Ramallah for Real: A day at work

On arrival I'm set up in the veranda, which is cherished office real estate. Especially in winter. Pamper the newbie, I guess.

Back in the day the Bisan headquarters sat in Balu'a, a low-lying suburb of Ramallah of previously marshes, aquatic birds and, in summer, the occasional goat. Today offices spring up, both government and private. There's a pharmaceutical factory, and of course Plaza Mall, an air-conditioned, i.e. refrigerated, glass expanse that houses a Benetton boutique, a toy store, coffee shops, and the regal Bravo Supermarket. Descendants of that occasional goat still graze among the towering developments. I often toddle down there to chillax whenever, especially in summer, the veranda proves less cherished real estate and more NASA experiment to colonize Venus.  

I sit in the veranda that first year, learning the ropes as they say. Bisan publishes reports on social issues, the impact of occupation, closures. There's vocational training, awareness campaigns on the role of women in society, and workshops for health workers about domestic violence. Izzat, good-natured, loquacious, and eternal optimist started the organization at the onset of the first Intifada, after selling his textile manufacturing business.

I sit in the veranda. Izzat waltzes in, preceded by his trademark high-pitched laughter. He slaps me on the back. "How's that report coming along?" 

"Working on it," I go. We're training women from a Bethlehem refugee camp to start a community center. The struggle to get the columns and tables right on this frigging Word document distracts me from the content. Apparently someone's building a humongous wall betwixt the camp and an expanse of olive trees from which previously the inhabitants eked a modicum of income. "Thou shall not steal," a member of the old school has daubed on the three-meter high concrete nibble. I add a photograph to the chapter on obstacles and constraints. It's hard to click-and-drag without messing up the lay-out.

"They do need women's emancipation," an Israeli friend says when I talk about my work. 

"Sure," I say, "that, and perhaps the means to build a veritable economy. The ability, for instance, to drive a truckload of goods from Nablus to Ramallah. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. All they can do under Israeli rule is observe and document the economic, social, and moral decay." 

"Yeah, but we won more Nobel prizes than anyone else. What have they done?" I love my friend dearly, but somewhere along the line we stopped talking politics. I don't blame her. Israeli media on Palestinians is like Serbs reporting on Kosovo. Us and them. They suck. We, inventors and philanthropists, rule with a benign fist because fists is all they know.

I sit in the veranda, and I hear Izzat's shrill cackle in the hallway. "Did you know there are sex parties in Ramallah?" and he's thrilled. "Oh, I don't go there," he says, "but wow, Ramallah's finally becoming a real city." Izzat's a liberal, and hardly anyone at Bisan dons a headscarf. I ask Wafa, who does wear one, why she does.

"I actually don't know. It's sort of a habit, really."

"Well, do you believe in God?" I ask.

She shrugs. "No, not at all." Not a hint of sarcasm.

Even the leftie pro-Palestinian propaganda machine called the Belgian media doesn't prepare you for that sort of thing. I still get raised eyebrows whenever I mention Palestinian beer, the October fest, bar-hopping, or sleeping with Palestinian women. Enough eyebrows to turn my car into a Hungarian sheepdog. Enough raising to build me a space elevator.

It's 2005, and it's a good time for liberals. "In sha' Allah, things are gonna work out," Izzat intones. Palestinians just elected a dove, and there's talk of talks. 

It's Friday. I'm alone in the veranda, wading through a backlog of emails. Hungry, I pop round to the chicken schnitzel sandwich guy. I order a chicken schnitzel sandwich while a local news channel reports an incursion of the Israeli army. LIVE. A troop carrier empties out into a building. Some shots fired. A Hummer blocks off a nearby street, jostling to and fro. Unsuspecting commuters wince, or at least their cars' brake lights infer the emotion.

"Here you go," says the chicken schnitzel sandwich guy, handing me an excellent chicken schnitzel sandwich. I've always wanted to ask him "Dude, what the deal with the Saddam poster in your place?"

Instead I say "thank you for the chicken schnitzel sandwich, chicken schnitzel sandwich guy" or something to that effect, and flick a last glance at the screen.   

Freeze frame. I flinch without technical assist. Say, that street looks awful familiar. . . Next I hear a ruckus outside. It's rather more than a ruckus. Not a NASA experiment, that. Everyone's looking in one direction, and running the other way. Shutters are drawn. Cars pull frantic U'ies. God I love reality TV. 

Thus ends the year, and my stay in the veranda. Next is a darkness.