Arabic. Planning. Laundry. Election. Israelis in Ramallah.
My first Arabic lesson with Marwan focused this morning on sorting out where the many gaps are in whatever it is I already know. Arabic remains difficult, especially the transition from my faded memory of classical Arabic’s logic to the Palestinian dialect’s idiosyncrasies. We meet again tomorrow morning, at Stars and Bucks as today, for the second of what I hope will be 8 or 9 lessons over the next two weeks. I’ll be glad if something sinks in.
After the lesson, while Marwan waited for his next student we talked about my interest in being here and Palestinian issues more generally. Marwan emphasized something I just blogged about yesterday, that Ramallah is not typical of the rest of Palestine. I do plan to get out of the city again, starting this Thursday to spend a couple of days in Bil’in visiting Rateb Abu Rahma, an organizer of the weekly protest against the Separation Barrier that I’ve written about many times. Rateb stayed at my house about a year ago when he was in the US for a speaking tour. I’m looking forward to being in Bil’in for more than just the Friday protest.
Next week I plan to go to Jerusalem for a couple of days, and I’ve got some other day trips on the West Bank in mind. I’m still settling in here, trying to figure out basics like where to get my laundry done (no laundromats it seems), where to get a phone card (and which kind - it gets confusing), and similar mundane things.
The TV is on now, Election Day in the US. With the time difference, I’ll go to sleep tonight not knowing if Obama wins, as I expect. From here in Ramallah it doesn’t look like he’ll make much difference for Palestinians. Although I think he understands the issues more than most American politicians and he’s had close contacts with Palestinians, he’s still enough of a politician to know which issues are untouchable. It didn’t surprise me that there were no questions about Israel and Palestine during the presidential debates I saw.
When I was here two years ago, an English-language Palestinian newspaper had just started publishing. It didn’t last long, and now the only English papers are from Jordan, Israel, and the International Herald Tribune. The Jerusalem Post is filled with US election news, focusing not surprisingly on the possible impact on Israel and bragging about how many Jewish politicians might have influential roles in any new administration.
The store at Al Manarah where I usually get a paper, by the way, also sells Ma’ariv, an Israeli Hebrew newspaper. That surprised me. I asked the owner if he sold many copies; he said no. But I guess it makes sense that he sells some. There are other signs of more Israelis in Ramallah than last time I was here. Every once in a while I overhear a bit of Hebrew, and the streets have plenty of cars with yellow Israeli license plates. Even if most are driven by East Jerusalem Palestinians who are allowed to come here, I do know of Jewish Israelis who come here despite rules against it.