Sometime in early November, my friend Noa told me we were going to spend our upcoming Friday picking olives in the Hebron area.
You mean, I asked her, You expect me to get up at six o’clock on a weekend morning, give up a whole day of cafe lounging, newspapers, gossip, cappuccino and croissants, and instead join a bunch of artsy-fartsy bleeding heart Leftists who are gonna bond with their Palestinian brethren in the morning so they can enjoy their sushi in Tel Aviv with a clean conscience that evening?
Exactly, answered Noa. C’mon, it’ll be a lot of laughs. We can make fun of people all day long. Plus it’ll be good exercise. And think of the hummus! They must have fabulous hummus in Hebron.
They do, I responded. But I don’t think the place I like is open on Friday.
[insert more grumbling and cynical comments from me, plus more ironic wheedling from Noa].
Finally, I capitulated. Fine, I answered. But you are responsible for waking me up, because my body doesn’t respond to alarm clocks at six o’clock on a Friday morning. And do not expect me to sing Biladi, Biladi while hugging the olive trees, either. ‘Cause that’s just not happening. There’s a limit to my willingness to Identify With Palestinian Suffering.
And so, on a sunny Friday morning, when all sane people were still in bed, I found myself with Noa and her friend Noga, rattling through the brown landscape of the Hebron Hills in an old van driven by Abu Rami, a cynical East Jerusalem resident with a nicotine-stained, bushy white mustache, who growled in Hebrew that we were late and he didn’t like to be kept waiting. We were accompanied by a couple of Israelis and a few Europeans who Identified With Palestinian Suffering. The blonde Swedish girl with the very white teeth was the object of much attention from the two Israeli men; Swedish women have been the Israeli male’s fantasy ever since they first showed up, with their long, brown legs and fabulously liberal ways, as kibbutz volunteers in the 1970′s. “Hilarious,”" I muttered in Hebrew as I nudged Noga, “Her mother’s generation picked apples on the kibbutzim, back when Israel was still the underdog; and now the Palestinians are the underdog so the younger generation volunteers to pick olives in Hebron.”
“Think of it as sustainable conflict tourism,” quipped Noa.
A middle-aged woman who spoke Hebrew with an English accent stood up to make an announcement. “We’re almost there,” she said, “So I just wanted to warn you all: if you have a camera or a mobile phone, keep it close to you at all times because The Settlers have been known to grab them.”
Well, I said. If The Settlers go for my mobile phone, that’s it. They don’t know who they’re messing with.
Soon after that, Abu Rami stopped at the edge of an enormous expanse of olive groves, pulled the lever next to his steering wheel to open the door, and lit a cigarette as he watched us piling out of the van.
“I suppose you’re going to go have a coffee?” I asked him.
“Yup,” he snickered. “And possibly an argileh, too.”
“Hmph,” I answered, as I pulled my canvas sun hat lower over my forehead and checked to make sure that my mobile phone was safely in my pocket, out of reach of The Settlers.
We trudged through a plowed field, heading toward the olive groves. I wished aloud that I hadn’t drunk so much water – because I had to pee, and I didn’t see any bushes anywhere. Let alone toilets. Or espresso machines, for that matter.
Over at the olive grove, there was no messing around. Muhammed, his neighbors and his relatives had all been hard at work since dawn, and apparently it was essential to finish picking all the olives that day. Don’t ask me why: I’m a city girl, I don’t understand these things. At any rate, this was apparently serious business. With barely a greeting, Muhammed briskly pointed us toward different trees and we were put to work. As soon as we’d stripped the branches of one tree, we dumped the olives into buckets and moved onto the next. Somehow, I found myself working rhythmically together with one family – Khaled, his wife Hadil, three of their six children and two female cousins. The women knew little English and less Hebrew, but we were determined to bond. My age and (lack of) marital status were a source of great amusement and intense curiosity, of course, but I was not so into husband talk so I took refuge in jokes. They laughed politely and asked if I had a favorite Arab singer. Um, I love Fayrouz, I said. Yes, yes, of course. Fayrouz. Anyone else?
Nancy Ajram? I offered.
Nancy! You like Nancy Ajram? So do we! What is your favorite song?
Pretty soon we were warbling through the first stanza of “Inteh Eih.” Hadil showed me how to preserve olives, and told me she was a teacher. It must be difficult to work full time while raising six children, I said, making a staggeringly original observation. Yes, she answered. I started my university studies after I had my last child. She told me she was 36, but she looked older. I gathered that it wasn’t much fun to spend one’s only day off working the land.
Three hours later, we stopped for a 10-minute lunch. Bowls of homemade labneh, hummus, olives, sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and huge flatbreads were set out on the ground. We ate. One of the Tel Aviv women commented that the labneh was absolutely divine. So authentic!
Muhammed, noting my enthusiasm for the flatbread, reached behind him, selected a whole one from a pile, folded it in half, and presented it to me. I clutched it to my breast in exaggerated thanks, and we all laughed. Tea was poured from a huge aluminum kettle into plastic cups , and then we went back to work, striping olives with one hand as we held our cups of tea in the other.
I pulled aside one of the female cousins and, because I had no idea how to say “bushes” in Arabic, asked her where the “hammam” was.
“No hammam,” she said, firmly.
No hammam? You work all day and no hammam? Apparently, yes. But I was a desperate woman, and Hadil was sympathetic. She told one of the little girls to take me to a distant olive grove and squat guard while I relieved myself. And relief was definitely the operative word here.
Post-lunch conversation took a turn toward the political. Hadil expressed her wish to visit Jerusalem, which was only a few minutes’ drive and several checkpoints distant. But women are allowed to visit Jerusalem, I said. Yes, she answered, but I am afraid to go without my husband.
Khaled, who spoke reasonably good Hebrew, asked me if I was afraid to come to Hebron. Should I be afraid? I asked. No, of course not, he answered. But most Jews are afraid of us. I am wondering why you are not. I shrugged and continued stripping branches. Suddenly, apropos of absolutely nothing, he recited from memory the first verses of Genesis, in completely fluent Biblical Hebrew. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…” Then he looked at me to judge the effect of his unexpected knowledge. I took a course, he said. I’m interested in all religions.
Do you come to Hebron often? he asked.
Not often, I answered. Only sometimes, for work.
You must come visit us, he said. You will be our guest. Why don’t you stay at our home tonight?
Tonight I must return to Tel Aviv, I answered. But I will come see you the next time I visit.
When?
Soon.
Soon?
Inshallah.
I have a question for you, about Tel Aviv. It’s about the men and the women. Is it true there are no rules?
There are rules, I answered. But they are different.
Different, yes.
Pause.
Different, how?
It’s complicated. You have to live there to understand. It’s not better or worse, just different.
Khaled contemplated the olives and decided against pursuing this subject, although it was clearly troubling him. I was relieved.
By mid-afternoon it was time to leave. Abu Rami was waiting. Muhammed was disappointed. There was still a lot of work to be done, and it would be dark soon. Couldn’t we stay just a little longer?
On the way back to the van, I was introduced to Jamal – who, it turned out, was the owner of the olive groves. Jamal, who was in his fifties, corpulent and, judging by his watch and shoes, a successful businessman, spoke completely fluent Hebrew. He whipped out his 3G mobile phone and asked me if I ever visited Ramallah. Yes, I said. Actually, I might be there tomorrow. Wonderful! said Jamal. Perhaps I can invite you for coffee, to thank you for your hard work. Perhaps, I said.
I couldn’t think of a way to avoid giving him my mobile number. People were looking. If I refused, I’d insult him. If I consented, I’d be a loose woman. Jamal recorded my mobile number, then put his arm around my waist and kissed my cheek. He knew that a kiss on the cheek was almost the same as a handshake in Tel Aviv. He also knew that it was not acceptable, in conservative Hebron, for a man to kiss a woman who was not a close relative. I glanced at Hadeel, and she looked away.
Back in the van, I used my folded canvas hat to wipe dust off my face and said to Noa, “Jamal got a good deal today. Free labour from bleeding hearts who thought they were making a political statement, and a kiss on top of it.”
“Sister,” observed Noa, “You give too much.”
So I’ve been told, I muttered.
On the way back to Jerusalem, Abu Rami stopped at a roadside produce stand. Huge purple grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers – so cheap, and organic, too! I bought two kilos of grapes, most of which we ate during the rest of the journey, some tomatoes and a few cucumbers.
At the checkpoint leading into Jerusalem, the female border guard bitched at Abu Rami for pulling into the wrong queue. He growled back; she glared at him, and then waved us through.
It was dark by the time I reached Tel Aviv. Rothschild Boulevard was packed with children on their bicycles, strolling couples, and flirting hipster singletons enjoying a last cappuccino at Gili’s kiosk before he closed for the Sabbath eve. I stopped in at the Tiv Tam on Mazeh Street and bought some yogurt to eat with my Palestinian flatbread and organic Palestinian vegetables. Glancing at my reflection in the mirror above the dairy shelves, I saw that my face was covered in streaks of dirt. I licked my teeth, and they were gritty. My dust-covered hair looked and felt like steel wool.
Jamal called just as I was inserting the key into the lock of my fourth-floor apartment door (did I mention there’s no elevator?). I ignored the call, intent on a long, hot shower and my favourite Friday night news magazine show. Which I watched while eating my flatbread, tomatoes, cucumbers and yogurt.
But Jamal was persistent. He called 16 times over the next 24 hours. Finally, on Saturday night, I answered and told him that one call was sufficient. Clearly, I would call him back when I had time. “But I thought you were coming to Ramallah!” he said, plaintively.
Then Noa called, and we agreed that our bodies felt as though they had been subjected to two spinning classes in a row, plus a power yoga session.
Finally, Khaled called.
“Lisa, how are you? Hadeel and I want to know: When are you coming to visit us in Hebron?”
