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a birthday, mashkote and 'brova'.
Mashkote is Salah's nephew. Every time I see him we practise blowing kisses to one another. He is at the dangerous toddler stage where he just wreaks havoc everywhere he goes. At the moment blowing kisses involves blowing raspberries into his hand and then dangling it in my direction, grinning all the while. Apparently I look a lot like him when I grin. I don't quite know how to take this...
At the centre we are preparing for more desperate pleas for donations and a baroque concert to be held next week. I never thought learning the bach double concerto all those years ago would actually come in handy, but sure enough it is appearing on the programme and I am strangely nervous about it. I haven't played classical violin in anything other than a LARGE orchestra for many years and was planning to keep it that way until now. Still, I had better get used to it. I have said that I will come back to work as centre manager after new year for another three months. This shall be subsidized with English teaching which can be fairly lucrative out here. Anyone who even vaguely knows me ought to be quaking in their boots at the thought of me being in charge of anything, however it seems the current administration at the centre are under the illusion that the air of incomptetance which usually accompanies my personage is not overpowering. Long may it last. We are also planning a Hallowe'en musical open day which will include creepy songs and games, and maybe a bit of dressing up.Or perhaps a lot of dressing up.
My birthday was spent at the centre, playing oud (yes I get FREE oud lessons and am starting to learn the maqamat, or eastern scales at long last) and getting Phoenix, the daughter of one of the volunteers, to stand on my shoulders to pick a large pomegranate. It took a whole 15 minutes to fully disembowel the contents of the pomegranate into a large bowl. We then say on the steps of the centre, gazed out upon the opposite side of nablus and consumed much pomegranate with the other volunteers. I cannot wait for the oranges. When evening arrived Kevin disappeared without warning, only to reappear, in my absence with the most unusual birthday cake I shall ever have. Yes ladies and gentlemen, my 24th birthday was celebrated with a giant tray of keneffa, that most wonderful sweet elasticy cheesy speciality of Nablus. We all felt very sick indeed after eating as much of it as we could. There is still a large tub of it lurking in the fridge, but congealed sweet cheese is never going to be that appetizing. Believe me, I've tried it.
So, word of the week, as picked up in renewed Arabic lessons, is a3nis. Make sure you annunciate the ayn at the start of the word now children. This is the more pitiable and socially unacceptable word for spinster. Now, I am not an old woman as such, but really I should have been married about 6 years ago. Salah's younger sister is a year younger than me and has two children, one of them is Mashkote of raspberry blowing notoriety. I could not imagine having two children by my age. In fact, it would be more likely that I would accidentally kill off any theoretical offspring by forgetting to feed them, or assuming that they too would enjoy bunjy jumping as much as I do. Life in the camps is still much more conservative than places like Ramallah. It has much to do with the uncertainty of life under occupation and a sense of powerlessness. The only thing the people can control here is their honour and protect their families, especially their women. It was brought home recently when one of Salah's other sisters had to consider an offer of marriage from a distant cousin. She's 18, and that's a perfectly reasonable age. It's expected and she already feels bad because marriage was proposed to her by the same guy 3 years ago. He said he'd wait, and now it's decision time. That was a week ago, I haven't had a chance to speak to her since. Obviously you want to tell her to refuse and to go to university and to do all the things we'd expect to do. But the real fear is that she won't get another offer, and you cannot not marry out here.
but that is by the by. Other notable events in the arabic lessons include the bizarre and confused expressions my teacher gives when I use some of the vocabulary I learnt in Dheisheh. Apparently some of it is closer to fuhsa, or egyptian or even saudi dialect...Nablesi dialect is much closer to the syrian which is quite fun. I also enjoy joking around with Hadeel discussing the lack of things to do in Nablus. I was even driven to mention sport, and how you cannot go running in public out here. She said I should just go for it. Easier said than done. Instantly horrendous images of all the local men lining up along my running path every morning to catch a glimpse of me filled my head. Gauntlet like I would have to brave their mocking and critical stares. It's just not worth it.
Rehearsals for Salah's project in Balata are getting more and more intense as the performance date draws nearer. I was given my inaugural black top to match all the other actors in the show. All the parts are coming together, made all the more amazing by the fact that this is the first time for almost all the actors that they have been in a play. The mysteries of the stage have a strange capacity to give voice to their lives here and there are some powerful moments in the piece, called 'brova' meaning 'rehearsal'. all the pieces are showing the actors as if they were practising for a performance, or even, in the case of the percussion bits, setting up a stage. Tension is high though as Salah pushes for better and better performances each time. It has also been hard getting the commitment from the actors to come to each rehearsal. Still, as the time draws near, peopl are getting more and more excited. It should be good.
As should olive picking tomorrow. We meet in the mosque by the second hand market (we looked for a second hand pillow for Kevin there today, alas in vain) and are hiring bicycles, much to the amusement of the locals no doubt, to get out to a village a few kilometres from the city. There is even talk of finding an old roman style stone olive press and trying our luck. I don't think crushed foreigner would taste very nice with hummus though.
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