On the Edge

I'm finding myself counting the weeks and days here.

On Saturday evening, Chris Rock was on TV, and he said that some people have careers, and some people have jobs. If you have a career, you never have enough hours in a day. If you have a job, you find yourself having way too many hours in a day. You begin your day by counting down the hours until the day is over. And you start your week by counting the days until the weekend comes.

Chris Rock has a career.

I start my internship by counting down the weeks. I'm on week three. Day 11. It's Monday 29 September, and I have until 14 November at the UN. Until 18 November in my new apartment.

That's seven weeks left here. Tomorrow is a UN holiday (we don't follow US holidays, but have our very own, and tomorrow is off because it's Eid el Fitr--the end of Ramadan), so that leaves three and a half days this week, plus the coming 6 weeks, which gives me 33.5 days in total. Or approximately 268 hours. The exact days and hours in the apartment isn't calculable, though, because my evenings and weekends aren't all pre-planned. All I know is that tonight, I'm invited to Uncle Ron's mom's place for Rosh HaShana Eve dinner (the Jewish New Year); tomorrow, Auntie Toni and I are going shopping, and then we'll meet up with Step-Grandmother Marianne who is here in New York for a few days; this Friday, I'm staying over at Toni's place, because we're leaving early Saturday morning for the easternmost tip of Long Island, Montauk, where we will stay until Sunday evening... so it's all a bit unclear exactly how many days and hours I will stay in my new apartment.

My new apartment. Uncle Ron drove me up there yesterday afternoon with all my things plus some more. Auntie Toni saw too it that I got clean sheets, a pillow and a blanket; her fat free blueberry and apple muffins; all-bran cereal; a pair of slippers and a candle... so that I will feel a little more at home. Then she went shopping with me so I could get some fruit, hempseed milk (I'm so looking forward to trying that), paper towels and soap and some other things.

My new apartment is on the third floor in a walk-up building on Columbus Avenue. The stone steps are worn by all the feet that have walked up and down for years and years and there are pigeons outside the windows. My room is closest to the front door, away from the other rooms and the kitchen and living room, but close to the bathroom. There's a bed, a desk, a closet, a dresser, and a window.

My new roomies seem nice enough. David works in advertising, Brian is a bass player. I didn't see Galia yet, but she's a singer songwriter. They seem to be keeping to themselves most of the time, which, I suppose, is a good thing when all is said and done.

But still, I count the weeks. Mostly because there are other people's hairs in the sink and the bath tub, and other people's crumbs on the kitchen table. And because I feel like I'm spending my days always on the edge of my comfort zone. It's not bad, but not where I want to be.

And this morning I almost got lost on my way to the subway, and then again getting off it on 42nd Street that wasn't Times Square where I was supposed to take the shuttle to Grand Central (all trains go to 42nd, but apparently one of them doesn't stop at Times Square on 42nd, and that was the one I had to take). Luckily, I have a good memory and a sense of the Manhattan map in my head to make up for my crappy sense of direction, so I could find my way to Fifth Avenue and from there make my way to the UN.

Neale Donald Walsch (a writer and a philosopher) says that life begins at the end of your comfort zone. And I know it does. If you never upset your routine, you will never grow. But living on the edge is. Well, it's just not comfortable, and if it weren't for the fact that it's going to look good on my CV with a UN Headquarters internship, I'm not so sure I'd think it was worth it.

And also, I'm not so sure that you necessarily have to live on the edge of your comfort zone at all times in order to grow as a person, and truly experience life. Take this summer. I did find myself out there on the edge several times, but all in all, I knew that this was exactly where I wanted to be. On the West Bank. Working with Fair Trade and sustainable development. Going to Ramallah on Thursday afternoons to spend my Fridays with Mahran swimming in Jericho, or loitering in the shade, or eating fatoush at Ziryab on Rukab Street in Ramallah.

The only time I felt really, really uncomfortable, was when I decided I needed to see Israel too to get a better idea of things, and went to Haifa on my own. If I hadn't learned from the time I went to Alexandria on my own, I got the message this time: Ruby don't do single traveling well.

After I had pushed myself to stay on the edge for three days, I packed my things and took the first bus after the Shabat back to Jerusalem. As the landscape changed back to the dry, stony, hilly, cypress lined, ancient ruin dotted, olive tree fielded beauty that seems to belong better in the region than the irrigated lush flower beds and Eastern European styled houses and buildings of Israel, my blood rushed back and I'm sure my cheeks were flushed as I ran up from Damascus Gate to the Arab Bus Station, and jumped over the fence, lost my sun glasses, and caught the last bus to Ramallah just as it was pulling out from the station.

I cried as I sat there in the back and looked out the window.

The sweet notes of Arabic song sounded from the speakers. It was dark outside, women with headscarves and men with lots and lots of hair gel sat around me. Some were standing. We were driving through the dark evening streets of East Jerusalem, stopping when people wanted to get off or climb on, regardless of whether there were bus stops or not. I felt as if I had come home again from long and arduous travels to distant shores, and finally felt safe. These were tears of surrender as I sank into the comfort of being where I wanted to be.

This is the comfort I'm longing for now. When I'm not busy talking to Toni and I forget to think about the feeling that keeps coming back to me: as if I'm constantly tiptoeing on the edge of my comfort zone. It's not that I don't like it here, it's just... maybe I don't belong in this place.

I don't know whether I will sink back into the comfort of being where I want to be until I get my butt on a plane and fly back to the Middle East.

Death by Kunafa

Woke up at this morning to a dark, wet New York, pouring rain and the roar of the wind. The streets were full of rubber booted and raincoated New Yorkers on their way to work. I splashed my way from Grand Central up to 46th Street and 1st Avenue, trying to avoid the worst puddles, huddling against the wind, holding on tight to my umbrella.

Ella, ella, eh, eh.

Or actually, it's Auntie Toni's umbrella ella. She offered me her bright yellow raincoat and her pink rubber boots, but they kind of didn't go very well with my black pants, my smokey violet shirt, my wool pullover and my steel gray shawl. So I went with her purple umbrella instead.

I'm still going through all the General Assembly addresses for references to terrorism. Trying to fake my way through some French statements that haven't been translated to English. I'd like to think I'm doing pretty well. (Key words being I'd like to think).

Meanwhile, I'm also reading the news and came across a Ramadan murder plot that unfolded today in Nablus, the biggest city on the West Bank. A Palestinian metal worker walked into one of the kunafa bakeries (Nablus is famous for its kunafa) and ordered one large platter of this syrupy sweet pastry filled with cheese. He said he was going to send it by taxi to his mother-in-law for the breaking of the fast on this last Friday of Ramadan, but most likely didn't mention that he was convinced that this same mother-in-law was behind the recent divorce from his wife and that he had vowed to avenge her.

The metal worker asked to be present when the bakers prepared it, slipped in (as you do when you're plotting to kill your mother-in-law for having destroyed your marriage) some rat poison when nobody was looking, and probably thought he was doing pretty well with the whole murder scheme. But then the bakers (oh, these proud kunafa bakers) noticed that the color of the cheese was different than usual, and wouldn't for the world sell inferior kunafa and risk damaging their fine reputation, no matter how much the metal worker insisted that he was absolutely fine with the unusual looking cheese and didn't want it exchanged for another platter.

Finally, the kunafa bakery argument resulted in the metal worker's arrest for plotting to murder his mother-in-law, and the man has confessed and is currently waiting to be prosecuted.

As if taken directly from Arabian Nights, I know. But it's true. Check it out on http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32187.

Saudi Arabia has requested a Security Council meeting on the issue of the Israeli settlements in Palestine. President Mahmoud Abbas is speaking to the Security Council right now. I'm listening via the UN webcast site. He's showing maps of how the Israeli settlements divide the West Bank (and thereby the territory where a Palestinian state will be formed, if it will be formed) into four cantons, which really isn't a very good base for a cohesive state at all. Especially when these cantons would be separated, not only by the settlements themselves, but by electric fences, concrete walls and settler roads that Palestinians aren't even allowed to access. And in spite of the agreement in Annapolis, Israel continues with its settlement policy and settlements have in fact increased since the Annapolis agreement.

And now Israel's representative. Settlements are not the primary obstacle, Gaza bombings are. For sure, this is counter-productive indeed and there is never an excuse for killing human beings.

Ahmadinejad is. Yes, he is saying some very untactful things (like Condoleezza Rice just noted you simply don't say "in polite company"), but if Abbas can't control Ahmadinejad's statements and Iran's foreign policy, there will be no peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority?

The kidnapping of Gilad Shalit is. Yes, this is an obstacle, but so are the about 11 000 Palestinians prisoners held by Israel, hundreds of which are children.

And finally, settlers have a historic bond to the biblical land. Whereas Palestinians who have lived there for generations don't?

In the words of Costa Rica's representative to the Security Council: we cannot ignore that the conduct of both sides is motivated by the conduct of the other.

In my own words: but that shouldn't prevent a recognized state and a member of the United Nations to comply with international law, adhere to Security Council resolutions, respect the Geneva Convention and cease to transfer portions of its citizens into the territories it is occupying.

In the words of Italy's representative: it is in Israel's own interest to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority.

Okay, back to my real assingment. The General Assembly and references to the UN Counter-Terrorism Task Force. I'm noting a very clear pattern: blaming terrorism on under-development and poverty. Did everybody collectively forget that those behind the two attacks that have shaken the West the most and took place in New York and London were well-educated middle class men? Do people actually believe that if you have to struggle to feed yourself or your family, you can't pay for healthcare, you can't send your kids or your brothers or sisters to school, you're going to bother with raising money and organizing and orchestrating international terrorist attacks?

I don't know, but I think there are other reasons behind terrorism, even if that shouldn't stop us from dealing with poverty and under-development, too. But for other reasons.

Well, I'm off to the bathroom. I have no window in my room, remember, and I'd like to see if it's still pouring down outside.

Q&A with Ahmadinejad

So Jude Law didn't show up. That's just like him. Pfft.

But Ahmedinejad was there. (I always knew Iranians were a trustworthy lot). And about 400 UN interns from around the world, and university students and professors from all over America. The Iranian Mission to the UN never expected this many of us would sign up for this event, so the Manhattan Ballroom at Grand Hyatt on 42nd St was over-crowded--all the breakfast tables were full, every chair in the back was taken, and people were standing around the room up against the walls, between the tables, and by the breakfast buffet.

He's kind of small, that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And he smiles a lot.

The first question he got from a guy in a pink shirt at the very back, was why he continues to damage his reputation by refusing to acknowledge the state of Israel.

Now, it didn't take a genious to anticipate that the answer would be long and elaborate and include many of the human rights violations and deviations from international law that the Israeli state has been guilty of in relation to the Palestinian people and their land.

"I'm told this is history, forget it," he said. "I tell them, yes, but this is what got us to where we are right now." Women are still being killed, children imprisoned, the occupation continues. "We must not live in the past," he said, "but without our past, we are like trees without roots."

And then he said something that actually made sense, in a twisted kind of way. He said that we forget that 60 million died in World War II. Why did the world decide that the killings of the Jews somehow should matter more? Now, I'm not suggesting it shouldn't matter, and neither do I buy into Ahmadenijad's dimwit suggestions that the Holocaust might never have happened (he says he never actually said it didn't happen, only that he would like to research it more, but people won't allow him... not that I know who's stopping him, but that's what he says), or that the entire world is run by Zionists (because I normally do not buy into wacky conspiration theories in general), but a quick search on http://www.wikipedia.org gives me figures to ponder.

About 27 million died in the Soviet Union. 27 million! That's a 2 and a 7 and 6 zeros. We very rarely give them a second thought in our part of the world.

Japan murdered somewhere between 3 to 10 million (mostly) Chinese people. When do we remember them?

"We are sorry for the Jews that were killed, we are sorry for everybody who was killed--Jewish, Christian, or whatever."

Yeah, we should be. And even though he brought it up to sort of make us think less of the Holocaust, it still made me think of all of those we normally never think about when we speak of World War II. If there is such a thing as collective guilt, boy do we have lots to make up for. Not that you and I did these things, but our grandparents did.

But anyway, after explaining why he risked his reputation to stand up for the Palestinian people, he suggested a rather... interesting solution. According the UN Charter, all people have a right to self-determination, and therefore there should be a referendum for the Palestinian people so that they can finally be allowed to decide what they want to do with this situation.

Cute.

Even I who have personally experienced the occupation, have seen what it does to families, have gone past the fields of black sad stubs sticking up in dried-out lands, where once Palestinians harvested olives from silver green olive trees. Even I who have seen the Wall, got stuck at the Israeli check points, read the local news about the kids that were shot dead by the Israeli military, about the old women who were beaten up by Israeli settlers... about the new fantastic idea to spray demonstrators against the Wall with toilet water (yes TOILET water, because it causes infections--go to http://www.maannews.net/en/ for daily coverage on what actually happens in the occupied territories, deaths, names, everything).

Even I, even I would never in my wildest dreams suggest that Palestinians should be granted sovereignty over the entire territory (which is the most likely outcome of a Palestinian referendum, I guess, if they were actually given that option). That's like suggesting that the Native Americans should be allowed to have a referendum on what to do with all these settlers that have taken over their country. No matter how just the cause may seem in light of past events, it just doesn't work that way. Sure, without our past, we're rootless trees. But you can't cut out all the branches or shake off all the leaves that get in your way, because the tree would die.

Think of it as a Bonsai tree, if you will. With careful pruning and lots of love and care and patience, we can bend the branches the way we want them to bend. But it's a fine balance, getting the tree to live and grow, because if you cut too much, you kill it.

And just because some branches and leaves used to bite off all these other branches, and has, for the past 60 years, bullied a bunch of branches that were left on the tree... if you'll excuse my cannibalistic Little Shop of Horrors bonsai tree metaphor... doesn't make it right for us to cut out all branches connected to these bullying branches. Because most of them are really only regular branches and leaves, and cutting them off, would be like...

Okay, I give up. The metaphor sucks. But the point is that the Israeli families have lived there for generations now, and no more than their grandparents should have expelled those who lived there before them, and destroyed entire Palestinian villages, cut down their fruit trees, should Palestinians today chase the Israelis out of their homes. This is a very delicate situation that calls for very delicate measures. Any solution must involve all parties, with equal say on the final draft for the future political structure.

But back to Ahmadinejad. He's a good question dodger, that man. Every inconvenient question on human rights violations, public executions of gay people (well, he didn't really dodge that one as much as he just expressed his view that homosexuality is considered to be wrong in Iran, and therefore punishable by law), women's rights, was successfully circumvented with smiles, jokes, and examples that didn't really satisfy anyone who has read the simplest reports on the situation in Iran. But on the other hand, he did have a point. We haven't been there, so we don't know. He invited us all to come and see for ourselves, because the way Iran, and just about all Arabic countries too, are presented in the media, with endless stretches of sand dunes and maybe a camel or two (or screaming mobs of angry Qur'an waving people, crying mothers in traditional clothing, stone-throwing kids), is not in actual fact a very good depiction of what the Middle East actually is. And this is true. Never take somebody else's word for it. See for yourself.

But still. Student uprisings are being quelled, people are being killed and put to prison (not necessarily in that order, though), and no matter how many examples that he brings up of what the US is doing wrong or worse, it doesn't take away his responsibility to see to it that his government adheres to human rights laws within his own borders. Because somehow I don't quite trust him on his remark that Iranian prisons have turned into hotels these days.