Parent Teacher Conference

Yesterday was parent teacher day.  I must say I was dreading it all week, but it wasn't so bad.  I met 19 families.

I'm reeeeeeally enjoying my day off today.  TGIF

november 3rd 2010 - thank you israel

“I need to see Jakeline” i demanded firmly as i looked at my cell phone watch at 8:59am .  My appointment with Jakeline was at 9am.  I had left the house at 6:25 am from Ramallah to get to Jerusalem to meet with her.  After I lost my passport the second week of September, I’ve had no visa or documentation that makes my stay here legitimate in any way, forget about the West Bank, in Israel or in this area in general.  Using my second passport, I was at least able to prove that I’m American, which is the only ID that I have on me that proves my American-ness.  Losing an American passport outside of the States, is a huuuuuuge deal, because it sells for thousands of dollars in the black market.  After waiting for 2 weeks for it to turn up, I went to Jerusalem to the Consulate to order a new passport, and was told that my old passport would be cancelled, and no one would be able to use it.  At the Consulate, the man who was helping me, quietly told me that to get another passport and another visa I can’t have any documentation that says I was in the West Bank.  That morning he told me to go walk 25 minutes uphill to Jaffa Gate, he told me where the police station was, and he told me to get a police report done there, and tell them that I lost my passport that day, that morning.
It’s almost jarring how I can lie now on demand to authority when it’s necessary.  I casually went up to the police station, and during my walk, i thoguht for a second “hmm what should my story be for the police” and that throught twas followed by “meh dont think about it”.  sitting across from the Isreali police, i just made shit up, saying that that morning I was in the old city with some of my friends, I was at the french bookshop (which I passed on my walk to the police station) and i had gotten a book which was the last time I had my wallet, and then when we were sitting down for coffee I realized I didnt have my entire wallet so I dont know where it is, I must have dropped it somewhere in the old city (which is a big place) and i need to report a lost passport because that’s super important.
Doing so got me my police report , and official piece of paper with lots of Hebrew everywhere, which is always a good thing in this part of the world when you have to deal with the IDF.

My new passport came after another 3 weeks.  And then I had to set up a meeting with the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem to see if I could get a visa..the visa that I had been waiting the whole summer for in Jordan, the reason why I was stranded in Jordan for a couple of months in the first place, and the visa that i had gotten miraculously at the end of the summer..and the one that I managed to lose.  

So that appoitnment was today.  at 9am. with Jakeline.

The man looked at me for a split second like I was crazy.  “Who’se Jakeline?” he asked.  now it was my turn to look at him blankly. “crap” i thought, i dont even know Jakeline’s last name.  I’ve just been in email correspondence with her for the past year. “i’m from Ramallah and I work for the Latin Patriarchate and I need to see Jakeline.  she works here?” and he goes “ohhh the church is down the street, and then you will take a right and then you will go up the street and the church is at the end of the road”.  Where the hell was I standing?? Turns out I had walked into a hotel with a church name that also happened to have the word “latin’ in it and had walked straight into the lobby of the hotel to ask the receptionist...about Jakeline.  I kind of told the wrong person that I work in the West Bank.  oops.

The reason why I didnt know where the church was, is because I had never been there before.  Though I work for them and though I use their address as my residential address, this was the first time in about a year that I was actually seeing my ‘home’.  

I walked into the church after the walking on winding roads, found Jakeline, and she told me to come back at 12 and told me to stay close to the area by the church, in case the interior ministry people who are the Israeli officials securing my visa, would want to see me in person to verify that everythign was ‘true’ or to see me since I had lost my passport and all of that.  As I handed her my passport, I felt strange thinking “well this is it”.   A month before that my boss had said to me “you need to keep in touch and follow up with Jakeline.  I dont want you to get deported” and that was ringing in my ears.  Would I get deported? Would I be leaving my teaching and my students? I”m not sure, I have no idea.  In a strange way even though I’ve definitely learned more than anythign to let go of any feelings of certainty, one still has a tendency to worry being always in the middle of a mental tug of war, being pulled in one direction that makes you the happiest to the other direction where all of that can be taken away instantaneously.  
I had 2 and a half hours to kill before getting that passport back.
I came back at noon.  She hadn’t called me to tell me that I was to be called in, in person to be questioned or anything, so in my mind, I thought, wait either that’s really good or really bad? it’s a complete rejection or a complete approval? here goes
At 12i went in, and I went up the narrow set of stairs to her office and she was sitting at her desk, a bunch of papers and 2 X 2 passport photos of Catholic nuns of all colors and their applications spraweled all over her desk, probably applying for the same visa i had applied for.
She handed me my passport, and taking up two entire pages was a typed up printed piece of document that said that I am legal in Israel until October 3rd, 2011 with multiple entry, a big “M” stamped on the second page.

She told me that BECAUSE i lost my passport, they had to apply for the visa agian today and then renew it today, so in a weird way BECAUSE i lost my passport, I have an additional 3 months in Palestine, until October 3rd 2011 instead of July 2011.

Mutliple entry.  I can leave and come back without any questions, from country to country, if i want to go to jordan, i can go and come back without worrying that i will be sent back.  A year.  I can move around from city to city within the West Bank.  I dont have to worry about leaving the Israeli borders every 3 months, and stressing if I am coming back or not.  I can be here LEGALLY.  I am LEGAL.  
I still havent processed this, and to many of my friends this may sound like not a big deal.  but I can not begin to tell you HOW BIG OF A DEAL THIS IS.  what i had in my hands was like holding diamonds.  this kind of documentation, this kind of permission, JUST DOESNT HAPPEN.  I didnt know what to do, i was in shock.  So i went out, and because it was noon, church bells were ringing loud and clear and ringing through the entire city and with the visa in my hand i couldnt help but think “JESUS CHRIST!!! ..eff you Israel you messd up so bad! THANK YOU!”.

I dont knwo what to think.  I’m not sure who to express this to, but to be here for a year legally in Palestine is almost unheard of (I’m sure it happens, but very very very veryyyy few in numbers)
this has put a completely new twist on my frame of mind.  Firstly I still can’t let go of my 10 months of lifestyle : constantly and always bieng on pins and needles thinking about the uncertainty of living here, 3 months at a time.  10 months just to do the calculation for you is roughly 300 days lol, which is a long time.  and to suddenly think that wait...i can actually move around from city to city.  i can leave the country and come back.  is ..too much to process it feels like.
This certainly doesnt mean that i HAVE to stay until October, but it gives me option.  To pass up on a 3 month legal stay here doesnt only seem silly but almost stupid.  
Wakling out, without even thinking I looked up to think “God you really DO want me to stay in the Holy Land!” what are the chances? that my passport being lost would result in THIS? Everything happens for a reason.

With a year at hand, I feel like there are countless things I can get my hands into.  First and foremost: research.  I’ve been talking to a lot of people about my teachign expereince here, and me wondering about research regarding conflict zone psychology.  these kids that i deal with, do things and act in ways that will shock you.  and there is absolutely no data or documentation of these behaviors, or causes, or implications of these things.

This was just to update you.  If you know of any department or any professor that needs or requires or wants field work in Palestine, I am here, and would love to connect with academics.  
Until I process more and find more things, this is it for me.  I”m sure i’ll be getting in touch with you to bounc around some ideas.

Excerpts from "Palestine Walks" by Raja Shahadeh

"I like to think of my relationship to this land so immediate, and not intertwined through the veil of words written about it, often replete with distortions"
damn i feel you raja shahdeh!! i feel this way too!!
"In 1925, a Palestinian historian, Darweesh Mikdadi took his students at a Jerusalem government high school on a walking trip through the rocky landscapes of Palestine, all the way to the more lush plains and fertile villages of Syria and Lebanon with their streams, rivers and caves. 
It has been impossible since 1948 to repeat this journey"
"A merchant from Ramallah finds it easier to travel to China to import cane garden chairs than to reach Gaza, a mere 40 minute drive away, where cane chairs, once a flourishing industry, now sit in dusty stacks"
"My days in Palestine are numbered"
"A man going on SARHA, wanders aimlessly, not restricted by time and place, going where his spirit takes him to nourish his soul and rejuvenate himself. 
But not any excursion would qualify as a SARHA. Going on Sarha implies letting go.  It is a drug free high, Palestinian style"
"This landscape, we are told, was formed by the tremendous pressures exerted by tectonic forces pushing towards the East.  It is as though the land has been scooped in a mighty hand and scrunched"
-------------------
November 3rd, 2010.  I think I"ll always remember the date, the way one always remembers monumental days. why? because today was a monumental day. more to come on that later.

i was in jerusalem today and i had 2 hours waiting for something to be taken care of.  from jaffa gate i took a nice stroll down to Salah-Adin street to go to, in my opinion, one of East Jerusalem's best kept secrets  : The Educational Bookshop.
The. Best. Bookshop. in. probably. the. WORLD.
It's got everything you need to know about Palestine, books that you will probably never find anywhere else,
in my opinion. and the people are so nice and the shop is small (because big things ALWAYS come in small packages) so nice that the people actually let my roommate use THEIR p.o. box so that she can get packages from the States.  that might just be the definition of "really nice".  when you know of ppl who live and work in occupied land with no address and you let these customers use your own personal business p.o.box for their personal mail from back home thousands of miles away = really nice.

After a lovely interaction and small talk with the shopkeeper, I picked up a book called "Palestine Walks" which trails the story of a man who walks the hills of Palestine and talks both about their beauty and their deletion and it intertwines personal sentiments with modern politics.  When I read personally, i MUST have a pen, because i underline things that catch my attention. at this bookshop i couldnt do that , so i took some notes.  and these were some excerpts that i wanted to share with you :)

Sugar Apple

So this fruit has a name in English and supposedly it is also prominent in South Asia.  It's called Sugar Apple or Apple Custard.  Didn't taste all that apple-y to me

Sugar Apple  wiki will tell you all about it

i cut open a lime and found an orange orange inside

i felt silly buying a lemon from the vegetable market because i kept on thinking about my old apartment and how we never had to buy lemons, we’d just pick them from the trees. the garden is filled with a handful of lemon trees, planted by Georgette, so actually paying money to buy a lemon wasn’t an idea we entertained
so, instead,  i bought a lime at the market.  i always need a bit of sour in my food.
i came home. sliced open the  lime.  and it was an orange! whaaaaa!
 i tasted it, and it tasted like an orange too. it felt like i had cut open an apple and found a strawberry inside.  
this was perhaps my ignorance about different types of oranges. the only types of oranges i’ve ever had were alywas...orange.  

but THIS fruit the one I’m about to talk about next, was an experience! I’ve never seen it, never had heard of it, never tasted it before.  It’s green with spikes and you have to wait till the tip of the spikes turn black which is how you know its ripe enough to eat.
Cutting it open, it’s white and juicy inside.  the flesh of it is white, and hidden inside are small black seeds.  you eat the white fruit. 

i made a huge mess cutting this thing open and trying to get the skin off, and the seeds out and turningthe white inside into mush as the two things were being done.

i ate the fruit.  and it’s such a strange thing when you eat something you’ve never before tasted.  its like your brain goes crazy trying to categorize the taste, the smell with something you DO know.  it like freaks out at the foreigness, not in a bad way, but in a way where you just wait until you ‘figure’ it out.

so my brain did the calculation : this fruit, in arabic called Ishta, tastes like a pineapple and a mango with a hint of jackfruit. and it's in season!

Teaching in Palestine : Article for the Latin Patriarchate

The Latin Patriarchate is who I work for.  They have schools in countries across the Middle East, mostly in Jordan.  I actually visited one of their schools in a village in Jordan, and it was about a thousand times better than the Latin Patriarchate school I work for in Ramallah.

Upon request of writing a reflection as an international teacher teaching English in the West Bank as a part of the Latin Patriarchate, this is a short reflection that I wrote that I'm going to share :

Teaching in Palestine: A Personal Reflection

By: Fahmida Azad

English Instructor, Grades 4 & 5, Al-Ahliyyah College

I was taking a giant risk, as I was packing up my bags during the first days of January at the beginning of this year, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA.  I was taking a blind leap to start life in another part of the world, a part of the world where I knew only one person and I knew that I had a job that I was passionately driving towards: teaching.  I wanted to teach  in Palestine.  And so, I came here.

Looking back on the evening before my flight, at what I knew about Palestine, about teaching in Palestine and living in Palestine, and looking into my heart about what I know now,  10 months after that point in time, now having worked in Ramallah for almost year, I realize the gravity of how this experience has impacted my growth as a human being.  Teaching has taught me more than I could have ever imagined.  And my greatest teachers in these life alternating 10 months, have been my students.

I remember my first day of teaching, walking into a classroom of 27 hyperactive students who had no idea who I was, who could not grasp my foreign accent and who struggled to respond to my requests.  I didn’t speak Arabic and they did not communicate in English.  But we were both in the classroom for 40 minutes together and we had to make it work.  When I think back, I still grimace at the level of frustration and struggle that challenged my students and I, to our core.  For both of us, it was as if we were being dunked head first into a tub of ice cold water.  We didn’t understand each other.  The daily struggles included things such as me reciting simple sentences, which I wanted them to write, to gage the level of their listening comprehension and to see how they write. They didn’t understand why in the world I would ask them such a ludicrous thing, to write sentences that didn’t come from the book.  Our styles simply didn’t mix.  I was asking them to tell me all about their weekend in English, correcting them every time they used the wrong tense or said something absolutely incoherent in English.  Their ears, their learning styles, their classroom expectation of a teacher, were all being molded into something they did not know.

I was simultaneously learning from them. I was studying each student to see what makes them feel encouraged and what makes them tick.  I was trying to understand what they knew, and what they didn’t know.  What I discovered, with each passing month, was that albeit me feeling at times that there were no results coming from their end, that they were trying their hardest as well to learn, as I was to teach.  What I discovered at the end of my first four months, was that students were now able to make small talk with me outside of the classroom, and were trying  their hardest to speak to me in English , not because they were curious about the lesson, but because they were curious about me and who I was, and where I came from.  I discovered very quickly, that the endearing affection that I received from my students cam e straight from their hearts, emotions which were absolutely raw and pure.  And that is what grounded a relationship between me and them, together in the classroom.  A feeling of mutual understanding and affection.  This became the fuel in both of our learning experiences. 

Ten months later, since that first day of teaching, I now feel that it’s difficult to imagine the time when I didn’t know so many little things about each of my students.  After having been invited to countless homes, for lunches and dinners, garnished with incredible hospitality and kindness, I realize how my role as a teacher goes way beyond the classroom.  Families and students have taken me beyond just an English instructor, many of them have embraced me into their lives.

Teaching in Palestine has taught me the value of teaching and being a teacher.  It is not a one dimensional role, nor does it start when I enter the classroom and end when I leave the school.   It is a valuable relationship that certainly starts in the classroom, with a common goal of learning together, but it only goes forward from that point.  The relationship doesn’t end, it simply progresses and changes with time.  I’ve learned resilience, patience and curiosity from the eyes of my students.  And I’ve let them carry me into their world full of both pain and wonder, which has taught me more than I could have ever imagined about my own world.

Pickled Eggplants

pickled eggplants, pickled turnips, pickled peppers, pickled olives and pickled pickles

they’re tiny, and squishy and intensely purple and pink, like really really purple and pink and the sour acidic vinegary juice that they bounce around in, fills up every single pore and space of the tiny eggplants.  when your teeth pierce into the smooth skin of the eggplant, the pickled juice squirts in different directions inside of your mouth. it’s kind of sour, and like most pickled things (in my humble opinion) strangely addicting.  i love pickles.  but i never thought of the idea of pickling eggplants.  which is why the texture of it still surprises me when i eat it. eggplanty and pickly. 

and all of these tiny little intensely purple and pink bobble up and down in a big clear serving bowl in the assembly line of different varieties of garnishing items, at this local sanwich shop in the old city of Ramallah.  every day after school i stop by this place and ask for a ‘sanwish jaj” and they whip out a skewer of fresh chicken pieces seasoned and sprinkled with spices, each piece separated by a small unpeeld onion, ready to be placed sloppily by this sweaty fat arab man wearing a dirty apron on top of burning coals.  the smell is to die for.  in the States all of this smoke would definitely be a fire hazard.  but not here. Things are fresh, they are cooked right in front of you, and your nostrils are happy getting a delicious whiff of the slightly charrred and smoky sizzling chicken.

i had stopped by this shop on my new route back home from school after moving to a new apartment, and i was definitely pulled into this restaurant because of how good it smelled from the streets. it’s one of those really low key ‘messy’ eateries where people are sloppily running around, sweating and shouting and laughing and smiling at each other taking orders.  I had walked in , and I saw a large Arab woman, sweating under her hijab,wearing a black hoodie.  We exchanged a “marhapa” and “ahlain” and I told her what I wanted.  I had to patiently wait for a good 15 minutes for the sandwich making process to be completed, beginning from the skewer of raw meat and ending with the meat being stuffed inside a soft pita bread neatly slobbered with hummus, turkish salad, pickled eggplants, salad with tahini and purple cabbage.  This woman was definitely running the place, ordering a bunch of young guys running around, slapping down a bowl of hummus, making a circular and smooth dent in the hummus bowl with the back of a spoon and then sprinkiling olive oil on top of it with a powdered dash of this tart, dark purple spice called Summak (which I had never known before) on top, and carrying 3 of those bowls to a small shanty table and chair set occupied by a group of men chowing down on restaurant regulars: falafel, muttabbal, bread, fresh, onions and tomatoes and skewers of meat.

i tried small talk with the lady the very first day i had gone in there and that only entertained her and made her laugh.  the next day i came back and i told her how much i loved her sandwiches, and her ear to ear grin complemented with a sweet “habibty” was followed by a big kiss planted on my cheeks.

Phone Calls and Pencil Shavings

i had a student cry for 25 minutes straight in class today as his friends tried to console him.  the level of his disrespect was absolutely unbearable and dealing with him makes me feel like i am inside of a mental asylum dealing with complete and utter insanity, where the only solution might be like some tranquilizing injection or something (for either me or them, I don’t know).  It makes me think of those weird reality tv shows in the States where unbelievably ill disciplined kids who are impossible to handle are sent to some army bootcamp.  and are made to cry with some big macho butch army man screaming at their faces.  so this kid, who shall remain unnamed, would burst out in songs, singling all the words on all ofl the posters around him (mostly French verb conjugation charts), talking to him would be useless because he would refuse to look at you and keep on making faces and go under his chair, come back up, kick the kid next to him, throw his sharpener, play with all of his supplies and of course not have any of his books or notebooks out on his desk, and asking him nicely at least four or five times meant absolutely nothing to him and he would just continue doing whatever it is he wanted to do.  threatening to take off his class points meant nothing to him.  being sent to the principal’s office meant nothing to him.  so i told him that i would call his mom from my phone in class.  he didnt believe me.  i called his mom and told her that her son would like to speak to him.  he couldnt believe that i did it, so he sat rocking in his chair with both of his index fingers stuck in his ear, because he didnt want the phone reciever anywhere near him and he didnt want to talk to her.  so he started screaming.  too bad his mom heard that on the phone.


and so for the next 25 minutes he cried with his head down as his friend next to him rubbed his head and consoled him.



i saw one of my student’s mom after school today who is convinced that there is nothing wrong with her son.  and really really convinced that he is a perfect student and that the only problem with him is this OTHER kid who doesnt leave her son alone.  she’s met me before and I’ve told her each time “no your son isn’t doing well.  he spends all of his time playing in class” “it’s Mohammad Habib!” (this infamously ‘bad’ kid in class who in all seriousness should be kicked out of school) and I would have to tell her, well no it’s not always the other kids thats the problem, your son doesnt do any of the work and his grades reflect that.  She would always have this awful look on her face when I would say that, as if I just slapped her.


Today she came to see me, and came in storming saying “Mohammad Habib doesnt let my son study! he sits behind him, pokes him, and then dumps all his pencil shavings on my son’s head! I dont know what to do!”
That’s funny...I would think to myself.  I dont think these two kids ever even fight in class.  her son is always poking this other kid and talking and walking around all over the classroom.  She wanted to see her son’s final mid term grade.  he had  70, and she gasped.  and kept on insisting that it’s such a shame because at home he knows English so well.  Even his dad says so.  What could possibly be the problem, for him to get a 11/25 on his test? or a 2/5, or a 1/10? It’s the OTHER kid’s fault!
After 10 minutes of fumbling around, she started crying.  And there I was.  standing in front of a crying mother who was so severly upset at this mark staring at her face which seemed to shatter her world.  she left with her eyeliner mark traced down the side of her nose.  her son wasnt even in the room while all of this was happening, he had long gone after the bell had rung to go play outside.

O let me tell you about this month

September 24, 2010
In the last 20 days or so, I went to pray at the Dome of the Rock for the last Jummah in Ramadan, lost my passport, saw an outrageous festive Ramallah and East Jerusalem on the last nights of the Holy Month, had delicious iftaars with students’ families, prayed Lailat-al-Qadr prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque, moved out of my lovely stone housed apartment (yes the infamous Georgette’s apartment), moved into a new contemporary middle class residential area, spent a maddening amount of time running back and forth from the Cairo/Amman bank to the Ramallah Police Station (about five or six times at least) after discovering that my entire bank account with all of my accumulated earned teaching money from June was wiped out ( i had lost my wallet with my American passport, my bank card, and money), spent Eid ul Fitr in Jerusalem after praying Eid Prayer at 7am at the Dome of the Rock, met the kind hospitality inside the home of a lovely family from Halhul, a village outside of Hebron, and had a mind twisting day in Tel Aviv with a French Algerian friend, a friend from Nablus who was being toyed with by the Tel Aviv University and a new friend from San Francisco, who happens to be an American Jew, a fresh graduate from Law School currently staying in Ramallah.  I’ve also been teaching, of course, and have picked up 3 or 4 families to tutor, ranging from age 7 to 16, doing hourly lessons on intensive writing for some, creative writing for others, conversation, reading and grammar for the rest.   Private arabic lessons that I started taking should hopefully  drill my brain with enough Palestinian colloquial arabic to reach conversational level soon.  I also discovered a fabulous chicken/kebab restaurant place where all the meat is skewed outside of course, the smoke bellowing a burnt smell of authentic street food goodness seasoned with perfection, selling mouth watering sandiwches for only 5 shekels (roughly $1.35).  

Did I mention I lost my passport?


Life has been moving lightning speed, and when I'm not writing, it often means that I'm not giving myself a chance to reflect or swallow the things that are happening to or around me. Time permitting, more to come soon.

Peace Talks

a truck load of B.S. 

coming soon