Remembering Arafat

I had picked up my son from school a bit earlier. Now we both stood by the street waiting for a suitable transportation to the city. As there are no public transports, people on their way stop to pick up people in need of transportation, for the cost of one shekel. They pull over to hear which area you want to go, if it suit them they stop the car, if not they just continue. After some time we got lucky and jumped into a car and we were on our way. I had not told anyone that we were going. I wanted it to be my own day out with my son. My relatives, being overprotecting, would have either joined me or stopped me from going all alone. However, I knew that I at this point had gone along many times enough to know what to say and how to handle certain situations that might appear. I wanted to test my wings.

Soon I realized that there was something going on, because streets were blocked by police and we had to take other streets than usual to get to the city centre. The taxi had to stop a bit earlier and as we walked the last part I was suddenly face to face with thirty something masked men with machineguns who were lining up on the street. I heard music coming from the park were we had just been the other day and saw yellow flags and palestinian flags all over the place. I realized I had chosen the day of Arafat’s death one year ago as my first day out on my own. I reached for my camera in my handbag and realized another thing; it was still on my kitchen table at home (sorry guys!). As we tried to cross a street a minivan pulled up in front of us, full with armed and masked men, wearing black clothes, army clothes, some had the Palestinian scarf rapped around their face. The man closest to the window looked at me for a second, then pulled out a rocket as to show off and you will realize now that I’m totally ignorant when it comes to weapons, but my feeling when I saw it was that it’s that kind of rockets that land in Israel… When he didn’t see me I stuck out my tongue to him. In my imagination.

At first I of course got scared upon seeing all this and I would have turned around if it wasn’t for the fact that there were many families walking around the streets. In general the people seemed excited and happy, they were waving the flags and singing along with the music. In a park nearby a man was giving a speech. All I could think about was that Judy would have really liked me to take photos here and now…

Me and my son went shopping as the people marched the streets. Being ejnabiya (foreigner) I usually pay too much and I hate to bargain, but I figure it’s still cheap for me comparing to the prices in my own country. My son bought some toys for his Eid-money and I bought a new table-cloth for my kitchen table. We drank chocolate and strawberry milkshake at a little coffee house.

Upon returning I started doubt my skills since we couldn’t seem to get hold of a taxi. No one was going our way! Or did I do something wrong? After waiting for almost half an hour by the street, being rejected by car after car, we finally got lucky. The driver asked if I was thinking to pay for one passenger or two (my son usually sits in my knee and we get away with paying for only one seat) Now we had two big bags with us as well so I had already prepared two shekels that I was holding in my hand (I wasn’t gonna fight over one shekel, that’s for sure). Upon seeing them he stopped the car and we were on our way home.

We made it. The next morning I saw Arafats picture upside down on a t-shirt hanging in the sun to dry.