What A Life

A few generals:

1. Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, is in the United States, and tomorrow meets with Obama. The last time this dude was in power and had a convo with a US president in the 90's, Clinton walked away from the meeting with him saying, ""Who the f*** does he think he is? Who's the f***ing superpower here?" Is it bad I'm hoping for an entertaining week in US-Israeli relations? The NYT has kicked it off right with Goldberg's op-ed on Netanyahu, which has infuriated some by not allowing comments....

2. I was solicited last night by a 16-year-old kid walking around the Old City. I was trying to recapture the quiet, serene, incomparable beauty of the place that struck me the first night when I arrived to my hostel in the wee hours of the morning. I was a few hours too early for that stage of the Old City's life, but got to see a side of the city when the tourists have all left and the locals are teeming throughout the alley ways. Which was as equally delightful, until kid on bicycle skidded up beside me and offered 100 shekels for 1 hour of well, the obvious in extremely profane language. If you know me, then you know my reaction--I hope he ran home crying. Thanks for ruining my night, kid.

3. I didn't do much sight-seeing, since I'm at the center the majority of the day, and the Pope's throngs of followers made getting around a nightmare. Promise I'll have that kind of stuff to talk about soon.

4. My song of the week. Just makes you wanna dance. Who doesn't like dancing?

5. I had McDonald's. Majorly shameful, but I was starving, and nothing else was open yet because of Shabbat. This whole religious holiday stuff shutting everything down is just too much for my instant-gratification and impatient tendencies. I mean, it's not even this bad in the South on Sunday.

6. Today, I had to carry home a giant, transparent trashbag of tampons on an Arab busline, and throug the Arab quarter of the Old City, struggling to carry it the entire way. They had been donated to the center, but most of the Doms' refuse to use them for religious reasons. Amoun hates to waste anything, so guess who was forced to take over 10 years worth of tampons home today? Oh, the looks I got.

7. I do hope I don't hear another Israeli compare the situation of the Palestinians to those of the African Americans in the United States. Sorry, not a justification or commonality you can win me over on, stop trying.


The Important Stuff:

Since there is SO much to talk about when it comes to the Doms, I've decided to break the factual stuff about the community down throughout the posts, so people aren't overwhelmed or get bored. It'll be weaved in and out of the comments of my experiences, as it becomes pertinent.

This week, as the first one, has been mostly been about becoming familiar and grasping the details of daily life in the center. I'm the first person in the morning- and the only person ever on time for anything, in typical Arabic time management. To solve this problem since I still haven't figured out when I should be late and when I shouldn't , Amoun has given me a set of keys to the center. The mornings are filled with the administrative stuff, as Amoun and I chat about things, answer emails, doing some cleaning stuff, and work on the two major projects that I discussed with her that are for the benefit of the center: increasing market access by making Gypsy products available online, and then branching fundraising resources outside of Europe and Israel. I made these the two main targets after realizing that her dependency on certain organizations has led to some limitations on her activities and resources, and that they simply have some great stuff, which you can only have access to when visiting this obscure basement community center in East Jerusalem (cutting out a good part of the Israeli population who don't wanna cross the East/West line), and the occasional bazaar. While I walked in wanting to really be gun-hoe about my project, I realized that Amoun's system of working, and in essence form of survival in this society, is that there has to be a tangible benefit for the center: otherwise, her time and resources as a single woman running a center for an entire community are too precious to be splurged.

I learned that one quickly with the visit of some Finnish Christian Gypsies. After two days of having to feed and entertain them, she was extremely frustrated not knowing if the center was going to get anything out of it, particularly since her relationships with other religious communities has been somewhat of a roller-coaster. They have been some of her best donors (shout out to the Mormons-met a few, AWESOME people), but also those with the greatest ulterior motives--for example, one visiting group (friends of the Finnish visiting this time) who wanted to help by donating hundreds of Bibles. To a Muslim community. Forget the fact they can barely pay the rent. Her great frustration comes from the fact their interest does not lie in their ties as fellow Gypsies, but as an opportunity to proselytize. Amoun herself is the most religious yet accepting person I have met in this city- her friends visiting the center I have met come from many, many backgrounds, Jewish, Arab-Christian, a South African born-again Christian, Messianic Jew, Muslim, etc. This fall into traditional treatment of religion among the Gypsies: while they often adopt the religion of the region (why the Finnish Gypsies are Christian and the Doms are Muslim, having really settled in the Ottoman period), religion is very private and personal, and differences in how one sees God is not something that should be debated, but respected. Amoun has frequently, in her moments of telling it like it is, expressed her sheer exasperation at people's inability to see that her organization is based around seeing tangible developments and improvements in her community's culture, societal standing, and education- and while she truly believes that God has a huge role in it, Bibles ain't gonna make it happen. At the end of the day, she pulled out her regular saying of 'What a life' as she sighs. Therefore, I want to make sure that what I am doing is going to be a tangible benefit of this center, and not a waste of her time.

On another note, I've heard and seen marginally forms of discrimination and racism here, but I saw some of the psychological effects it has when working my first day with the 7th grade girls. They couldn't focus on the lesson, continually saying 'Antee jamiila' (You are pretty) and rubbing my skin, which was blindingly white up until a week ago. All hell broke loose when I wore a skirt and they saw my even whiter legs. In broken English and Arabic, they kept saying how their skin was so ugly, and how in Israel they were nothing without white skin. Heart breaking. They also have extremely dark hair, which they would point to in disgust. I know this is common elsewhere to0, but for these girls to call themselves ugly and truly believe it, simply because their society told them so through its policy, ethnic background preference, and privilege, was mind-blowing. It was compounded further for these girls being Gypsies- not only was the non-European look working against them, they have no hope within the Palestinian society, either- deemed nawar, or dirty Gypsies in Arabic, they are considered not marriageable, thieves, and beggars. Amoun remains single, and considering there are only three major families (pointing out these 'families' can consist of up to 1,00 people) remaining in the Old City, she refuses to marry within the community because of the limited options and potential for too much gene-crossing.

I have much more to say, but I will save it for another post. To tie up this one, we went to an ex-pat bazaar yesterday to sell the craftwork, and consisted of many Foreign Service officers from various countries. Since this is a career-path I am heavily considering, I saw a snapshot of my future: and was amused to see the American FSOs in their jeans and t-shirts contrasted with the wives of the European diplomats, in their expensive jewelry, high-heels, big sunglasses, and well-done tans. I think I'll fit in just fine.