Diaries of a Daily Commuter:Next Stop...

by: R.Kafri

Thank you Israel! As a daily commuter from Ramallah to Abu Dis, and someone who has been delayed in Qalandia anywhere from one hour to three hours, only to turn around and travel through rural areas to get home after a long day of teaching and sculpting young minds, and someone who has sat in her car 3, 4 5, 6, 7 and 8 months pregnant in the white hot summer sun at the entrance of Azariyyeh waiting for the random checkpoint to be removed so I can travel exactly five minutes to get to campus, and the nearest bathroom, I want to thank you. Thank you so very much for this ingenious idea, this amazing creation of yours, this beautiful surreal, euphoric notion….The Peace Train, a railroad track that runs around the West Bank connecting Palestinian cities, illegal settlements and Israeli cities altogether. Oh no, please, this is not unreal at ALL; this is not in the least bit a ridiculous, unrealistic, crazy idea at all. Will you be including a stop in Gaza too?

Just out of curiosity, how will this work exactly? Will you provide recorded announcements clearly explaining what a passenger is to do when arriving at the next stop? I imagine a very serious deep voice with a heavy Israeli accent, coming through loud crisp speakers: “Next stop Ramallah Central Station, if you are Palestinians you may depart the train. Israeli citizens are strictly prohibited from traveling to Area A. Expatriate NGO employees will be subjected to harassment, interrogation and long hour delays the next time they depart Israel via any of its borders, should they travel to the territories.” The doors open for a few minutes then automatically close, and the train travels at high speed. Voice comes back on: “Next stop Jerusalem the Old City, welcome to a land lost, Palestinians not carrying permits are not to exit the train. Special permits are required for those wishing to pray in the Aqsa Mosque. Israelis and foreigners…Welcome to Israel!” Within seconds the train takes off again. I guess fastening your seat belt is a very good idea as the train would be traveling at high speed and considering how short these distances are, screeching halts are to be expected at every station…“Next Stop Maale Adumim: please watch for heavy New Jersey and New York accents that might shock you as you get off the train.”… “Next Stop: Abu Dis, please be advised what once used to be a suburb of Jerusalem is now nothing but a passersby corridor that leads to Bethlehem. Traveling to Area C is not recommended due to political unrest, unless you are a settler looking for a cheap mechanic to fix your car.” Of it goes again, swallowing the land with all its flashing scenes… “Next Stop: Bethlehem…the cradle of Christianity…Christian pilgrims may depart the train only if this is part of their Holy Land/Israel Tour, if you are traveling through the West Bank, please see the expatriate advisory note on harassment, and possible arrest when attempting to depart the state of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.” The train goes off again, you hang on really tight as it speeds through the hills passing one settlement after the other…. “Next stop: Kiryat Arba, please watch for armed fanatic settlers, any suspicious looking Palestinian is at risk of being shot…DEAD…in the HEAD. Also we would like to advise you not offend any incoming passengers by sitting in their seats or any seats for that matter…tell you what if you are Palestinian, we strongly recommend you move to another car, or depart the train altogether. Your life may be at serious risk…Next stop…….

Forgive me, I should probably give you a chance to explain this proposed project, I got carried away in your La La Land conjuring up fast trains carrying Palestinians, Israeli and settlers all in the same confined space. But seriously, there are so many questions that need to be answered. Who will sell the train tickets? Who will collect them? And most important how will the money be divvied up, will the Palestinian Authority keep the income that comes from tickets sold in the West Bank? Will you offer snacks? Kosher and Halal? What will the cars look like? To avoid conflict, will you designate certain areas to Palestinians and others to Israelis and settlers, perhaps the back of the car-stand only-for Palestinians? I think Rosa Park might just walk out of her grave if you do that. What about security? Isn’t that your main concern always….security…Israel’s right to defend itself? How will you maintain it, railroad checkpoints? “Next stop a random railroad checkpoint, the train will come to a sudden and forceful stop; you may lose balance and drop your belongings on the floor. Please watch out for any luggage that may fall off from the overhead compartments. Palestinian Authority passport carriers please step out of the train for random check…this check is for your own security and safety. So what if you feel disrespected and humiliated. Security comes first…” Oops I am sorry, here I go again…did not give you the chance to quite explain… Just one more thing and I hate to be the one to rain on your parade of great imagination (you should genuinely consider writing the next Harry Potter series with this imagination), but in order to build the railroad track, won’t you confiscate more land like you did when you built the bypass roads? Again I hate to be a party pooper here, but if you keep confiscating lands, there will be no place for us to live don’t you think? Or wait is that the point? The aim? The goal? "Next Stop…Diaspora…”

A Few Words to a Ramallah Virgin

by:R.Kafri

Yesterday a friend of mine from the US called to tell me that her friends were coming on a tour of the region. She was hoping we would have the time to meet them. I was thrilled to do so. In Palestine, hospitality is built in. You welcome guests into your home no matter how tired, sad, happy, poor or wealthy you are. A colleague of mine recently told me that of all his travels in the Middle East, it is Palestine were he felt most welcome. He was amazed that despite the painful life betrayals, Palestinians remained so welcoming to strangers, and that despite the monstrous apartheid wall, people kept their doors open to guests from all over the world. A small country like this, where cities have been completely isolated from each other, should display severe lack of interest in the outside world, but instead the isolation in this incredibly large open air jail has made Palestinians more hungry for guests. My colleague is continuously touched and moved by the generous gestures of hospitality and has promised me to write about it soon…I am still waiting on his generosity…

As I wrote to this total stranger, I was trying to convey the message of warm welcome and utter excitement to have guests at our house. I started thinking of how Palestine in general and Ramallah in particular is a lot like me, happy to receive guests, sad to see them leave only to smile again at more strangers who dare to cross through the Qalandia checkpoint. During the summer I was browsing through books we have in our library and came across a compilation of pieces written about the city by different Palestinian writers. A reoccurring theme that jumped at me immediately was the description of Ramallah’s kind welcoming arms offered to each one of those writers when everywhere else shut them out. Ramallah was their stable in which the seeked refuge and safety after every other inn turned them away. A few weeks ago, a young Palestinian writer described her great love to Ramallah in a short poem published in Al Hayat newspaper. And I am sure more people will write about this dynamically changing city with its vivacious spirit. Ramallah charms you. ..

When I think of this place I call home, I remember the longing I felt when I was far away, and the comfort that enveloped me every time I came back. The tingling inside as I walked down the streets as a young girl and now as a young mother only to be greeted by familiar faces and places. The joy that overcomes me in a few moments of quiet after the babies have gone to bed when I realize that I am getting a very rare opportunity in this ever changing world to raise my own children in the same place I was raised. I get the chance to watch them live, love, hate, miss, run away and run back (hopefully) to Ramallah just like I did…. I sleep better knowing that if I teach them to love this space, this place this city, they will feel connected to something stronger than a good job in London, Paris or New York…they will feel connected to a home, to a street to a city and most important to a country that desperately needs its young educated and present, and I really mean physically present.

So as I sat in front of my computer writing fiercely (trying to finish before the babies wake up again), I struggled to explain Ramallah and Palestine to a total stranger. Here she was a tourist, coming to visit “both” sides, but who was smart enough to realize that a tour guide cannot and will not tell you the full story. I started to think of the different articles that have appeared about Ramallah recently. I knew that there are two images vividly painted by media about the city: one is poverty, violence, dirty streets, traffic lights that don’t work, ad hock speed bumps peppered randomly on roads, barefoot children selling gum anywhere they can, corruption, and corrupt leadership; another is night life, fun, bars, alcohol, girls in short skirts and LV bags, boys with baggy jeans, iphones and a tinge of rap music in the background, NGOs, NGO workers, intellectuals leisurely smoking argeeleh and sipping on a drink in a chic café, Mahmoud Darwish, Mahmoud Darwish’s resting place, open air souk (market), cultural events, a contemporary dance festival, film festivals, an art scene…a writhing metropolis. But the truth is Ramallah, Palestine is much more complicated. Ramallah has a very special recipe, with even the best of cooks unable to replicate. She is a lot of things. She is the woman busy in the kitchen cooking for all thirty guests in Ramadan, and welcoming them with a huge smile ignoring the shooting pain beginning from her feet and climbing persistently all the way to her neck. She is the vegetable stores in the old city mixed in with the new nail salon that just opened, and the new fancy bakery neighboring the Catholic school which looks directly onto the Friends school that has witnessed Ramallah since the 1800s, which then glances over new buildings and old ones leading to the heart and soul of it all…Al Manara circle which now leads to the newly renovated and less green Yasser Arafat square, which is surrounded by stores from my childhood, my husband’s childhood and even from before that time too. Her streets are busy and spend most of the year dug up as part of municipality rehabilitation projects; the traffic is unbearable at times, and the stores seem full but yet so empty. People throw smiles and hellos but look so drawn and hungry. Young men hang out endlessly in the streets showering young, old and middle aged women with all kinds of comments from the funny to the plain inappropriate simply because they have nothing else to do and nowhere to go. Ramallah enjoys the newly paved and renovated city center, and is beautifully and festively dressed up for Ramadan, Eid El Fitr, Christmas, Eid Al Adha and Easter, yet you catch the sadness, the despair, the underlying poverty. Ramallah is where normal signs of daily life melt so deceivingly with the incredibly not “normal” political situation. She hides her scars, her economic pangs of pain so well. For the untrained eye she seems like a new up and coming center in the Middle East. She dishes up hope with restaurants and cafes and covers up her bruises from years of occupation, military incursions, closure and suffocation. She hides tears for those lost on her streets and commemorates them with pictures as a constant reminder of the never ending ache. She fancily serves herself up as available and unafraid, only to sleep at night anxiously anticipating the next destruction. Of all cities, and all people Ramallah and her inhabitants know that nothing is constant and everything can change in one discontinuous moment in time.

Palestine, Palestinians, and Ramallah have learned to adjust, to build, to move forward as much as they can, whenever they can. They have mastered the art of living with relentless determination. I knew that no tour guide or travel agency can capture all of this in just a few days. I also knew that it would be unfair to reveal the secret to this tourist, this Ramallah virgin. With the sound of both babies waking up I hurriedly wrote: “Dear Judy, We are thrilled to meet you , please let us know when you will be arriving. We look forward to having you over for dinner as a minimum. Kindly, R.Kafri.” And I thought, let Ramallah and Palestine slowly uncover themselves to her, at the end something beautiful is waiting for both the city and the tourist…Love and a new understanding of a place so misunderstood…Let the magic happen…Ramallah, Palestine and Palestinians charm you….

Delicious Almond Cake...

by: R.Kafri

If you live in Ramallah, belong to a large family and enjoy an ever larger circle of friends, you would know exactly what it takes to put together a dinner party. We were getting ready to introduce our new twins to our group of friends. No easy feat I might tell you as in Palestine the birth of a baby is cause of celebration on multiple levels. While people are expected to come visit and bring gifts, you in return are expected to have a decadent line up of sweets and tiny gifts filled with chocolate to give away. While I would say we had an incredible line up of desserts from the very special Careway drink karawyeh to knafeh, kollaj and other sweets lined up for well wishers, we still had the daunting feat of inviting our closest friends for a get-to-know our babies dinner. When I say closest friends the number is not less than twenty guests and can easily exceed thirty adults, that is, not counting the children. Such was the case this past Thursday. Our guest list was full, our menu was complete and preparations were well under way at least two days in advance. The multiple course meal includen oven roasted meat with 7ashweh rice (spiced rice covered with minced meat and roasted almonds and pine nuts), roasted chicken with potatoes for those none meat eaters, and stuffed kusa and dawaly (zuchine and grape leaves). For starters it was tabouleh, salats arabiyyeh (Arabic Salad), and hummus. And for dessert…..mmmmmm dessert…..the most essential part of a meal, like the end note in a symphony, the last few words in an ever enchanting novel, the perfect end to a long day…Dessert, the part most people skip, but really should be the part all people never ever miss. For dessert I pulled out the big guns…moist chocolate cake, strawberry jello cake (it is strawberry season and the time is perfect to serve this cake) and my absolute master piece, my mother’s very special recipe: Ka3ket Al-Lawz Al-Latheetha (Delicious Almond Cake)….which is indeed delicious. After everyone ate, drank laughed and caught up. Our dessert buffet was rolled out, and pieces of chocolate cake, strawberry cake were carefully cut and served. Then came the night’s star, warm and ready to serve I brought out the almond cake…

The cake batter is very simple with sugar, canola oil, and flour mixed together in equal amounts, eggs are then added ( 4 eggs when using 1.5 cups of sugar), baking powder and a dash of baking soda. The topping is ground raw almonds sprinkled generously on top. After the batter is prepared, it is spread thin on one of the oven pans that come with it. The almonds are sprinkled generously all over, and then it is baked at 175 C for about 20-25 minutes. You know it is done when the almonds have a tinge of golden brown in them. Pull out of the oven and immediately soak with kater (sugar glaze). Serve warm and watch the happy faces around you melt into the crunch, the warmth, the sweet and the absolutely soft. Enjoy the flood of seconds requests from everyone, even those who are watching their sugar intake. This cake warms you up and lifts your spirits. It is like falling asleep and waking up in your lover’s arms every morning. It comforts and reassures you that life is still good. It reminds you that on cold winter days, with the winds howling outside your windows, it is the little things in life that warm you from the inside out. I love this cake for all its goodness. I love that this is a recipe my mother shared with me years ago, and now that I have a home and children I can share it with them. I love the flood of childhood memories that rush through me as I take the first bite, because when I cook, and every time I cook, I want to recreate a memory, a thought a feeling that I once had. And this past Thursday, I loved serving this cake to our guests and loved watching their faces react to the burst of sweet inside their mouth. It was only appropriate that a taste of my childhood was served to mark the beginning of my children’s life. Here is to many cold winters, to a busy kitchen, and countless times of baking this almond cake and watching the happy faces look back at you with gratitude and satisfaction. Here is to creating a childhood taste for my children….

interested in the full recipe please email us at riyamo.delicatassen@gmail.com

What would the olive tree tell you?

by: R.Kafri

On my way to Abu Dis, right before the road turns onto the big Ma’ale Adumim Highway, sits an olive tree graveyard. Tree stumps neatly organized in rows like grave stones witness to what once was on this land. I remember the first day I drove to Abu Dis and saw them. I did not really comprehend what was in front of me. I thought there must be a scientific reason why all these trees have been cut down almost to their roots. After all who would really cut a tree unless it was deathly ill with no hope for a cure or posed a serious threat on its fellow trees? Right? My scientifically trained mind needed a logical explanation to what it was observing; something based on facts and observed experiments. As I drove back and forth between Abu Dis and Ramallah teaching day in and day out, I slowly realized that what I witnessed every morning on my way is nothing but an olive grove grave yard, cut down by Israeli occupation forces for “security reasons.” Perhaps it is the same grove I saw on the news. This is probably were cameras stood filming the massacre. And every morning, with no fail, the pang of pain, mixed with a dash of despair and a rush of anger washed over me, causing me to push the gas paddle a bit harder to end the scene slightly quicker. It was sadly poetic, with an eerie wind about the stumps, as if haunted by ghosts of seasons past when they used to be green, lush and filled with shiny olives. It all belonged in a thriller movie; the heavy silence, no leaves rustling in the wind, no farmer sitting to take shade in the trees…just heavy silence…just tree stumps…standing on dry, desert like land, with no water, no hope…just simply dead.

The entrance to Azariyyeh is in fact a junction that leads to Maale Adumim, the largest and one of the oldest settlements in the West Bank. This monstrosity of architectural disaster is now forming a ring around Jerusalem, making any negotiation for any reasonable and just agreement almost impossible. Ironically at the junction in the middle of the traffic circle, where Palestinian cars and settler cars meet, sits an ancient olive tree, its stem wide and tangled, its leaves shiny and blow so gracefully in the wind. At first sight it looks majestic, but when you look closer, bulldozer scars are visible from the day she was uprooted from her original land to be planted here. So beautiful, so out of place, so lonely she stands. If this tree could talk she would tell you about the old grove she belonged to, the kind hands that harvested her every October, the children who played in her shade only to grow up into men and women who cared for her and watered her roots; trimmed her branches and plucked her olives. She would sing of families laughing, lovers meeting secretly under her shade, whispering to each other words of eternal love and promising her to always come home at harvest time; hoping to bring their children with them. She would tell you of cold wet winters, and hot scorching summers. She would tell you of rolling hills dotted with olive trees, loud with birds chirping and bugs squeaking. But then, she would also lower her proud leaves as if in shame to tell you of the day they took her. ..

It was a dark day; she was uprooted with the wails of loved ones in the background, the resilient but helpless cries of those who once filled her shade with life. She would point to her scars and say: this was a bulldozer, this was where they dug the hole to take me, and this one is where they threw me into the empty, hot, dry truck. They planted me here, but oh how I wish they just cut me. I would have rather died with the rest of my trees than been brought here. I am what have become of my owners, scattered, separated and pushed away from home…I am a refugee like countless others…I am you and you are me…Diaspora

note: Picture by interfaithpeacebuilders (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifpb)

The Return of Summer

by: R.Kafri

Summer has returned, and your trees have bloomed again, with majestic green and bright reds and orange. Apricots hang so heavily on outside of old homes, cherries glisten in the sun, ruby red in color, sweet as sugar in taste and figs poke their heads awaiting the hot dusty days to fully blossom. Your streets, abandoned, quiet and very grey in the winter are now dotted with walkers, joggers and runners, flooded with cars from all directions and drowned with the smell of argeeleh. The schools have gone silent, and the swimming pools have gone wild. The playgrounds empty very late, and ice cream men start their daily tours at 11 a.m yelling my favorite two words: “Roookkyyaaaab;” “Ballaaddnnnaaa.” Even the young boy selling nawa3em [sugar cakes] is back on the street corner. At night wedding convoys with their beeping horns fill the street s, one, two , three, four…..countless weddings. Everyone gets married in the summer.

Homes are busy with the long anticipated warm hugs, hot tears wiped with a kiss on each cheek. Your long, patient wait for your far away children is over for now; they are back, so rejoice, they have returned to fill silent homes with conversation, music, dance, and never ending feasts. Rejoice. For soon it will be time for goodbyes and your streets will empty again, your tree leaves will yellow, and quiet will fall as Fall washes over you.

Oh how beautiful you are in the summer; so elegantly dressed, softly manicured, and revving with life. Never mind a few bad hair days; everything is fixable. Broken streets will be paved, wilted trees will be groomed….It all really does not matter, for you are beautiful, ever so inviting, ever so exciting, ever so ours. Summer has returned, our Big Olive…Shine…

On the Town

By David Moser

“Hi Ahmad, how are you?”

“David, I am very good. I am very good. Where are you?”

“I am in Abu Dis now, on my way home.”

“Do you want to do something? I too am here in Abu Dis.”

I wanted to go home. I wanted see if there is more news about yesterday’s protests and violence for Nakba day, I wanted to look at facebook and take my shoes off, but Ahmad almost never calls, and I felt like I should see him. I had written to him the night before to see if the posters I had been seeing hung around Abu Dis the past few days were of a man he introduced me to. The man was murdered with thirty six bullets on a busy street the week before over a blood feud between Abu Dis and the next village.

“Ok Ahmad. Are you in the junction?”

“Yes. I am exactly in the junction.”

“Ok I will see you in two minutes.”

Ahmad’s face has been thin from fasting since Ramadan almost nine months ago. It was just over a year ago that we met. “David, I am Ahmad. You don’t know me, but I work at the university also, and I have seen you. You work with the Bard College.” We met through mutual Spanish friends who were living in my building while spending a semester at the university. Tonight, I spotted him, talking with two other young men leaning against a grey sedan. I greeted him, “How are you Ahmad? It has been a long time. How are you doing?”

“Ahh David. My friend. It is good to see you. I have been thinking of you.” He turned to his friends, “This is David.” We shake hands and exchange hellos. “Would you like to go to the café?”

“Yes. I want to eat pizza.”

“Ok. We will go there.” We invited his friends to come along and when they thanked us we said goodbye and turned around.

"So how are you? I wrote you last night because the man who was killed looks so familiar. I thought maybe I met him through you.”

“No David, you thought he was Iyad who took us to Jerico. The man who was shot, he was a driver. He is a poor man. It is so sad what is happening here. These people are ignorant people. They try to make the law with their hands.”

“Yes it is sad. It feels strange to see his face on the posters. I guess I didn’t know him. But I recognize his face.”

“You know this is new in Palestine, in Abu Dis. This did not happen before, families killing each other in Abu Dis.” We walked into the café to find it empty of customers. “There is no one here, its like we are in curfew.”

“Can we still get pizza?”

“I will check, if we cannot, I can take you somewhere different.” He asked the two teenagers standing behind the brown stone counter with a smooth marble top. We were in luck, so Ahmad ordered. Before sitting down we each took a soda from the case. I had a can of Fanta, Ahmad a glass bottle of sprite. One of the guys working was mentally retarded. As we turned away from the counter he handed us two straws. We said thank you. As we turned away again he held out a bottle opener and raised his chin and squinted, looking at our faces over the flesh of his cheeks, scrunched up as two mounds. Ahmad placed his Sprite back on the counter to be opened. We said thank you again.

“He is doing well,” Ahmad said. “His mind is not perfect you know, but he is doing good I think.” We sat down on firm couches under a brown tapestry. “I am not happy here in Palestine David. Really I feel depressed. There is nothing fantastic in Abu Dis.”

“You used to say you loved it here.”

“I know. I used to love it. I don’t know why I am unhappy. I was blaming myself for this.”

“You were blaming yourself for being unhappy?”

“Yes. You know I was in Spain during the winter. I could have stayed there illegally. I could have married Diego too. You know, we are both straight. But for the law to stay, I could have married him.”

“Is gay marriage legal in Spain?”

“Yes, come on, Spain was the first in Europe to make this law. Is it the law in United States? I think in Louisiana.”

“No, not in Louisiana.”

“But I know a woman who was there eighteen years. She said it was very common in the cities there. It was like normal.”

“I’m sure being gay is in some parts. But gay marriage is only legal in a few states.”

“Europe is amazing. The people are very free there. With their bodies. They will go on the beach with nothing. In Spain I saw this. They will go on any beach. In America it is only in their clubs that they will go like this. It is the law. If you go with nothing on the beach they will arrest you.”

“Yes, it’s not like Europe. We always wear a bathing suit.” Another group entered the restaurant – three men in their mid twenties. They were each unshaven and sat down on other couches around a table. They looked exhausted in the way one does during a long flight, enduring the work of stagnation. They ordered two water pipes of sweet flavored tobacco and instant coffee.

“Ahmad, do you think that the fighting here will continue, from yesterday, from the Nakba day?”

“Yes, I think there will be an intifada. I hope it will not. But I think it will. Because of the political situation here. There is no future in Palestine. The future is blackness. I see only blackness.”

“Yeah, it’s bad.”

“Why did Fatah and Hamas come to work together? They are surrendering.”

“You think so?”

“You cannot go ten meters without a settlement or a checkpoint. I want to tell the Israeli government to take and give, take, and give. Don’t just take! Look at what is happening in Abu Dis. Families are killing each other. They are shooting. No one can stop them. There is no Palestinian security, there is no Israeli security. Give us something!”

Our pizza arrived. I knew not to expect much from Pizza in Abu Dis, but it still looked beautiful, the shining yellow cheese bejeweled with salty canned vegetables: red and green peppers, kernels of corn, brown mushrooms, sliced green olives. I could never understand why they cover pizza in colorful but mushy and salty vegetables in a place with so much cheap and delicious fresh produce. Perhaps they are worried it would rot; business did seem slow. We started eating.

“I am so depressed here David. I tried to change it. I went to a church. I went to a mosque. Do you believe me that I went to a church?”

“You prayed in a church to be happy?”

“Yes I went and fired a candle and sat there but it didn’t work.” He paused. “Do you know b-12 vitamins?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I went and bought b-12 vitamins and took them. They are for your spirits. They are to make you feel excellent. I tried them but they did not work. I feel like it is hard. I am still looking for my girl. I am twenty nine now. I feel like I am getting old.”

“Man, you look like your fifteen.”

“That is because my face is thin now. Do you remember last year when we met?”

“You looked good then and you look good now Ahmad.”

“Thank you David, really, thank you.”

We went to the counter. I tried, but Ahmad paid. He insisted, “I invited you. You deserve something more than thirty eight shekels. You are my guest here.”

We thanked both the guys at the counter and turned to the door. I pushed it open and stepped out into the air. I breathed in deeply through my nose. It was cool for May, and that was a nice surprise.

Long Time Comin'

By Tala Abu Rahmeh


A Tunisian man, with beautiful silver hair, stood in front of the camera a day after the ex Tunisian president fled the country and said, "I have grown old waiting for this golden day to arrive," he kept saying "old" while touching his soft hair and shedding tears. Last night, an Egyptian man, 29-years-old, said that he has never understood democracy or freedom, but he always wanted them both, badly, together, and now is the time.

I was born in a house where pictures of Jamal Abdul Naser and Yassir Arafat glimmered side by side, and stories of Arab dignity and pride weaved themselves against the harsh water of Jordan, then suddenly, the pictures grew dusty, and became occupants of the slit sitting between the fridge and the wall. At 7, I used to tell people that I was Arab; not Jordanian, not Palestinian, not Egyptian, but Arab. My mouth tasted the honey of vowels and the bitter weather. At 16, while hiding under my bed from bombs and having little to no mention in the news, I renounced it all.

Then, out of nowhere, a slit in the clearest sky pushed itself open, and suddenly, we became alive. People took over their streets and screamed in hunger and anger. Demonstrators are still getting shot in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria. Everybody who endured garbage city and slept on old graves of past kings finally said NO to tyranny and indignity, no to being so rejected from life. Most demonstrations were planned via Facebook and text messages. On the news, Arab thinkers are calling us the Facebook generation who is sparking a modern revolution.

It all started when a Tunisian graduate student, exactly my age (26), burned himself in protest. He had been selling vegetables to support his family, and the government, for no reason at all, confiscated his cart. I think of him every night, his brown skin curling in flames and shedding like flakes of thin chocolate. His body slowly folding in on itself, surprised at its ability to burst in pure, unstoppable fire. Two days later, young men burned themselves in Algeria and Egypt.

You might wonder, why should anyone be proud of youth burning themselves and getting shot in their own streets? Because who knew, that in the year 2011, people would still believe in hope? If our people didn't believe in an enormous amount of humanity, why would they bother? News channels race to report the names of the fallen, all aged 20, 21, 22. In the times of iphones and big houses, there are still people willing to die for the freedom of their people.

If anything, this proves how long our path really is. In Amman, people flaunt their Gucci bags in giant malls while the rest of the population is hungry. In Palestine, officials glued themselves to their seats and took the initiative to sell their people for little to nothing. In Cairo, Mubarak thinks he can silence his people by firing their own army at them. In Saudi Arabia, women can't even drive let alone have rights. In Iraq, people are killed by the American Army then bombed by their own people. We need so many revolutions to restore just an inch of love and dignity.

Nevertheless, today, we should celebrate; celebrate our own capacity for courage, and determination to never be silent. Real change has never been made overnight, but even the most pessimistic of us cannot deny that there is revolution in the air, and the taste and sweet smell of something new. So, hurray to our Facebook generation, may you never let yourself be silenced.