Temperatures are creeping steadily upwards as the spring flowers and grasses shrivel back to reveal scorched earth once more. I've been trying to get as much filming done before it gets any hotter, and before my smuggled-watermelon-look becomes any more ludicrous when combined with a large tripod and camera. Just as I think I'm getting to grips with one job, other little offers creep into view and I find it hard to say no at this stage, knowing that in a couple of months Bunny Floppy Ears will make it harder for me to push the same boundaries. J has been away quite a bit so I've been juggling filming with dwarf life.
Scene by scene the last couple of weeks have been a little like this:
Scene 1,
Part 1: I jiggle and wiggle in a little minibus to a small village called Beit Sera near Ramallah, with the St John Eye Hospital crew to go and film with Nur, a 9 year old girl with one drooping eyelid who is being mercilessly teased at school and recently had a subsidised operation at the hospital. Unfortunately, the eyelid looks worse than it did before. The operation is complex, but I can't make a good success story with the eye as it is. If only I was producing radio. Her toothless Granny, who is the only family member with a permit to travel to Jerusalem with Nur each time she comes to the hospital, keeps interrupting the interview by muttering loudly to herself and I have to re-film. From Beit Sera I head home to prepare a BBQ for J's boss and his family who are visiting from Jordan for a couple of days. The Lozenge bursts into tears after tumbling off the school bus because he wants to bake something with me for the spring fair, so I bin the marinading in favour of a chocolate biscuit cake with L. I find a dusty packet of digestive biscuits in the back of the cupboard which must have been waiting for this moment. J's boss arrives, we christen J's new barbecue which he just bought at great expense from Weber, Israel (read, Weber, Israel, $$$$$). Import taxes here are chronic and make our daily spending gold plated. J's boss asks to leave his car in the garage overnight and return the next morning to collect it. I blithely agree to leave the garage fob with St Grace while I'm at the dwarfs Spring Fair at school.
Part 2: Accompany the dwarfs to their school Spring Fair after some rapid baking at 5.45am to contribute something else for the cake stall as they're short of produce. Drop the cakes off and no one looks pleased or says thank you. The Lozenge's chocolate biscuit morsels are placed in plastic bags in the sunshine. I see them starting to sweat. Even the raisins look unhappy. We wander the stalls which are boasting all sorts of second hand rubbish and edible sugary items at dwarf height, with two whining dwarfs who want to buy all the second hand rubbish, even the backcombed Barbies and every sugary item. It's only 10.30am. The temperature keeps rising, the whining gets louder. I just make out the sound of my phone ringing: 'Hello Madam it's me, Grace. Sir's boss is here and he wants to get his car....' CRAP! J's boss' car is locked in the garage, the border to Jordan shuts early today...Of all the people to lock into the garage...I drag the whining dwarfs away from their plastic paradise (superb excuse!) and race to the car, not bothering about seat-belts or indicators as I screech out of the school gate. Burn a lot of rubber on the way back home and screech to a halt outside the house to find J's boss, wife and 3 children waiting in the garden. As I apologise profusely and set their car free, the dwarfs, not whining for the first time that day, shriek: 'That was WEALLY fun Mummy, can we always drive that fast to school.'
Part 3: It's finally the weekend but J has to leave us on Sunday for a work trip. I'm booked to photograph the very young children of a lovely lady and her Fijian husband that morning so I meet them in a park on the Mount of Olives and spend two hours putting magnetic 'Stackabugs' on my head and pulling small furry teddies out of my top to make the children laugh. At this point even a tweak of a lip would be good. Crouching in a sandpit, singing, telling jokes, snap, snap, snap. Not sure what I have on my memory cards after 2 hours, but that's Monday morning's job. And the children are beautiful so I feel confident there'll be some successes. Race back home to say goodbye to J and have lunch with the dwarfs. Flat bread and gouda cheese sandwich for the Lozenge, as every day. He has yet to fully embrace Arab culture it seems. I wonder if the foreign office ever give you postings to Holland? We head to a children's party and Rashimi gets an attack of shyness so is clamped to my leg like a rather heavy crustacean, for two whole hours, until the cake finally arrives. I meet a friendly Palestinian lady who asks me what I'm having. Momentarily I've forgotten about Bunny Floppy Ears. 'We don't know yet. We like surprises.' I say. I've yet to meet a Palestinian who hasn't discovered the sex of their baby beforehand. And with inimitable Palestinian frankness, she does her best to foresee the future. 'You will have a boy, because your face is very tired. If the face is pretty, the baby is a girl. But your face is tired, not pretty.' I begin to explain that the reasons for my fatigue run a bit deeper than the sex of the baby, but think better of it, laugh very loudly, and reach for a beer. 'Are you sure you should be having that?' she asks. Luckily I have to wipe cake off Rashimi's face which gives me a chance to escape from the conversation.
Part 4: Wake up, really miss J, so get out of bed and start making gouda cheese sandwiches before a breakfast Nutella fest with the dwarfs. Rashimi asks: 'Mummy, what is God?' And almost straight after through a second chocolate mouthful: 'Mummy, what is Love?' The Lozenge and I agree that they are one and the same, and that's about all we have up our sleeves at 6.15am. I drop the dwarfs at school and head straight to the operating theatre at the Eye Hospital and film retinal and corneal surgeries conducted by visiting specialists from Dallas. Even in my scrubs, B.F.Ears is very obvious. I receive a few concerned looks from the local hospital teams. But when I explain that I'm only contending with what pregnant Palestinian women contend with and this is only my third child, they agree. Luckily no more remarks about possible sex of the baby. The Lozenge has an Arabic class after school and lovely teacher, Suhair, sends me a text enquiring about the Lozenge's pronunciation of the letter 's'. Dear Thuhair, I respond, 'In the UK we call thith a lithp.' I wasn't sure if she was suggesting elocution as well as Arabic. And I'm presuming and hoping that 'all thingth path'.
Scene 2
Part 1: Another day, St Grace saintly-ly takes the dwarfs to school on the tram leaving home at 7am, and I head off in another minibus with all my kit to small Palestinian village near Hebron to film with another of the Dallas doctors, a retinal specialist. He's called Dr He (pronounced 'Hee') and is originally Chinese. None of the local Palestinian outreach teams have met him and keep asking: 'Who's He?' Luckily Dr He has a great sense of humour and explains that in China they have a President Hu and a Prime Minister Wen, and he's simply another He. 'He' is a velly common name in China'. We drive out of Jerusalem towards Hebron and I feel grateful for having a newcomer next to me. Newcomer questions are always the best and sometimes I worry if the longer you stay in a place, the less you ask good questions. He gapes at the dividing wall. One of the Palestinian staff asks: 'Is it like your great wall in China?!' 'Well, not so pletty.' he responds. Then we have an interesting talk about gun laws. Dr He has three guns in his home in Texas and is licensed to use them as self defence, in the home. The Palestinians explain they are not allowed to have weapons in the home under Israeli law. I wonder what the situation would be like if gun laws here were as in the USA. I'm not sure I'd want to live here. We arrive at a tiny clinic in a village with a donkey grazing under olive trees outside. The waiting room is already full to bursting of villagers, who have no permission to enter Jerusalem, wanting to have their eye complaints seen to. A low-slung Nissan Sunny draws up and out of it spring about 15 school girls in white headscarves. Dr He is fascinated and all day long between eye scans, he chats and jokes with the villagers. 'Anyone here speak any Chinese?' he asks. Blank looks. They try and get him to say 'Ahlan wa Sahlan' Arabic for 'Welcome'. 'Ahran wa Sahran!' he replies. Then he gives them a tonal - 'Nee how maaaaaa?' They giggle and repeat. I film most of the day and we begin the winding road back to the Eye Hospital where I film some more operations that afternoon. Realise that B.F.Ears makes quite a good camera rest and decide to leave the heavy tripod in the car, and breathe lightly while I film. Pregnant camera ladies might put Manfrotto out of business.
Part 2: Take the boys to a swimming class with a charming Israeli Arab called Wahel. Rashimi leaps like a frog into the water into Wahel's arms time and time again with no fear; the Lozenge prefers to dangle off a noodle and not get his head wet or water in his ears. J and I have paid for 10 private classes in the hope they might swim on their own by summer, but it looks like progress could be as slow as the Arabic and the piano, and everything other than what dwarfs have decided is a priority skill. ie. Baking and painting.
Part 3: J returns from his work trip in Jordan with lots of food from the supermarket where things are cheaper and there's more choice. Rashimi sees the Just Right cereal and a lump of cheddar the size of his torso and says: 'Daddy, I'm going to give you a sticker.' Apparently his boss never mentioned the garage debacle. I can't work out whether this is a good or a bad thing.
Part 4: We have some jolly holidaymakers from the UK over for dinner and J makes me go to bed straight afterwards and does all the clearing up himself. I wake up to hear him fiddling with his phone trying to work out directions to a meeting place in Tel Aviv the following day. After ten minutes, a female voice blasts from the phone: 'Turn LEFT at the next junction!' I fall straight back to sleep again and dream that I'm in the Pajero.
Scene 3:
Part 1: I go and collect auntie Rosie and uncle 'Awwy from the airport late at night. It is so wonderful to see them and their arrival heralds a few days off every part of life. The following day we leave the dwarfs with St Grace and have a couple of nights in the northern town of Akka. I feel my entire body and mind shutting down and am not sure I am the best company for the two days. But we have a magic time and we recharge all batteries.
Part 2: We return home, and I have a hormonal attack which makes everything look negative and black and stops me sleeping a single wink that night. I toss and turn thinking evil thoughts. Mum calls her: 'Hermione the hormone'. I'm sure she has a job, but she's also a trouble maker and I bet she wears pearls. We have a wonderful Dutch family over for a barbecue and after inhaling a sausage and some rabbit-shaped jelly that the Lozenge made that morning, all the children jump on the trampoline and get naked. From my position they look like wood nymphs frolicking in a clearing in the trees.
Nudity, even in children, can be frowned upon in this region, and our Dutch friends say their children can't be naked outside at their place as their house is overlooked. They should come round here to indulge in daily naked Putti activities before they leave. This lovely family is going back to Holland in early July. One of the hardest things about our lifestyle is seeing good friends leave and one day having to leave yourself.
Part 3: J leaves on another work trip, and Rosie and Harold go home. The dwarfs are at school, and in my den I have a moment alone for reflection. The Lozenge has left his drawing book on my desk. On the cover it says: 'Il y a Mozart, un jardin...et toujours un nouveau matin.'
I order us a family sized stripey hammock on line in the hope there might be a minute to lie in it come July. As auntie Rosie warned: 'You must remember to rest! You never know, you might be growing a finger.'
Scene by scene the last couple of weeks have been a little like this:
Scene 1,
Part 1: I jiggle and wiggle in a little minibus to a small village called Beit Sera near Ramallah, with the St John Eye Hospital crew to go and film with Nur, a 9 year old girl with one drooping eyelid who is being mercilessly teased at school and recently had a subsidised operation at the hospital. Unfortunately, the eyelid looks worse than it did before. The operation is complex, but I can't make a good success story with the eye as it is. If only I was producing radio. Her toothless Granny, who is the only family member with a permit to travel to Jerusalem with Nur each time she comes to the hospital, keeps interrupting the interview by muttering loudly to herself and I have to re-film. From Beit Sera I head home to prepare a BBQ for J's boss and his family who are visiting from Jordan for a couple of days. The Lozenge bursts into tears after tumbling off the school bus because he wants to bake something with me for the spring fair, so I bin the marinading in favour of a chocolate biscuit cake with L. I find a dusty packet of digestive biscuits in the back of the cupboard which must have been waiting for this moment. J's boss arrives, we christen J's new barbecue which he just bought at great expense from Weber, Israel (read, Weber, Israel, $$$$$). Import taxes here are chronic and make our daily spending gold plated. J's boss asks to leave his car in the garage overnight and return the next morning to collect it. I blithely agree to leave the garage fob with St Grace while I'm at the dwarfs Spring Fair at school.
Part 2: Accompany the dwarfs to their school Spring Fair after some rapid baking at 5.45am to contribute something else for the cake stall as they're short of produce. Drop the cakes off and no one looks pleased or says thank you. The Lozenge's chocolate biscuit morsels are placed in plastic bags in the sunshine. I see them starting to sweat. Even the raisins look unhappy. We wander the stalls which are boasting all sorts of second hand rubbish and edible sugary items at dwarf height, with two whining dwarfs who want to buy all the second hand rubbish, even the backcombed Barbies and every sugary item. It's only 10.30am. The temperature keeps rising, the whining gets louder. I just make out the sound of my phone ringing: 'Hello Madam it's me, Grace. Sir's boss is here and he wants to get his car....' CRAP! J's boss' car is locked in the garage, the border to Jordan shuts early today...Of all the people to lock into the garage...I drag the whining dwarfs away from their plastic paradise (superb excuse!) and race to the car, not bothering about seat-belts or indicators as I screech out of the school gate. Burn a lot of rubber on the way back home and screech to a halt outside the house to find J's boss, wife and 3 children waiting in the garden. As I apologise profusely and set their car free, the dwarfs, not whining for the first time that day, shriek: 'That was WEALLY fun Mummy, can we always drive that fast to school.'
Part 3: It's finally the weekend but J has to leave us on Sunday for a work trip. I'm booked to photograph the very young children of a lovely lady and her Fijian husband that morning so I meet them in a park on the Mount of Olives and spend two hours putting magnetic 'Stackabugs' on my head and pulling small furry teddies out of my top to make the children laugh. At this point even a tweak of a lip would be good. Crouching in a sandpit, singing, telling jokes, snap, snap, snap. Not sure what I have on my memory cards after 2 hours, but that's Monday morning's job. And the children are beautiful so I feel confident there'll be some successes. Race back home to say goodbye to J and have lunch with the dwarfs. Flat bread and gouda cheese sandwich for the Lozenge, as every day. He has yet to fully embrace Arab culture it seems. I wonder if the foreign office ever give you postings to Holland? We head to a children's party and Rashimi gets an attack of shyness so is clamped to my leg like a rather heavy crustacean, for two whole hours, until the cake finally arrives. I meet a friendly Palestinian lady who asks me what I'm having. Momentarily I've forgotten about Bunny Floppy Ears. 'We don't know yet. We like surprises.' I say. I've yet to meet a Palestinian who hasn't discovered the sex of their baby beforehand. And with inimitable Palestinian frankness, she does her best to foresee the future. 'You will have a boy, because your face is very tired. If the face is pretty, the baby is a girl. But your face is tired, not pretty.' I begin to explain that the reasons for my fatigue run a bit deeper than the sex of the baby, but think better of it, laugh very loudly, and reach for a beer. 'Are you sure you should be having that?' she asks. Luckily I have to wipe cake off Rashimi's face which gives me a chance to escape from the conversation.
Part 4: Wake up, really miss J, so get out of bed and start making gouda cheese sandwiches before a breakfast Nutella fest with the dwarfs. Rashimi asks: 'Mummy, what is God?' And almost straight after through a second chocolate mouthful: 'Mummy, what is Love?' The Lozenge and I agree that they are one and the same, and that's about all we have up our sleeves at 6.15am. I drop the dwarfs at school and head straight to the operating theatre at the Eye Hospital and film retinal and corneal surgeries conducted by visiting specialists from Dallas. Even in my scrubs, B.F.Ears is very obvious. I receive a few concerned looks from the local hospital teams. But when I explain that I'm only contending with what pregnant Palestinian women contend with and this is only my third child, they agree. Luckily no more remarks about possible sex of the baby. The Lozenge has an Arabic class after school and lovely teacher, Suhair, sends me a text enquiring about the Lozenge's pronunciation of the letter 's'. Dear Thuhair, I respond, 'In the UK we call thith a lithp.' I wasn't sure if she was suggesting elocution as well as Arabic. And I'm presuming and hoping that 'all thingth path'.
Scene 2
Part 1: Another day, St Grace saintly-ly takes the dwarfs to school on the tram leaving home at 7am, and I head off in another minibus with all my kit to small Palestinian village near Hebron to film with another of the Dallas doctors, a retinal specialist. He's called Dr He (pronounced 'Hee') and is originally Chinese. None of the local Palestinian outreach teams have met him and keep asking: 'Who's He?' Luckily Dr He has a great sense of humour and explains that in China they have a President Hu and a Prime Minister Wen, and he's simply another He. 'He' is a velly common name in China'. We drive out of Jerusalem towards Hebron and I feel grateful for having a newcomer next to me. Newcomer questions are always the best and sometimes I worry if the longer you stay in a place, the less you ask good questions. He gapes at the dividing wall. One of the Palestinian staff asks: 'Is it like your great wall in China?!' 'Well, not so pletty.' he responds. Then we have an interesting talk about gun laws. Dr He has three guns in his home in Texas and is licensed to use them as self defence, in the home. The Palestinians explain they are not allowed to have weapons in the home under Israeli law. I wonder what the situation would be like if gun laws here were as in the USA. I'm not sure I'd want to live here. We arrive at a tiny clinic in a village with a donkey grazing under olive trees outside. The waiting room is already full to bursting of villagers, who have no permission to enter Jerusalem, wanting to have their eye complaints seen to. A low-slung Nissan Sunny draws up and out of it spring about 15 school girls in white headscarves. Dr He is fascinated and all day long between eye scans, he chats and jokes with the villagers. 'Anyone here speak any Chinese?' he asks. Blank looks. They try and get him to say 'Ahlan wa Sahlan' Arabic for 'Welcome'. 'Ahran wa Sahran!' he replies. Then he gives them a tonal - 'Nee how maaaaaa?' They giggle and repeat. I film most of the day and we begin the winding road back to the Eye Hospital where I film some more operations that afternoon. Realise that B.F.Ears makes quite a good camera rest and decide to leave the heavy tripod in the car, and breathe lightly while I film. Pregnant camera ladies might put Manfrotto out of business.
Part 2: Take the boys to a swimming class with a charming Israeli Arab called Wahel. Rashimi leaps like a frog into the water into Wahel's arms time and time again with no fear; the Lozenge prefers to dangle off a noodle and not get his head wet or water in his ears. J and I have paid for 10 private classes in the hope they might swim on their own by summer, but it looks like progress could be as slow as the Arabic and the piano, and everything other than what dwarfs have decided is a priority skill. ie. Baking and painting.
Part 3: J returns from his work trip in Jordan with lots of food from the supermarket where things are cheaper and there's more choice. Rashimi sees the Just Right cereal and a lump of cheddar the size of his torso and says: 'Daddy, I'm going to give you a sticker.' Apparently his boss never mentioned the garage debacle. I can't work out whether this is a good or a bad thing.
Part 4: We have some jolly holidaymakers from the UK over for dinner and J makes me go to bed straight afterwards and does all the clearing up himself. I wake up to hear him fiddling with his phone trying to work out directions to a meeting place in Tel Aviv the following day. After ten minutes, a female voice blasts from the phone: 'Turn LEFT at the next junction!' I fall straight back to sleep again and dream that I'm in the Pajero.
Scene 3:
Part 1: I go and collect auntie Rosie and uncle 'Awwy from the airport late at night. It is so wonderful to see them and their arrival heralds a few days off every part of life. The following day we leave the dwarfs with St Grace and have a couple of nights in the northern town of Akka. I feel my entire body and mind shutting down and am not sure I am the best company for the two days. But we have a magic time and we recharge all batteries.
Part 2: We return home, and I have a hormonal attack which makes everything look negative and black and stops me sleeping a single wink that night. I toss and turn thinking evil thoughts. Mum calls her: 'Hermione the hormone'. I'm sure she has a job, but she's also a trouble maker and I bet she wears pearls. We have a wonderful Dutch family over for a barbecue and after inhaling a sausage and some rabbit-shaped jelly that the Lozenge made that morning, all the children jump on the trampoline and get naked. From my position they look like wood nymphs frolicking in a clearing in the trees.
Nudity, even in children, can be frowned upon in this region, and our Dutch friends say their children can't be naked outside at their place as their house is overlooked. They should come round here to indulge in daily naked Putti activities before they leave. This lovely family is going back to Holland in early July. One of the hardest things about our lifestyle is seeing good friends leave and one day having to leave yourself.
Part 3: J leaves on another work trip, and Rosie and Harold go home. The dwarfs are at school, and in my den I have a moment alone for reflection. The Lozenge has left his drawing book on my desk. On the cover it says: 'Il y a Mozart, un jardin...et toujours un nouveau matin.'
I order us a family sized stripey hammock on line in the hope there might be a minute to lie in it come July. As auntie Rosie warned: 'You must remember to rest! You never know, you might be growing a finger.'
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