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| Who needs Shawarma when you got Shamallow? |
Monday, 17 August 2015
Sabr
'Mummy, the thing ith. We are ready to meet the baby. But the baby ith just not ready to meet uth.' says Rashimi, looking puzzled.
The waiting game. 9 days late and Bunny Floppy Ears is evidently enjoying the complimentary womb service. I can even feel the impatience in all things dwarf-related. And St Grace is on tenterhooks. She keeps staring at me silently from doorways. So we keep ourselves busy. We wander down our local shopping street, Rashimi as spiderman, and both dwarfs riding scooters where we drop off a stopped clock and 2 dwarf watches for fixing. 'Besalameh' says the watchmaker, wishing us well for the birth of the baby and laughing that he of anyone knows about things being exactly on time, or late, in Palestine: clocks, watches, and also babies. And on we go to the fruit shop for some pineapples - also supposed to encourage labour. We come out with 4 pineapples which Mohammad warns us are gold plated in price these days; a handful of fresh ochre dates still on their branch, which he swears help babies arrive and gives us free, and a little bottle of oil with a mysterious name 'kaf marim.' I trust him that it's all I need to make the baby arrive and google it when I get back. 'Anastatica' or 'The rose of Jericho.' In for a penny...
According to the description I find online, the Virgin Mary blessed this plant during her flight from Nazareth. It represents new beginnings, hope and the resurrection. What more could I need?! And apparently also brings on labour, as a side note. I notice it's related to Castor oil plant and its roots look like a weird spider triffid. I quaff a few teaspoons of it, and hope for some effects soon. And maybe even a resurrection. It's 38 degrees and I'm starting to get some funny looks as I stagger on my long baby-inducing walks around this extraordinary city that you'd think had seen everything.
Somewhere between patience and hurry is a beautiful space called borrowed time. But it can grow in intensity and easily sway from beauty to anxiousness. It's getting later and later, and people are texting and asking more and more regularly, 'has it arrived yet?' 'Where is this elusive stork?' Well - we're the Arab world after all - that harried stork is probably busy delivering many, many, many other babies to other homes. 'Doeth the baby come out of your mouth?' muses Rashimi from the back of the car. 'Noooo, Washimi. It's attached to that string which is joined to Mummy's tummy button and it comes THWINGING out on that!' says the Lozenge.
Every day is an extra day of mooching about - dressing as pirates,
and staring at a ladybird so close the breath from their nostrils must cool her hot black spots.
The dwarves rag around the house interrupting me as I try and actually, maybe just this once, achieve something with this time, other than sitting tight allowing tiny internal hairs and toenails to grow, and more ounces to pad around a pair of tiny frog-like thighs. I don't feel that effort - so I belittle it. And I try and keep going with those other efforts that give you more satisfaction - for some reason. Because in school we weren't taught that having a baby was an achievement, and about the only one who ever says 'well done!' about things like that are your parents.
We traipse to the obstetrician to have a chat about induction. I get the feeling the medical bunch here love to throw drugs at a situation rather than waiting for nature. But I'm holding my nerve. Every time I call Dr Salameh he asks: 'Keyfik?' (How are you?). 'Hamel' (Pregnant) I reply. The joke has lasted for 3 weeks now. Lines of loaded August olive trees cast shadows against the grey slabs of cement wall separating the 'Wild West Bank' from Israel. A large sign explains to Israelis they are not allowed to enter. 'Do not cross to the other side of the wall' they threaten in white bold print. They might as well hang a sign saying: 'Danger of Death' like they do on a pylon. A hot and lazy looking IDF soldier lets us through the barrier and we pass a little green sign which says: 'To Bethlehem' and we weave around the wall which blocks the sun, with some nice graffiti plastered over with less thoughtful spray paint. The doc says he's cool with letting the baby take its time, and he won't fill me up with oxytocin provided the creature is still getting all it needs inside. I reckon it's getting so much - that's why it wants to stay there. Private party for one. Sharing is a total hassle. Maybe it knows that newborn baby-dom for me is about the scariest place there is - where I can never seem convince myself that I will go back to normal, and that I will manage to achieve a balance in life again. I wake at night and have to give a virtually physical push to dark clouds which loom head-wards as I feel around the wall in the darkness to offer milk to a wordless creature entirely dependent on me.
So that's why this borrowed time is so beautiful for me. And J feels it too - and it's like we're in this bubble together. Although this time, it will be all of our baby: Rashimi's and the Lozenge's - not just J's and mine.
Sabr is the Arabic for patience, endurance. The sabra is the prickly pear cactus which the Palestinians use as a symbol for everything they endure both in this land, and as a diaspora. So using a play on words with the notion of patience, and with the cactus' ability to stay alive with little water, it's become a symbol of fortitude and resistance too.
I feel it keenly as we enter the cool cube of the Beit Jala pork butcher. The young butcher, Rafa, greets us with a huge smile, opening up his metal fridge to reveal strings of dangling, shining sausages next to the stacks of ribs and bags of fillets. His customer base is dwindling as Christians leave the Arab world in droves. But pork is half the price of lamb, a third of the price of beef, so it's a hard-to-find bargain in this extortionate land. His family live in Canada now, but he is employing the 'sabr' as he keeps the Beit Jala pork business going. He rears his own pigs. And how we appreciate his fare. The smell of pork in his shop is so familiar, it seems unfamiliar in this faraway land with few porkatarians. The taste of the pork is better for it being hard to find. The mysterious spice he uses in his sausage mix is appreciated even by dwarves, not normally swayed from the well-trodden chipolata route.
In the afternoon we have an offer to accompany a wonderful Israeli academic around some Christian areas in Jerusalem's old city. The Armenian Patriarchate - a vital establishment for this plagued and highly talented community. The Armenians were apparently the first community to introduce printing, ceramics, girls schools and photography to this city. They were so sure of the importance of educating girls, we joked there might be a Matriarchate soon. The monk shows us around - explaining how they still shelter the descendants of Armenian refugees who arrived during the genocide in 1915 - where the Ottomans killed 1.5 million of them. The library looks quasi Art Deco and has some of the only copies of Armenian newspapers and other texts from the time of the genocide.
Cloistered near the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem's Old City, is the Syriac Orthodox church, San Marcos, where 'Abouna' 'our father' is praying in Aramaic for evening Vespers. We sit quietly in the pew while he chants peacefully. It is mesmerising - almost soporific after our hot walk, now sitting on the cool pew, my ankles lightly throbbing.
The tiny church has no statues - only icons. His words and his style of clothing unchanged for centuries, he is part of a tiny community here who are facing deep concerns about their fate. Not just here, where there aren't enough of them to keep procreating effectively; but also in Syria. A Syriac Orthodox bishop was kidnapped in 2013, and there are desperate stories coming out of Homs and Aleppo - two important bases for their community.
After he finishes his prayers he turns to talk to us. His long white beard another seeming relic from the past - our friend asked about Homs about Aleppo. 'I hear bad news.'
'Yes - we can just hope. We just...pray. We just know that our Lord is the saviour of all...We must trust in him'.
He raises hands and eyes heaven-wards.
He shakes his head, his eyes glisten. What must it be like to carry that around - in this enclave - with a dwindling population of Syriac Orthodox unable to help their communities within Syria? The terror. The loneliness.
Sabr. Patience. Sumud. Defiance. In his case I feel it is more defiance in the face of evil than anything else. And absolute trust and patience that one day good will prevail.
My week finishes with a discovery of an Israeli acupuncturist, trained in China, and based in Jerusalem's nature museum. I wander past rooms of stuffed birds, looking as turgid as my equally stuffed-looking pregnant ankles. I won't be missing these two trotters:
The nature museum is the kind of place where you might happen upon a dusty dinosaur egg. Natan Natan's practise occupies 2 small rooms within the building, and after he gently applies some needles to my legs, hands and forehead, I lie there in the dark for 45 minutes: celtic music drifting from some speakers on the plain wall. No noise from the dwarves safely at home dressed as pirates making a catapult from a springy lime tree. A good place to be. Even if it does nothing to bring this baby on. The borrowed time feels so peaceful and so wonderful, that when the baby finally arrives, bringing with it much more, we'll realise how much we had before anyway. Sabr. No hurry. No rush.
The waiting game. 9 days late and Bunny Floppy Ears is evidently enjoying the complimentary womb service. I can even feel the impatience in all things dwarf-related. And St Grace is on tenterhooks. She keeps staring at me silently from doorways. So we keep ourselves busy. We wander down our local shopping street, Rashimi as spiderman, and both dwarfs riding scooters where we drop off a stopped clock and 2 dwarf watches for fixing. 'Besalameh' says the watchmaker, wishing us well for the birth of the baby and laughing that he of anyone knows about things being exactly on time, or late, in Palestine: clocks, watches, and also babies. And on we go to the fruit shop for some pineapples - also supposed to encourage labour. We come out with 4 pineapples which Mohammad warns us are gold plated in price these days; a handful of fresh ochre dates still on their branch, which he swears help babies arrive and gives us free, and a little bottle of oil with a mysterious name 'kaf marim.' I trust him that it's all I need to make the baby arrive and google it when I get back. 'Anastatica' or 'The rose of Jericho.' In for a penny...
According to the description I find online, the Virgin Mary blessed this plant during her flight from Nazareth. It represents new beginnings, hope and the resurrection. What more could I need?! And apparently also brings on labour, as a side note. I notice it's related to Castor oil plant and its roots look like a weird spider triffid. I quaff a few teaspoons of it, and hope for some effects soon. And maybe even a resurrection. It's 38 degrees and I'm starting to get some funny looks as I stagger on my long baby-inducing walks around this extraordinary city that you'd think had seen everything.
Somewhere between patience and hurry is a beautiful space called borrowed time. But it can grow in intensity and easily sway from beauty to anxiousness. It's getting later and later, and people are texting and asking more and more regularly, 'has it arrived yet?' 'Where is this elusive stork?' Well - we're the Arab world after all - that harried stork is probably busy delivering many, many, many other babies to other homes. 'Doeth the baby come out of your mouth?' muses Rashimi from the back of the car. 'Noooo, Washimi. It's attached to that string which is joined to Mummy's tummy button and it comes THWINGING out on that!' says the Lozenge.
Every day is an extra day of mooching about - dressing as pirates,
and staring at a ladybird so close the breath from their nostrils must cool her hot black spots.
The dwarves rag around the house interrupting me as I try and actually, maybe just this once, achieve something with this time, other than sitting tight allowing tiny internal hairs and toenails to grow, and more ounces to pad around a pair of tiny frog-like thighs. I don't feel that effort - so I belittle it. And I try and keep going with those other efforts that give you more satisfaction - for some reason. Because in school we weren't taught that having a baby was an achievement, and about the only one who ever says 'well done!' about things like that are your parents.
We traipse to the obstetrician to have a chat about induction. I get the feeling the medical bunch here love to throw drugs at a situation rather than waiting for nature. But I'm holding my nerve. Every time I call Dr Salameh he asks: 'Keyfik?' (How are you?). 'Hamel' (Pregnant) I reply. The joke has lasted for 3 weeks now. Lines of loaded August olive trees cast shadows against the grey slabs of cement wall separating the 'Wild West Bank' from Israel. A large sign explains to Israelis they are not allowed to enter. 'Do not cross to the other side of the wall' they threaten in white bold print. They might as well hang a sign saying: 'Danger of Death' like they do on a pylon. A hot and lazy looking IDF soldier lets us through the barrier and we pass a little green sign which says: 'To Bethlehem' and we weave around the wall which blocks the sun, with some nice graffiti plastered over with less thoughtful spray paint. The doc says he's cool with letting the baby take its time, and he won't fill me up with oxytocin provided the creature is still getting all it needs inside. I reckon it's getting so much - that's why it wants to stay there. Private party for one. Sharing is a total hassle. Maybe it knows that newborn baby-dom for me is about the scariest place there is - where I can never seem convince myself that I will go back to normal, and that I will manage to achieve a balance in life again. I wake at night and have to give a virtually physical push to dark clouds which loom head-wards as I feel around the wall in the darkness to offer milk to a wordless creature entirely dependent on me.
So that's why this borrowed time is so beautiful for me. And J feels it too - and it's like we're in this bubble together. Although this time, it will be all of our baby: Rashimi's and the Lozenge's - not just J's and mine.
Sabr is the Arabic for patience, endurance. The sabra is the prickly pear cactus which the Palestinians use as a symbol for everything they endure both in this land, and as a diaspora. So using a play on words with the notion of patience, and with the cactus' ability to stay alive with little water, it's become a symbol of fortitude and resistance too.
I feel it keenly as we enter the cool cube of the Beit Jala pork butcher. The young butcher, Rafa, greets us with a huge smile, opening up his metal fridge to reveal strings of dangling, shining sausages next to the stacks of ribs and bags of fillets. His customer base is dwindling as Christians leave the Arab world in droves. But pork is half the price of lamb, a third of the price of beef, so it's a hard-to-find bargain in this extortionate land. His family live in Canada now, but he is employing the 'sabr' as he keeps the Beit Jala pork business going. He rears his own pigs. And how we appreciate his fare. The smell of pork in his shop is so familiar, it seems unfamiliar in this faraway land with few porkatarians. The taste of the pork is better for it being hard to find. The mysterious spice he uses in his sausage mix is appreciated even by dwarves, not normally swayed from the well-trodden chipolata route.
In the afternoon we have an offer to accompany a wonderful Israeli academic around some Christian areas in Jerusalem's old city. The Armenian Patriarchate - a vital establishment for this plagued and highly talented community. The Armenians were apparently the first community to introduce printing, ceramics, girls schools and photography to this city. They were so sure of the importance of educating girls, we joked there might be a Matriarchate soon. The monk shows us around - explaining how they still shelter the descendants of Armenian refugees who arrived during the genocide in 1915 - where the Ottomans killed 1.5 million of them. The library looks quasi Art Deco and has some of the only copies of Armenian newspapers and other texts from the time of the genocide.
Cloistered near the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem's Old City, is the Syriac Orthodox church, San Marcos, where 'Abouna' 'our father' is praying in Aramaic for evening Vespers. We sit quietly in the pew while he chants peacefully. It is mesmerising - almost soporific after our hot walk, now sitting on the cool pew, my ankles lightly throbbing.
The tiny church has no statues - only icons. His words and his style of clothing unchanged for centuries, he is part of a tiny community here who are facing deep concerns about their fate. Not just here, where there aren't enough of them to keep procreating effectively; but also in Syria. A Syriac Orthodox bishop was kidnapped in 2013, and there are desperate stories coming out of Homs and Aleppo - two important bases for their community.
After he finishes his prayers he turns to talk to us. His long white beard another seeming relic from the past - our friend asked about Homs about Aleppo. 'I hear bad news.'
'Yes - we can just hope. We just...pray. We just know that our Lord is the saviour of all...We must trust in him'.
He raises hands and eyes heaven-wards.
He shakes his head, his eyes glisten. What must it be like to carry that around - in this enclave - with a dwindling population of Syriac Orthodox unable to help their communities within Syria? The terror. The loneliness.
Sabr. Patience. Sumud. Defiance. In his case I feel it is more defiance in the face of evil than anything else. And absolute trust and patience that one day good will prevail.
My week finishes with a discovery of an Israeli acupuncturist, trained in China, and based in Jerusalem's nature museum. I wander past rooms of stuffed birds, looking as turgid as my equally stuffed-looking pregnant ankles. I won't be missing these two trotters:
The nature museum is the kind of place where you might happen upon a dusty dinosaur egg. Natan Natan's practise occupies 2 small rooms within the building, and after he gently applies some needles to my legs, hands and forehead, I lie there in the dark for 45 minutes: celtic music drifting from some speakers on the plain wall. No noise from the dwarves safely at home dressed as pirates making a catapult from a springy lime tree. A good place to be. Even if it does nothing to bring this baby on. The borrowed time feels so peaceful and so wonderful, that when the baby finally arrives, bringing with it much more, we'll realise how much we had before anyway. Sabr. No hurry. No rush.
Thursday, 6 August 2015
Spiderman and a Nordic midwife
There's nothing like threading a naked body into an acrylic spiderman suit in 40 degrees. But for the last few days, Rashimi has insisted. He comes padding along, holding it out for me to help him get his two sweaty legs into the suit, ripping open the scratchy velcro tabs to fasten at his back. But like a diva squeezing two hot feet into five inch stilettos - style comes before comfort. And he runs happily off to spin some webs, with a slight wedgie at the back. The suit's a bit small so he's more like Spiderman the orphan these days.
In order to prevent the spontaneous combustion of Rashimi, I've ensured we visit at least one swimming pool per day.
After a morning of fly catching with St Grace, where the Lozenge collected at least 30 black corpses in a jam jar ('I'm going to keep the lid on so they don't start breathing again' he whispered); and a lime and spoon race where Spiderman was caught indulging in some foul play by applying glue to the spoon; we set out. Me and the 2 neon lilos - the 3 of us very inflated, 2 float-aid noodles and 2 boys, goggles already on, in swimming trunks and a Spiderman suit. No risk of being run over with this kind of a caravan.
The closest pool is at the American Colony Hotel - with beautiful gardens and creeping vines already heavy with purple bunches of grapes. We settled on a couple of loungers around the manicured poolside beside a tall woman with short blonde hair.
Rashimi started stroking my tummy. 'The baby will come out of your tummy naked!' said the Lozenge. 'After this one you could have more and more babieth and then it would be BABY world. Can we have 2 more babieth after this one. Please!' said Rashimi. 'And I'd like some pistachio ice cream, pleathe,' said the Lozenge.
The call to prayer sounded from the minaret over-looking our semi-clad activity. 'There'th the church.' 'No, that's a mosque - you can tell by the crescent moon on the top. A church has a cross.' 'And Jesuth was nailed to the cross,' said the Lozenge in a reverent tone.
I noticed the blonde lady was smirking and as we jumped in the pool I got chatting to her. It turned out she was a Norwegian midwife, living in Ramallah with her husband, training Palestinian midwives in the West Bank. A better poolside position we could not have hoped for - particularly 3 days before BFE's due date.
By this point we were in the water, and as I leant onto the side to chat to the lady, the Lozenge was swinging from the back of my bikini top, trying to undo it, and Rashimi clasped around the front - his nut brown dimpled hands gripping my bosoms, shouting 'I wish I had BOOBIES!'
Her face lit up when I told her we hoped to have our baby in the Holy Family Hospital. 'It's a lovely place and the midwives there are fabulous.'
The conditions in the government hospitals, she lamented, were very far from this standard - which was part of the purpose of her projects here. To improve facilities in government maternity wards, and to train up midwives for more home births to be possible. We discussed the fundamental issue of freedom of movement for Palestinians, which causes enormous problems for women in labour reaching any hospital in time. Checkpoints, flying checkpoints, the Separation wall, road blocks and roads within the West Bank for the use of Israeli settlers only, all hamper travel for any Palestinian. But for a Palestinian woman in labour the combination is a disaster. It would be interesting to see how long it would take Mary and Joseph to reach Bethlehem from Nazareth in the modern day West Bank. Perhaps it was quicker back then, on a donkey?
The organisation, Visualising Palestine, as ever, puts it as clearly as could be:
Between 2000 and 2006 at least 68 women gave birth at checkpoints of whom 35 miscarried and five died in childbirth. According to BBC report in 2008 an Israeli soldier in command of a checkpoint outside Nablus was relieved from duty and imprisoned for 2 weeks after he refused to allow a Palestinian woman in labour to pass through. The woman was forced to give birth at the check point and the baby was still born.
2 weeks. Shucks.
But it reflects the same parallel reality for Israelis and Palestinians we see every day.
If the perpetrator of the stabbings at the gay pride march last week had been a Palestinian, the chances are he would have been shot, and his family's property demolished.
But both this crime and the arson attack by Israeli settlers last week - killing the 18 month old baby, Ali Saad Dawabsha in Doma near Nablus - is the result of longstanding impunity towards settler violence, and the facilitation of the settlements themselves.
If Palestinian terrorism is the equivalent of Frankenstein's monster for Israel, then Israeli terrorism is Dr Frankinstein's natural-born child. Like a spoilt adolescent who has enjoyed conditions of impunity for a lifetime within the family - at some point he/she may turn on his own family. So now it's not only the Palestinians who are targets for Jewish extremists - but any Israeli, particularly any who lean to the centre or left as we saw in the Gay Pride march.
I read a statistic yesterday in the local press, that 91.5% of investigations into settler attacks on Palestinians were closed without indictments, despite Israeli authorities' claims of being committed to cracking down on nationalistically motivated crimes.
We'll be seeing news like this for a while, until the statistic changes.
In order to prevent the spontaneous combustion of Rashimi, I've ensured we visit at least one swimming pool per day.
After a morning of fly catching with St Grace, where the Lozenge collected at least 30 black corpses in a jam jar ('I'm going to keep the lid on so they don't start breathing again' he whispered); and a lime and spoon race where Spiderman was caught indulging in some foul play by applying glue to the spoon; we set out. Me and the 2 neon lilos - the 3 of us very inflated, 2 float-aid noodles and 2 boys, goggles already on, in swimming trunks and a Spiderman suit. No risk of being run over with this kind of a caravan.
The closest pool is at the American Colony Hotel - with beautiful gardens and creeping vines already heavy with purple bunches of grapes. We settled on a couple of loungers around the manicured poolside beside a tall woman with short blonde hair.
Rashimi started stroking my tummy. 'The baby will come out of your tummy naked!' said the Lozenge. 'After this one you could have more and more babieth and then it would be BABY world. Can we have 2 more babieth after this one. Please!' said Rashimi. 'And I'd like some pistachio ice cream, pleathe,' said the Lozenge.
The call to prayer sounded from the minaret over-looking our semi-clad activity. 'There'th the church.' 'No, that's a mosque - you can tell by the crescent moon on the top. A church has a cross.' 'And Jesuth was nailed to the cross,' said the Lozenge in a reverent tone.
I noticed the blonde lady was smirking and as we jumped in the pool I got chatting to her. It turned out she was a Norwegian midwife, living in Ramallah with her husband, training Palestinian midwives in the West Bank. A better poolside position we could not have hoped for - particularly 3 days before BFE's due date.
By this point we were in the water, and as I leant onto the side to chat to the lady, the Lozenge was swinging from the back of my bikini top, trying to undo it, and Rashimi clasped around the front - his nut brown dimpled hands gripping my bosoms, shouting 'I wish I had BOOBIES!'
Her face lit up when I told her we hoped to have our baby in the Holy Family Hospital. 'It's a lovely place and the midwives there are fabulous.'
The conditions in the government hospitals, she lamented, were very far from this standard - which was part of the purpose of her projects here. To improve facilities in government maternity wards, and to train up midwives for more home births to be possible. We discussed the fundamental issue of freedom of movement for Palestinians, which causes enormous problems for women in labour reaching any hospital in time. Checkpoints, flying checkpoints, the Separation wall, road blocks and roads within the West Bank for the use of Israeli settlers only, all hamper travel for any Palestinian. But for a Palestinian woman in labour the combination is a disaster. It would be interesting to see how long it would take Mary and Joseph to reach Bethlehem from Nazareth in the modern day West Bank. Perhaps it was quicker back then, on a donkey?
The organisation, Visualising Palestine, as ever, puts it as clearly as could be:
Between 2000 and 2006 at least 68 women gave birth at checkpoints of whom 35 miscarried and five died in childbirth. According to BBC report in 2008 an Israeli soldier in command of a checkpoint outside Nablus was relieved from duty and imprisoned for 2 weeks after he refused to allow a Palestinian woman in labour to pass through. The woman was forced to give birth at the check point and the baby was still born.
2 weeks. Shucks.
But it reflects the same parallel reality for Israelis and Palestinians we see every day.
If the perpetrator of the stabbings at the gay pride march last week had been a Palestinian, the chances are he would have been shot, and his family's property demolished.
But both this crime and the arson attack by Israeli settlers last week - killing the 18 month old baby, Ali Saad Dawabsha in Doma near Nablus - is the result of longstanding impunity towards settler violence, and the facilitation of the settlements themselves.
If Palestinian terrorism is the equivalent of Frankenstein's monster for Israel, then Israeli terrorism is Dr Frankinstein's natural-born child. Like a spoilt adolescent who has enjoyed conditions of impunity for a lifetime within the family - at some point he/she may turn on his own family. So now it's not only the Palestinians who are targets for Jewish extremists - but any Israeli, particularly any who lean to the centre or left as we saw in the Gay Pride march.
I read a statistic yesterday in the local press, that 91.5% of investigations into settler attacks on Palestinians were closed without indictments, despite Israeli authorities' claims of being committed to cracking down on nationalistically motivated crimes.
We'll be seeing news like this for a while, until the statistic changes.
Monday, 3 August 2015
Rainbow bridge eternal
'Here. Please. For the baby,' said a man, handing me a huge bunch of purple and yellow grapes, their skins as taught as my pregnant stomach. Recently washed and glistening with drops of water.
I didn't know the man, but I thanked him from my seated position by a shallow pool where the dwarves were playing with their friends. And as he walked off I thought to myself - I don't know whether he was Palestinian or Israeli, or an Arab Israeli. Because in this land the bridges between the cultures, soaring over the violence and the terror are the same. Passion and respect for family, the mother, for babies and children. For food. And loud, loud fun.
The same week that an 18 month old Palestinian baby is burned alive in his house by settlers; the same week that a crazed religious Israeli goes on a stabbing fest at the Gay Pride march, recently released from prison for the same crime ten years ago; both of these crimes accompanied by the murmurs of the likelihood of a new war only one year on from the last;
a stranger hands me a bunch of grapes for my baby.
J and I had dinner at a lively tapas bar near the market here in Jerusalem. The women dark and beautiful, the mood was heating up with the beat. Pulsing. Arab. 'Yalla!' sang the beautiful women, gyrating their hips on their small stools, waving their hands in the air above the little plates of tapas and cocktails. The same word they use, Arabs and Israelis. Yalla! Let's go!
Just another bridge.
Last night we watched: 'The train that divides Jerusalem' the Panorama programme about the only transport artery we use all the time. It highlighted once again the hatreds in this city. And then we watched the Channel 4 Dispatches: 'Escape from ISIS' - an escape from a place where the evil knows no bounds.
And yet.
As 34 men, women and children walked to safety across the plains of spring flowers, rescued by the cunning and courage of a group of men, risking their lives to spare even a handful of the estimated 4 million women imprisoned by Islamic State. After the tearful hugs and the desperate sobs of relief, the camera pans to a tiny figure, turning away, alone, across the plain. The insider responsible for saving these 34, walks back over the lines of ISIS. Risking his life once again.
These things, as Richard Le Gallienne wrote, are: 'The Rainbow bridge eternal that is Hope'.
'These things are real,' said one, and bade me gaze
On black and mighty shapes of iron and stone,
On murder, on madness, on lust, on towns ablaze,
And on a thing made all of rattling bone:
'What,' said he, 'will you bring to match with these?'
'Yea! War is real,' I said, 'and real is Death,
A little while--mortal realities;
But Love and Hope draw an immortal breath.'
Think you the storm that wrecks a summer day,
With funeral blackness and with leaping fire
And boiling roar of rain, more real than they
That, when the warring heavens begin to tire,
With tender fingers on the tumult paint;
Spanning the huddled wrack from base to cope
With soft effulgence, like some haloed saint,--
The rainbow bridge eternal that is Hope.
Deem her no phantom born of desperate dreams:
Ere man yet was, 'twas hope that wrought him man;
The blind earth, climbing skyward by her gleams,
Hoped--and the beauty of the world began.
Prophetic of all loveliness to be,
Though God Himself seem from His station hurled,
Still shall the blackest hell look up and see
Hope's rainbow on the summits of the world.
Richard Le Gallienne
I didn't know the man, but I thanked him from my seated position by a shallow pool where the dwarves were playing with their friends. And as he walked off I thought to myself - I don't know whether he was Palestinian or Israeli, or an Arab Israeli. Because in this land the bridges between the cultures, soaring over the violence and the terror are the same. Passion and respect for family, the mother, for babies and children. For food. And loud, loud fun.
The same week that an 18 month old Palestinian baby is burned alive in his house by settlers; the same week that a crazed religious Israeli goes on a stabbing fest at the Gay Pride march, recently released from prison for the same crime ten years ago; both of these crimes accompanied by the murmurs of the likelihood of a new war only one year on from the last;
a stranger hands me a bunch of grapes for my baby.
J and I had dinner at a lively tapas bar near the market here in Jerusalem. The women dark and beautiful, the mood was heating up with the beat. Pulsing. Arab. 'Yalla!' sang the beautiful women, gyrating their hips on their small stools, waving their hands in the air above the little plates of tapas and cocktails. The same word they use, Arabs and Israelis. Yalla! Let's go!
Just another bridge.
Last night we watched: 'The train that divides Jerusalem' the Panorama programme about the only transport artery we use all the time. It highlighted once again the hatreds in this city. And then we watched the Channel 4 Dispatches: 'Escape from ISIS' - an escape from a place where the evil knows no bounds.
And yet.
As 34 men, women and children walked to safety across the plains of spring flowers, rescued by the cunning and courage of a group of men, risking their lives to spare even a handful of the estimated 4 million women imprisoned by Islamic State. After the tearful hugs and the desperate sobs of relief, the camera pans to a tiny figure, turning away, alone, across the plain. The insider responsible for saving these 34, walks back over the lines of ISIS. Risking his life once again.
These things, as Richard Le Gallienne wrote, are: 'The Rainbow bridge eternal that is Hope'.
'These things are real,' said one, and bade me gaze
On black and mighty shapes of iron and stone,
On murder, on madness, on lust, on towns ablaze,
And on a thing made all of rattling bone:
'What,' said he, 'will you bring to match with these?'
'Yea! War is real,' I said, 'and real is Death,
A little while--mortal realities;
But Love and Hope draw an immortal breath.'
Think you the storm that wrecks a summer day,
With funeral blackness and with leaping fire
And boiling roar of rain, more real than they
That, when the warring heavens begin to tire,
With tender fingers on the tumult paint;
Spanning the huddled wrack from base to cope
With soft effulgence, like some haloed saint,--
The rainbow bridge eternal that is Hope.
Deem her no phantom born of desperate dreams:
Ere man yet was, 'twas hope that wrought him man;
The blind earth, climbing skyward by her gleams,
Hoped--and the beauty of the world began.
Prophetic of all loveliness to be,
Though God Himself seem from His station hurled,
Still shall the blackest hell look up and see
Hope's rainbow on the summits of the world.
Richard Le Gallienne
Tuesday, 28 July 2015
Travelling without moving
I woke up and looked through a lazy lid towards the window to see Rashimi and J aiming and firing at fat, soporific Ramadan flies with the fly gun. Dooft. Splat! 'Great shot, Daddeee!' One more of the low flying black objects, like a miniature Israeli army helicopter, felled with a simple spring, string and plastic device.
I feel like our family bubble is moving similarly to the flies - cruising slowly about with no particular purpose but getting from A to B. My walk has slowed to a wading pace in the soupy heat, like the slow, swaying movements I used to watch in the street in N'Djamena, Chad in 45 degrees. As people concentrated on moving: unflustered, cool. As cool as they could be.
We're not travelling anywhere this summer. But it feels like we're moving in a different way. Travel: travail. The words are apparently linked in 14th Century French. When travel was work, and work, of course, is labour. And this is the same word they use for giving birth. 'Travail'. For each last month of each pregnancy I've felt like this - that nothingness feeling like when you're in a train, sitting there, being carried from one place to another. There are only a certain amount of things you can do; most plans cannot be begun during this paused period of time. So you have to sit, think, appreciate, plan. Eat, sleep, laugh, read, think some more. You know where you're headed. And something else is carrying you. The feeling has spread to J and the dwarves, who've caught the vibe, and are with me for the ride. Dr Salameh the Bethlehem obstetrician is with us too. 'Shall we weigh you?' (I groan.) 'Ha ha. Okay - no need to weigh you. Your blood pressure's fine. You look fine - I'm sure the baby is too.'
Because of my month of action-free time travel, most decisions and ideas come from a different hierarchy - the new world order where the little people rule. The Lozenge spotted a brown butler's trolley on top of a high cupboard. We need that, Daddy. Will you get it down? And so began the ritual of the outside breakfast, delivered and cleared by some diminutive butlers. All is well when the little people feel they have ownership of their day.
Breakfast now takes an hour, and we sit on our breezy outside terrace making plans, and J leaves later for work.
Our family bubble grew a little to fit in a few more: Dunc, G, Fergus and Daisy. The dwarves turned into the mannies. The Lozenge was entranced by his 4.5 month old cousin and serenaded:
Rashimi, not long out of dummy dependency himself was the pacifier attendant. I saw him trying to unfurl Daisy's tiny clenched fingers. 'Be careful with Daisy's fingers, Rashimi.'
'But I'm twying to put her thumbth up'.
Eid ul Fitr marked the end of Ramadan. The night air was orchestral with fireworks, all-night chanting from the minarets, music from cars, revving engines, and no less than 8 thunderous explosions of the Ramadan canon - put to bed for another year until the next 40 day fast. Wa'el the dwarves' swimming coach has jumped back into the water, and an olive hue has returned to his cheeks.
'So Mummy, Wa'el ith a Muthlim?'
(We were having some basic conversations about religion after Rashimi said: 'There'th the tram sound Mummy!' when we heard a church bell one Sunday.)
'And Muthlim people do the fast when they don't eat?'
'Ith fasting something that you do weally weally quickly?'
'And Mohammad! Like the Mohammad who took uth snorkelling on the boat to see fish?'
'I'm going to draw Mohammad.'
hmm.
****
The Glammy has been to visit which opened up some very interesting avenues with regards to religion. Raised as a Muslim herself, now in her 31st year on the planet, she has started to see some serious issues with her received faith. When she wasn't hooning about with the dwarves, she was exploring the Old City including its Christian areas: the Holy Sepulchre, the Garden of Gethsemane, Mary's tomb. 'Do you believe in signs?' she giggled, holding up a small chip of marble stone in her French polish-tipped fingers.
'Well, when I was in the Holy Sepulchre I put my head on the stone where Jesus' body was laid, and this little chip embedded itslef on my forehead. Seriously - I think it's a sign.'
Aside from superstition, she's asking some fundamental questions about the validity of Islam. How could Mohammed have been perfect when he advocated men having multiple wives? How can a faith be so weighed in the direction of men - saying they will have 70 virgins when they get to heaven, and a woman will have the choice of her husband and maybe one other man? Who were the men who wrote these extra Hadith in the Koran, claiming they were the word of God? Some of these Hadith are total rubbish...And so on.
Her new husband and her family, are unfortunately not ready to hear too much of this.
But we were. We talked for much of one day about it as the dwarves ate sandwiches, splashed in the pool, and generally zoned out from our animated chat. The fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity, we reckoned is that Christianity doesn't expect you to be perfect. We're all imperfect, that's okay, and we can try to get better with every new day, even after mucking up yesterday. Whereas in Islam, you can and should try to achieve perfection - like Mohammad's example - which is what can make people pious and judgemental, or worse, towards others, when they feel they're nearing perfection themselves. Who decides when he has reached perfection? That's when trouble begins. Taliban. Al Qaeda. ISIS. Boko Haram. The list is endless.
The following day she came back draped with crucifixes on colourfully beaded strings, her IPhone screen splashed with wax from lighting candle after candle, and she prayed with St Grace and the Dwarves at the Holy Sepulchre. 'I prayed for you and Bunny Floppy Ears,' said the Lozenge.
J had taken the boys over the border to Jordan to stay with the Glammy for a couple of days. The border guard leaned in the window and asked the usual questions: 'You have a veapon?' 'No.' replied J. 'It was a good job we didn't bring those fly gunth, Daddy,' whispered the Lozenge.
I collected the dwarves and the Glammy to bring them back to Jerusalem. Some friends looked aghast when I told them. 'You drove to Jordan on your own? Didn't you know that going down to the Dead Sea level (429 metres below sea level) and back up again, is how people here bring on labour?'
Ignorance was bliss. And my concerns were not about that, I realised as we sat waiting for the Israeli border officials to release the Glammy's passport and let us get home to Jerusalem. Nothing changes. We'd had a jolly time on the Jordanian side as the border team pointed and whispered at the Glammy's passport. It turned out she was from their gang - the enormous and well-respected Jordanian Abadi tribe. And they chatted excitedly to her in Bedouin dialect which she didn't understand. Not so friendly the other side. 'How long do we have to wait?' I asked the Israeli woman who'd retained the Glammy's passport. 'We don't know. It could be 1 hour, it could be 3 hours, or 5 hours. Just. Wait.' She looked about 20 years old, and walked off in her typical IDF outfit of Australian Blundstone boots and skinny jeans - hair in a high ponytail and pearly lipstick.
The Glammy has been over the border to stay with us three times now - yet still they're rummaging around checking her files for 'something' dodgy. Because the Glammy is an Arab. They were rude and unfriendly. 'Well, we're not moving,' I said, when they encouraged me to leave the Glammy on her own there and take the boys back to Jerusalem. Just so they wouldn't have to feel guilty. 'You Israelis know about hospitality, don't you? Would you leave a guest of yours here?' I asked.
I went to stock up on tepid sugary drinks for the dwarves from the shop in the suppurating heat. The car thermometer read 42 degrees at the border - the same level as the Dead Sea. The Mars Bar drooped like a raw sausage when I picked it up. I chose some bright orange crisps instead. So after about 2 hours, one guard, who I'd noticed had a tiny chink of a friendly expression, walked past for the fifth time, and looked nervously at my enormous stomach and the wilting dwarves, and they finally let us through.
But it was good to be reminded of all this. We're still here in this apartheid state - but you can become inured, easily, to the injustice as Europeans here. You can forget that Israel's High Court of Justice just ruled to allow the army to demolish the entire Palestinian village of Susiya, near Hebron, and force the 340 men, women and children to move somewhere else within Area A of the occupied territories. (Susiya is in Area C, which covers 60 per cent of the West Bank - what officially remains of Palestine, along with Gaza. Just under half a million Israeli settlers have populated this area, which is illegal in the eyes of International law. Israel retains control of security and land management in Area C, while ignoring Palestinian needs; banning Palestinian construction and development; and issuing demolition orders like this one after pressure from very powerful settler organisations.)
Three Palestinian men have been shot by the Israeli Defence Forces this past week. Only a year ago 551 Gazan children were murdered by the very same guilt-free aggression. (Watch Lyse Doucet's film: The children of Gaza).
But I've felt guilty as I had to turn down an offer this week, to make a 3D film about a child in Gaza, living in the wreckage of a house as they still wait for the building materials in their Mediterranean prison. The filming day was on my due date so it was in some ways an easy decision. But in other ways our happy family bubble has only reminded me more of exactly where we are. We're cruising idly along like those lazy flies, but we must not forget where we are.
This morning I was a little ratty with the dwarves as they were fighting and careered into the breakfast table sending plates and bowls flying.
'Are you happy with us, Mummy?' asked Rashimi.
'Yes - don't worry, I'm still happy with you both', I said, giving them both an awkward hug - the watermelon stomach a bit of a cuddle hurdle at the moment.
'And...are you happy with yoursewf?'
I feel like our family bubble is moving similarly to the flies - cruising slowly about with no particular purpose but getting from A to B. My walk has slowed to a wading pace in the soupy heat, like the slow, swaying movements I used to watch in the street in N'Djamena, Chad in 45 degrees. As people concentrated on moving: unflustered, cool. As cool as they could be.
We're not travelling anywhere this summer. But it feels like we're moving in a different way. Travel: travail. The words are apparently linked in 14th Century French. When travel was work, and work, of course, is labour. And this is the same word they use for giving birth. 'Travail'. For each last month of each pregnancy I've felt like this - that nothingness feeling like when you're in a train, sitting there, being carried from one place to another. There are only a certain amount of things you can do; most plans cannot be begun during this paused period of time. So you have to sit, think, appreciate, plan. Eat, sleep, laugh, read, think some more. You know where you're headed. And something else is carrying you. The feeling has spread to J and the dwarves, who've caught the vibe, and are with me for the ride. Dr Salameh the Bethlehem obstetrician is with us too. 'Shall we weigh you?' (I groan.) 'Ha ha. Okay - no need to weigh you. Your blood pressure's fine. You look fine - I'm sure the baby is too.'
Because of my month of action-free time travel, most decisions and ideas come from a different hierarchy - the new world order where the little people rule. The Lozenge spotted a brown butler's trolley on top of a high cupboard. We need that, Daddy. Will you get it down? And so began the ritual of the outside breakfast, delivered and cleared by some diminutive butlers. All is well when the little people feel they have ownership of their day.
Breakfast now takes an hour, and we sit on our breezy outside terrace making plans, and J leaves later for work.
Our family bubble grew a little to fit in a few more: Dunc, G, Fergus and Daisy. The dwarves turned into the mannies. The Lozenge was entranced by his 4.5 month old cousin and serenaded:
Rashimi, not long out of dummy dependency himself was the pacifier attendant. I saw him trying to unfurl Daisy's tiny clenched fingers. 'Be careful with Daisy's fingers, Rashimi.'
'But I'm twying to put her thumbth up'.
Eid ul Fitr marked the end of Ramadan. The night air was orchestral with fireworks, all-night chanting from the minarets, music from cars, revving engines, and no less than 8 thunderous explosions of the Ramadan canon - put to bed for another year until the next 40 day fast. Wa'el the dwarves' swimming coach has jumped back into the water, and an olive hue has returned to his cheeks.
'So Mummy, Wa'el ith a Muthlim?'
(We were having some basic conversations about religion after Rashimi said: 'There'th the tram sound Mummy!' when we heard a church bell one Sunday.)
'And Muthlim people do the fast when they don't eat?'
'Ith fasting something that you do weally weally quickly?'
'And Mohammad! Like the Mohammad who took uth snorkelling on the boat to see fish?'
'I'm going to draw Mohammad.'
hmm.
****
The Glammy has been to visit which opened up some very interesting avenues with regards to religion. Raised as a Muslim herself, now in her 31st year on the planet, she has started to see some serious issues with her received faith. When she wasn't hooning about with the dwarves, she was exploring the Old City including its Christian areas: the Holy Sepulchre, the Garden of Gethsemane, Mary's tomb. 'Do you believe in signs?' she giggled, holding up a small chip of marble stone in her French polish-tipped fingers.
'Well, when I was in the Holy Sepulchre I put my head on the stone where Jesus' body was laid, and this little chip embedded itslef on my forehead. Seriously - I think it's a sign.'
Aside from superstition, she's asking some fundamental questions about the validity of Islam. How could Mohammed have been perfect when he advocated men having multiple wives? How can a faith be so weighed in the direction of men - saying they will have 70 virgins when they get to heaven, and a woman will have the choice of her husband and maybe one other man? Who were the men who wrote these extra Hadith in the Koran, claiming they were the word of God? Some of these Hadith are total rubbish...And so on.
Her new husband and her family, are unfortunately not ready to hear too much of this.
But we were. We talked for much of one day about it as the dwarves ate sandwiches, splashed in the pool, and generally zoned out from our animated chat. The fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity, we reckoned is that Christianity doesn't expect you to be perfect. We're all imperfect, that's okay, and we can try to get better with every new day, even after mucking up yesterday. Whereas in Islam, you can and should try to achieve perfection - like Mohammad's example - which is what can make people pious and judgemental, or worse, towards others, when they feel they're nearing perfection themselves. Who decides when he has reached perfection? That's when trouble begins. Taliban. Al Qaeda. ISIS. Boko Haram. The list is endless.
The following day she came back draped with crucifixes on colourfully beaded strings, her IPhone screen splashed with wax from lighting candle after candle, and she prayed with St Grace and the Dwarves at the Holy Sepulchre. 'I prayed for you and Bunny Floppy Ears,' said the Lozenge.
 |
| The Lozenge's view of me and BFE |
J had taken the boys over the border to Jordan to stay with the Glammy for a couple of days. The border guard leaned in the window and asked the usual questions: 'You have a veapon?' 'No.' replied J. 'It was a good job we didn't bring those fly gunth, Daddy,' whispered the Lozenge.
I collected the dwarves and the Glammy to bring them back to Jerusalem. Some friends looked aghast when I told them. 'You drove to Jordan on your own? Didn't you know that going down to the Dead Sea level (429 metres below sea level) and back up again, is how people here bring on labour?'
Ignorance was bliss. And my concerns were not about that, I realised as we sat waiting for the Israeli border officials to release the Glammy's passport and let us get home to Jerusalem. Nothing changes. We'd had a jolly time on the Jordanian side as the border team pointed and whispered at the Glammy's passport. It turned out she was from their gang - the enormous and well-respected Jordanian Abadi tribe. And they chatted excitedly to her in Bedouin dialect which she didn't understand. Not so friendly the other side. 'How long do we have to wait?' I asked the Israeli woman who'd retained the Glammy's passport. 'We don't know. It could be 1 hour, it could be 3 hours, or 5 hours. Just. Wait.' She looked about 20 years old, and walked off in her typical IDF outfit of Australian Blundstone boots and skinny jeans - hair in a high ponytail and pearly lipstick.
The Glammy has been over the border to stay with us three times now - yet still they're rummaging around checking her files for 'something' dodgy. Because the Glammy is an Arab. They were rude and unfriendly. 'Well, we're not moving,' I said, when they encouraged me to leave the Glammy on her own there and take the boys back to Jerusalem. Just so they wouldn't have to feel guilty. 'You Israelis know about hospitality, don't you? Would you leave a guest of yours here?' I asked.
I went to stock up on tepid sugary drinks for the dwarves from the shop in the suppurating heat. The car thermometer read 42 degrees at the border - the same level as the Dead Sea. The Mars Bar drooped like a raw sausage when I picked it up. I chose some bright orange crisps instead. So after about 2 hours, one guard, who I'd noticed had a tiny chink of a friendly expression, walked past for the fifth time, and looked nervously at my enormous stomach and the wilting dwarves, and they finally let us through.
But it was good to be reminded of all this. We're still here in this apartheid state - but you can become inured, easily, to the injustice as Europeans here. You can forget that Israel's High Court of Justice just ruled to allow the army to demolish the entire Palestinian village of Susiya, near Hebron, and force the 340 men, women and children to move somewhere else within Area A of the occupied territories. (Susiya is in Area C, which covers 60 per cent of the West Bank - what officially remains of Palestine, along with Gaza. Just under half a million Israeli settlers have populated this area, which is illegal in the eyes of International law. Israel retains control of security and land management in Area C, while ignoring Palestinian needs; banning Palestinian construction and development; and issuing demolition orders like this one after pressure from very powerful settler organisations.)
Three Palestinian men have been shot by the Israeli Defence Forces this past week. Only a year ago 551 Gazan children were murdered by the very same guilt-free aggression. (Watch Lyse Doucet's film: The children of Gaza).
But I've felt guilty as I had to turn down an offer this week, to make a 3D film about a child in Gaza, living in the wreckage of a house as they still wait for the building materials in their Mediterranean prison. The filming day was on my due date so it was in some ways an easy decision. But in other ways our happy family bubble has only reminded me more of exactly where we are. We're cruising idly along like those lazy flies, but we must not forget where we are.
This morning I was a little ratty with the dwarves as they were fighting and careered into the breakfast table sending plates and bowls flying.
'Are you happy with us, Mummy?' asked Rashimi.
'Yes - don't worry, I'm still happy with you both', I said, giving them both an awkward hug - the watermelon stomach a bit of a cuddle hurdle at the moment.
'And...are you happy with yoursewf?'
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