November 3, 2001 — Mudeif Productions

Elizabeth spent the day puttering around the house and doing chores. In the evening she hung out with a friend at one of Zababdeh's two internet cafes, helping her set up a personal homepage. Then they met up with another good friend and relaxed on her porch, drinking coffee with the family. She showed Elizabeth a book she helped with (as a translator and researcher), called Palestinian Women: Patriarchy and Resistance in the West Bank. She lent us the book, which seems to offer a compelling look into the world of women here - both the hardships and the strengths. We look forward to reading more of it, as it seems to offer healthy criticism of oppressive practices, but also show the ways women here resist them and find their own voices. So much anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric seems to center on the first issue, without investigating the second (meanwhile conveniently forgetting the huge battles Western women fought - and continue to fight - for equality in the "civilized" West). OK, enough soapboxing.

While Elizabeth capered about with her girlfriends, Marthame headed into the Old City to write his sermon. As he sat at a rooftop restaurant, he was surrounded by the domes of the Holy Sepulchre and the Haram al-Sharif as well as the spires of the Omar Mosque and the Lutheran Church. Following the Muslim call to prayer, the Sepulchre bells sounded their cacophony. There aren't many places like Jerusalem in this world.