The Ten Years Old Boy,*Lunch in Silwan-Jerusalem........by Jamil Shawwa

It is 2:30 PM, on a Thursday, of the year 1974. The bell rang, and the students at that Jerusalem school were starting to leave the class, it is the end of the school day. The ten years old boy left slowly, no rush, no one is waiting to collect him except for that big yellow bus with that driver and his assistant, fighting again as usual. His classmates are running out of the class, but not him, the classmates are running to their parents waiting outside the school walls on a famous Jerusalem street, Nablus street, to pick them up. The boy's family is miles and miles away in the sleepy city of Gaza by the Mediterranean. How can anyone believe that a city on the great and fantastic Mediterranean Sea and in the same time stale, poor Gaza, he thought. He continued to walk, left the gate, climbed the bus staircase and to his usual seat, exactly as the morning routine and again, no one next to him. The boy with himself, his books and his perspectives on the world. The bus started rolling through the afternoon busy streets of this magnificent city, Jerusalem, through Nablus street and passing by the prestigious Schmidt's college for girls , Salaheldin street, to the suburbs, Dahiat Al-Barid , El Ezaria, Shofat, Kalandia, oh, wait a minute, here is Kalandia airport, what a nice strip of runway, but he was told that it has not been used since 1967 and the demise of the Jordanians from the West Bank and the arrival of Israel as the new ruler. The airport has been used for small military aircraft only. The bus continues, to Ramallah, no checkpoints whatsoever. Dinner is ready at the boarding school, it is Thursday night, and tomorrow, Friday, is off, so tonight is “Mogadara” night, lentil, rice, and fried onions on top, with salad on the side. What a feast, oh wait another minute, the boy as the rest of the students had a locker and the locker had food from his family, fantastic, he can compliments the Mogadara with some cheeses or snacks before going to bed. Hey, Waite a third a minute, it is symposium night at the boarding school, and it was his turn, he volunteered actually, to present his version of the October war, or shall we say, Ze’ev Schiff’s version of the war between the Arabs and Israel, which took place a year earlier. Ze’ev Schiff did not only talk about a war; he talked about a nation that was shaken by the events, he talked about Israel's historic military leader, Moshe Dayan, panicking in the middle of the night. He also talked about Israel’s pain to have to fight in one of its most sacred days, Yom Kippur. He was talking about the end of the reign of Israel’s historic political party, HaMa'arakh, and the power behind it, the Histadrut, and the labor unions. “Earthquake in October” is the title of that book. Historically, Israel turned around the October war, and if the war continued, Israel probably could have reached Damascus and could  have ended the rule of Hafiz Al-Assad. On the Egyptian front, the Israeli forces led by Ariel Sharon, surrounded the Egyptian third army in Sinai and were going to advance towards Suez and Ismailia. Nevertheless, the October war was the first time the Arabs felt that they did something a little different from just running away or running around. The Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal, the Syrians as usual, screamed- from Damascus- and screamed and screamed like a woman in hard labor or on a verge of a C-section. That war according to Ze’ev Schiff was a turning point in the Israeli psychic and politics, Actually three years later, another political earthquake took place that continues to shape the Israeli politics until now which was the rise of the Likud and the start of the right wing reign on politics in Israel, Menahem Begin- Bibi Netanyahu’s mentor- has arrived. The boy started to talk about the war, and about Israel, and the students could not believe their ears or eyes, this boy was talking about it as if he were an Israeli; he was transforming what the writer wanted to say and presenting it to his Palestinian and Israeli-Arab students from the eyes of an Israeli reader or analyst. See, the boy could not have done any other way, probably. He had to analyze the book as it is or as he understood it or as he thought the writer wanted him to understand. The questions started and one student asked him, what do you think of David Ben-Gurion - the book mentioned him in a historic review of the country- the first Israeli prime minister and some consider him the founding father of the state of Israel with the other historic leader, Haim Weisman, who was the first president of the state. The boy answered, he is ok, he was very important to Israel. the other students warmed up, and asked what do you mean, and the boy just said, not sure, but he is an important Israeli leader. Now, nature took over after that statement, the students started denouncing the ten years old boy for his opinion of an Israeli, and the boy just looked and told them that he was just stating what is in the book. The students in general were ok except for one low life loser with no class with the initials of **U or O -for the first name, depends on how you write it and A for the last name. That U.A was a sneak and his younger brother, who was not in the same school but later on went to Berzeit University, was like him, same no class. Another student asked him, they loved then to embarrass the little boy, but what do you think of him, Ben-Gurion and the boy answered, not sure, he was the first prime minister of Israel and he won the war against five or six Arab countries. That was it for that boy, the supervisor ended the symposium, looked at the boy with hateful eyes and said it is bedtime, go and wash your feet before jumping into your beds. He used actually to inspect their feet while in bed. Years, and years later the boy got flashbacks about that supervisor's behaviors. He - the supervisor-used to set in his bed in his room half naked-top- with a specific student as the supervisor, no top, not behind closed doors, not at all, but open doors.  The boy recalls having all the students gathered in the supervisor’s room to chat almost every evening. He just wondered and years later, it struck him- see, he- the ten years old boy- was slow to process or something or was so innocent that such things, and there might have been nothing, could not even have crossed his mind. That boarding school had two supervisors, one happened to be a Muslim- the subject matter of this article- and the other happened to be a Christian, the Muslim was from Silwan and the other was from Ramallah, the Silwan supervisor was the dominant. No names will ever be mentioned but the initials of the first and last names of that supervisor, without the shirt, and his favorite student were the same, S.A.  It is Friday morning; it was nice sunny and cold but very refreshing. The supervisor, same one, the bed guy, reminded everyone that his parents, who lived in Silwan, invited all the students to lunch in their house. That lunch in Silwan stuck in the memory of the boy until now, it was hosted by good people from Silwan, the supervisor’s parents. That supervisor was some sort of strange mixture of many things, envy and hatred towards certain families, and he might have had like many of his age group and unmarried or unattached, some problems. He used to hit the students physically, no abuse, but slamming the faces few times. Verbally terrorizing those that were different, not accommodating his political views, actually the boy did not think that he- the supervisor- had any views, he pretended to be with Arafat but at that time who dared not to pretend to be with Arafat. There was one in fact, the ten years old boy, he never been even close to embrace the PLO. Later on Yasser Arafat made history by signing a peace treaty with Israel and taking giant steps as the first Palestinian leader to have the vision and the courage to make peace with Israel. The little boy revolted few times and the punishment was isolation, not being invited to participate in events in the boarding school, plays and such. The boy does not remember how they went that morning from Ramallah to Silwan, but he remembers the vine leaves, the stuffed vine leaves with rice and meat and the stuffed zucchini being cooked in fresh tomato souse- in Gaza it was not cooked with tomatoes, just the lamb broth and lemon, garlic- on burned wood. The students gathered the woods; put them in the middle of a hole surrounded by stones and ignited the fire and the rest was spectacular. They had yogurt on the side and freshly baked bread, called, Eltaboon. If the boy remembers well, olives were there too. Even while eating, that supervisor never looked at that little ten years old boy with kindness, his mother, the supervisor’s mother, the boy remembers, yelled at him to stop annoying the boy, he would come and hit him- not hard- on his head as a sign of a joke, but it was not joyful to the boy. It is time again to go back to that boarding school, tomorrow is Saturday, and it is school day, but Sundays were off.  It is time to go to bed, that supervisor was about to go around the different rooms sniffing and looking at the feet of the students, to make sure that they were washed and no one slept in his socks. The boy until now loves that wooden cooked food in that nice town Silwan by the famous and magical walls of Jerusalem's old city.  The journey continues…

 

 

 

Disclaimer: True events and persons. No names will ever be revealed to protect the innocent.

* A city adjacent to the old city of Jerusalem

** Initials of names mentioned are when writing the names in English.