Readers, I apologize for my lack of posts. It's not that I haven't been thinking of you - I have. The thing is, like most things, blogging needs to be a habit - unless you do it every day, you won't do it at all. Similar to working out, flossing, and other habits I summarily fail at. So I'm going to try to get back on the daily post bandwagon - but don't hate me if I fall off from time to time. Thanks to those who emailed requesting a resurrection - much like Lazarus, here I am.
The first story is about something very near and dear to my heart - workout classes in Arab countries. This affection goes back to 2006, when my girlfriends and I in Morocco enrolled in a belly dancing class at the local "gym" - a collection of Soviet-era leather benches, ancient free weights and one Nautilus machine that sparked memories of my dad doing situps in our coral color, shag-carpeted, mirror-walled living room in Florida in 1986. On Tuesday evenings, they would clear the gym of men, draw the blinds, and a Moroccan woman would come in and try to teach a bunch of foreign women to shake it "like a mobile on vibrate". This woman was some sort of Orientalist fantasy - she would come in to the gym in full Muslim overcoat and hijab, draw the drapes even tighter, make sure all the doors were locked, and then disrobe to a shimmering bikini top and jangly harem pants straight out of A Thousand and One Nights. She was so hot! And so shy! Any sound of the door rattling or male voices and she would run over and pull her overcoat on from its pile in the corner. This happened about ten times a class. Otherwise, she was shimmying it into oblivion, commanding us to shake it like a vibrating Nokia and sometimes physically grabbing our pathetically non-Arab hips and moving them from side to side - much to our grinning chagrin. This was an addictive experience. Arab lady workouts - I fell in love.
Fast forward to 2011, where I once again find myself back in Arabia. I joined a local gym in Ramallah called Solo, again reminiscent of the USSR - does one really need red, black and mirror as a gym decor theme? Guess so. Perhaps to some readers surprise, Solo is not single sex - and in fact is basically a total pick-up joint for the local population. You see chicks putting ON make up in the locker room before going out to strut on the treadmill. Hilarity. But that's an aside. Back to the workout.
One the bidding of a new friend, I decided to attend the 6 pm Sunday "Body Pump" class, ladies only, taught by a young Palestinian woman named Haneen. God, I have been wanting to blog about this class for SO LONG! I am now a loyal attendee, and this story is why:
Haneen and her classes are legendary. She is a DRILL SERGEANT. A drill sergeant in a push up bra and very tight pants. You spend an hour suffering alongside your fellow ladies, a mix of internationals, young Palestinian women, and older auntie types. It's totally wonderful. Misery breeds friendship. Haneen yells at everyone over the deafening music (which has its own pattern of skips and starts due to Solo's horrible sound system and Palestine's lack of electricity infrastructure). She questions your dedication. "Do you want a Palestinian butt?!" she yells in your face, pointing to her own generous yet firm posterior. Yes, you do, you nod, dripping sweat as you do squat number 5,000. The class ends with a team yell and then everyone jumping and posing in mid-air in celebration. I smile like a grinning FOOL. Then sometimes there's cake.
God bless Arab lady workouts.
Vignette number two brings us to Jerusalem, where I recently when out for a night of dancing as a friend was dj'ing. It's very hard in Ramallah to find music that pleases an American ear - the dominance of Europeans in the expat crowd means that there's a lot of that crap techno-y stuff that is often "club remixes" of actual good music. Horrible. And then there's Arab music, which is fun to dance to but not the whole night. Sometimes a girl just needs to get down to No Diggity. For that, I was PSYCHED to go into Jerusalem and hear my friend DJ - because I know her music, I know she's good, and I know I would dance to it.
I generally don't super love going out in Israel - as I've talked about before, it generally either involves a) deception about where I live or b) being open about where I live and suffering the consequences of either anger, weird, Orientalist fascination or being ignored. Not the best. But this night I was feeling confident as the DJ was my friend and I knew others in the bar, so when the inevitable dude came up to me and started dancing with me and asked me where I lived, etc., I just said, with a big grin on my face, "Ramallah!". Here's our conversation, which all took place while shimmying around to early 90s hip hop:
Him: So where do you live?
Me: Ramallah!
Him (shock on his face): Ramallah?!
Me: Totally! Yeah!
Him (excitedly): I am in the army! I was just in Ramallah last week!
Me: Cool, that's totally illegal! Maybe you were arresting my neighbor! Did you see my house?
Him (shock): hahaha (dancing away)
Honestly - I will not live here forever, but I will never forget the weirdness of it. Israel, Palestine - not normal places. Don't let them fool you!
The first story is about something very near and dear to my heart - workout classes in Arab countries. This affection goes back to 2006, when my girlfriends and I in Morocco enrolled in a belly dancing class at the local "gym" - a collection of Soviet-era leather benches, ancient free weights and one Nautilus machine that sparked memories of my dad doing situps in our coral color, shag-carpeted, mirror-walled living room in Florida in 1986. On Tuesday evenings, they would clear the gym of men, draw the blinds, and a Moroccan woman would come in and try to teach a bunch of foreign women to shake it "like a mobile on vibrate". This woman was some sort of Orientalist fantasy - she would come in to the gym in full Muslim overcoat and hijab, draw the drapes even tighter, make sure all the doors were locked, and then disrobe to a shimmering bikini top and jangly harem pants straight out of A Thousand and One Nights. She was so hot! And so shy! Any sound of the door rattling or male voices and she would run over and pull her overcoat on from its pile in the corner. This happened about ten times a class. Otherwise, she was shimmying it into oblivion, commanding us to shake it like a vibrating Nokia and sometimes physically grabbing our pathetically non-Arab hips and moving them from side to side - much to our grinning chagrin. This was an addictive experience. Arab lady workouts - I fell in love.
Fast forward to 2011, where I once again find myself back in Arabia. I joined a local gym in Ramallah called Solo, again reminiscent of the USSR - does one really need red, black and mirror as a gym decor theme? Guess so. Perhaps to some readers surprise, Solo is not single sex - and in fact is basically a total pick-up joint for the local population. You see chicks putting ON make up in the locker room before going out to strut on the treadmill. Hilarity. But that's an aside. Back to the workout.
One the bidding of a new friend, I decided to attend the 6 pm Sunday "Body Pump" class, ladies only, taught by a young Palestinian woman named Haneen. God, I have been wanting to blog about this class for SO LONG! I am now a loyal attendee, and this story is why:
Haneen and her classes are legendary. She is a DRILL SERGEANT. A drill sergeant in a push up bra and very tight pants. You spend an hour suffering alongside your fellow ladies, a mix of internationals, young Palestinian women, and older auntie types. It's totally wonderful. Misery breeds friendship. Haneen yells at everyone over the deafening music (which has its own pattern of skips and starts due to Solo's horrible sound system and Palestine's lack of electricity infrastructure). She questions your dedication. "Do you want a Palestinian butt?!" she yells in your face, pointing to her own generous yet firm posterior. Yes, you do, you nod, dripping sweat as you do squat number 5,000. The class ends with a team yell and then everyone jumping and posing in mid-air in celebration. I smile like a grinning FOOL. Then sometimes there's cake.
God bless Arab lady workouts.
Vignette number two brings us to Jerusalem, where I recently when out for a night of dancing as a friend was dj'ing. It's very hard in Ramallah to find music that pleases an American ear - the dominance of Europeans in the expat crowd means that there's a lot of that crap techno-y stuff that is often "club remixes" of actual good music. Horrible. And then there's Arab music, which is fun to dance to but not the whole night. Sometimes a girl just needs to get down to No Diggity. For that, I was PSYCHED to go into Jerusalem and hear my friend DJ - because I know her music, I know she's good, and I know I would dance to it.
I generally don't super love going out in Israel - as I've talked about before, it generally either involves a) deception about where I live or b) being open about where I live and suffering the consequences of either anger, weird, Orientalist fascination or being ignored. Not the best. But this night I was feeling confident as the DJ was my friend and I knew others in the bar, so when the inevitable dude came up to me and started dancing with me and asked me where I lived, etc., I just said, with a big grin on my face, "Ramallah!". Here's our conversation, which all took place while shimmying around to early 90s hip hop:
Him: So where do you live?
Me: Ramallah!
Him (shock on his face): Ramallah?!
Me: Totally! Yeah!
Him (excitedly): I am in the army! I was just in Ramallah last week!
Me: Cool, that's totally illegal! Maybe you were arresting my neighbor! Did you see my house?
Him (shock): hahaha (dancing away)
Honestly - I will not live here forever, but I will never forget the weirdness of it. Israel, Palestine - not normal places. Don't let them fool you!
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