Sometimes

This is for you, Mum. After our conversation last night about what can be done about the state of things...


Sometimes

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives: the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go 
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

by Sheenagh Pugh

A crafty way to make other Jerusalem vehicles give way? 

Ramadan Ramblings

Ramadan has come round again. It's hard to believe it was a year ago when last year's holy month of ramadan was blighted with Operation Protective Edge - the Israeli onslaught on poor, battered Gaza. A year on, we have our knees fully under the carpet. This is home and we love our lives here. Everyone is holding their breath for a peaceful ramadan one year on. Though the tragic massacre in Tunisia makes for chilling ramadan reading. A Palestinian told me some leaflets, claiming to be from ISIS, have been distributed around the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, warning Christians and any Arab who works with international agencies, to leave town. 'As if we could ever divide ourselves like this,' he said. 'We Palestinians are have our roots entwined with each other - Christians, Muslims, all people who work anywhere - not just with internationals. We won't allow bullies like this to break our social fabric.'

Israeli police are extra vigilant at holy times for Muslims, and have been aggravating people by blocking roads to Jerusalem's Old City to prevent large crowds of people in one place at any one time. Helicopters circle overhead on Fridays - the the Muslim holiday - and the air is filled with the bossy honk of police-car horns.

I popped in to see another friend who owns the stationery shop on our local street and asked him how he was feeling about the impending month-long fast. 'I really don't like ramadan,' he admitted. 'I'm fine with the fasting. That's not the problem, and anyway it's good for me,' he grinned, patting a 50-something stomach which has begun to peep over his belt line. 'It's the atmosphere I don't like. Everything is slow and sombre, and the local people take on an air of pious holyness. Which is nothing but a show for others.'

His lanky teenage son, helping him stack shelves in the shop nodded in agreement. 'But the good thing about it is that every evening we get together and we eat with our family. Which is not something we do at other times of the year.'

With ramadan comes gridlocked traffic at certain times of day, parking crises for most of the shopping time in the afternoons, and a ghost town after 8pm, after the BOOM! of the ramadan canon has sounded, blasting us off our seats with 2 seconds of panic before we remember it's just the signal for Jerusalem's muslims to begin eating. The canon also blasts at 4am to signal the beginning of the fast. The supermarkets are pitiful places during ramadan on the East side of town where we live, with little but stale bread and gaping shelves, so the dwarfs and I have taken to hopping over to the West side for our weekly shop. Grumpy, hungry ramadanners make Israelis seem like they've just graduated from charm school. I wandered around the wonderful, if extortionate, Mehane Yehuda market and visited some usual haunts.

Each shopkeeper took one look at my stomach, the same size as the well proportioned watermelon I was carrying slung from my shoulder, and asked: 'What you want? Some water? You want to come and take a seat?' Plastic chairs were pulled from every corner. Pregnancy is considered a sacred state in this region, and I'm treated with Levantine kid gloves and kindly smiles wherever I waddle these days. Rashimi asked me the other morning while I got dressed, nonchanantly stroking my stomach  with a nut-brown hand, 'So when Bunny Floppy Ears hatches, will she actually be coming to live here?' He, like J, think we're going to have another female in our ranks by next month. I'm not so sure, and none of the locals here can believe we're keeping it as a surprise 'mofaje'a' from ourselves. It's all about pink or blue in the shops and society here.

School holidays have begun in synch with ramadan.  This summer is a bit different for us as we're staying put for all of it. So we've been seeing off our friends for their holidays to Sweden, Denmark, France, Spain, Russia. And saying goodbye to many others too. The downside of this lifestyle is when true friends move on. We spent an afternoon of fun interspersed with weeping at a swimming pool for a last burst of fun with some wonderful Dutch friends. I'm sure we'll keep in touch, but it's a sadness to lose good people from a few roads down. Luckily we have lots of local Palestinian friends too, who will be here forever and we'll be making the most of them - particularly once they've broken their fast for the day.

We've been fending off offers of pets from all sides. After last year's experience with the neighbour's cat who hid from me every time I went to feed it, making me worry it had died in a hot, dusty corner of their apartment, I'm keen to stay pet-free this summer. Though the school rabbit, Queen Esther, may make a guest appearance for a month. Why people think we need a real bunny alongside the arrival of Bunny Floppy Ears, is a mystery...The dwarfs, of course, are magnanimously inviting anything furry in cages to come and join our happy throng. J and I are fortunately united in our pet-o-phobia. I keep warning people about my track record with plants and mentioning that animals are no different.

The dwarfs, after under a fortnight of roaming free outside of the classroom are looking well-adventured. Their shins are bruised, their knees are scuffed, the soles of their feet tough and dirty. Their hair stands upright with chlorine from swimming pool tours - the Lozenge is sporting pink freckled shoulders, Rashimi has turned nut brown all over, but for his still slightly dimpled bottom. We meander through each other's existences, dancing an affectionate jig between me fitting in some bits of work here and there, trading off with adventures with remaining friends and discoveries of every outdoor pool in the vicinity. The house has become a crafts zone with masking tape through the middle of doorways forcing J and I either to limbo, step over, or risk a fight by peeling it off. There are dens of cushions and rugs in most rooms; sleeping bags in the porch; half mixed cake endeavours in the kitchen and mud baths around the paddling pool outside. But nothing matters. Our timetables have melded and we no longer have the 7.15am race to school dragging exhausted dwarfs clutching a piece of toast into the car. We go to bed late. After a day on the beach with our now departed Dutch friends, we drove home in the half light, listening to the dwarfs new best tune: 'The walk of life'. Near home, we passed a young Palestinian man hurtling down the hill while standing on the seat of his bike, headphones on, and singing to Arab pop with his arms outstretched. 'Wow' said the Lozenge. 'It's good to stay up late and see what happenth when it getth dark.'

It was J's birthday last week which turned out to be a marthon, albeit an extremely happy one. I had a morning doing photographs in a minefield near Hebron with a mineclearing charity, followed by the finishing touches filming with the Beverley Hills Israeli IVF woman, followed by getting ready for 5 families for dinner for the birthday bonanza, greatly hyped by two excitable dwarfs. The day began at 5.15am with a little visit from the Lozenge. 'Can we thtart blowing up the balloonth?' he asked in a stage whisper next to my ear. I heaved myself and bunny floppy ears out of bed, and suggested we began with baking the cake. That at least would leave one less thing to do after the minefield and filming. 'Do you want to make Daddy's birthday cake now, then?' The Lozenge looked at me as though I was mad. We never make cakes before breakfast but today was his lucky day and by 6am he was licking the cake mixture from the bowl before even ingesting a Cheerio, while the egg whites did their bit and the cake rose like a dream.

By 8.30am I was wandering about the minefield with some de-miners, eight from Georgia, and a couple of internationals. The mines in Israel were laid in the 1950's and 60's by the Jordanians, and now it's Palestinian farmers, villagers and their families who are bearing the brunt of the partially cleared minefields. As if they need another blight in a lifestyle with barriers every way they look. Dressed up in a large helmet with visor and heavy flack jacket, I felt a bit like an 80 year old while trying to stand up again after squatting to take a picture of one of the Georgian de-miners scraping in the dust. I had to push myself up using a nearby rock. But other than that, me and B.F.Ears were well looked after and had an informative day. By midday I was back behind the flapping Israeli flags of Jerusalem's German Colony interviewing the Beverley Hills therapist who runs the IVF relaxation therapy. Her Mum, based permanently in B. Hills, had watched the first cut of my film and asked her daughter: 'So honey, do you want me to pay for you to get those littl'wrinkles around yer eyes fixed for ya?' At the age of 56 with 8 kids, you'd think one's own mother might be offering more useful forms of support and guidance.

I've now finished making the film. I was speaking to a man from the UN recently, a vehement supporter of the Palestinian cause. He asked me what my latest work had been, and I explained about Ms B. Hills and her IVF programme. He looked a bit surprised and said: 'Well, I guess you've done your bit for Zionism then.' I wondered what he meant by that, presuming I was aiding and abetting multiple Israeli procreation, and then realised he'd thought I'd made a film about the IDF. (The Israeli Defence Force). Luckily we cleared up the confusion before the end of the party and had a good laugh about it.

Happily back home again, if a little dusty, the dwarfs and I embarked on a second cookathon: chopping fruit and mint for Pimms, whisking cream, toasting halloumi and marinading meat. They both have a habit of standing between my tummy and the worktop which makes cooking with dwarfs a back breaking affair. But that way they don't chop off their sticky digits as I'm hovering near. By 8pm the light was fading, our new solar powered lanterns were coming to life (thanks to my latest nesting impulse), there were 9 naked nymphs having a mud fight and some faintly sozzled adults no longer aware where their children were, and far from caring. A blast in our garden and even J - who generally much prefers others' birthdays - admitted it was one of the best.

J is away with work for a few days, and the dwarfs and I brightened up what might have been a slightly flat Sunday 'bidun al Baba' - without Daddy - by going to Jericho with a lovely Skandi family who haven't quite departed on holiday yet. We went to what used to be the Intercontinental Hotel, but it's since lost its Intercon label and has become 'Hotel Oasis' complete with palm tree standing in for the capital 'i'. Our Skandi friends explained to me that the Oasis Hotel also houses a clandestine Casino. It's illegal for Palestinians to gamble in the West Bank - as decreed by the Palestinian authority. So it's the Israelis who come and gamble there - away from the prying eyes of their own state where it's also forbidden. Albeit in an 'Area A' where it's also illegal for Israelis even to set foot.

It was the place to be this Sunday - notably for Palestinian Christians escaping ramadan for beers, pumping beats and barbecues. The pool was a writhing mass of bikini-ed bodies in all shapes and sizes, raucous children and tattoo-ed men. Once I'd got over the worry about whether they'd put some extra chlorine in the water for the weekend, we got amongst it. Who needs an infinity pool looking out to sea when you can have all this...er...company. I bumped into a friend from Bethlehem who's done some translation work for me in the past. 'We're all here,' she said. 'What's left of us Christians in the region anyhow. And I think I know everyone in this pool.' She said even my gynaecologist was also here from Bethlehem. I didn't spot him, but it was perhaps easier for him to spot me.

After a couple of spins down the quite steep waterside with a dwarf on each knee, I embarked on a B.F. Ears preservation mission and refused to go down with them any more. In the end I managed to encourage them to go it alone, and waited at the bottom. I watched the Lozenge grip Rashimi's hand as tightly as he could, leading him carefully up the slippery steps. After twenty or so Palestinian children had been spat out of the bottom, I heard a shriek I recognised, and down they came, in a bubble of watery chuckling, a tangle of arm bands and bruised limbs. 'Lauwie was weeally looking after me,' spluttered Rashimi, 'So I weeeally wathn't thcared.'

A Palestinian boy from a village near Hebron. The minefield is next to his house where he plays every day.

The next day I had my final day of manual work pre-B.F. Ears arrival, with camera kit at another few minefields in the north near Jenin. We interviewed Palestinian tobacco farmers whose land is riddled with uncleared mines, hampering their trade, and endangering their kin. They were charming and talkative and sent us away afterwards with bundles of 'meramiyya' sage and bunches of slightly unripe, dusty grapes from their vines.

They told us a heartbreaking story about a young boy who had run out into one of their fields, trodden on an anti personnel mine which exploded and blew out both of his eyes.

'Hundreds of villagers gathered at the side of the field,' they explained to us, 'watching this poor boy in his agony. But no one wanted to go and fetch him as they knew the land was mined.'

'Then his brother came running, saw his sibling lying down with a pool of blood around his head and ran straight to him, across the land where no other villager had dared set foot. He carried him out to safety, without even a second's thought about the danger for himself. This is the love of a brother,' they sighed.

A trip into IVF-land

I don't often meet women like Rebecca. Living East side as we do, our immediate environment is Arab focused and far from the sidewalk cafes and flapping white and blue Israeli flags which interlace the houses in the German Colony.

Rebecca is 56 years old and lives in a large and breezy architect-designed house in shades of terracotta: 'To remind me of Beverley Hills where I grew up,' she smiles, her glistening white teeth so blue-white, they must make my natural British grin look yellow. She and her husband, a well known judge, live with their 8 children in the German Colony on the Western side of the 'seam', the dividing road between Eastern and Western sides of this city. The final two children to join the brood, twin girls, arrived when Rebecca was 51 years old. 'We don't talk about it, but it was IVF' she admits. And this is the reason I'm with Rebecca.

A highly qualified therapist, she has re-focused on helping women who are going through IVF in Israel. By providing complimentary yoga, therapy and discussion groups alongside the IVF treatment women receive (funded entirely by the Israeli State), she aims to help women relax enough so the IVF has a chance of success. 'Having children in Israel is your calling card for society,' she explains. 'There is so much stigma attached to women who can't conceive, particularly amongst Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox, that often by the time people arrive at the IVF clinic, they're so stressed out, they won't be able to conceive in that state anyway.' Rebecca is one of those people who could convince a miner to spend his monthly salary on coal. Her constant gaze draws you in, and you're obliged to listen, whether it's about her passion for her current calling, or anecdotes of Jewish family life with 8 kids and a few pets. 'We're a democratic family so we all had a say about what the dog should be called. Unsurprisingly we all came up with a different name. You can't call a dog by 10 names, we discovered. He just got really confused. So now he's just....Doggy.'

I've been commissioned to make a promotional film about her work to help the hospital raise money for her programmes. So once I'd heard her story on her cool patio, the air fragranced with a waft of ripe peaches mixed with jasmine, I went to film with her in the more sterile surroundings of the IVF centre. The hospital is nearer our side of town, and a mix of Palestinian and Israeli women sat in a crescent of chairs waiting for their appointment. Rebecca moved calmly about in a white dress, laying out leaflets and plates of biscuits. I felt a little conspicuous with my camera, tripod and pregnant tummy standing in the middle of a gang of women waiting for IVF. I wondered if they thought I was there as an inspirational success story with the 'stunt baby'. The head of the clinic asked me in a thick American drawl: 'Oh Gaad, are you a natural? We don't do naturals round here!'

After I'd done some filming, Rebecca and I had a chance to chat some more and I dared to venture towards politics. 'I see you have a mix of Palestinian and Israeli women here,' I asked. 'So how does that work?'

'Well for each Palestinian I need to make 5 times the number of calls as I do to each Israeli,' she explained. 'I need to convince the husband it's okay for the wife to do yoga, and encourage them not to sit in the class with their wife, as it would put other women off. It's really difficult. And yoga is just not in their culture.'

It wasn't such a long stride onto politics from that point. When I asked how she'd adjusted to life in Israel from Beverley Hills, she was candid. 'Israel's a place where you're often afraid, because we have neighbours called Hamas and they want us all dead. I'm a right wing nationalist in my heart. But woman to woman, I don't have grudges. Like I kept paying my cleaner from Beit Jala (a Christian Arab village next to Bethlehem) for six months when she couldn't come to work in the second intifada. And I would really, really like more Palestinian women to come to my sessions. It's just so much work to get them here.'

The same fear was reflected when I attended the yoga class for more filming. The instructor opened the door to her perfect little cottage in the district next to the 'Shouq' as Israelis call the market. 'Oh my, you're beautiful,' she said. I thought the same of her. A 51 year old in 41 year old packaging. Probably the yoga. 'I moved here from New York 20 years ago. I did 'aliyah' (diaspora Jews taking Israeli citizenship and settling here) and yes there has been a lot of fear within this time.' Looking around the yoga studio at the women, all fellow aliyah arrivals, their legs in the air and abdomens sinking and rising as they followed the instructions, the roof terrace dripping with wisteria, I remembered other houses I've spent time in since we arrived here. From Gaza City to West Bank villages, listening to other stories of fear. And I wondered to what degree can we judge one another's fear? And how I could ever explain to these ladies in the languid confines of the yoga class, what the women and children had told me in Gaza and Hebron about what they're afraid of in the night, without upsetting this beautiful apple cart?

The case study I followed for the film was a lovely woman of 45 who had conceived and given birth to a daughter, and believes that through following Rebecca's relaxation sessions she was able to conceive first time through IVF. I spent a morning with her and her characterful 10 month old in her cramped apartment in a run-down side of town. Another 'aliyah' Israeli, she had much less fearful political views, and I had a small dream that perhaps with this film we could persuade more Palestinian women to go to the complimentary relaxation sessions. I know at least 2 Palestinians who are going through IVF at the moment. Reproduction is glorified and celebrated equally on both sides of the divide. So maybe it could be another bridge within the already existing bridge of medicine. I suggested it to Rebecca, and she's game.

The dwarfs had been at home sick for a couple of days - the Lozenge passing the bug to Rashimi. But the Lozenge had recovered by the time he was required to perform with his class in the school play: 'Myths and Mysteries'. Which in our household sounds more like: 'Myths and Mythterieth'. Rashimi was laid up on the sofa when the Lozenge left. He gave him a tender kiss on his feverish forehead and said: 'I'm sorry you're mithing it.'

The play was a great effort, and we had a big laugh afterwards with our Swedish friends who needed to Google Translate 'turnip' during the nursery class' rendition of the tale of the enormous turnip. We pointed out that a synonym for turnip is swede, so no wonder they were confused by what what they found.

Like a squash ball off a wall, our dwarfs bounce back from illness. And soon the household was back to 'healthy' routine. The Lozenge came padding into our bedroom from the kitchen at 5.30am where he'd been making his own sandwich for school (Gouda cheethe and butter. Nothing else.) 'Mummy, Mummy, there'th ants in the butter!' And I hobbled barefoot with half closed eyes to the kitchen with him to scrape them off the almost liquid yellow pat, to see a table fully laid for breakfast by the little man himself. 2 bowls of Cheerios swimming in milk for himself and Rashimi. Ants in paradise, everywhere...The ride to school was once again accompanied by animated chat and things to remark upon. Like a very large Palestinian man in a shell suit speed walking past our traffic jam in the pavement. 'His tummy is like yourth, Mummy. Oh and Mummy, when you've done this baby. You can do another one, and then another one,' the Lozenge suggested. 'And by the way, Mummy, what's yoga? Julian'th Mummy does yoga.' I explained it's a sport which you can do quite often sitting down or standing on your head. 'Do ogres do yoga?' Rashimi piped up from the back.

The same lovely Swedish friend with the turnip confusion would love to have another child to keep her only one company. On a girl's trip to Hebron lately she explained: 'Mornings would be fine if it was just my husband and me, but the great thing about having children around, is they're always coming in with their little surprises. And it just makes life that much more interesting and funny.'

J and I disappeared on a whistle stop admin trip to London. More flags, but in an acceptable context, for the trooping of the colour:

I left J in London working for a few extra days and got back to the very tight ship St Grace had been running with the dwarfs in great shape - both of them running stark naked to greet me as I drew up in the cab. Their tough bare feet slapping onto pavement prickles with not a complaint after a couple of months without shoes. The taxi driver laughed. Locals here don't do nudity in quite the same way as us Brits.

We listened to Florence and the Machine over their tea of Israeli fish fingers. Definitely not Birds Eye, but not bad. The only thing that put me off was the strap line in English on the packet: 'Experience Unrevealed Senses' and I wasn't sure about the intended goal, either during or after a fish finger. However, the dwarfs gobbled them up, and there were no unrevealed senses in the night. Rashimi interrupted my solitary dinner at 8pm by reminding me I'd forgotten to put a nappy on him and we hadn't said prayers. I inhaled the rest of my dinner and followed him back to bed, where he lay with his new polystyrene sword clasped across his chest, like a marble effigy of a knight. I went to town on the prayers, we prayed for e v e r y o n e, so he wouldn't disturb me again, and I kissed him goodnight. 'Mummy,' he whispered. 'You've got watermelon bref.'