The counter at the Zoughbi house is littered with used liquor bottles. Of course, the bottles are full of olive oil, made from Zoughbi family olive trees. Luca and Rafik say that having a shot of the thick liquid is good for your muscles but I prefer to take mine on bread with zata, thanks. Sunday morning, Zoughbi Zoughbi, the boys and I went to the grove in Beit Jala to join some hired men as they picked the olives. The trees on the Mt. of Olives are actually only forty years old but the Zoughbi trees vary from sixty to... more than five-hundred years old. The younger olive trees are surprisingly springy and strong: I would rather be climbing than trusting to a ladder for security. If I am mostly surrounded by foliage I feel differently because I feel secure when I have my feet on the step of the ladder and my hands firmly grasping the limbs of the tree. Luckily, we never trifled with baskets. We just popped them off and let them fall on the tarp. The olives we eat on pizzas and in tacos grow in Spain and Italy, where they get more water. Palestinian olives are practically flammable and far from edible right off the tree.
A ladder slipped on a fella. I wish I could have seen it happen... only because I FELT it happen. He fell on my arm. Later, he said something to me in Arabic, which Luca translated as “why didn’t you catch me?” Too which I responded. “Saria! It happened fast!” He joked that I ran away fast and I laughed. I didn’t want to be under him when he fell, no matter how much I love Palestinians.
He was the friendliest guy in the crew. Every once and a while, I would here him say “! جون“ (that’s my name...) and then something in Arabic. Zoughbi would laugh and say “he is teasing you again!” no one ever precisely said what the teasing meant. Sometimes I would hear the guys call out to me “John Cena! John Cena! (sp.)!” which annoyed me slightly. The kids at the Boys & Girls Club in Grand Rapids did that, briefly, and explained to me that he is a professional wrestler. Judging by the posters I saw in Jerusalem, his marketing team has the middle-East covered. While we sat down for lunch, I developed the rudiments of a conversation with the funny guy, as he carefully avoided getting homus on the bandage covering his fresh scrape.
“Where you from?”
“Min Ameerca, fee Michigan.” Then, I intentionally lapsed into my familiar routine. I got out my hand and readied to explain. Making a waving gesture with my left hand, I cast a sort of non-verbal spell over the palm of my right hand, as if I were conjuring tiny maple trees and bottles of Vernors Ginger-ale to sprout out of it. “Meeshigonn...”. Then I did this little trick:
“bu-hhyra ... bu-hhyra... BEIT” I said, pointing to each side of my hand to indicate a massive lake and then at ‘Cassopolis’, which is home (beit). He laughed and, casting a similar spell over his hand, said:
“Bethlehem... BEIT” and stuck his finger right in the middle of his palm.
“That’s funny!” said Zoughbi, “he does live close to the center of Bethlehem...”
The day was going wonderfully and I was slowly beginning to sense that the other guys basically liked me, though the language barrier was in our way. Just before a mid-afternoon break, two of the guys were up in the tree by the sidewalk, gesturing me to come over. I couldn’t understand their Arabic but I assumed they wanted my help getting out of the tree. I put up my hands and they each took one. ...they were not coming down. With a tremendous yank, they lifted my ass off the ground. Realizing that I was going up... I was totally in! I scrambled into the tree. About that time, Valentina (Lorette’s house-guest {Zoughbi’s sister-in-law who is the finest cook I can think of}) showed-up with a camera. Funny guy wrapped an arm around my neck and I wrapped an arm around each of them. I had not hugged anyone for well over a month, I realized. The moment just does not usually happen but, well, here it was: solidarity through manual labor.
Unfortunately, the day was not over. The olive harvest stretched into the evening. Zoughbi lit a grassfire to clear some brush, then had to haggle with the police about it. Fool that I am, I saw a truck with flashing lights on it and walked over, only to witness my boss arguing with the cops at a close distance. Some conversations need no translation. Arabic is not just a language of words but of gestures. [The neighbors called] [I’m glad you came (such a Zoughbi Zoughbi trick...) these same neighbors are always leaving trash out] [You can’t light a fire, you have neighbors][Yes I can, it’s not hurting anything][No][Yes] {times infinity}[The neighbors leave their trash out][Can you put this fire out?][It will go out by itself—it hurts nothing][You cannot have it][Yes, it’s fine—come have some coffee...][We already had coffee][Look, the fire it already going-out...]
Around that same time, I was crossing a pile of stones at the base of the wall by the sidewalk. A stone shifted beneath my right ankle, which has been prone to injury since I badly sprained it two years ago. I took a tumble into some thistles and was obviously in pain.
“Are you okay?” said Luca.
“La... mish mubsoot...” (my fucking ankle! It hurts! –well, not really but I knew I would start bitching in English so I just answered in broken Arabic: “no... not okay”)
So, I went over with Valentina and Rachelle (a Canadian National, works for MCC, rents from the Zoughbi family...) and started doing “women’s work”: sorting olives on the tarp. After a while, though, I wanted to make a showing. Just a day prior, I had been feeling good in my skin: climbing in the tops of trees and feeling fit. Let’s cut to the chase: I didn’t want the day-laborers to think I was totally soft. I limped across the street.
“جون? “
*smile and shrug*
...then something beautiful happened. Those two guys tucked their cigarettes into the corners of their mouths and each grabbed one side of me. They carried me across the rocks, across the grove and stood me up next to a tree. Without missing a beat, I started picking olives. I glanced back and everyone gave a little nod, took a new puff, and went back to their business. Later, we all took another photograph together.
“BEIT”.
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