I don't think I've explicitly written about this on the blog, which saddens me but doesn't surprise me. Because it's going to be a post about Arab women, and frankly, I don't have much interaction with that world here. In Morocco, in Jordan, I had very close Moroccan/Jordanian female friends, and spent much of my time there at their houses, in their worlds. When I left Morocco in 2006, my best friend Naima and her sister and her mother took turns scrubbing me at the hammam so hard that I had an open wound on my sternum from where the skin had been rubbed off. They loved me TO DEATH, and me and my sister Becca sometimes say. Or at least, to open skin wounds.
In Palestine, my experience has been quite different from other living abroad I've done - much more pure expat, much less integrated into the local community. I think this is a function of a few things: 1) Palestine it a tougher place to "get in" with the locals, as the occupation makes trusting people harder and getting around more difficult. Thus stuck in the Ramallah bubble, you don't really have a good opportunity to hang out with villagers, per se. Not that I don't have Palestinian friends, I do - it's just these people tend to be Palestinian-American, or Palestinian who lived abroad for a while, so they have a bit more of a different mindset than say, my bid Naima who'd never been outside Morocco. While great, my friends here will not be scrubbing my skin off in a pure act of love. 2) I am older, so less likely to be taken in by a family as a young woman who needs caring for, and more viewed as, why doesn't she have a family of her own yet? (Lovely, this). 3) I have invested less -quite simply, I'm here to help build a company, not bro down with the people. I didn't particularly want to live abroad again, but I sure did want to do this job, so I took the compromise. Thus my my primary focus is not one of cultural integration, as it might have more been in the past.
Ok, so given all that context, I want to tell you about a piece of my weekend, because it reminded me of a) what I love love love about Arab culture and b) what a jackass I am for not having made the effort to integrate more. It also was a somewhat bitter reminder of the realities here, but that's something else.
So I went on a hike in wadi qelt, a gorgeous canyon in the West Bank that has an ancient and still functioning monastery in it where ascetic monks live. The hike was beautiful, walking through water in the river bed, scrambling up rock walls, tracking an aqueduct through an oven-like patch of land. Very fun. At the end, we went to a swimming hole that is used by both Palestinians and Israeli settlers - one of the great things we can all agree upon being cold fresh water on a hot day. It's a funny place - religious Jews with the sidelocks splashing around next to Palestinian kids cannonballing. Soldiers patrolling everything. A lot of the settlers bring their own guns - so you have dudes strolling around in swim trunks with an AK slung casually over their shoulder. It's hard to describe until you've seen it. Living here - so, so bizarre.
As we approached, I noticed that the swimming hole was dominated by men - not an appropriate place to strip down to the bikini I had under my shorts and tshirt. I then saw a small enclave off the big pool, where a group of Palestinian women were enjoying the water fully clothed, holding their children. Perfect. I eased down into the water in my clothes, saying greetings in Arabic. The women lit up as I spoke to them, my Arabic confirming I played for their team, so to speak. We chatted, I held their kids, we joked and laughed - it was really, really lovely. The guys I had been hiking with splashed around in the big pool, but I got to have a small moment of lady magic off to the side.
Could not have been more pleased. Peace from the Middle East.
In Palestine, my experience has been quite different from other living abroad I've done - much more pure expat, much less integrated into the local community. I think this is a function of a few things: 1) Palestine it a tougher place to "get in" with the locals, as the occupation makes trusting people harder and getting around more difficult. Thus stuck in the Ramallah bubble, you don't really have a good opportunity to hang out with villagers, per se. Not that I don't have Palestinian friends, I do - it's just these people tend to be Palestinian-American, or Palestinian who lived abroad for a while, so they have a bit more of a different mindset than say, my bid Naima who'd never been outside Morocco. While great, my friends here will not be scrubbing my skin off in a pure act of love. 2) I am older, so less likely to be taken in by a family as a young woman who needs caring for, and more viewed as, why doesn't she have a family of her own yet? (Lovely, this). 3) I have invested less -quite simply, I'm here to help build a company, not bro down with the people. I didn't particularly want to live abroad again, but I sure did want to do this job, so I took the compromise. Thus my my primary focus is not one of cultural integration, as it might have more been in the past.
Ok, so given all that context, I want to tell you about a piece of my weekend, because it reminded me of a) what I love love love about Arab culture and b) what a jackass I am for not having made the effort to integrate more. It also was a somewhat bitter reminder of the realities here, but that's something else.
So I went on a hike in wadi qelt, a gorgeous canyon in the West Bank that has an ancient and still functioning monastery in it where ascetic monks live. The hike was beautiful, walking through water in the river bed, scrambling up rock walls, tracking an aqueduct through an oven-like patch of land. Very fun. At the end, we went to a swimming hole that is used by both Palestinians and Israeli settlers - one of the great things we can all agree upon being cold fresh water on a hot day. It's a funny place - religious Jews with the sidelocks splashing around next to Palestinian kids cannonballing. Soldiers patrolling everything. A lot of the settlers bring their own guns - so you have dudes strolling around in swim trunks with an AK slung casually over their shoulder. It's hard to describe until you've seen it. Living here - so, so bizarre.
As we approached, I noticed that the swimming hole was dominated by men - not an appropriate place to strip down to the bikini I had under my shorts and tshirt. I then saw a small enclave off the big pool, where a group of Palestinian women were enjoying the water fully clothed, holding their children. Perfect. I eased down into the water in my clothes, saying greetings in Arabic. The women lit up as I spoke to them, my Arabic confirming I played for their team, so to speak. We chatted, I held their kids, we joked and laughed - it was really, really lovely. The guys I had been hiking with splashed around in the big pool, but I got to have a small moment of lady magic off to the side.
Could not have been more pleased. Peace from the Middle East.
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