After traveling for 23 hours, including the van ride down to SLC and then getting through immigration, I finally found M. When I saw her I literally screamed her name! At first I couldn’t findher, and I panicked, but there she was. Thank God. I was tired, a bit panicked because her cell number wasn’t right, and I was tired tired tired. Thank God for all that therapy, especially this new stuff. I held it together, pretty much. Carolyn would be proud.We’ve basically spent the last 24 hours in the house, with the children, and then going and visiting family. They are all impressed that I wore my hijab for the ENTIRE trip. Sometime, around 11pm Jordan Time, M’s father went to sleep and her mother told me I could take it off. How nice. My poor chin is getting chafed from having something there all the time. I’ve got cream and I feel more comfortable looking like I fit in rather than standing out, so it’s okay. I’m also slowly learning morearabic words, with the help of her oldest, D, and also have discovered the wonders of how technology is able to speak across languages. At least between and adult and child. Also how making funny noises can do the same, and finally that “yumm” is universal for “yumm.”This morning I awoke to a sight I couldn’t get over – a geography that looks like Israel and Palestine, but without a 30 foot wall interrupting the landscape. No one here has seen it, and I’m glad they don’t know what the experience is like. On the other hand, they haven’t seen it because they can’t go home. On the horrible hand, it is there because their parents, and some of them, were forced to flee.The situation makes me angry.Oh, a side note. On the plane from Paris to Amman I was sitting next to a very nice fellow who is Palestinian Jordanian. There was no handy map on that plane, so we kept debating about where we were. At one point I told him “there’s the boot of Italy!” and he didn’t believe me. It ended up I’d been right.. but the side note was that I told him that if we were going to fly over Israel they were going to tell us at one point or another that we could no longer get up, even if there was no turbulence. He hadn’t remembered this from his previous trips home (he has been living in the US for 25 years), but I assured him it would happen if we were, in fact, flying over Israel. I was right.Eventually we were told we could not get up and walk around. They first said it in French, then inEnglish they said it but they explained it as “special circumstances.” Being that on my other flight into the area they told us it was because we were entering Israeli airspace I knew what the “special circumstances” were, which, of course made me angry that they wouldn’t say anything. Eventually we spoke to a flight attendant for some other reason and I asked her if the special circumstanceswere because of Israel and she said yes. Of course, that made me even more angry. But that’s a story for another day, as well as more thoughts to sort through.So, I’m learning how to properly wrap a hijab with a scarf. That’s better than the things I have. I’ve interviewed one person about her experience in Palestine, but she was only 5 when she left. Her mother is still alive and she is going to ask her mother if I can come record her telling her story. We are also going to go visit a friend of M’s mother who still lives in a refugee camp near Amman. We will also go to M’s school on Sunday and talk about a good time for our workshop. We may even get to visit a few schools.Finally, since Mai is not coming into Palestine/Israel with me I’ve decided that I am going to go via the Allenby bridge. This is a crossing directly into the West Bank from Jordan and is controlled by the Israeli government. I am going to do the crossing wearing an abaya and a hijab. It could possibly be an emotionally difficult day, but I am here, and I have this opportunity face the Israeligovernment looking like “the other.” I also have the HUGE advantage that most of the other women wearing a hijab going through that crossing don’t have, which is a happy little american passport. They will ask me why I am not wearing a hijab in my photo I am sure, and I will have to come up with a good reason. I will, of course, take my cross off, in case I get searched.
I’m not sure what we’re doing tomorrow. If they are going to the mosque, I may see about taking a bus into Amman. On Saturday evening I’m going to services at the Anglican church over in Amman. That will be nice. I feel a little stuck here at Mai’s house, but that’s okay. I’m here with a woman that I was worried I wouldn’t discover the same level of friendship with. Low and behold I have discovered that yes, indeed, I adore this woman, and her children. Her husband is a very good man and likes to talk about politics – which we mostly agree on. The jewish issue is touchy.
