From Across the Gulf of Aqaba

I posted the following in my travel-blog last summer. Before spending a month in Amman, I had spent a month in Italy:

Sunday, August 20, 2006

hey everyone! i am here in aqaba, at an internet cafe next to the cinabon where my cousin and i just ate. we took a bus from amman with two of my aunts and four other cousins, and last night we stayed in a one bedroom, four bed apartment. the usual lack of privacy that one experiences around arabs was amplified times ten. we went to the beach last night after the sun set, and we went again this morning. it was so beautiful. we also did a lot of walking around shopping. there is a new store in aqaba called "china town" which is actually a collection of different stores, all with everything made in china, and all run by chinese immigrants who speak a teeny bit of arabic and a teeny bit of english. i bought a bootleg copy of sex and the city season 7 for 2.25 JD (i think this is about five american dollars, maybe a little less).

on the topic of immigrants, in amman, there are a lot of filipino immigrants working as nannies and maids. my cousin told me that, to hire a filipino woman as a live-in maid, it costs about $100 a month. another cousin told me that in lebanon, no lebanese work jobs like maid, nanny, janitor, etc. the people who work these jobs in lebanon are immigrants from sri lanka or philipenes. i am not sure if they are immigrants or temporary workers, i don't know how it works.

so i am coming home soon. i will miss my family, but i will also be kind of content to get away from them. i think that the next time i come to jordan i will stay in a hotel and rent a car so i can come and go as i please, and wear what i want and go where i want and eat what i want (not that i am ungrateful, i just need my independance). i have been gone from home a long time, and i am ready to return. see you soon!

Posted by Nadia at 7:17AM

I was thinking of Aqaba a couple of days ago when I was especially upset about an interaction with a so-called friend in which he subtly expressed an identification with Zionism. I thought about standing on the beach with my cousins. Heba saying, "Nadia, do you see that? Those white buildings? That is Israel." and standing together, quiet, looking across the gulf. We are '48 Palestinians, none of us lived in refugee camps, but it still means something to us. We grew up hearing stories of the home and the land that our family used to have. How a portion of the Tel Aviv airport fell on our land, and they paid us rent every month. And, as so many of these stories go, we locked the door, fled, and kept the key for the day that we return. I didn't have to directly experience this myself for it to mean a great deal to me. When your family has had everything taken away from it, the generations do not forget so easily.

There is no reason for me to spend any amount of time on people who don't understand this. This is not an abstract concept, this is real life, and it isn't a matter of "you have your opinion, I have mine." You do not tell me you were "feeling Zionistic" (especially when you ain't even Jewish), you do not tell me you admire Golda Meir and then try to cover yourself by saying that you admire anyone who makes an impact on the world (wtf?), you DON'T. You are not the first liberal white boy who tried to use me to do their "unpacking" for them, to do all the dirty work for them, and you aren't the first who's tried to put me in my place by running me down in a debate. Please realize that I am not having it, because you are wrong and because experience has shown that my energy would be better spent on anything other than explaining it to you.