Alli in Palestine: Only day 2?

The view from the kitchen window:

Today I slept in until Jiries woke me up so we could go to Tata (grandmother) Huda's senior citizen home, which they jokingly refer to as "the university". As soon as we got there Jiries disappeared and I sat down at a table with Tata Huda and many other elderly women, who pointed at me and clearly interrogated Tata Huda about me, in Arabic of course. They asked me a million questions and then laughed when I was obviously clueless. When I tried out my weak Arabic they laughed even more, and then peer pressured me to eat even though I tried telling them I was beyond full already (pita with hummus and cucumber for late breakfast). I had some sort of rice with cucumbers and tomato salad. I met with the women who run the "university" and starting Friday I will be going in with Huda on the 8 am bus and hanging out with her there and helping the staff prepare lunch and other tasks.

Later in the day Tata Huda, Jiries and I picked up Jiries' sister's kids, Nermeen and Loai, who live in San Diego but will be staying here for the next 2 months. They both speak English so they helped me with my Arabic and occasionally translated, and Nermeen is just a few years younger than me. The four of us then when to the Tree of Nations!! For those of you who went on the Tree of Life Journey, you know how exciting this is!

The Tent of Nations is Palestinian property owned by the family of a man named Daoud Nasser, and the Israeli settlers are trying to take the land from him so they can expand their illegal settlements. Daoud has invited people from all over the world to come and plant olive trees in the Tree of Life orchard, and learn about the history of the land. News on the demolition orders (which the Israeli army- the IDF- recently delivered) is that the Israeli army has 2 months to explain why they feel it is necessary to bulldoze the structures on the Tent of Nations land.

From left to right: Daher, Nermeen, Loai, Tata Houda, me

Unfortunately Daoud was not there, but his brother Daher was. He showed us the cave that his grandfather had began digging with his bare hands in 1919 so his family could live in it. Daher also talked to us about the encroaching settlements on each side of the orchard, which were first established in 1991 and now one (out of the 4) already has 20,000 settlers living in it. Jiries and I checked on the olive trees we planted and they are looking great!!

After the cave, he let us ride one of the horses bare back! Remember the brown baby horse we saw right next to the olive orchard? I saw it today! It is still too small to ride so we went on the bigger (and meaner) one. I might be wrong but I think that was the first time I've ever ridden a horse (its funny to think I have been on a camel before a horse).

After we had tea (shy) and headed home. Jiries has been telling people that I am his daughter so no one will mess with me, and on the way home he stopped in a shop to pick up meat for a BBQ and they said to him, "So Jiries, we heard your daughter is visiting!" This is a small town and word travels fast. Its so small, in fact, that I've already seen at least 3 guys from the Palestinian dance team that we watched perform in the basement of the Paradise Hotel in Bethlehem. At night we had a BBQ at Jiries' house with his sister Niveen, her kids (Loai and Nermeen), Jiries' brother Isam, his wife, and his daughter Sahrouq. We went up to the rooftop of Jiries' apartment building and looking at the beautiful night skyline.

After we went to smoke some hookah (what the Tree of Life Journey kids know how to do best) at a restaurant that one of Jiries' nephews just opened up, called Bombay Burger. Don't worry Mom and Dad, hookah isn't anything illegal, it's just a water pipe and you inhale water vapor from flavored tabacco, but you are barely BARELY inhaling any tobacco. In this case, we got apple flavor, which in Arabic is said like "toofah", but when I was tested on it later in the night I accidently said "footah", which turns out to mean diaper. Needless to say, I didn't understand why everyone burst out laughing when I said that, but when someone could catch their breath long enough to tell me I was laughing too.

Now I am back home, and tomorrow Jiries and I are going to Jerusalem to meet up with his nieces (I think?) and maybe we are bringing them to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (or maybe not, I can't keep up). After we are attending a Greek Orthodox baptism in the afternoon. I am going to try to figure out how to post pictures now.

Nada- I read my first Arabic word today!!! At Bombay Burger I was looking at the all-Arabic menu, and then I realized one of the selections said "Kebab"!!!!!

Suzie- Remember when we were watching the Palestinian dance team and you jabbed me in the shoulder and told me to check out the tall hot one? I saw him tonight! The guys here don't look twice at me though because everyone thinks I am Jiries' daughter :) I am still tracking down your host family's info, don't worry.

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