March 15, 2002

Dry stream bed.

Today begins our three day weekend. Normally we have Fridays and Sundays off (the Muslim and Christian holy days), but have school on Saturday. Today is Muslim New Year, and mid-semester exams begin Monday, so we're taking a holiday tomorrow. Ilhamdulillah (praise God). We set out in the afternoon towards the forest near the village of Raba, but were intrigued by a seasonally dry stream bed we saw as we walked along the road. We spent the next hour or so traversing the pastures along its lush and flowered banks, hidden from the world by the tall fields of wheat on either side.

We re-emerged onto the road to find a father picnic-ing with his children. He thought we were lost (trying to find Zababdeh), and was naturally curious about our presence here. It's a conversation we've had a million times, (Welcome! Where are you from? America? Welcome!) but it somehow never ceases to surprise us - perhaps because the image of Palestinians and Arabs with which we are raised in the West is so different from what we experience day after day here.

The nearby forest.

We arrived at the forest, a strikingly different place - green and rocky, full of pine trees and conifers (not an olive tree or cactus in sight). The sights and smells reminded us of good, peaceful times in the Colorado Rockies.

As we headed back towards town, we ran into our mechanic (from the days when our car was having an affair with him - at least that's our theory as to why it was in his garage so often) who insisted we join him for coffee in Raba. We visited with his family of six children - all boys - the youngest of whom (two years old) already knows the English words "car", "apple", and "umbrella."