chapter 6 - fayrouz

god is good to me and sends me little gifts every now again, and a couple days ago she sent me Fayrouz, a beautiful woman my age who was in ramallah and happened to be going where i was going and offered to take me there. on the hour-long service ride, she shows me a picture of her boyfriend and tells me she loves him and thinks he is so handsome because he looks like Che Guevara (he does not). She tells me her name is a turquoise colored stone you can find deep in the ocean, and she tells me about her brother who is in jail. He is 18, has been in prison for 2 years, and has 6 more to go. I ask why he is there. She says she does not know; the Israeli army said he is "wanted" and that is everything her family knows about it. It is a story I will hear many times in the Balata refugee camp, outside the city of Nablus, my home of the week. 2 years ago they took another brother - he was 14, and he stayed for a year. His name is Mahmoud, and he is very charming and and declares himself my protector about 10 minutes after I arrive at their home. We hear gunshots outside their front door, and I jump at the then-unfamiliar sound, and he runs outside to curse the boys who were playing with the gun for scaring me. Their house is full of wall hangings and miniature models of the Dome of the Rock that he made while he was in prison. Fayrouz and her brothers tell me how the army comes at night and kidnaps people, how they assasinate their brothers and fathers, how no explanation is ever given. Their father was assasinated 10 years ago - they miss him so much, they say. I meet their cousin, whose mother is in jail and will be there for 15 years for associating with "wanted" men. No trial. No lawyer. No charges, really. This 5 year old boy will not see his mother until he is a grown man. Welcome to Palestine.

me and fayrouz

my new bros, from the top: ahmad, machmoud, omar

Semah, Fay's sister, wearing a necklace with a picture of their brother who is in jail

I spend the night and we "make a party", as they call it here. Mahmoud runs out and buys Pepsi, nuts, and a new music mix tape that has, among other things, a reggaeton song I recognize from the USA. My hips start to sway before I even think about it, and they catch me, and they make me dance for hours. They show me traditional dances and not-so-traditional ones. In the morning, we watch an Amercian movie, one of those made-for-TV jobbies about Martin Luther King Jr., about the civil rights movement in Selma, Alabama, and as we watch the black people struggle and sing about marching to the freedom land, Fayrouz and her brothers say "yeah, yeah, yeah!". We watch the police beat them and gas them as they try to march to Montgomery, and I look over and Fayrouz is crying and Mahmoud is breathing shallowly and their eyes are glued to the screen. I think about Condoleeza Rice, about her new middle east, about her peacekeeping trip that has caused riots everywhere she goes. I think of the young man at the rally in Ramallah holding a sign that says: Condi - if segregation was not ok for you, why is it ok for me?

It has happened in america. It has happened in south africa. It happened in europe to the Jewish people. It has happened so many times, and I am watching it happen in Palestine now. I feel helpless against it most of the time, this evil that seems embedded in human nature. "The strong will be shameful"...this is an ancient Arabic proverb. Are we going to let it happen again? Cuz we don't have to...I believe this with my whole heart, that we can stop it this time.

What are you willing to do to make it stop? What are you willing to give up? If you think we can't stop it, if you think Palestine is doomed, how do we keep this from happening again? I very much welcome your thoughts...please be daring, please be creative and innovative, be audacious as hell, because "teaching our children not to hate" and "let's just give peace a chance" doesn't really seem to be working. I want plans. I want maps and drawings, I want recipes for disaster. I want actualities, not warm fuzzy ideals. How can you be different right now?

[end sermon. love you all. i miss submarine sandwiches and nachos.]

miss magan