The night before, I had arrived to Kufur Thulth, a small village outside of Qalqilia.
For the past two or three weeks Ghassan would come up to me at least three times at the beginning of class and perhaps five at the end of class to ask "Teacher can you please come to our village on Saturday?". Each day it would be the same twinkling face with captivating kiddish gleam and the end of each class period was a pinch of dissapointment for him when I would mutter "I don't know Ghassan.." It would give him more motivation to be even more persistent the next day.
I had given up on the hope of olive picking because plans continuously fell through. And as much as I did want to visit Ghassan's village (and knew that there were olive picking opportunities there) I didn't actually think it was going to happen for some reason.
But one Saturday afternoon after school towards 5pm I was stuffed in their car for the hour long journey, passing through the beautifully hilly terrain of Palestine, passing through the not so beautiful checkpoint a new one that i had never used before and towards the fall of darkness we had squeezed inside a cramped garage after cautiously driving through a wobbly narrow village road.
Baby Danny, Dana, Yazan and Ghassan, myself and Ghassan's mom spilled inside the house and I met their jovial, playful grandfater, who was a thin, short statured man with more energy than the kids, running around (literally in circles) playing with his other 2 year old grandson. But his body boasted years of labor. You could tell he works in the fields, a lot. What I loved more about him, more than his youthful energy, more than his laughter, were all of his facial lines, and his face was absolutely filled with lines! And his smile would have an accordian player effect on his face. Ghassan's grandmoter was much quieter, and she didn't speak much, she just greeted me with a very warm smile, and called me to dinner which was a giant feast of Makhluba with sides of pickles and olives (like all dishes here) and though I didn't understand the family conversations, it was quite special to be eating a meal with Ghassan, who seemed to be in disbelief that I was there, his mom, his sister, his brother, his grandfater, grandmother, two uncles, one aunt and two more cousins.
Ghassan and Yazan took me outside to see all the birds they have, all the cactus plants they have, all the flowers they have outside, their lemon tree, fig tree, almond tree, banana tree and god knows what else. "There are more in the Mashtal teacher!". I didn't know what a Mashtal was but figured it was a place with a lot of plants. "We also have sheeps and goats! I will take you there tomorrow! you can milk one if you want!" he quite literally wanted to show me everything and his curiousity and energy was incredible.
What was also incredible was how hard, how absolutely hard, I was trying to ignore all the shaheed pictures of his eldest uncle, whose face was plastered in almost room with three or four portratis of him in each room, beside an ayah of the Quaran, with a green piece of cloth hanging out of the side of the frame. One picture was of him with a gun in each hand (have you seen Paradise Now? remember the thing they do in front of a white tapestry with the guns in their hands as a testimony to what they are about to do? that's what the picture reminded me of) and I was ignoring it, all of the pictures, this house that was a living commemoration and a museum of a brutal death, with all my efforts because I just did not want to know the story behind the portraits.
The next morning, we got up. I had gone to sleep after playing with Yazan and Dana (Ghassan had gone out to sleep under the stars in the farm next to the sheep, and he had invited me to go with him, but his mom thought it was rather inappropriate for the teacher to sleep next to the sheep. if it wasn't so cold I probably would have). Dana is this overly stubborn and spoiled 5 year old little girl who cries nearly every 10 minutes, sad or angry about something she didnt get. and for some reason she has a fascination with my eyeliner. so she climbs on me, comfortably sits on my lap facing my face, and starts playing with my eyes and my face. Yazan is always fighting for attention because his older brother, Ghassan, has all the stories, and he wants a chance to be funny as well. Both Dana and Yazan fell asleep on our floored bedding (prepared by their grandmother) on either side of me, with their legs strewn about on my back as I was sleeping on my stomach. I was too tired, maybe they were just playing on me and fell asleep tierd.
The next morning is when I had the sheep's milk. The night before I had duck meat and Ghassan had asked if I like duck brain. I didn't want to make a face so I simply said "no..never tried it before" and he took the cooked head of the duck and broke off the bones and ate the inside of the brains and chewed on the bones. Finger lickin scrumptiousliciously good.
He had been talking about the Mashtal, which I discovered was a piece of land with all kinds of plants that the grandfather tends to, and a place that Ghassan knows all about because he helps his grandfather and works side by side, or just runs around playing with his brother in the plant farm. Ghassan was telling me how some of the plants are bred and how long they have been around and every fact he knew about them. He showed me tall cactus plants, he showed me where they kept the chickens and the rooster, and the parrots, and all sorts of other things.
We hung around there for a while and then went to their main farm, stretches of olive trees and a shed under which several flocks of sheep were just chillin. When I was a kid, I remember going to the zoo with my third class and trying to feed a goat. And then getting attacked by a flock of goats. So a flock of animals, which resemble goats (the only criteria for resemblance : four legged creature with white hair/wool/outer coating, eyes and sometimes a horn) ompleteley freaks me out.
So going inside i kept on thinking 'o buddy..look at that..haha...ha..ha " It reeked and stepping inside you knew that you were stepping on top of fresh or old natural sheep shit fertlizer. And there was Ghassan storming through the crowd of sheep as if it all belonged to him, as if this giant flock of sheep should fear this little 8 year old boy. He would grab them by the ear and tug them around and put them in the right place in the shed. there were rules about where each one should stay, and in our excitement we had messed up the groups. one wrong move, and about 20 sheep stormed the small gate separating them from another part of the shed and mad rushed the entire shed. I was frozen. I dont like sheep running around me I realized (goat phobia kicking in).
We got out, and Ghassan and his grandfather saved the day. His grandfather was at the Mashtal and he immediately left and rushed over to the farm in his white little car and muttered and groaned and yelled at Ghassan and in 20 minutes fixed up the shed and told us that the reason why the sheep are separated is because different types are given different foods. So them mixing was a big deal because eating the wrong food would really make some of the sheep really sick.
The day ended with my walk with Ghassan's mom. She showed me the olive trees. Stretches of olive trees. We walked for a long time till we got to the edge of the hill, and from there, in clear view was a settlement. Ghassan's mom and I had been talking for a long time, about their family, about the farm, about the kids, about the weird type ant that lives under the dirt that comes up and swallows this fruit seed in about a quick hungry second if you put it on the already dug out hole that the ant creates for itself (to catch the seed I guess), and about cactus fruit that I had never tasted before. She casually looked at the settlement (which for me is always horrific, looking at settlements absolutely drives me nuts) and told me that the family had wanted to build a shed on their farm so that her dad could rest after working in the land, but building anything on THEIR land would become a bomb target. She casually muttered "the Israeli people would blow it up, we can not build anything"
On the ride back home to Ramallah, she told me about her brother.
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what is a settlement?
they are forced illegal communities built by the Israeli government in which citizens are paid to live, armed with state funded weapons on top of wiped out palestinian villages and communities. palestinian hills have had to be destroyed, families have been ousted, homes demolished to build these communities. residents of these settlments, known as settlers, are more often then not imported immigrants and more often than not staunch zionists. cases of settler violence are frequent (examples include settlers shooting at palestinian communities that they overlook, burning or uprooting olive trees as a form of instigation or destroying palestinian heritage, restricting transportation and basic utilities) palestinians have separate roads that they must travel on, which goes around settler roads, which makes traveling around extra difficult and more time consuming. palestinian communities often face a shortage of water, due to settlement communities.
this definition is not as articulate as it could be, but i hope you get the point. settlements are illegal and they suck.
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