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creativeS U B M I S S I O N S

13  the word  |  WINTER 2012

OLD CITY 

NEW FRIENDS IN THE

“To be hopeful in bad times […] is based on the fact that

human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of com-

passion, sacrifce, courage, kindness. What we choose to

emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives...”

Photo Courtesy of Nadia Rowther

BY NADIA ROWTHER 

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FEATURE | alkalima  14

“If we remember those times and places—and there

are so many—where people have behaved magnicently,

this gives us the energy to act, […] And if we do act […]

 we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The

future is an innite succession of presents, and to live

now as we think human beings should live, in deance

of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”-Howard Zinn

On the last day of my three-week trip to Palestine,

Israel and Jordan, I think of all the people I still have to

buy gifts for; the colorful stalls of the street vendors fade

into the background as I wander through one of many 

alleys in the Old City of historic Jerusalem.

“Nadia, this way!” My brother and friend wave for me

to join them as they disappear into a doorway.

It is the door to Al-Khanqah al- Salahiyya Mosque, a

former su convent from the time of Salahuddin.Once I enter I see why we’re here—a Palestinian girl,

 Anhar, and her younger brother are leading us through a

courtyard.

My brother quickly explains that they had seen us

 walking and asked if we needed a place to pray.

 After we nish our afternoon prayers, they take us to

their house, which is also attached to the mosque.

 While drinking the most delicious mint tea I’ve ever

tasted, we chat with the young children and their mother.

 Anhar and her older sister, Isra, tell me they want to be

teachers when they grow up.

I ask about Roukab’s, a brand of Palestinian ice cream

I have yet to try. Our new friends tell us the candy store

next door sells it, and we all decide to go there together.

 The ice cream is delicious, but the company is my fa-

 vorite part; their smiling faces, their laughter, and their

small, sticky hands all over our cameras as they practice

their photography skills.

 Time passes too quickly, and we realize that it’s time

for us to head back to our hotel. After asking their moth-

er for permission, Isra, Anhar, and two of their three

brothers join us. Mid-route, we stop in front of a store

that Isra tells me is her father’s shop.

 The owner laughs and explains that he is only a father-

gure. He goes on to tell us how Anhar’s biological father

could not nd work in Jerusalem, so he works in the West

Bank and periodically sends money to support his family.

Palestinian Jerusalemites hold Israeli-issued residency 

cards, and to retain them, must prove that their center-of-

life is in Jerusalem.

 Anhar’s family has been faced with the threat of hav-

ing their residency cards revoked on multiple occasions

by the Israeli Defense Force who have come to their

home.

Moving to the West Bank to reunite their family, even

for a few weeks, would be too risky, as they would mostlikely never be able to return to Jerusalem.

 To earn extra money, Anhar and her siblings lead tour-

ists to different religious sites in the Old City; they’re well

known and loved by local residents.

I imagine my own mother, who somehow stayed sane

 while raising four children, all very close in age.

 The warm and kind woman whose house I had just

left, who had smiled and nodded as her children trans-

lated her offer to cook us lunch, was facing the additional

hardship of doing it alone, and with the threat of being evicted from her home.

 The shop owner frowns a bit and tells me Anhar is ill;

she recently became very thin and her hair has started to

fall out.

He sadly admits treatment for whatever she has would

likely be too costly. Anhar smiles, but seems a little em-

barrassed; she slowly moves aside the headband I had

complimented earlier, revealing a bald spot.

  With an optimistic sort of deance she shrugs and

says, “It’s from God.”

  We chat with the shop owner a bit longer before

thanking him and continuing on to our hotel.

On my last day in Jerusalem, I was confronted with

one example of human tragedy that denes a conict

many only ever attempt to understand on an intellectual

level.

I listened, I looked, and then I got on a plane and left,

taking with me memories of the most difcult, emotion-

ally draining, mentally exhaustive, and humbling experi-

ences of my life.

 And this thing that I can write about as a “memory”

or an “experience” is what millions call “life”— the real-

ity that they wake up to every single day. And yet they 

smile, they love, they welcome, they hope, seeking not

only to survive, but to thrive.

 ___________________________________________ 

NADIA ROWTHER is a fourth year Public Health Sci-

ences major at the University of California, Irvine