The first land whose soil touched my skin. I did not search for its past, but rather I knew its few houses, one by one, and its dirt streets, dusty in summer and muddy in winter. I knew its people, the children going to a school consisting of three mud rooms, one for the teachers and two, each housing three grades with no more than twenty students. I knew its men who sat on the "sanasel" (stone terraces) in front of the shops, or behind the only mosque, exchanging conversations, some of which might lead to a violent quarrel that would end in a reconciliation, serving as a prelude to feasts moving from house to house. I knew the houses of the three Mukhtars, from which the scent of Arabic coffee would waft after the afternoon, inviting its followers to attend.
I contemplated the village streets that were teeming with dust in summer and drowning in mud in winter; some were full of rocks that required us to have skill in jumping and maneuvering. I examined the density of the prickly pear plants that spread in the courtyards of the houses, forcing us to be patient with their soft and sharp thorns, and the oak forests that surrounded the village, whose true age no one knew, those that provided the winter fuel with their wood, and some entertaining and nutritious pleasure with their fruits that resembled chestnuts. These oak trees are ancient; some estimate their age to be hundreds of years. There were also some olive trees known as Roman olives. And there was a single carob tree, located east-south of the village, not far from the water spring that overflows in winter and sometimes dries up in summer.
I used to contemplate the women in long black clothes that covered the body down to the ankles, the women who brought water from the distant springs or from the village wells distributed in its four corners, with water "buckets" on their heads that would leak and wash their faces. They were on a journey of bringing life. The women coming out of the ovens with straw containers full of delicious bread loaves on their heads were covered in ash mixed with the sweat pouring from their bodies. This scene was close to images that had escaped from a distant, legendary frame. And the men were waiting for water and bread.
Women had professions and tasks reserved for them: bringing water, preparing bread through its many stages, preparing food of limited varieties, caring for livestock and milking them, following the journey of milk into a series of derivatives, crushing olives and storing them in pottery vessels—poor-quality plastic containers had not yet become prevalent—making jams from figs and grapes, if circumstances permitted, caring for children, washing and mending the family's clothes, and preparing bedding made of wool or cotton and fabric. And caring for the cleanliness of the house, and paying attention to aesthetics that appeared on the pillows in the form of calligraphic lines wishing the sleepers happiness, or "good night," and in the fringing of the beloved red shemagh. They also specialized in weaving wheat stalks to become beautiful, colorful containers that cradled loaves of bread and held wheat or grains of all kinds, and they could be colorful circular shapes viewed as aesthetic elements, some of which were hung on the walls of the room.
The matter did not stop at these multiple professions and tasks; they used to accompany the men in the fields as planters and harvesters, and managers of their food. And above all this, they carried generations, gave birth to them, and raised them.
I try to search for what remained for the men in terms of professions and tasks: plowing, planting, harvesting, sitting on the stone "sanasel" in front of the shops from which they bought some of their miserable goods, and participating in local battles that begin with words and end with words followed by food.
And I knew the village shops, which did not exceed four, and whose goods were limited in type and quantity. Added to their functions was the gathering of men and their sitting on the stones scattered in front of them in no particular order, exchanging conversations about their beautiful reality, which would not end until they discussed the major cosmic issues. The story of the Americans landing on the moon, which ends with an enjoyable, scenic scene: a young man passes by without a head covering, so one of them objects to that. The young man replies: "People have reached the moon and you are asking about covering the head." The questioner gets agitated and bares his head, throwing his "shoura and agal" on the ground, protesting in a thundering, argumentative voice: "There, we've taken it off... what do you think... did we reach the moon?" The group bursts into laughter in admiration of a silencing logic and an irrefutable proof.
And I witnessed daily, by virtue of our house's location near the sheepfold, the herds of sheep and cows on their way to the fold, stirring up dust and leaving behind a sharp, unforgettable smell, followed by those who drove them and those who followed them to benefit from their waste, which is used as fuel after it dries. I contemplated the state of the shepherds equipped with loaves of bread and sticks with which they herded their sheep, and perhaps they had other uses for them, and with reed flutes or "shababah" that the herds memorized the melodies of.
The herds of sheep and cows followed them, and their bleating and bells filled the space with sounds that did not bother me, for they were familiar and part of the rhythm of life in the village. People had a dire need for them, as they provided them with food and supplied them with wool from which they made their bedding and covers, and they were an important element of fuel used in more than one field. I often contemplated the "weaned lambs" that never failed to recognize their mothers, and the sheep that knew their owners' houses by heart, without error.
And I lived the moments of the first meal: tea and biscuits, or bread we ate in a hurry to go to school. We wore uniforms in khaki color and safari style, which were for school for a whole year; they might be washed as needed, but they knew nothing called ironing. School was not loved or attractive, because what awaited you there was not only science and knowledge, but it was always associated with sticks of various types, which were part of the teachers' equipment that they used in forms and situations that were not subject to law, but perhaps some of it was done according to desire. And I used to memorize my lessons and prepare my homework to get rid of an expected punishment, but I did not escape it completely.
When the long school day ended, we would come out happy, like someone who had come out of prison. And on the way to our houses, which had one room and a half, or two rooms at most, we would fight and race. We would arrive and might find a meal that was not necessarily hot, but in any case, we were supplied with food that gave us the strength to continue playing away from the eyes of the teachers whose authority was not limited to inside the school. And we had to do the homework, some of which seemed vengeful, such as copying the lesson ten times, for example.
I spent the first primary grade in the village school, which was relatively far from our house, and at the end of the year, the teacher lined us up in a row—I don't remember how many we were—and said to me and another boy: "You are first, and you are second." That did not leave any feeling of joy in my soul.
At the beginning of the following year, my family, due to my father's work in the army, had moved to Zarqa, specifically to Al-Ghuwairiya, and I was left with our relatives in the village. I felt that I did not have a place or a house, and I became lost. But after a short period, my father found me a private, mixed school to join, after the government schools were unable to accept a single student, which was me. That school, which had only one sheikh wearing an Arab robe and sitting behind a high table, was a platform of terror, and the number of those in it did not exceed ten, males and females. And if the sheikh wanted to punish someone, he would not rise from his place, but would ask a boy named Abdullah to bring the punished one, for no reason, as I recall, and he would slap him or hit him with a stick. I felt that going to that sheikh's house was a terror I suffered from every day. I found a solution to get rid of it: I would leave the place at the first opportunity and not return to it. But the sheikh submitted a report to my father, the most important part of which was that I would leave during the break and not return, so I received a double punishment.
Deliverance came with the transfer of my father's battalion to Jericho. I was like someone who had come out of prison.
