Beginnings...

The First Trip: Shock and Awe: July 2004

A farmer harvests wheat in a field near Raed's home town. 

I first visited the West Bank of Palestine in July 2004. It was my first trip here, and it was pre-kiddos, which was good considering the amount of culture shock I experienced. It was a trip full of firsts for me, and I’d like to think I handled myself gracefully most of the time, but I remember being overwhelmed, lost, teary-eyed, and utterly exhausted for a good bit of the trip. The trip began with a 12-hour trans-Atlantic journey on the airplane, but as I found out later, that was the easy part. The border crossing into the West Bank was a grueling, blisteringly hot 22 hour sleepless marathon, full of armed soldiers, long lines, swarming flies, and overflowing with the desperation and anger that ensues when rightful citizens of a country are systematically subjugated and barely allowed a painful re-entry to their own land.

The Long Road Home: The steep, winding road leading to Thahryieh

After clearing the border crossing,  we finally crawled up the last stretch of sandy road leading to Raed’s home in Thahryieh, and the house was full of relatives waiting to greet us. I’d never seen so many people I had never met who were so happy to meet me. It was full-on cultural immersion, which at the time was pretty much like being dropped onto another planet for me.

As days passed, relatives and friends visited in an endless stream, and I was drowned in an ocean of unfamiliar Arabic. We sat in room after room, divided by gender, fueled by glasses of tea and strong coffee, and greeted and kissed cheek after cheek until it was all a blurry muddle of confusion. There was even one unfortunate incident where I nearly kissed an Uncle in the two cheek fashion that I’m supposed to reserve for the women. It was a near miss, but nevertheless left me red faced, and a good laugh ensued around the circle of relatives.

Arabic coffee: My best friend at late night gatherings

We were served Mansef, the unofficial national dish of Palestine, which is lamb cooked in a yogurt sauce over rice. The food was delicious, but at every house we were served the same dish because that’s what people serve an honored guest, so by the end of the trip, I couldn't bring myself to even think about eating more lamb!

Mansef

 All in all, I was received with open arms, by the most generous, most graceful people I’d ever met. As culturally shocking as it was to me, I was equally as different to them, and they received me as one of their own, never questioning me or demanding anything of me other than that I relax and eat lots of Mansef. During our visit, we navigated through Israeli checkpoints in order to travel to Bethlehem, Hebron, Ramallah, and Jerusalem and saw historical sites such as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and we climbed the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem. I saw things that put my life up until that point into great perspective. Seeing such places where people have lived for thousands of years was a humbling experience as I contemplated the brevity of life in the grand scheme of the world. It changed the way I viewed the world and myself forever. I had broken free from the bubble I had existed in until that point, and there was no going back.

Overlooking a valley in the West Bank

Outside the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem