"work for 48 hours in a day" (part 2)

so before i forget, the title of the other day's entry yellow plates, white plates is a reference to the blatant racism and discrimination that exists in the west bank - palestinians have white plate, others get the pass-through-checkpoints-and-use-the-good-roads-easily yellow plates. anyway

so i went to the president's house for lunch, where they prepared a meal of hummus, olives, eggs, cheese, olive oil, and bread, all produced on the family's land. after lunch, tea. then coffee. such generosity and love. i almost broke down in tears during the conversation, feeling such gratitude.

after lunch we smoked cigarettes and then abed invited me to see his house. he wanted me to stay the night, in fact the village committee wanted me to stay so that tomorrow they could have an official town lunch in my honor. everywher i went people were asking if i would please spend the night in their house. i had to tell them that i am on the move and have meetings tomorrow, so i couldnt. but it pained me. i didnt want to offend anyone, and i think its ok. i will be back.

at abed's house his beautiful two daughters and 2 sons came running to greet us. they immediately brought us water and coffee. his youngest son, 8 years old, ran to get me a pomegranate. then he and his older brother picked us figs and brought us a plate o juicy, sweet figs. when i said they were much sweeter than i hve tasted, i think i might have offended them, because they quickly ran out to a different variety of fig tree and picked me a whole bowl of figs of a different, less sweet variety. the abed said that he would like to meet me in jenin before i leave with a bowl of different figs, so that i can bring them home with me. fuck.

then abed reminded me about his fair trade olive oil program that he works with in jenin, and he started giving me literature about it. in looking for the literature he found an old, picture-filled map of jerusalem. this is when a tiny hand reached up and touched the map with curiosity, and i found the huge brown eyes like saucers of a six year old looking at me curiously. when i showed her the pictures on the front of the map i read on the back - shalom! welcome! wilkommen! bienvenido! bienvenue! and realized quickly that salaam was not on there. and that she may never go to the holiest city in her religion. a city 1 hour away. an ancient, sacred, and beautiful city. abed must have seen the look in my eyes because he said, we are used to this. this is life. we cannot go there. and we live here, in our houses, with our families, and we go to work. this is all we want. but they come. come to kill our children and our women. tear our olive trees. keep us from our jobs. from our prayers. but then abed said he was hopeful. he works harder than any person i have ever met. and dedicates all his life to his people. he said that his children were so happy to see him because he is so busy that he is hardly ever home, and despite that, he spent two hours with ME in his house. when i left i became very sad. realizing that in this world, i may never see this beautiful man again. insha'alla. god willing. there is no doubt in my mind that i will return to arora.