olive groves...

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go with V and O to a barbecue in the olive groves with some friends from a local village. We headed out on the windy roads that lead north and then east of Ramallah, making our way through tiny Palestinian towns and up and down Palestinian hills. The landscape of Palestine is absolutely gorgeous and like nothing I have ever seen. The hills, albeit green, are very rocky and each one is covered with olive groves that have been terraced out of the hillsides. The light is so bright here that I am always squinting and the air is filled with a slight dusting that blurs the horizon and the distant hills. The area of the West Bank that we went to is one of the few areas that is free of Israeli settlements - so it is a good escape for some to be able to forget about the occupation (at least for a day).

We arrived at the village (whose name escapes me) to be greeted by a very large and welcoming family who escorted us into a small living space in their house for refreshments and conversation. Not longer after we had sat down a beautiful old man, wearing the traditional white headcovering of a 'haj,' entered the room. He sat down and started telling stories, which had to be translated to V and I by O, of years long past. His stories were enthralling, even when being translated and it was a moment when I truly wished I understood Arabic completely so that I could have heard the way he told it. After a long visit with the family, and after the men had finished Friday prayers, we all loaded in our cars for a short drive to the hills for our feast.

This family owns a parcel of land that has a spring on it - this is extremely rare in Palestine as water is sparce and because most springs in the West Bank have either been stolen or at least tapped into by the settlers. I love Palestine-style barbecues. They are fully representative of Palestine as a whole. The men work on the fire; gather sticks, tinder, and stones from their surroundings; and deal with all things pertaining to meat. The women prepare the salads, deal with the beverages and look after the children. A large mat is spread on the ground, the food is laid in the middle and everyone sits around taking what they want to eat.

After everyone has had their fill, out comes the nargileh and the tea. O's friend had brought these tiny individual nargileh pipes to make sure that everyone who wanted to smoke, could. They were the cutest things I have ever seen. Such a good idea! After we had cleaned up, some of the ladies went for a walk. This seems to be a bit of a tradition here because the same thing has happened at other barbecues that I have been to. While we wandered around in the olive groves, I was amazed by the different types of wild flowers I saw; unique, beautiful, muted and bright colors. In addition to flowers, the village women were able to spot wild herbs as well - sage, za'atar, thyme, etc. When we headed back to "camp" everyone was getting prepared to go, so we grabbed what we could and headed back to the village where we said our goodbyes and thank yous before leaving for Ramallah.

When I do things like this I feel like I discover so many more beautiful things about Palestine and the Palestinian people. Things like how an 80-something year old man still speaks of his wife as if they were newlyweds, or how Palestinians will never need to use maps because their directions involve who lives where, not where a certain street is, or how they don't need fences to mark their property lines - a stone or a tree will do just fine, or how they're not afraid to give a fat girl diet tips, or how even in the midst of poverty Palestinians have the most generous of hearts.