W. and I go for a walk and we get lost. As we are figuring out our way back, we stop on a corner, trying to decide what way to go, then some one calls us from the doorstep of a nearby house.
A woman is making gestures inviting us to her house. We look at each other and decide this must be just another sign of the great Palestinian hospitality.
She leads us into her house and, following her, we arrive at a little patio garden. We realise that they must have put some chairs for us before we got here, because there are two empty chairs as part of the circle where the family is sitting, and they invite to sit on them.
The woman who has taken us here disappears inside the house and we are left with two boys, a little girl and an older man. We assume he is the father.
It is the boys that lead the conversation. They tell us they are in university, and that they know there will be no jobs for them when they finish. The girl is still in school. She is more than looking at me, she has her eyes fixed on me. It is a bit uncomfortable but I understand that it must be quite unusual for her to see a woman my age with her head uncovered.
The woman comes out to the garden and offers us the preceptive tea, together with some cakes that look very similar to a kind sold in Ramallah. They confirm that the cakes are from Ramallah; the father brought them as a special treat for the family. There is tea for every one, but the cakes are only for W. and me. They tell us that if we don’t want them now we can take them home. I decide then that they will be my special breakfast tomorrow.
They ask us about our lives at home, in our countries, like the other Palestinians I have met. They also want to know why, of all Palestine, we are in this little village. We say it is because of the Friday demonstrations. We know the Israeli army raid the villages in the night, when the Israelis and internationals that support the demonstrations have left. So we come with our cameras, to stop them killing people, or at least to document it.
“Yes, but how did you find out?”
We try to explain the whole story but his English is limited and our Arabic is non existent. So we shorten it:
“You know M.?” “Yes.” “We are staying at his place. He is in a group, we came to that group. They say, ‘we need people in Nablus, in Bi’Lin’. So we come to these places”.
He stares at the floor and I guess he would like to ask more but he just looks at us and says: “Thank you.”
And I don’t know what to answer. We come into his house, we drink his tea, we take away the very few cakes that the father must have brought on a special trip, he walks us home and he still needs to say “Thank you”.
