Oct 16th: Getting luggage at the airport!

I wrote on the way there to pass the time as we drove from Ramallah to the airport in Tel Aviv for my luggage that Aerosvit "misplaced". AND apparently, the stuff was there Oct 6th, but the number they gave out was wrong AND no one called me because they knew I was in the West Bank. Stupid Bastards. They are getting a crazy shunful letter from me when I get home!

Anyway, here it goes:

We;ve been driving for 30 mins now. In a mini van taxi. With Aymann and Mohammad. Who are taking me to the airport to get my luggage. Tomorrow will be my 2nd week here. I got here 13 days ago. A few days without my stuff is one thing, but 13 days makes me want to knock someone out.
I couldn't call again!
I'm not the kind of person that can sit and wait and wait AND WAIT when I can do something to fix the problem. Why wait for these assholes to decide to answer the phone. My patience is even shorter because I am sick. Runny nose. Sore throat. Head ache. Body ache. Just yucky sick.
And I coulodn't sit around another day calling.

Aymann's laugh is short and high like starting a car. Eh eh eh eh eh eh eh......

A laugh that makes you not believe it. But it's his laugh.

"Why don't you speak Arabic?" He asked.

I laugh. It's the millionth time I've heard this question.

"My father didn't really teach me. He spoke to me in Arabic and let me answer in English." I paused as I looked in Aymann's blue green eyes, to think of what else to say. "I know a lot of words though."

"Oh, like what?" He asks.

"Like, Shu and Leish and Magnoon and all the greetings. Phrases like Shu Hatha and a bunch of others like that. And some vocabulary words. I say 'Shu' all the time to my cousins and they laugh. And I know the alphabet and can read words and write them. But I don't always know what I'm reading." He nods and laughs. "Yeah, it doesn't do me much good at this point. But I'm getting there." He nods and laughs again.

We pass the check point and it looks so different on the Israeli side. The roads, the trees, even the bus stops. All nicer. All cleaner. All different. Reminds me of what they do in NY between the people of color communities and the white communities. Global gentrification. But this is different. Colonized, kicked out, invaded. Then made to be put in prision.

How would you like it if someone told you you could only go from West 4th to 59th street and could visit 125 every other friday when they felt like it? Thats the West banker life.....



Thats as much as I got written at the time. After a while, we were all talking more. Then got to the check point at the airport, where we were all taken out of the car, searched, questioned, searched again, questioned again and let go into the airport. I suppose I have to go through this again when I leave. Aymann says to give them one word answers to get under their skin. After all, they ask one word questions. Why not? I don't want to start a problem. I follow his advice though because it's the advice of everyone. Short and to the point. Don't run your mouth. Never run your mouth. They take it as "guilty" actions. Stupid.

Finding out everything I can about Palestine

See, of course I know all the things I've been told, but there are also a lot of other bits of information out there about the land, about the history of all the towns, about the spots that are most beautiful (and most heart breaking). I've been looking into them today and I'm preparing to list out all the places I want to try and see next month.

And that is another thing. It's already September 9th. In less than a month, I'll be there. I fly out the evening of Oct 2nd and I come back the evening of Oct 28th. I can't believe I'm actually going.

Here are some of the things I found that I may want to check out. I know of course there will be things I find out about when I get there, BUT I also wanted to see if I could find some things in advance.

So here's what I've got so far. The list will grow of course. I have a month to explore.

http://www.telaviv4fun.com/galilee.html

Although this site is very much from an Israeli perspective, it gives an interesting insight into places to visit. This is just one of the links on the site that talks about Galilee, which looks really beautiful. I know I want to go there, but also on that site, they talk about The Dead SEA, Jerusalem (also because I know people who live there who I'll be seeing as well), Haifa (if I can get there since it's a little ways away from where I'll be spending most of my time), Tel Aviv (even though I know if I come in touch with a fucked up Israeli, I'm not sure I can hold my tongue, which will get me in trouble... but I'd like to visit it too and I'm flying into and out of there, so maybe I can do it on my way out to make it easy...i dunno), Ramallah (of course since I'll be all up in there with the familia, but also, apparentl, there is an amazing "night life" which I'd like to see... because there's isn't too much info and I want to see what folks mean by that) and Beit Rima if I can get to it since I'm a Rimawi from Beit Rima.

These are just some of the places I'd like to explore wholly or as much as possible. This won't be my last trip, so I can see more the next time but I'm not sure when next time will be.

I don't know in what order I'll be doing this and how much time I'll be in each, but yeah, just wanted to share while I looked all over the place at everything there is to see

Leaving October 2nd

I leave for Palestine Oct 2nd. I long flight into the Ukraine first and then over to Tel Aviv. Almos 16 hours of flight to help me find myself. To see where my father was born, where he grew up. To meet his sisters and see one of my uncles again. To meet all the cousins over there that I haven't met yet. To connect for 26 days with that part of me that has seemed to be so cut off for all this time.
Each day (at least that is my hope) I'll be writing about my day, about the things I've seen and about how I'm coming along with the manuscript for the book about Palestinian part of me.
There will be pictures and videos which will be on my site and here and I'll keep folks informed.