Abu Mein and Mohammad Omar

On Wednesday, a Danish activist named Nina and I went to visit the Abu Mein family. I was genuinely touched by the warm welcome we received. In this home, Nina is like a daughter, and we helped ourselves to stew and fruit. The affection Abu Mein showed his children made a strong impression on me. So far, it’s par for the course in Bil’in, and I can tell that the good humor and love I’ve found in this village extends to each home in a unique and refreshing way.

Thursday we visited Muhammad Omar’s family in their home. We had a huge dinner, homemade sweets prepared for the Eid celebration and great coffee. I need to learn the secret of this particular artform. Arabic coffee goes right into the pot without any filter. Held just right over an open flame, you must manage a rolling boil at the right speed in order to pour it at the last second into the cup without losing the froth at the top. A coffee lover (or addict, less affectionately) such as myself was in heaven in the company of this family. My earlier attempt to make coffee at the apartment had proved less successful.
Nina’s cousin in Denmark is organizing a Danish/Palestinian book of children’s games. Muhammad Omar and his youngest son Hasoum showed us a handful of singing and counting games that she is going to record and send off to include. The games have evolved out of a need to keep the children warm in school and are a handy way to keep the kids focused in a stressful environment that can make education difficult.
Muhammad’s oldest daughter is in her last year of high school while his son Khaled has begun his college education at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah. Both were eager to practice their English and have finished with academic honors for their successes in high school. Khaled was awarded valedictorian and placed in the 97th percentile of all Palestinian students. They both attribute their abilities to a fondness of American movies. Khaled prefers comedies, and Jim Carey in particular, while his sister is an admitted action lover and prefers Jean Claude Van Dam. How one can learn English from either of these actors is beyond me, but as they are both tri-lingual and I stammer through basic Arabic comprehension, I thought better than to second guess their strategy.
On the walk home, we ducked out of the rain and into a shop for more coffee. The shabab (young men) were nothing short of jovial. No statement went uncontested in a litany of arguments about everything from geography and imperialism, to the proper pronunciation of English words and the official stance on smoking from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
For the record, Britian won the contest as history’s most imperialistic nation in a close race against Denmark. Though Denmark has technically presided over a larger empire, England has never been occupied. It’s a topic that holds particular significance in the Occupied West Bank.
Nina, a smoker, was told that the Palestinian Authority has declared smoking a hazard only to the health of women on account of women’s more delicate hearts. Dubious of their sources, she misunderstood the word “qalb” (heart) to mean “kelb” (dog) and figured she’d been the target of a harsh analogy. I think she was only slightly less offended by their rather colloquial medical theory.
After an improvised map drawing contest in which North and South America had merged into a single shapeless blob called “Washeentoon,” and Europe an Arctic archipelago, we headed home, full and laughing as we had been the day through. If I haven’t mentioned yet, I love this village.