Charisma And Hospitality
By Eva Bartlett
24 February, 2010
Ingaza.wordpress.com
Taxis in Palestine are of two sorts: shared and private. The shared are of many sorts: functioning well, handles missing, windshields cracked, windshields missing, filled with exhaust, filled with diesel exhaust, 5 seats, 8 seats, slightly dented, slightly not-dented…
The shared, services, are cheap and work beautifully, unless in a hurry and unable to wait for passengers to fill up the cab. While you’d expect they run from set point to set point, they in fact cater to one’s destination, so keen are drivers here for fares.
The private come in handy when in a hurry, or going to a more remote destination.
For our work in the border regions and out of the way places, we hire a private.
Abu M drives us regularly, sometimes pushing food on us, usually inviting us back to eat with his family, and always sharing his good humour.
“There was a boy named Saber, he had 10 donkeys. One day he was returning from town, riding on one of the donkeys. He stopped to count them. 1, 2, 3,…9. When he saw there were only 9 donkeys around him, he got down, walked around, and counted again. 1, 2, 3,…10. Confused, but relieved, Saber got back on his donkey and began to ride home again. After a while, he did another headcount: 1, 2, 3…9 “
The tale goes on, Saber gets off, counts, sees 10, get on, rides along, re-counts, sees 9…
Abu M is chuckling, unable to contain himself. But at the same time, he possesses that knack for storytelling that many Palestinians hold, having told tales of their fathers and and grandmothers before them, the oral history tradition strong (and now the tie for many to their homeland, displaced by the Zionist occupation).
The charismatic Abu M rounds off his Saber story with the poor boy deciding to walk instead of ride a donkey, because then he can keep track of all 10 donkeys.
It’s a silly story, poking fun at Palestinians themselves, something people here are very ready to do, admitting that while victims of repeated expulsions, repeated invasions, demolitions and massacres, and an ongoing occupation, they can still admit fault when fault is present.
Coming back from the ruins of 3 functioning homes and over 600 bulldozed olive and fruit trees, we catch a ride from the border lands to the main road. Our driver is a relative of one of the three families we’ve been interviewing. We’ve done nothing, actually, for the families: their houses are still destroyed, their livelihoods ruined, and they’ve not received any compensation from any of the million NGOs. Yet they push the driver, the relative, on us. He is broad smiles and throws in words in Hebrew, wanting to communicate in a language other than Arabic, to please us. We don’t speak Hebrew, so he throws in smatters of English.
He drives us the 5 minutes up dirt roads, through the waterless valley, through Meghazi camp, and up to the main road where we are to catch another service our respective directions. But no, he won’t have it. “Ayb aleyyi,” he says. It would be shameful if he, a perfect stranger who we’ve done absolutely nothing for, doesn’t drive us to our destinations.
There’s no convincing him otherwise, and money is out of the question.
His insistence is like that of Abu Ramzi, the elderly fisherman yesterday. After interviewing him –hearing of his regression from a thriving fishing career of 30 years to cowering on the beach with harried ventures less than 1 km out to catch sparse fish and be shot at by the roaming Israeli gunboats –he balks when we say we must leave.
“Min fasch, impossible, you haven’t had tea. You must stay and eat with us,” he demands.
But his smiles stay as we promise to return and meet his family another day.
One of the roads leading from Rafah’s Tel el Sultan to Rafah town has a huge gash in it, left by an Israeli invasion in 2004. It’s only now getting repaired, workers laying interlocking stones in the gaping road.
More often than not taxi drivers try to offer the ride for free: “it’s on me,” they try, saying we are guests here.
And more often than not I learn they are educated, had good jobs before Gaza was shut down, and have a family depending on their sparse income.
After much persistence, Abu M has finally succeeded in getting us to visit his family. On a drive by, we see his home, top half burnt out by Israeli missile strikes, bottom quarter walls eaten by bullets and sniper holes, and those bullet holes riddling the entire house.
The home of our cheery Monday driver.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who arrived in Gaza in November 2008 on the third Free Gaza Movement boat. She has been volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement and documenting Israel's ongoing attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. During Israel's recent assault on Gaza, she and other ISM volunteers accompanied ambulances and documenting the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. She blogs at her In Gaza blog
