(un)Holy Land, Part 2

Thursday morning broke, clear and warm. Excited, anxious, hungry, tired, nervous: we were going to the West Bank.

We packed up our gear and headed out early to meet Hammad at the Damascus Gate. After a bit of wandering around the Old City, we walked a short block uphill to a parking lot-cum-bus station, where shuttles ran from Jerusalem to Ramallah, Jenin and beyond. 6 Shekels and we were off, clutching our US passports for the golden tickets they were. Sooner than I thought, we were passing a big dark anonymous terminal: the checkpoint.

Suddenly the scenery had changed. Gone were the long flat sidewalks of Jerusalem, gone were the boutiques and bus stops. Barbed wire ran along the roofs of houses, and trash collected in corners. Hammad leaned over, pointed, and whispered:

There's the wall.

And so it was: a gray snake, with scales of concrete and rebar colored only by its graffiti, the wall fell and rose with the hills of Palestine, running dim into the distance. To read about it--the security fence, the apartheid wall, whatever you want to call it--is not to see it. Everything you've read drips out of your head and is replaced with the reality of its sheer size, its immobility, its permanence. As our snub-nosed bus rolled on towards Ramallah, the wall kept pace, only being lost to my sight when it dipped below a hill. To see the wall was the first reminder of the occupation of Palestine; it would not be the last. And as I was to learn, to simply see the wall is not to understand it. That comes with time.

We jumped off the bus at a stoplight, and headed straight for Samer's Restaurant, one of Hammad's favorite eateries. A traditional breakfast in Palestine, like in Egypt, consists of small, cheap plates of mezza eaten with bread, like hummus, ful, falafel and tabouleh. A traditional breakfast in Palestine, unlike in Egypt, is incredible, amazing and delicious. It brought back memories of that amazing food in Siwa, which was the only time in Egypt I've been impressed with the food.After exiting our food coma, we took a big yellow van to Deir Debwan, Hammad's home town. As the crow flies, it's about five minutes from Ramallah, and ten years ago, that's how long it would have taken us, too. Now, though, the Israeli settlements have begun to encroach on Palestinian-controlled territory, including right outside Ramallah. The settlers get private Israeli security, which means private Israeli roads, which means the streets formerly available to the Palestinians are now closed off so that Israelis can use them exclusively. This translates to a 45 minute taxi ride around the outskirts of Ramallah to Deir Debwan, instead of the direct path Hammad's family used to take.

During the Second Intifada, many of the remaining roads were also closed or bulldozed to prevent and monitor Palestinian movement, or at the very least serve as a massive inconvenience. During our stay in Palestine, our taxi drivers would explain to us the historical significance of each road on which we travelled: here is where they would pile the rocks to barricade cars. There is the point at which no cars were allowed, so men, women and children would have to get out and walk. And here is the bulldozed and still-unpaved road that we are going to take, because it saves us a half an hour.

Deir Debwan, known as the Beverly Hills of Palestine, lived up to its name. BMWs, four-story houses, blue tile roofs: it's not exactly what you picture when you think of Palestine, and Hammad was careful to remind us that this is not an accurate representation of what life is like in the occupied territories. Most of the people who keep homes in Deir Debwan have spent significant time in the US, and keep palatial residences in their homeland as a token of their foreign success. Hammad's maternal and paternal grandparents live close to each other, and we spent time at both of their homes. From the get-go, we were fed incredibly well. One of Hammad's grandmothers had him running around her kitchen preparing snacks to serve us, while the other grandmother spent hours making delicacies like stuffed grape leaves. I could get used to a kind of hospitality that involves eating really good food all the time.

The girls stayed in one house, and the boys the other. After some showers and naps, we called another big cab and headed back to Ramallah. Our cab driver was, like every one we encountered, extremely knowledgeable about his history, his land and his people, something that US citizens could do well to emulate. With Hammad serving as a translator, our driver went out of his way to show us some of the sights along the way. Perched atop hills (strategically, he said) were some of the Israeli settlements. Below them, the streets of the refugee camp of Jelazoon, through which we drove. In the middle of the camp there was a square with a monument dedicated to those from Jelazoon who had died during the Intifada.

Refugees have a different political status than most Palestinians, he said, explaining that refugees were not allowed to travel or to attend college, ensuring their social immobility. We visited Arafat's grave and compound, where they are in the process of building a memorial to the former Palestinian leader.

Ramallah was, in a word, incredible. It's what Cairo could be: a busy, bustling town that integrates modern culture but retains its Arab character. We wandered through an open air produce market, where the vendors were calling out their prices instead of their pruriencies. There were no McDonalds, KFCs or Hardees, but there were modern coffee shops and fashionable clothing stores, right next to shwarma stands and falafel shops. The streets were clean, there were trashcans, and the bathrooms had toilet paper. In short, Ramallah works, and it's under occupation.

We went a little crazy with the food that first night, but I don't regret it. Everything I had was what had been missing in Cairo: a chicken shwarma wrap filled with fresh vegetables and spicy sauce, falafel sandwiches that weren't greasy or overcooked, kanefa with just the right mixture of cheese and honey, and soft serve ice cream that tasted just like home.

Our group was closing out the night in Eiffel Sweets, sitting upstairs, finishing our ice cream concoctions and waiting for a phone call. Hammad's friend who had showed us around Jerusalem the previous night was coming to Ramallah to spend a few days with us. After seeing the West Bank with Hammad the day before our arrival, he wanted to share it with two of his friends from his university. They had been planning on taking the same bus we did and arriving in downtown Ramallah sometime early that evening, but they got delayed. They were all taking a risk by coming to the West Bank: if their university found out, they could be expelled.

Ramallah at night, taken by Hammad.

Pretty harsh punishment, so we were all somewhat anxiously awaiting their safe arrival in Ramallah. We pushed around our ice cream, talked about what we would do the next day in Bethlehem, and just generally killed time.

And that, I guess, is when the shooting started.