Waaaa Happen?

Hello all! Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I actually don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve written because time is all confused in my head, so maybe it actually hasn’t been that long, it just feels like it. Maybe. Well, my last entry was about the Israeli invasion, and things have definitely calmed down a lot since then. I haven’t even thought about Israelis in a couple weeks. It’s weird that things can go from so drastic to very normal so quickly. Some humanitarian groups here go from place to place to protest what the Israeli army is doing, but living in one place, doing normal, every-day things gives me a different outlook on the situation. Sometimes I think about it a lot and I talk about it with my friends, but other times it doesn’t come up for days. This reminds me of one of the families I have become friends with (their father was one of my electrician students and now their daughter is in my university-level conversation class) who have invited Ina and I to dinner a couple times. The first time after we ate we were sitting around eating fruit and drinking tea (something you must do after dinner), they told us about how the Israelis destroyed their house and the entire apartment building where they live. They said that at 7am the soldiers came and told everyone they had to get out as fast as possible because there was a wanted person in the house and they were looking for him. So the entire building was standing on the street, all the men had their hands tied and were forced to stay on their knees on the curb looking away from the house. The soldiers bulldozed a hole in the building to get at it more easily, then after a day of ransacking the house and not finding anyone, right when the sunset call to prayer went off, they blew the building up. They showed us a video tape of it and you could see the building, then hear the beginning of the call to prayer, then a huge cloud of smoke and a boom and it was gone. All the people in the video were yelling and wailing and then they all started yelling “Allahu Akbar” (god is the greatest). When the mom saw the film again she got tears in her eyes just thinking about it. Luckily they had saved money and other people pitched in so they could rebuild the building and now they’re back where they started, having replaced all their possessions and furniture and cars and everything. It was really sad to think that this family who had done nothing had everything they owned and their entire house destroyed. But then, the next time we went over for dinner something completely the opposite was the topic of conversation. As we were eating, a couple women showed up at the door unexpectedly. As it turned out, the family didn’t at all know them, but they were coming because they heard that there were two girls of marrying age living at the house, and they had sons that wanted to marry. So everyone was all a flutter, both the girls had to go out and “be seen” and the father grumped in the kitchen because as he told us, this was an old fashioned way to marry and he couldn’t believe complete strangers were coming into his house to look at his daughters. Both his daughters of course agreed with this, but for him I think it was more that he didn’t want to think of his daughters marrying yet, although they are 21 and 23, which is prime age here. Then one of the daughters rushed back into the kitchen and said, “Can you believe it! They’re asking for 3 girls because she has 3 sons!” They all slowly turned their heads and looked at Ina and me. We both pointed to each other, but she’s older, so she had to be sacrificed. All in all it we had a lot of fun with the whole situation with people coming in and out of the kitchen gossiping about the women and lots of eye rolling. After they left we heard lots of stories about how the mom and dad met each other (which was, as you can guess, not in a traditional way like this) and their grandparents and so on. We laughed a lot and had a really good time with them. So yes, that’s the way things go. Everyone here has horrible memories like this family, but life still goes on and you can’t always talk about them and think about them. As much as I’m here to learn about the situation with the army and everything, I’m mostly here to meet people and make new friends and tell jokes and all that warm fuzzy kind of stuff.
So, in general, life is good with me. We’ve switched classes, which I wasn’t happy about because I really liked all my other classes, but now that I’m used to the new ones, it’s really good. I’ve been kind of sick for the past couple days with flu-ish kind of stuff and people have been calling me all day to make sure I’m ok. Seriously, every single person I’ve met here has taken me into their family like one of their own. If I ever needed anything (especially home-grown medical remedies, tea or food of any kind or quantity) I could have 20 people at my door with it. It’s kind of exhausting, but mostly it’s just really nice. Ahhh, I really do love people here. Hokay, I know all my blogs end up like this, but it’s true. Other news, pounce is still thriving here. I can hear my roommates playing right now and the only reason I got out of the game is because technically I’m sick. It’s going to take over Palestine and then the world! Muahahaha. Also, I’m reading a book by Willa Cather and I forgot how much I love her writing. I recommend her to everyone. I spent my whole day in Nebraska as a pioneer. It was awesome. Oh, and just to tie things up, we have hot water now and it’s been going strong for a couple weeks. Hamd lilah. (Thank God). Ok, there’s a fight about someone cheating at pounce in the living room so I’m going to go see what it’s about. That reminds me, my roommate Eric had a dream that he cut his finger off in the kitchen and came to the living room to tell us and we were all playing pounce, so no one paid attention to him at all. Hahaha, I’m sorry to say it’s probably not far from what the truth would be. Anyways, I’m sending all of you lots of laughs for ridiculous situations and I ask you to send me some non-swollen tonsils (I think you can UPS them if you want) and some strength to say goodbye to all my roommates who are leaving within the week. I miss you all more than corn on the cob and beets in the summer (why is it that I always pick food to miss you more than? Hmmmm…….) Love, Lisa
p.s I have more concrete travel plans now for the next couple months, so if anyone wants to meet me, or will be in the same place at the same time, or has a better idea in mind, let me know! Leave Palestine in mid April to Jordan for 3 days, then to Egypt for a week with Barbara, then to Senegal on the 22nd for a couple weeks with Irene, then trekking up the coast to Morocco and into Spain by May 15th. Travelling around Spain, Portugal, France and Italy for a month with Elizabeth, then to France for about a month to stay with the circus guys I met here with a week excursion to Greece to see Kristin and one to Germany to see Ina somewhere in there. Then back to the good ol’ US of A. Anyone interested? Maybe just maybe we could have a lot of fun!