My Day Part 1

i would call my day surreal if only i didn't hate using the word surreal. 

after a rousing argument with my girlfriend, i stepped out the door to find the sky completely obscured by a dirty haze.  it was nice, in a change of pace kind of way.  sunshine gets old, and i'm always a fan of meteorological anomalies.  i trudged up the shallow incline of the alley towards the main road and after passing a couple of bro's (or manayak ashabab as we say in arabic) who cast aspersions on my sexual orientation, caught a taxi into Ramallah.  I forwent any of the usual comforts of the bachelor life, in the interest of economy, and jumped onto bus 18, where an older fellow insisted i sit next to him while, for my benefit, he derided the figures of frumpy palestinian women as they shuffled down the aisle.  at the checkpoint, i once again insisted on passing through on foot (makes me feel better about myself) and made my way towards the cage with the rotating bars after apprehending a little street urchin who had snatched my wallet.  it was a change of shift once we finally got to the ID checking line, which gave us all plenty of time to catch each other staring at each other and then curling the corners of our lips into forced smiles and hastily looking away.  back on the bus, i gave a child worker with booger-crusted nostrils 2 shekels for some really bad gum called Ice Fresh: deep peppermint, at which point the men around me started complaining in arabic about people who give money to these kids.

i sat at damascus gate, squinting down at the shiny limestone, until i noticed an old, respectable looking gentleman walking at a ridiculously slow pace towards me.  we stared at each other for a few seconds before he queried: "Sam?".  "Farouk?" I retorted.  "It's good to finally meet you,"  he finished, offering an intelligent grin.  We exchanged the remainder of the perfunctory pleasantries, then entered the old city, me trying not to look like I had no practice walking as slowly as he did, or imagining the sight of the pair of us together.

Dr. Farouk Musa, a friend of a friend of the family told me about his kids and work and UN days and travel over juice and coffee, while I feigned academic productivity.  a green looking european wandered into the cafe and asked for an israeli beer, at which point i felt compelled to compel him to the palestinian "taybeh", out of nationalism and connoisseurship.  "so that's what you've been doing here huh?  drinking beer?"  Farouk interjected with another smile and I couldn't tell if it was accusing, or conspiratorial, or indulgent, or just a space-filler.

We finished, he paid, then we wandered back and forth on ben-yehuda, discussing the apocalyptic weather.  i wanted to make some comment about trumpets and horsemen, but i wasn't sure if he would catch my allusions or mistake my tone for genuous.  Apparently this dusty haze is a regular occurrence in may.

We met his jerusalemite cousin (for linner, which i had prepared for by eating nothing for the last 24 hours) who walks even slower than Farouk, both of them, i might add, from physical necessity, not that i don't also blame a lifetime of habitual slowpoking, it seems to be a sport in palestine.  we moseyed into an upscale restaurant/museum called Ticho which was busy preparing for a bar mitzfah after-party, where Eesa apparently knew everyone.  We sat down to some euro cranberry almond sourdough while he made comments about the looks of the girls.

"These israelis, after thirty, you will not find a single attractive one!"  after ordering a sumptious feast for the three of us, he explained that Ticho was a famous austrian opthomologist, that made a lot of advancements in the field of opthomology.  "ah, that pretty one is the owner's daughter.  let me tell you, this owner, for years he was a israeli diplomat in japan.  30 years. he comes back and starts this restaurant.  i'm talking to him one day, and i ask him where he's from. qala li 'here, jerusalem', qultu, 'what neighborhood?'  qala li 'Sheikh Jayra' and i said, I know you!  When you were a child, my grandma says you used to steal cucumbers from our fields!  and he says 'that's true!  that's true!'"

"You follow politics Sam?"  Farouk again, with that implacable lilt in his voice.  I tilt my hand left and right as I dig into the salad with as much speed as might be considered polite.  "Do you think there will be war?"  "With whom?"  "Iran, of course." "And Lebanon?" "Both, I suppose.  The Israeli's have it all put together.  It's going to happen, you can feel it in the air.  It's going to be another world war."  Our soups arrive, generous bowls, cream of mushroom, vegetable, i get french onion in a bread bowl.

"So you work in an East Jerusalem hospital, Eesa?"  "Yes, for thirty years.  I am now the director of human resources."  "Ok, so you are funded by the PA?" "No, charitable donations.  But we have a contract with the Authority to treat Palestinians." "From the West Bank?" "West Bank and Gaza." "And you use West Bank pharmaceuticals?"  "No, Israeli, West Bank drugs cannot be exported to Israel...or East Jerusalem." "Because the West Bank isn't a member of the WTO, right?  I did a bit of work writing reports for PalTrade."  "Yes, my cousin is in charge of quality control for Birzeit Pharmaceuticals, they're good quality drugs, we just can't export them."  Even to Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem.

We moved through the remaining courses, Farouk paid, and we moseyed back out, shalom'ing left and right.  We drove to the Kennedy Memorial, commisioned because Jack Ruby was Jewish or something like that, as Eesa told me about how just the other day he was given a traffic ticket by a cop for turning onto a road that was closed to cars.  as five passenger cars slid past on the same road, he paid 250 shekels for being from a palestininian neighborhood.  "'I'm letting you off with light fine' he said, i said 'it's not about the money!  it's the principle!' It's, what do you call it?" "Discrimination."  "Yes, exactly."  We drove past the Knesset and the Israeli high court.  The very existence of such a large, imposing looking building appelled "high court" in Israel struck me as ironic. "I've appeared at the high court twice, we won 1,600 permits for Palestinians to come to our hospital."

"Do you know what the most discriminating American joke is, Sam?" Oh no. "Do you know what the most discriminating American joke is, Sam?  What's the difference between 500,000 Niggers, and 500,000 sperms?" "I don't know." "Out of the group, one works."  I've heard worse.  "That is just a joke, you know." Farouk, my fellow Kentuckian, cleared his throat, "You can't make jokes like that any more, now that we've got a black president."  "Yes, true.  You know, somebody wrote in a newspaper here, Israel cannot be a democracy, because in 62 years we have not had a single Arab prime minister!"  We all laugh.  "There is the, what do you call it, playground?"  "Stadium."  "Yes, there is the big stadium, named after a famous mayor.  And Ehud Olmert accepted a 150 million dollar bribe."  "150 million dollars."  I missed the logical connection. "Yes, he said 'i have never accepted money from anybody' no, they deposited it in his bank account and he accepted it from the bank."  We laugh again.  We finally make it to the Kennedy Memorial,  where, because of its proximity to the West Bank and the elevation, my cell phone starts working again.  It's a kitschy 70's looking structure, 50 exponentially sloping supports arranged in a cirlce, with a state seal on each support.  A plaque reads, "to signify the eternal friendship between the USA and the State of Israel."  Hopefully eternal as defined by the 50 state supports: infinite and bounded.

This day just keeps going!  Stay tuned for: villages split in half, calcutta nuns, trappist monks, and all manner of robed men in funny hats, a battery brand-named blizzaro and discussing classism and monasticism with a pajama'd  Dutch Baroness in an Anarchist hangout.  All before 12 o'clock.