cares to paint or spray. Some results are beautiful and others are ugly. There are arguments to say that the wall should not be beautified, as a reminder of its catastrophic impact. But where there's a wall, there's a way. 

A Gazan told me an Arabic expression during my recent trip there: 'The dogs may bark, but the caravan keeps going.' The wall is an example of this spirit. To resist is to exist. 

All we know is that nothing stays the same. The Berlin Wall came down, so who is to say that this one won't meet the same fate some day. 

Al dunya shittaat

The colloquial expression when it rains here is: 'Al dunya shittat' which literally means: 'the world is raining.' Last week the rain was so heavy during the night, it sounded like multiple running taps. Both dwarfs wet their beds and the Lozenge came scampering naked into our room at 2am, having stripped off the soggy pyjamas, and clambered in to bed with us, rubbing his feet up and down my leg and pushing himself around into a comfier position until we fell asleep again. It was like sharing a bed with a seal - silken, slightly sticky skin and a solid form rather tricky to roll over to create space for myself. Though fortunately without whiskers or fish breath.

Then he was up and out of bed a couple of hours laters humming jingle bells under his breath and bringing in boxes of paper and glue to make some early morning chrithmath decorationth. Rashimi wandered in at 7 asking to watch 'a little bit of iPaaad', in the tone of a street urchin who wants some money. 'I want Fireman Tham on Youtube. But not the Fwench one!' The perils of globalisation for the anti-glot.

After school the dwarfs have been making the most of the enormous puddles outside our house thanks to the blocked drains - and the radiators are constantly steaming with damp socks.

The political backdrop rumbles angrily on, with the news of a 'Nation State Bill' which has been approved by the Israeli cabinet and has been widely contested. As far as I can see, it would put an official tag on what already functions as an apartheid state, and give recognised priority to Jewish citizens. As the director of the Advocacy Centre for Arab Citizens in Israel commented: 'The nation-state bill...comes on top of the basic laws that already defined Israel as Jewish and dozens of laws that give excessive rights to Jews in Israel and throughout the world, while ignoring a fifth of the country's citizens'. 

And as the Israeli-Arab graphic designer, who created the 'State of Israel, second-class citizen' stamp in the wake of the bill surmised: 'What's new here? We were never first-class citizens. At least now you have said it out loud. I prefer that they tell us directly and not pretend we live in a democratic country, where they are self righteous and say there are equal rights.'

I've been reading to the dwarves a nightly chapter of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox, and the chapter where the fabulous fox family are bulldozed out of their hole by the 'terrible tractors' is so reminiscent of the political situation here. House demolitions and other dirty tricks, with the ever exhausted but still wily fox, who has lost his tail after Boggis or Bunce or Bean shot it off, a symbol in my mind of the Palestinian struggle, as I read to the dwarfs out loud.

There's been the decomposing corpse of a dead cat outside our garage for the past 2 weeks causing an almighty aroma which we receive mouthfulls of while climbing into and out of the car. 'Why did the cat die, Mummy?' asked Rashimi, ever fascinated by death and drama. I explained the Mummy version of events which involved the cat having had a long and happy life, and after a while when he grew tired, he lay down on the pavement for a nap, and never woke up. 'No,' interrupted the Lozenge. 'I don't think that's the thtory. I think that probably, the polithe shot it.' Another sign that perhaps Israeli tactics do not go un-noticed by dwarfs.

I've been working with a Palestinian friend at home translating some of the latest footage I've taken from Arabic into English. She arrived at our house and for once was not wearing her headscarf. She looked much softer and younger without it. Over lunch she told me all about her husband, who is so jealous over her, that he even feels put out when their son kisses her. As if this prison of Palestine wasn't enough - to have a marital prison at home, must be incredibly limiting to daily peace of mind.

Despite the rain, the Christmas spirit is fighting its way through, with a fortunate break in the clouds last Friday for the Lozenge's school Christmas fair which we held out of doors in sporadic sunshine. To be honest, I'd always hoped I would be never be one of 'those' Mums.

And as I laid out the cakes on the baking stall at 8am with my Christmas trees hairband having roped in 17 year old Mark 'the muscles from Moscow', one of the secondary students, I did wonder why my hand had gone up in the parents meeting, along with the hands of the dazzling array of Scandi ladies - the fellow fair fairies. Perhaps it's because they're so nice. Well, we had a good time, and we made over £400 just from the baking which all goes towards a children's summer camp in Gaza. And I think no one from the outside would have guessed that this 'community school' was made from disparate nomads from all around the world. And fortunately a good number of Palestinians just to keep our feet on the ground.

J was here for a weekend in between two weeks of work trips, and we met a lovely guy who I hope will become a new friend, and might be moving here from the UK. And double hooray - he's in the same trade as me. As we talked I realised it's been almost 2 years since I talked shop with a fellow Brit. We need people like that here, or I could risk going entirely 'native': the great fear of all governments for their diplomats. Though I'm not sure there are guidelines in the expat instruction booklet for trailing spouses that head down that route. Normally we're meant to trail along to keep the diplomat on track.

Then another Great Brit, known to dwarfs as 'That lovely laydeeee', Emma, came to visit and we embarked on a visit to the separation wall, which I'll enlarge on in another post, to look at the graffiti. A while back, the Lozenge asked me as we drove through its grey impermeable bulk: 'Mummy, is that thing still called a wall? Because it's the ugliest one I've ever ever seen.' And this time, he still thought it was ugly, and: 'weally annoying becauthe you can't see over it.' So they tried to have look under a chink below a solid gate instead.

Rashimi was fascinated by an old chair on top of a rubbish tip that could have been positioned there as a mock viewing platform. 'Why has someone put that chair there, Mummy? Look - it'th an antique!' 

After a glass of fresh orange juice at one of the cafes cashing in on tourist coachloads coming to witness the wall, we meandered back towards to Jerusalem along a pretty winding road through the hills to go to a Christmas fair at the Lutheran church in the old city. Without any of us noticing, Rashimi managed to strip off all his clothes in the back seat, much to the surprise of the Ethiopian and Russian 'Israeli' soldiers at the checkpoint. 'Oh no,' said the Lozenge. 'Washimi is naked again.' The little man is heading towards almost professional levels of exhibitionism.

Although a beautifully festive and Germanic experience, the Lutheran fair was not the best for visiting with 2 dwarfs, and 2 scooters. We spent the half hour inside with wailing coming from down below as one after another shaggy head was whacked with shopping bags and cameras. I juggled a mug of 'glug', the scooters and 2 sticky hands clenching mine. We found a sandwich and some cinamon infused cake, and the Lozenge dropped the glass plate which smashed all over the ancient stones. An unmerry ding dong it was, though fortunately we bumped into our lovely Palestinian friend Robert who popped a Cohiba cigar into J's shirt pocket and laughed with us about how he'd forgotten what this kind of thing was like with 'al atfaal' the children. His girls are all grown up.

The dwarfs were invited to a pirates and princesses birthday party and Rashimi needed no encouragement to wear his outfit from uncle Duncle. He ate 12 marshmallows in a row and the 'cutlath' was wielded with ever more fervour.

The Lozenge was too mature to dress up, but wore his Tshirt with sharks on: 'Like shark infethted waters.'

The pudding bowl hairdos have been dealt with chez Chris the Armenian hairdresser, who is famed for trimming Tony Blair when he's here. I'm afraid to get mine done there in case I get 'the Cherie'. I said to the Lozenge: 'Imagine if I sat in that seat and Chris cut all my hair off.' L replied: 'Then you would look like Grandpop.'

In fact, Rashimi's new style is frighteningly Tony-esque - complete with the ears.

As the Lozenge spotted a brush and started sweeping up all the hair, (he does love a job) I thought to myself that it was almost worth Tony Blair being nominated for that ludicrous Global Legacy Award this week by Save the Children, just for the humiliation of the in-house, and then public outcry, and over 100,000 signatures, to revoke it.