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Anything's Possible
Yesterday morning, a group of Oman Air flight attendants and I shared a ride from the Trivandrum hotel lobby to the conference center, where I was dropped off, and they kept going, to the airport.
"Which airline do you fly for?"
"Oman Air."
"Are all of you from Oman?"
"I'm from Morocco, but the others are."
"I've never been to Oman or Morocco or Saudi Arabia."
"Oman is the second cleanest country, after Singapore."
"It's probably gorgeous. I did live in Jerusalem for a year during college, so I have been to the Middle East, just not to your part of it yet. I loved it. I was at Hebrew University. Have you heard of it?"
They nodded yes.
"I have lots of family there, too...not in Jerusalem, but in a coastal town -- my grandparents and aunt and lots of first and second cousins."
One of the female flight attendants: "Isn't it dangerous there?"
"Yes, but when you're living there, you don't feel it in the same way as the media portrays it."
She responded, "There are two things that I always want to avoid: War and Illness."
"Like bird flu?"
"No, cancer, HIV...."
"Ah....I remember very few words in Arabic, but I know 'Salaam Aleikum, shukran' and 'knafeh' ['Peace be with you, thank you' and a luscious Palestinian pastry]."
"Then, you know the important words," said the war-and-illness-averse flight attendant, and all of them smiled at me kindly.
Later, I was telling some Indian colleagues about the quick, friendly exchange, and how I hesitated for a moment prior to telling them about my Israeli relatives.
"We have tension with Pakistanis, but there are all sorts of examples of kindness amongst Pakistanis and Indians."
"Yeah, it's so ironic. We're all Semites -- Arabs and Jews -- just like Indians and Pakistanis are essentially akin."
3 comments:
We had a spur of the moment barbecue here on Monday to celebrate Labor Day. I posted a note on our front door and the front door of the building next door simply stating, BBQ, 5:00, our address. I invited Eli and Deb's family. We heated up the coals, brought a couple of tables up from the basement, provided the plates, and set up a cooler, which we filled with some "starter" beer and chilled wine. A few hours later, after Zach's sitar lesson, we were hosting at least thirty to forty people in our front yard over a period of four hours. They knew the "rules." Bring something to throw on the grill and/or a side, a drink, a dessert. Maybe things are similar in the suburbs these days, but because Eli was there, it made me realize how diverse the party was. White, black, Puerto Rican-Filipino, Japanese-German, Jewish, Christian, non-affiliated, Iraqi-Korean, Israeli, straight, Indian, lesbian...
Eli was delighted to meet a couple of college students near his age to hang out with for part of the party. Awhile into their conversations, he learned that one of the guys had a Korean mother, who had brought marinated beef/bulgoki to throw on the grill, and an Iraqi father. And he met our next door neighbor, a professor, also is an authority on terrorism, who is on television fairly regularly, being interviewed on CNN. More than the beef on the grill sizzled, in a really good way. Eli asked me how the Jews and Arabs get along in Brooklyn. I said better than in Israel.
You may remember the Festival at my school where we sang Arabic and Hebrew songs of peace together, the spring of 2002. We were all devastated by 9/11 and needed to make some gesture that our humanity superseded our affiliations. If in retrospect the singing event sounds a bit hokey, it was heartfelt and wonderfully healing at the time.
I love you,
Kathy
You've been doing cultural exchange for peace, since high school, when you got involved with AFS (http://www.afs.org). At 10, I remember selling AFS calendars door-to-door all over the neighborhood, and as far as I could walk beyond it "to raise money for my sister Kathy's trip" as an exchange student. It seemed everyone bought one.
I don't know why I'm choked up, recalling this period. I think I never felt more invested in selling a product than I did, selling those AFS calendars in your behalf, and other exchange students'.
I never knew how you felt about the calendars. Thanks for your heartfelt work.
Love,
Kathy
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