Nina’s Blog:
It is Monday morning, and despite yesterday’s tragedy, we are on schedule to visit Bethlehem and Ibdaa Cultural Center. Ziad Abbas of Middle East Children’s Alliance in Berkeley has kindly arranged for us to meet his friend Areej, who will give us a tour. Later Areej will take us over to Ibdaa Cultural Center in Dheisheh Refugee Camp, where I visited one afternoon in 2007. Also helping guide us is Shadi, a warm, fun and informative man who makes sure that all our questions are answered.
Areej is young, political, articulate and incredibly passionate about community organizing; getting the word out about life in this small part of the world. She has been persistent in getting a hold of me, no small feat as my cell phone has not been working reliably since I arrived on this trip! Areej grew up in Dheisheh Refugee Camp just outside of Bethlehem, living with her family of 9 people in two rooms that are approximately 100 square meters apiece. She and Ziad have arranged everything for us; taxis to get to the Nativity Church where Jesus Christ was born; lunch in a local shawerma joint; another ride to Ibdaa Cultural Center; and a warm send off back to Ramallah.
Nasr, our church tour guide takes us through the 3 chapels contained within the Church of the Nativity (Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic). We see the place where Jesus was born, and the manger. How amazing that millions of people around the globe have had their lives changed by the events that took place here…
Areej accurately predicts that Nasr will avoid telling the story of the April 2002 Israeli siege of this very same church. Burns and bullet holes still riddle the inner walls of the cloisters. It is hard to imagine the many weeks of fear and gunfire that this now serene sanctuary once saw.
Next we tour Aida Refugee Camp, a crowded ‘slumlike’ area with about 5,000 residents. The words ‘refugee camp’ conjure up images of tents and mud for me, but this camp is full of grey concrete, and has existed for over 60 years. The residents print calendars that number every single day since leaving their homes. Palestinian camps are among the longest standing refugee camps in the world. Aida, Dheisheh and other Palestinian refugee camps are administered by the United Nations, and while the U.N. employes some of the local residents, it appears to me that they are regarded somewhat more as tenement landlords.
Our two guides, Habashi and Dahlia take charge of different parts of our tour. Habashi directs the Aida Youth Organization, and Dahlia is a Palestinian refugee and a college student whose family moved to Jordan. Dahlia has come back to Palestine to volunteer doing fundraising, teaching English and running job skills training with the youth. Habashi takes us through an enormous gate shaped like a key hole, and we hear the story of how generations of Palestinian families hold onto the keys to their family homes; in 1948 they locked up their houses and expected to return within a matter of weeks. Now these keys represent the Palestinian hope for their own Right of Return, and they are a symbol of never giving up.
We walk up three flights of stairs to the roof of an apartment building where we can see the Wall and its winding path. The graffiti inside this grey, run down West Bank neighborhood stands in stark contrast to the verdant olive grove and gleaming new buildings on the Israeli side of the Wall. Areej compares living here to “living on the rez” and I am starting to understand why.
We have a quick and delicious lunch of shawerma. Over lunch I ask Areej what we can do to help the people here. She speaks to us about the BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction); strategies for putting international pressure on Israel to change its policies about Palestinians. She insists that the waiter serve us Palestinian bottled water, not Israeli water, and I start thinking about how every small purchase in my life adds up to an endorsement of sorts, and I wonder if I can be aware and responsible in this way?
Areej tells everyone at the table that the best thing we can do for Bethlehem and Palestinians is to get the word out about what we have seen. Later in the car Areej and I talk about how not all Israelis support what is happening under occupation, and how important it is for peace activists – both Israeli and Palestinian – to educate their own communities about these issues instead of focusing on each other’s efforts. I can see her point: when I was working and dancing more in the disability community as a member of AXIS Dance Company, I believe my biggest impact was to be a role model for other non-disabled dancers and thereby help to create a new value system in my field. The biggest obstacles to change are the ones we take everywhere with us, from the inside out.
Our last stop of the day is at Ibdaa Cultural Center, a community organization perhaps much like First Ramallah Group (Sareyyet) is to Ramallah? Mo and Becky have recently seen a documentary film about these youth, and we are all excited to meet them! I am nervous and excited to visit the youth dance program again, after a wonderful afternoon in 2007 when Rebecca Pappas and I met with their director and saw the youth dance. Today there are many groups visiting; we are oriented with some college students from Egypt, and then given a brief introduction to the history of Dheisheh Refugee Camp, population 13,000. This is where Areej grew up, though her family was somehow able to save money and build a house outside of the camp. I wonder how difficult this is, and does a new home of one’s own ever begin to heal the loss of the one belonging to a grandparent?
The students are about 13 or 14, and perhaps 20 in number. They perform a piece called The Tent, and explain that they dance to express themselves and tell the world about their lives. Their choreography is a combination of dabkeh (traditional Palestinian Folkoric dance) and contemporary dance in sections where they are exploring poetic ideas such as searching for freedom or running from danger. They make this complex style of dance look so easy, but I know it is not! The Tent ends with each dancer holding up two fingers in a peace symbol, and I wish I could talk more with them about what peace looks like to them.
We show them our piece, SKIN, and afterwards ask them if they have any questions. One boy asks what it is about. In turn I ask him what it reminds him of and he says without hesitation, “the Wall, and the occupation.” We are stunned. How can someone who has seen so little contemporary dance see deep into the bones of this piece, and my attempts at reconciling the things I saw and did during my first trip to the Middle East years ago?
We take some photos (will upload soon – sorry, internet is slow here!) and then ask them to show us some of their steps. Several boys corner Edmer and get into a good natured dance battle of sorts, daring Edmer to learn increasingly difficult steps and then dropping their next best one. The girls teach us a few movements and correct my hand gestures. I am almost positive that I recognize two of the girls, and sure enough, back in my hotel room I find photos of them from three years ago in my iPhoto library.
Areej says goodbye, and thanks us for our performance. Just like everywhere else, our time together has been short but intense, and I am reluctant to say goodbye. Areej says our piece is quite sad. I am glad we have connected with our hosts, but I am humbled that they hold more optimism than I do, despite their much harder daily existence.
We return ‘home’ to Ramallah sobered, and go to see the Tunisians’ performance of The Leaf of the Olive Tree at the Al-Kasaba Theater. Nawel Skandrani has crafted an installation and multimedia performance with olives as her symbol of home, exile and poetic sensorium. Her piece features poetry by Mahmoud Darwish, a famous Palestinian poet whose words we saw earlier that same day on a mural in Aida Camp, speaking of how the olive branch is a symbol of home and of peace to the Palestinian people.
We head off to bed, eager to leave bright and early for Jerusalem in the morning. The Tunisians and Algerians wish so badly that they could go, but it is not allowed for them. Once again we are divided in two, and I hug my friend Amira and say I am sad she cannot get to Al-Quds as easily as we…..
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