Archive for the ‘Tea Leaves’ Category

posted on August 6th, 2010

A day like Wednesday illustrates just why I’m so jazzed to be in Gaza. From captivating conversations to elaborate meals and even whiffs of conflict, Wednesday also encapsulated so many of the reasons I’m undertaking this trek.

A Jaunt North

The day started with a midmorning ride up to Gaza’s northern border. There, I’ve become fascinated with the tiny village of Umm Nasser. I won’t write too much about Umm Nasser now because I’ll be posting a cool video about it here in the next couple of days. Even so, it’s a Bedouin farming village hemmed in by Israel and its buffer zone that prevents Gazans from getting closer than 300 meters to the Israeli border.

As I strolled the streets there, I could hear the whine of surveillance drones and the clip of a helicopter, though they sounded like they were probably on the Israeli side of the border. At one point, two men approached my driver, Hamouda. They were just curious passersby. Before long, the group launched into one of those fascinating Gaza networking sessions, connecting cousins through cousins, until a few minutes later when they determined the series of connections through which they were now friends.

Having watched with great amusement as the threesome did this, I finished shooting some more of the footage I needed over about an hour and then told Hamouda I needed to get back to town for a lunch.

Tea Leaves: Sex, Love, and Marriage in Gaza

On our half hour drive back, I began peppering Hamouda with questions about one topic I’ve never delved into here: sex, love, and marriage in Gaza. He was a good sport and let me cover all the relevant topics top to bottom. Hamouda, age 20, says he wants to get married in 2 years. His parents will facilitate the arrangement with a girl’s family.

In the world of arranged Muslim marriages, it’s somewhat incorrect to assert that there isn’t a period of dating and courtship. It just happens in the opposite order of how it’s done elsewhere.

Here, after families pair the bride-to-be with the groom-to-be and financial terms are arranged, the two get engaged. The engagement, which can last typically 6 months, essentially allows the couple to spend time alone with one another and get better acquainted. They can sit next to one another in cars, enjoy one-on-one dinners, and walk together in public. In other words, engagement first, dating second.

I’ve heard all sorts of horror stories involving Hamas police beating up men they catch walking down the street alongside a girl they’re not engaged or married to. Hamouda told me that when he drives a girlfriend (or “a girl that is a friend,” if we’re going to get high school about it) in his car, she sits in the back so he can claim to Hamas officials that he’s driving her for work. Still, though, Hamouda insists that young men and women find a ways to maintain friendships, through cell phones, the internet, and a little bit of discretion.

The highlight of the conversation came when I asked Hamouda about the wedding night. He’s already picked out the spot for the party, but he was quick to move onto the after party, which features the couple’s first ever trip to the bedroom.

Hamouda described at length how it’s important for the groom to find an apartment for him and his bride to move into immediately after the ceremony because, as he explains, you don’t want to sleep with a girl for the first time in the family house with your parents right outside the door.

As for honeymoons, a great line: “Gaza is closed, and we can’t leave. So we spend the honeymoon in the bedroom.”

Matters of (In)Digestion: Never Turn Down a Home Cooked Meal

After about half an hour, I arrived at the National Research Center (NRC), and NGO in Gaza that focuses on energy, healthcare, and education. The center’s directors had invited me for lunch, and I have learned never to turn down a home cooked meal.

5 of us drove down to the central Gaza town of Deir el Belah to the house of the NRC director, Abou Khaled.

In addition to a house, Abou Khaled also owns an adjacent lot, which he has converted into a garden. He invited me to walk through the garden with him, and he plucked all sorts of fruits and vegetables off trees, handing them to me and encouraging me to try them. One of the other men warned of eating unwashed fruits, but I didn’t care. Eating fresh produce right off the vine, so to speak, is too much a luxury.

After chowing on figs, tomatoes, peppers, basil, and some pomegranate-mango hybrid they call a “cocktail,” the guests (five of us, including 3 septuagenarians I never could get to focus on the concept of taking a photo, as you see above) all moved to a breezy patio for lunch.

Abou Khaled announced that we’d be dining Moroccan that day. What lay before us was a massive platter of couscous, topped with chunks of well-done beef and boiled vegetables. A veggie stew and simple broth also found their way to the table. They were meant to add a little moisture to the beef and couscous.

By far the most enjoyable part of a meal like this one is that many of the stuffy western dining conventions are tossed out the window. The use of hands is encouraged (I plowed through those meat chunks like a caveman in winter), reaching is obligatory, and spilling doesn’t matter on a disposable plastic tablecloth.

After lunch, we all headed to Abou Khaled’s office for rounds of Coca Cola, fruit plates, and Arabic coffee—served “saada,” with no sugar. That’s the “puts hair on your chest” variety.

After nearly three hours of eating, drinking, and conversing, we drove back up the beautiful sea road to Gaza City.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Gaza, Matters of (In)Digestion, Tea Leaves
posted on June 20th, 2010

Conversation and tea are inextricably linked in the Middle East. This recurring segment aims to bring you the faces of the region as I meet them—typically over tea.

***

While I’m in Israel, “Tea Leaves” may have to become “Keg Stands.”

Isn’t there a rule of thumb that advises against talking politics and religion when you’re drinking?

Well, I mistakenly broke that rule last night—and the result was fascinating.

Because so many of the pubs in Haifa also have free wireless internet, I’ve made it my nightly routine to be the dorky guy in the corner of the bar, pounding away at his laptop, while sipping a beer and watching the World Cup.

Last night, I wandered into a pub in Haifa’s port area. Since Sunday is a workday, the place was empty. Within a moment or two, the owner, the bartender, and the cook had taken seats around me and began enthusiastically quizzing me about what I was doing in Israel, how I liked Haifa, etc.

The two men and one woman were all young, probably in their late 20s.

After I had told them that I was walking through the Middle East and had already passed through Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon, the bartender asked me what I had learned about the region so far.

The question actually took me by surprise. I feel as though I’m in data collection mode now, charting a million points of information as I see new places and meet new people. I haven’t really considered drawing broader “what I’ve learned” conclusions about the region.

But I gave her question a sporting try. I told her that despite deep acrimony on both sides of the Arab-Israeli divide, I found that young people—whatever their nationality—had similar aspirations of job security, financial comfort, and stable family life.

That’s all it took. I had broken the golden rule just enough so that for the next hour, I could only sit back and listen as the three young employees gave me a serious talking to about the state of world and Israeli affairs.

“The Arabs will never accept us,” said the bar’s owner. He went on to explain how violence was an inherent part of Arab culture.

On Hamas, the same guy called it the “most evil” terrorist group, citing its use of women and children as shields against the Israeli army.

But while criticism of the Arab states wasn’t unexpected, they also had choice words for Israeli and American politicians.

The cook called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a nasty 3-letter word. They told me he’s been in the game for a long time and still has no vision for peace.

On Obama: “I don’t think he likes Israel very much.”

I won’t draw any broad conclusions about “Israeli youth” here. I’m not in a position to. But I got the sense that these three young people felt a sense of paralysis. Enemies at the gate, old alliances turning sour, a lack of leadership inside the country. I got the feeling from them that they had nobody to turn to, politically at least.

Despite this deep-rooted pessimism, I would hardly describe the bar gang as down beat. Far from it. When chat turned away from politics, there were lots of laughs and a surplus of enthusiasm.

And after an hour, talk did turn away from politics—to an intense debate over which Israeli beer is best.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Israel, Tea Leaves
posted on May 30th, 2010

There are hundreds of people I’ve met on this trek that I wish I had the time to follow for a day and bring you their lives in full. Unfortunately, there are drawbacks to my nomadic lifestyle.

Here are a few snapshots.

The other night, when i arrived in the town of Damour, south of Beirut, I decided to spend the night just up the road in the Chouf Mountains. The Chouf are home to the Druze, a minority group who follow an offshoot of Islam. They’re led by the charasmatic and, at times, notorious Walid Jumblatt.

I was standing on a street corner when 4 boys, ages 14 to 16, approached me. We were in mid-conversation when a Range Rover drove by.

“Walid Jumblatt drives a car like that,” said one boy.

Another Range Rover passed.

“That’s the car that Walid Jumblatt drives,” said another.

4 Range Rovers passed over the course of 10 minutes. Each time, the boys made the same observation.

“Do you love Walid Jumblatt?” one asked me.

“Do you?” I replied.

The boy’s eyes widened. “Oh yes,” he said.

Suddenly his voice became proud. “He comes here all the time. And he comes alone!”

“No, he has one security,” another boy corrected.

“Have you met him?” I asked the group.

“Oh yes!” said one. “And I have kissed him.”

The Jumblatts operate something akin to a feudal system in the Chouf, opening their house every weekend for Druze citizens to come and express their concerns and grievances. The Jumblatts led a mighty militia during Lebanon’s civil war, and my brief conversation with the boys solidified in my mind the cult of personality surrounding the family’s patriarch.

The other day, walking down the coast, I stopped in a falafel shop for a sandwich.

A burly 50-something year-old man walked in.

“Who’s this guy?” he asked about me in Arabic.

“He’s an American,” said one of the guys behind the counter.

“Ah! Terrorist!” he said.

“I am not a terrorist!” I replied to him in Arabic.

“Oh. You speak Arabic?” he replied, eyes wide with embarrassment.

He tried to tell me he was kidding, but I tried to ignore him.

As it turns out, he was kidding. He told me he served as a body guard for Bashir Gemayel, a Christian commander during the Civil War.

“I also worked as security at the American Embassy!” he declared proudly.

He went on to give me numerous warnings about traveling south.

“Hezbollah,” he said. “They are terrorists.”

That word, though, had lost its effect coming from him.

He then told me, as if imparting some inside knowledge, “There will be no war this summer.”

He wouldn’t tell me how he knew.

Yesterday, I stopped at a seaside coffee stand about 10 kilometers north of Sidon.

The group that met me was fascinated by my adventures, and they had me repeat my tales to every new comer who passed by.

“Are you Christan or Muslim?” one man asked, as if there were only two choices.

“Christian,” I said. “How about you?”

“Muslim,” he replied.

“But I have no problem with Christians!” he quickly added, as if his answer might have caused me worry.

“Sunni or Shiite?” I persisted.

The crowd burst into fits of laughter, which took at least a minute to die down.

“Sunni!” the man eventually said.

“This town is all Sunni,” he noted, as if it were obvious.

I explained to him that it wasn’t an odd question because I had seen all sorts of Hezbollah signs and posters just up the road.

“But that was a different town,” he said, looking at me increasingly as though I were an idiot.

As one woman had said to me earlier in the day: “Even the Lebanese don’t understand Lebanese politics.” Clearly I have a long way to go.

Here I sit in an internet cafe in the covered part of Sidon’s old market.

A man sitting next to me introduced himself a few minutes ago. He’s Palestinian. For the last few minutes he’s explained to me that when the American colonies stood up to the British, it was considered righteous. But when the Palestinians stand up the Israelis, it’s considered terrorism. Comparing the Palestinian movement to the American revolution is a new one for me.

An just now, he showed me a photo on his cell phone that he took of a friend’s cup of tea. It took me a few moments to figure out what I was looking at.

There, in the tea, was the word “Allah,” spelled out in foam.

“Can you believe it?” he asked.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Lebanon, Tea Leaves
posted on April 29th, 2010

Conversation and tea are inextricably linked in the Middle East. This recurring segment aims to bring you the faces of the region as I meet them—typically over tea.

***

A friend of a friend, who teaches English in Damascus, asked me to join his English class for their end of semester lunch (if you can call a 5pm meal lunch) at a local joint in the middle of town.

I jumped at the opportunity.

The teacher’s name was Qais, and he teaches at the Asia Institute, a privately run school on the second floor of a building on a noisy street.

I met Qais and his students at Shamiat restaurant. There were 10 of us in all.

The students, who ranged in age from 14 to late 20s, were all in a low-intermediate class. The fact, though, that they had all elected to take this class on top of their regular high school or university studies meant they all had an enthusiasm for the language that made our discussion lively.

The pistol of the group was a 14 year-old girl who started the lunch by announcing to me that she was studying English so that she could one day become an ambassador.

“To where?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I just want to travel everywhere!”

The group began peppering me with questions. Was I married? Did I like Syria? Had I visited some Syrian town I had never heard of? Which soccer team did I root for? Did I like Avatar? Did I like Robert DeNiro? Did I like Obama? The list goes on.

It turned out that these questions more reflected their own tastes. The group could all agree that Avatar and Robert DeNiro were among Hollywood’s best offerings (though none of them, mysteriously, had seen “Meet the Parents”). They all seemed to love European soccer and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t into “futbol.” My attempts to explain the virtues of “American futbol” fell on deaf ears.

Several also expressed optimism at President Obama. While it’s popped up as barely a footnote in the U.S. media that Obama has appointed the U.S.’s first ambassador to Syria in 5 years (his nomination is still pending), the group was well aware of this development and enthusiastic about the possibilities.

As the meal wore on, I asked the students at my end of the table why they had chosen to study English. For each of them, it boiled down to economic opportunity.

Their collective hope was, in the next several years, to pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exam and then hope that the doors of opportunity open.

It was an exciting lunch because, by virtue of the fact they were taking English classes on their own time, these kids all struck me as enthusiastic and driven. Even the several shy members of the group came out of their shells after I slowed down the conversation and sufficiently embarrassed myself by chatting a bit in Egyptian Arabic.

Two hours after we sat down, I excused myself and strolled out of the restaurant, reminding myself that meals like that one are the reason I put this trek together in the first place.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Syria, Tea Leaves
posted on April 20th, 2010

Conversation and tea are inextricably linked in the Middle East. This recurring segment aims to bring you the faces of the region as I meet them—typically over tea.

***

Yesterday I found myself sitting behind a clothing table at a bazaar, trying to teach the vendors the art of the bait and switch.

“If you put the ‘1 lira’ sign here,” I said, positioning the bargain sign in front of the higher-end clothes, “then people will come look at the table. Then you can tell them that the sign was a mistake!”

No one liked the idea.

I had linked up with one of the bazaar vendors, Jimmy, two days before in the mountain town of Belen, as he hawked his goods at another outdoor market. He had invited me to stay with his family when I arrived in Antakya.

I called Jimmy yesterday evening as I hobbled through the outskirts of this small city, and, as my luck would have it, Jimmy’s bazaar was only about 200 yards from where I stood.

Jimmy and his brother-in-law are roving bazaar vendors. They participate in 6 different bazaars in the area, driving to a new one each day. Yesterday’s was not one of Jimmy’s favorites, and sales, as expected, were slow.

After spending a couple hours behind the clothes table, we packed up the goods and walked 10 minutes down the road to Jimmy’s sister’s apartment.

The building was brand new. Egyptian hieroglyphs lined the inside of the elevator, and the hallways were sharp and modern. Inside I met Jimmy’s sister, her husband, and their two children.

I hardly had an opportunity to get in the doorway, when I was shown to my room and offered a shower, which I gladly accepted.

20 minutes later, refreshed and out of my sweaty hiking clothes, I plopped down at the family’s dinner table for what would turn out to be a wide-ranging conversation.

We talked politics. The family, each member interrupting the last, explained that Turkey had accepted the reality of the U.S. as its master. I protested, noting recent tensions between the two countries, but the family couldn’t be convinced. Jimmy’s sister compared the tensions to a spat between father and son.

Jimmy on Obama: “Everyone here likes Obama, but ask anybody why, and they wouldn’t know.”

We also talked about the family’s desire for upward social mobility. The parents explained to me that they hadn’t been able to attend college, but their daughter, 18, was starting college to learn how to be a teacher. The son, 14, would soon too make it through high school and go on to earn a higher degree.

We discussed all of this over a tremendous meal of rice, beef stew, and salad. I hadn’t eaten much during the day, so I stuffed a handful of bites into my mouth before feeling the kind of full that comes with eating too quickly.

But as I knew was tradition, I had to mop my plate clean, so I took one bite after the next, keeping a sharp eye out for someone trying to serve me more (this happened 3 times, by my count).

After dinner, we each put back a coffee, and Jimmy began playing cards with his brother-in-law. I watched for a while and played video games with the son, Hakan. The fact that I am a terrible video game player gave the family endless amusement.

As the evening wore on, I found myself exhausted from a day of hiking, so I excused myself and went to bed, listening to the boisterous family noises as I drifted off to sleep.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Tea Leaves, Turkey