April 1-5th Jordan & West Bank

Jordan and West Bank with Arrows Marking Areas Visited
This CIA Map from 1992 unfortunately uses the Israeli government terminology of "Samaria" and "Judea". My apologies.

Ajloun Castle, Ajloun, Jordan

Today I left my hotel in Shmisani, the trendy section of Amman, at 7:30 AM to cross the King Hussein Bridge to the West Bank.  Correction:  today at 7:40 I left my hotel to head to the bridge.  You see, traffic in Amman is quite heavy at rush hour, which starts early on workdays (Sunday through Thursday); hence, my taxi driver arrived at my hotel 10 minutes late.  A twenty minute drive from him home in East Amman took one hour today.   I was happy to see him arrive late.  It meant that I could toss down my usual breakfast in Amman:  pita with olive oil, zatar, and Lebanese cheese balls.  I had already spent a good ten hours in the car with my driver over the past few days on trips from the airport to the hotel, from the hotel to Madaba to watch handicapped artisans lay tiny pieces of rock in beautiful biblical replica mosaics, and up to Ajloun to visit a castle. I had not only gotten in hours of business, but received a total core dump of Mohammed's life.  Not surprising, it was full of three themes that run through so many Palestinian lives: exile, economic distress, and the sort of family conflict that is common in extended, interdependent families.

Mohammed, like most Jordanians, is Palestinian.  His father's family left their land near Tel Aviv in 1947/1948 when fighting started up between the Zionist forces and the Palestinians and - according to his father - the British advised them to leave for a week and return when the fighting was over.  (For me it was interesting to hear this version.  I had heard many others say they left out of fear after hearing about massacres in other villages.  And many Israeli apologists have falsely claimed that all the Palestinians left because the Arabs told them to.  But Mohammed was the first to tell me that the British told his family to leave.)  In any case, his family left immediately, taking nothing.  Mohammed himself grew up in Kuwait and Jordan, married, had a couple of daughters, and in his twenties, moved to Dubai for work.  His first marriage was handily broke up, in my opinion, when his wife was left alone in Jordan to cope with his mother. She refused the economic relationship he offered (staying with his mother), and instead lived on her own with their daughters, occasionally, and unannounced, dropping the three and four year old off on her mother-in-law's doorstep, ringing the bell, and leaving before the mother-in-law answered.  Granted, very irresponsible behavior, but I suspect provoked by the difficult mother that he described.  He divorced his wife, took custody of the daughters - easy in Muslim society - and left them in Jordan for his mother to raise while he continued to work in Dubai. He then found a new wife in Dubai (a Syrian woman), married her and brought her back to Amman to live with his mother and daughters.  From his recounting of the daily drama in his home, I would be surprised if this marriage lasts even two years under his mother's roof.  Imagine being the man in a society that puts the mother on a pedestal.  Then imagine that his mother feels entitled to raise his two daughters after being charged with their care for two years.  Add a new wife into the mix - who had a good job when they were in Dubai but now doesn't work because travel costs and time make the few available jobs inadequate to cover the associated expenses.  What you end up with is two women at home bickering day and night about the raising of the daughters and calling him every half an hour to check up on him. Mohammed, being from a conservative and traditional Palestinian family, won't challenge the supremacy of the mother in the household.  And, he does not have the money to rent an apartment for his wife and two daughters.  Ach..... to be that new wife.....

Mohammed's views were what I consider to be fairly mainstream Palestinian views: girls and boys should go to single-sex schools, teens should not be allowed to fraternize with the opposite sex, and men should work to support their families.  The mother should reign supreme in the home, but not venture much outside of it, perhaps only to shop. Men work hard and push hard but don't necessarily expect success.  They don't share the American belief that opportunities are open to all and that with hard work you can achieve your goals.  Mohammed said his father would always recount the Arabic saying "Don't look too high or your neck will break." 

Mohammed claims that he and his wife are still dealing with the cultural differences between her Syrian society and his Palestinian society.  So, what are they?  According to Mohammed, since the French occupied Syria, the Syrians behave more like the French, and the Palestinians like the British.  The Syrians are more easy-going, less driven.  His wife doesn't understand his drive and he does not understand her casual acceptance of life.

Ajloun Castle, Ajloun, Jordan

Mosaic artisan in Madaba, Jordan

The Hills of Amman

The Roman Theater and Amman

Kanafeh - my favorite sweet

The Roman Theater, Amman, Jordan

Back to the bridge. .. I diverge partly because the bridge is usually my least favorite part of these trips.  I arrived at the bridge on the Jordanian side at about 8:30.  Mohammed spotted a friend of his there in charge of a bus full of French tourists that was about to cross the bridge and convinced the driver to let me join them in crossing the bridge.  I put my luggage through x-ray machinery, presented my passport to the Jordanians and purchased  the exit stamp (5 Jordanian Dinars), and loaded my suitcase on the bus.  I then hopped on and we started over the bridge.  I suspect being allowed to join their bus saved me a great deal of time - perhaps up to an hour - that I would have spent waiting for another bus to fill up with enough foreigners to cross the bridge.  You see, Palestinians, who make up the vast majority of travelers across the bridge, are not allowed on the buses with the foreigners.  The Israelis want to process them differently.  This is, of course, just the start of the more total apartheid experience you get traveling through Israel/Palestine.  And one manifestation of it is that it can take up to an hour to accumulate enough foreigners on a bus to make a crossing.

There were, as always, interminable waits on the bridge itself - a Jordanian checkpoint where a Jordanian soldier jumps on the bus and checks passports, then the Israeli checkpoint on the bridge, and finally you get to the other side where you jump off the bus, grab your bag out of the hold, and wait with the others to hand your suitcase and passport to the Israelis.  The Israelis arrange the suitcases side by side, each with the owner's passport on top, and put them through x-ray screening.  You wait while yours is screened, and sent into never-never land, but your passport is handed back to you.  Next you head through a room and are either waved through or told to stand in the explosives detector device which blows you around a bit.  I always get the device.  Next is actual passport control.  Most people are asked some questions and waved through.  Not me.   I knew I was out of luck when the 18-year old female soldier started looking at my passport and said "Azza" underneath her breath to the female soldier seated next to her.  She had spotted the stamp the Israelis gave me when I went to Gaza last year.  I found myself wondering why I hadn't thought to update my US passport even though it still has four more years on it.  She asked “What is the purpose of your visit.”  I was honest.  I said I buy embroidery and ceramics and I am here to buy.  “Where?”  I admitted I would be in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Ramallah, but didn't tell her I would also travel to Nablus and Hebron (I knew these cities would set off too many alarm bells.)  I said I come here every year to buy and you can tell from all the Israeli stamps on my passport.   She asked me who I was buying from.  I became indignant and gave her a look like are you kidding?  She asked me if I buy from too many people to mention and I readily agreed and told her she could look at my website if she wanted to see who I buy from.  I refused to get into the business of naming names and phone numbers.  I go to these checkpoints with the attitude that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me as an American going into the West Bank and Gaza to buy embroidery and other products from Palestinians.  I don't say it in so many words, but it comes across.  She said the same thing that most young border patrol members say to me: "I am just doing my job."  They usually look pretty confused and often actually blush.  They don't know how to deal with foreigners who are not tourists.  And they are not used to non-Palestinian Americans entering the West Bank from the bridge to do business.

She held my passport and said someone else would have to check it and told me to find a seat.  So I sat and watched all the French from my bus get their passports stamped and scores of Palestinians get through the checkpoint.  The few Palestinians who were sent to sit down with me all gave me a quizzical look.  Why are you - an American woman - getting the treatment?  Only one other pair of foreigners was waiting with me.  I watched the others around me being questioned by border patrol in civilian clothes.  A half an hour later they sent a young but very large soldier dressed in a camouflage uniform and toting a gun to question me.  Again the same questions: why? where? when are you leaving?  Same answers.  He asked for my business card which I gave him and he disappeared.   A half an hour later I was called to another passport control window.  This time, the female soldier stamped my passport - a very good sign!  - giving me the three month visa I was after.  She sent me to the next booth where they took fingerprints of my two index fingers and a picture.  Special treatment for a special guest.  Then I was finally waved through to get my passport checked one last time (talk about redundancy) and get my luggage.  Time check: 11:00 AM - two and a half hours to cross the miniscule and nearly dry Jordan River.

What I have forgotten to mention was that I was literally tripping over large plastic water containers as I was going through this process at the bridge checkpoint.  Many to most of the Palestinians going through the checkpoint at the time were older Muslims – the women dressed in traditional Palestinian garb and headscarves, the men with white caftans and skullcaps or slacks and keffiyehs.   They were returning from the pilgrimmage (Hajj), bringing with them Holy Water from Mecca.  I moved through, purchased a bus ticket, located the bus to Jericho, and managed to squeeze my suitcase into the hold which was full of luggage and Holy Water.  As usual, I was the novelty on the bus.  When we debarked in Jericho, Palestinian men helped me with my luggage, found me a place to sit and wait for my friend Adel, and gave me a bottle of water, which I cautiously did not drink since it was not sealed.  I have spent enough time with stomach ailments in foreign lands.

It was great to see Adel and know that I would have some time off of solo navigation.  Adel and I started by driving to the archaeological sites in Jericho to transact some business.  Adel  is an archaeologist and heads up the Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange.  He writes and publishes historical/archaeological modern guidebooks for the Palestinian cities and archaeological sites as well as producing postcards focusing on the archaeology or traditional crafts.  The archaeological sites in Jericho sell his books and postcards at their shops, so he delivers new supplies and picks up money from sales when he drives to Jericho.  Adel was pleased to tell me that he succeeded this year in convincing  these sites to discontinue the sales of the Israeli produced guidebooks, which showed Palestinian sites in a less favorable light.  So, now he has a monopoly on the sales at these sites: Tel Es-Sultan and  Hisham Palace.

From there we headed into his office in El Bireh, the sister city to Ramallah.  Ramallah is known for its sizable Christian population, whereas El Bireh has a strong Muslim majority.  He caught up on office business, I checked email, and then we headed to the village of Rantis, west of Bir Zeit, on the green line (border) with Israel.  We met with Khatem Amar , the manager of the Rantis Charitable Society.  She works with a group of 58 embroiderers from the village who make wall hangings, pillow covers, placemats, table clothes, pin cushions, and coasters and are now embroidering traditional Palestinian dresses from 17 different villages to put on Barbie-sized dolls, which they sell for $15 apiece.   This group also embroiders wall hangings with Arabic calligraphy of Sura from the Quran and I was able to watch them choose patterns from a  Sura pattern book and then choose DMC embroidery threads to produce the pieces. 

Adel had brought a jewelry maker into the village last year to train the women in jewelry-making.  They did so for some months and then most of them eventually gave it up although it was profitable.  Some had babies, some left the village for marriage, etc…. but in many cases it appeared to be a lack of motivation.

The village of Rantis is just 10 km away from Israel’s Ben Gurion airport.  It is an idyllic agricultural village in the hills west of Bir Zeit.  It is graced with beautiful olive trees and on the ground grow native and cultivated herbs that are used widely in Arabic cooking  - zatar (thyme) and maramiya (sage).  Before the closures started in the early to mid-90s, the men of the village worked in Israel in construction and farming.  Some of them did construction for the Ofra settlement.   Now they can no longer work in Israel.  Additionally, the internal checkpoints make it impossible to commute reliably to Ramallah, hence, they can’t take jobs in Ramallah.    Today the men farm the land in Rantis (they grow tomatoes and grapes) and make chicken coops.  World Vision has started up a project in Rantis with the women, working with bees and selling honey.  Khatem Amar says that World Vision is responsible for exporting and selling the honey.  World Vision has an office in Ramallah.

Adel’s organization, the Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange (PACE) gives funding grants to the Rantis Charitable Society, and he was there to meet with a contractor to sign a contract to fix building damage caused by a roof leak.











  After his meeting ended,  Adel, Khatem, and I jumped into the PACE van to head back to El Bireh (Khatem is living in El Bireh now as well).  The trip back to El Bireh which should take just 25 minutes, took three hours.  Needless to say, we hit a checkpoint (the Atara checkpoint) where we were delayed. This checkpoint is there to protect the nearby Israeli settlements, although Palestinians correctly point to the arbitrariness of the monitoring, and the fact that Palestinians wanting to commit a violent act are going to choose another route, not drive through an existing checkpoint.  So, in essence, it becomes just another way to inconvenience them and make their lives miserable.

It was rush hour, and the Israeli soldiers were stopping all the cars trying to leave Ramallah as well as those trying to get back to the Ramallah area.  Some of the cars trying to leave Ramallah got frustrated and took over all lanes of traffic, leaving those of us trying to get to Ramallah stuck there for over two hours.  In this case it was particularly galling because it was the unusual rudeness of the Palestinians that forced us to waste the time, not the Israeli soldiers themselves.  The two very large trucks in front of us were too large to move onto the right shoulder and pass the vehicles coming head on.  After some time, Adel’s engine overheating light came on and he turned off the engine on my suggestion.  He waited awhile, then burnt his hand attempting to add water to the radiator while it was still too hot.  The excessive steam that poured out brought us to the attention of the many shabab (Palestinian young men) standing around chatting.   They rushed over with bottles of water to add to our radiator.  When they spotted me, the American, they asked where I was from and offered me green almonds from the branches they plucked off of nearby trees.    Green almonds are a specialty this time of year, and Palestinians often serve them at the table with salt.  So there, on a dark, warm night by the Atara checkpoint I stood with a group of shabab in a surprisingly festive mood eating green almonds not really at all worried about whether the trusty old van (which has nearly 200,000 km on it) would take us back to El Bireh.  After all, this is the same trusty old van I travel in each year.  On one visit, Adel had to park at the top of the hill each time since the starter was not functioning.  On another, it was in the shop because Adel had rolled it.  This old van will probably be around longer than me, and as long as there are shabab around to help push it or fill the radiator with cold water, it will continue running.

Adel  told me that the Palestinians are optimistic.  I asked what exactly he meant by that.  He said that there is a joke about a Palestinian man being told his daughter died.  He responds “Al Hamdu l’Allah”  (Thanks be to God).  He is asked why he is thanking God.  He responds, it could have been worse, she could have married against my will.

Clearly there are two messages here for the American reader.   In the conservatively traditional Palestinian family the father may really feel it is worse for his daughter to marry against his will than to die.  Only second does the American ear hear the optimism expressed here.

But, I have realized that I have absorbed some of this Palestinian optimism.  It took me two and a half hours today to get over the bridge from Jordan to the West Bank, but I was very grateful because the Israelis could have strip searched me or denied me or deported me.  It took me three hours for a twenty five minute trip from Rantis to El Bireh and I was grateful because I wasn’t blocked altogether from getting to El Bireh.

I understand this optimism now.  If you don’t take this attitude you would become totally insane.

That’s all for the day!

Janice