Hospitality

It is my second to last day in Nablus, and my social calendar has never been so full. At the moment I am in a shoe shop drinking tea with the owner, his thirteen year old son, and three other workers. Although I had seen them intermittently on my visits to the furniture shop across from them, owned by a good friend’s cousins whom I in turn had befriended, I really only got to know the shoe shop’s occupants a week ago. Nonetheless, when they heard I was leaving they insisted I come back and have tea with them once more before I left for good.

Prior to arriving here I have been at my friend Ashraf’s house (tea and coffee) for a few hours, at one of the centers where I once taught (soda) for half an hour, and now at my final engagement, checking my watch, it seems that I have planned everything appropriately to balance social obligations and teaching duties—I have been in the shoe shop for about forty minutes, a goodly amount of time, and with ten minutes to spare until my classes begin. I politely begin to excuse myself.

“No, no. Stay some more,” says Brahim, the heavy-set worker who first dragged me into the shop a week ago.

“Ah, no, I am in a hurry, I have class” I say pointing to my watch.

Someone else insists I stay. The shopkeeper kindly cuts them off and says curtly, “Can’t you see he has class?”

So relectanctly they let me go, we say goodbye, I tell them I will be back in three months’ time. Samer, an older worker who spent several years in the states, gives me a hug; his mind is slightly addled though no one can figure out how it happened or when, the result is merely that he has the simplicity of a child and sometimes speaks nonsense. It does not prevent him from telling me to come back soon.

I step out into the stairway alley where the shop is located. Over the past four months I have taught classes in the neighborhood, frequented a sweets shop at the bottom of the stairs, and been stopped countless times for tea and coffee by proprietors or workers who recognized my face and invited me in out of a sense of curiosity, hospitality, or both most likely.

I turn to head up the stairs when a voice stops me; I know immediately I am in trouble.

“Hey Brian! What are you doing?” It is Tamer. His father owns the little shop across the stairs where his brothers and he help sanding, varnishing, and finishing furniture of all sorts. It was they who first took me under their wing in the neighborhood because I am a good friend of their first cousin.

“You drink tea with these guys,” Tamer gestures dismissively towards the shoe shop, “And don’t even come inside to see if we are here?”

“I am sorry, really, but I did not have the time. I have class.”

“When is your class?”

I glance at my watch. “In five minutes,” I lie.

“Five minutes? Alot of time! Come, you must drink tea with me.”

Tamer is sixteen years old, skinny, about my own height, but his friendly grip on my arm is strong and I am propelled into the shop, filled with the now familiar smells of wood and varnish.

“Sit, sit,” he says pointing to a chair. No matter where, or how many times I visit a place, I am always asked to sit.

Tamer busily sets about boiling the water, fetching the tea bags and sugar from the back room. “So today is your last full day, yes?”

“Second to last,” I say, “Listen, I told you I will come to visit here tomorrow. Really, I will be late.”

“Oh, no no, the tea is almost ready. See? It is fast. How much sugar do you like in it?”

Tamer fills two tea glasses, the amber brown tea steams, the cups are hot against our palms. Tamer sips at his. I hurriedly alternate between blowing on mine and taking painfully large sips. My tongue is going to be burnt. Three minutes until class.

“What’s wrong? Take your time and enjoy the tea.”

“My class, I will be late, no time, GAH so hot, it burns!”

Tamer goes to the back and comes out with a plastic pitcher and moves to pour into my cip. “Ah, is that cold water? Yes, cold water?” I need to be able to finish my tea in a hurry and go.

“Ah… yes, cold water,” says Tamer with a look in his eye. In my delirium I can only see hope: I tilt my glass towards the pitcher. Hot tea comes out, filling the cup to the brim; I protest all the while—“No, no, no, stop, stop.”

Once tea is in the cup, and the cup placed in front of you, it is the height of rudeness not to drink it all. Strangely I know my students will be less upset that I am late than Tamer would be if I did not drink the tea; tardiness is quite common in Nablus. Personally, I just hate being late, possibly because I am so often lacking in punctuality, so I take my tea in a gulp and try not to yelp too loudly. My esophagus and upper stomach are uncomfortably hot.

Tamer realizes my frantic desire to leave has overcome his forced hospitality. Still, unknown to me, he has one last ploy up his sleeve.

Tamer shakes my hand.

“Why don’t you teach me a karate move?”

“What?!”

“Just one move, right now.” Tamer’s handshake has turned into a death grip and all the while he smiles at me. I half want to laugh at myself for being in such a situation: being asked to perform martial arts moves while desperately making excuses to leave.

“Right now? No, maybe tomorrow.”

“No, right now. Why not?”

“But… no, tomorrow, I will, really, tomorrow.”

I wrench my hand free.

“I have class! I am very late, seriously. Bye!”

Tamer makes a face at me. “Ok, but come back tomorrow like you said!”

“Ok, I will!”

I hit the stairway running. Two long blocks to my class. I am ten minutes late.

In Nablus, no one runs anywhere. In fact locals frequently ask us foreigners why we walk as if we always have somewhere important to be; I wasn’t even aware that I walked fast.

I am ten minutes late, screw propriety. I race down the two blocks, people staring at me: the two youths at the carwash, the caretakers at the Christian graveyard, the neighborhood kids playing soccer on the street.

“Hello!” I shout to them all, “I am late!”

As I approach the Project Hope office I see our director standing outside talking on his mobile. I jet past him, but he motions me to stop. I am fifteen meters from my classroom where ten college age students are waiting for me.

“Ah, Brian. You’re leaving after tomorrow, yes?”

“Yeah, I am. Probably early in the morning after tomorrow.”

“We’ll have to have a dinner for you then. Maybe we’ll all go out. How does that sound?”

“Great. It sounds great.”

He takes a second look at me.

“Did you run all the way here?”

“Yeah… I’m late for a class.”

He looks at his watch. “You’re thirteen minutes late?”

“Yeah…I had to get tea with some local shopkeepers… and then Ashraf’s cousin stopped me and I had to have tea with him… ”

“Basically you’re too popular. Well? What are you waiting for then? Go. Go to class.”

I turn to run the last fifteen meters, through the heavy black gate, down the old stone steps, across the terrace and then back up another set up steps to the office, but first our director shouts after me, “And don’t forget the dinner! Save room for us in your social calendar!”

If this is how my second to last day goes, I dread to imagine the last.

To quote something another volunteer once dryly remarked to me: “Nablus is supposedly a hotbed of terrorism, but the most lethal thing around here is definitely the hospitality.”

Haven't had time to write up the pieces that come to mind so expect two entries in the next week: leaving Nablus, and another on the perspectives and position of Israeli Arabs in Israeli society and in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Career Path

In America when I mention that I have studied Arabic, most people inevitably say, 'There's a lot of demand for that nowadays. You can work for the government."

In Palestine when I mention that I'm from America, some people ask, in one way or another, 'Are you an American spy?"

I told one friend that I had no interest working for the intelligence agencies of a government whose policies I disagreed with so strongly. He responded, "Ah, well in that case why don't you work for the Palestinian side. You can spy on America for us." I laughed because even if the Palestinian Authority wanted it, what could they possibly do with daily updates on the inside goings-ons of the American government.
"Of course," my friend added, "the financial recompensation isn't so good. Right now you wouldn't have been paid in nearly a year. Better keep your day job."

Now that I've spent the past three or four days in Tel Aviv, and three or four days in Haifa--actual Israeli territory--I've been pretty tight lipped about having doing volunteer work in Nablus. Maybe it's partially that the paranoia of Nablus has finally seeped under my skin, because certainly not everyone in Israel would scowl at someone who's done volunteer work to help Palestinians, but I think most people would make inferences about my political alignment and... certainly it wouldn't predispose most Israelis to like me. Anyways, as an example of how paranoid people are about security here, I'm going to the airport in an hour, everyone is required to show up three hours early to the airport because airport security interrogates everyone, especially single travellers on tourist visas (very suspicious). I may actually tell them the truth about what I've been doing here, and I'll let you know how that goes.

Last night I don't think I slept very well. I must have been dreaming something in Arabic, because I distinctly remember sitting bolt upright and saying, in Arabic, "We have to find a translation for this". To which one of my five dormitory mates in the hostel replied, "Shut up and go back to sleep."

Guess that blew my cover---worst Palestinian spy ever.