On Ramallah
Stone home from the late Ottoman period.
Ramallah is a city of old stone homes and shiny new apartment complexes. It is a city of old dreams, still in waiting, and new ones, being exercised. In the mornings, its winding streets fill with the sound of office and school-goers, in the afternoon it falls into a lull, at sunset its hills and the olive trees that line them are bathed in orange, then crimson, then mauve. At night, it smells of coffee, sweet sheesha-tobacco, and jasmine.
In summer evenings, it dresses its best. Winds from the Mediterranean cool the heavy sun, and the pleasant nature of the evenings can make you forget the madness of the world outside. Palestinians love gardens, verandahs, balconies. If you take an evening stroll in town, you are bound to find entire families, sitting together on the porch, enjoying a coffee. The elderly and men will be puffing away on sheesha or cigarettes. Women are also likely to indulge in the pleasures of a smoke, or a soota, as we’d call it back home. Children will sit with their parents. All the young will help in the tasks of setting and clearing the table.
Ramallah is unplanned, spontaneous like its residents. It seems to grow in circles. A network of hills, connected by winding roads along with cars race at gravity-defying speeds. I have occasionally said that Palestinians have no airline, but plenty of pilots. There is something that makes drivers here want to keep a heavy foot on the accelerator. Pedestrians are fair game, and if one is seen crossing the road, most vehicles will speed up, and take particular pleasure in zooming across just inches away from the poor street crosser! “Yifdah il ard,” people will hiss, when angry. “Yifdah il ard enta,” the response will come. It translates into something like may your reputation go into the ground.
In the neighbourhood of Al-Tireh reside the city’s richest. Plush homes and apartments, an exclusive Executive Club, and neat streets lined with the latest European saloons and SUVs. Range rovers and Mercedes C-Class seem to be particularly popular with married ladies, who are particularly fond of leaving their homes in the morning in full kit, perfectly manicured, stopping for a $5 cappuuccino at Zamn café, and then heading to drop their kids off at school. Many are conscious of their image here, and a section of society places a premium on this.
In Ramadan, the city, like the rest of Palestine, takes on a new life. Work timings change from 9-4, or 9-3 at government offices (public officials never lose an opportunity to feel special). Shops close earlier, activity is slow during the day. This past Ramadan, the fast used to open at 750 PM.
Two hours before the breaking of the fast, the markets come alive again. In Ramadan, little stalls crop up, selling drinks (mashroobat) such as tamr hindi (tamarind juice), lemon, and kharooub juice. Also ubiquitous are roadside stalls selling qatayef, a rolled pancake filled either with walnuts or white cheese, and fried in sugar. I much prefer the walnut qatayef, they’re amazing. During these two hours, you would rather not be on the road, since the probability of becoming roadkill is decidedly higher. Cars race each other as though on the Nascar circuit. In the last fifteen minutes, without fail, whoever is on the streets is engaged in a mad dash. It is quite a spectacle, which reminds one of the opening scene from Aladdin, the cartoon, in which Jaffar goads his dark horse screaming “fasterr!!” as he chases a magical gold scarab flying across the desert.
Then, just as suddenly, the sounds of the city die down completely. Almost all have settled at the dinner table. The muezzin’s call to prayer rings out, across the hills and into people’s homes, and it is time to break the fast. On cue, a stillness descends upon the hills and the city becomes completely silent. As families settled down to break the fast, from around, you can hear the clatter of cutlery, as forks and knives delve into piles of rice, meat, grape leaves, and the varied delicacies of Palestinian cuisine.
Ramallah, despite it all, is full of life.