<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[ei: Refuge and&nbsp;return]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p><span class="text14">Lamya Hussain writing from Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp, <em>Live from Palestine,</em> 8 February 2011</p>
<p><span class="content"> </span></span></p>
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<td><span class="text11">Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aljazeeraenglish/">Al Jazeera English</a>)</span></td>
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<p><span class="text14"><span class="content"><br />
&#8220;Where would you like to go?&#8221; asks a taxi driver a little older than my father, his thick Lebanese accent I barely understand.</p>
<p>I reply politely, &#8220;Off the airport road to Bourj al-Barajneh.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;The refugee camp? No, I don&#8217;t go there,&#8221; he replies.</p>
<p>Not understanding how to respond, I nod and keep waiting for a taxi that  will agree to take me. I finally negotiate with a driver to take me to  the main entrance of the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp for an  outrageous fare of $20.</p>
<p>As I get into the back seat, I roll down the window and breathe in a  little of Beirut. Like a child curious towards a new environment, I take  in the city, its beauty and its tragedy. Avoiding conversation, I  maintain focus on the road as the driver chatted away, his voice slowly  merging into the city sounds.</p>
<p>A sudden slam on the breaks mean I had reached my destination. &#8220;Here you  go! God be with you.&#8221; I pull my suitcase from the trunk and settle my  fare. As the taxi drove off I find myself standing at the tip of a busy  bridge; across from it was a city within a city. I stand there for a  moment or so, overwhelmed at its sight, unsure of how to proceed.</p>
<p>In my work I had visited many refugee camps but somehow Bourj  al-Barajneh had its own way of instigating emotional turmoil. It stood  out from the rest of Beirut and it created a sense of fear onto the  outside world. As if whatever enters is lost in it forever, the kind of  fear one has of drowning in the ocean.</p>
<p>Not sure of how to locate my host family, I drag my suitcase to the side  of the road, kick it to place it in a horizontal position, and sit on  it while I frantically look for my cell phone. I scroll up and down  through my messages trying to find contact details for a man named Abu  Muhammad. I&#8217;ve attracted the attention of a group of children who stand  on the side, intrigued by a foreigner in the camps. They whisper to each  other and giggle. I wave one of the kids over and ask him to direct me  to Abu Muhammad&#8217;s place.</p>
<p>&#8220;Abu Muhammad? The one with the Internet cafe or the one with the shop?&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;The one that owns a small shop in the camp,&#8221; I reply.</p>
<p>He thinks for a minute. &#8220;Will you buy my friends and I ice cream from Abu Muhammad&#8217;s store?&#8221;</p>
<p>I find his request a fair trade and agree to it. He waves over the rest  of his friends who help push my suitcase through the camp as they yell  and chant: &#8220;Foreigner! Foreigner in the camps!&#8221;</p>
<p>We finally arrive at a small shop that is almost hidden under a crooked  staircase. With no particular organization in the manner in which it is  stocked with goods, in the center sat an elderly man next to a very  dusty television placed on a three-legged chair supported by a stack of  bricks. I can barely make out his face as it is dark inside the shop and  three furious candles make just enough light to illuminate his shirt  and the chair which he is slowly rocking back and forth.</p>
<p>The kids yell out to him to get his attention while letting me in on the  fact that Abu Muhammad is hard on hearing. He slowly walks in our  direction and greets me with great enthusiasm. He asks the boys to help  me take my suitcase up to the third floor where I would be staying with  two other Canadian volunteers. I linger around to settle my promise to  buy the kids ice cream from his shop. He generously adds candy to the  deal and invites me to come by his place later in the evening to meet  his wife.</p>
<p>Over the next couple weeks I find myself right at home, accustomed to  the daily abrupt power cuts, crooked narrow alleyways and of course the  three dimensions of water. I create a system to store clean water that  could be used to shower and drink, the second dimension for laundry and  finally tap water that could only be used to clean.</p>
<p>Time is a limited concept when one is working around frequent power cuts  and scarce amounts of clean water. I obsessively back up my work,  unsure of when the power would go out as I typed an email or organized  my research. The tragic ends to conversations with friends and family on  Skype always sting like a bee. On one such evening, I find myself  sitting alone in my flat in Bourj al-Barajneh in total silence and  darkness. I try to recall where I left my flashlight and slowly try to  make way into the bedroom. I look through my suitcase and in the process  knock over my roommate&#8217;s collection of Elias Khoury novels.</p>
<p>&#8220;Are you okay?&#8221; I hear Abu Muhammad&#8217;s wife yell from her kitchen window,  located directly below my bedroom. I yell back, asking her if she had  spare candles, to which she responded with an invitation to her place.  &#8220;What&#8217;s the point of you sitting alone in the dark up there? The three  of us might as well share the darkness!&#8221; I quickly dress myself in what  later proved to be an uncoordinated color combination and counted each  step down to their apartment.</p>
<p>Abu and Umm Muhammad always extend a warm welcome accompanied with tea  and snacks. As the three of us sat in darkness, their curiosity turned  into a series of personal questions about my life. Nothing was  off-limits; they are at ease asking me about my marital status, family  details and religious beliefs. After having satisfied their  inquisitiveness, they ask me a particularly difficult question: &#8220;Have  you been to Palestine?&#8221;</p>
<p>A sudden hot flash takes over my face during this awkward pause. I stare  down deep into my tea cup as if trying to focus on the already diluted  sugar granules. I remember the advice from other volunteers: &#8220;Make sure  you don&#8217;t tell folks here that you have been to Palestine; it creates  emotional turmoil for them!&#8221;</p>
<p>I wonder whether I could lie bold-faced to a harmless and kind elderly  couple. I look up to the pair who probably already knew the truth I was  struggling to conceal. &#8220;I knew it! You smell and feel like Palestine. I  hear it in your voice, I sense it in your mannerisms, I feel it in the  way you talk!&#8221; exclaims Umm Muhammad.</p>
<p>She quickly reaches across the table and embraces me as if taking into  her arms a part of her country. &#8220;Oh! Let her speak. I want to hear  stories&#8221; says Abu Muhammad.</p>
<p>In what seemed like an eternity the three of us discuss in great detail  my experiences in the West Bank. &#8220;Tell me about the sea, the sea of  Jaffa,&#8221; asks Umm Muhammad.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is angry, the waves crash onto the rocks like an army filled with rage,&#8221; I reply.</p>
<p>&#8220;What about Akka?&#8221; Abu Mohammad asks.</p>
<p>&#8220;In Akka the waters are calm but run deep. The old city is beautiful and  the marketplace has the best of Palestinian cuisine,&#8221; I say.</p>
<p>&#8220;What about Jerusalem, did you pray at al-Aqsa? Did you see the Dome of the Rock?&#8221; they both ask.</p>
<p>I share details of my Jerusalem visits; I tell them how beautiful the  Dome of the Rock is: &#8220;It sits like a gem in the core of Jerusalem, one  can see it from afar as its golden dome reflects the sunlight throughout  the day and moonlight through the night.&#8221;</p>
<p>We share nostalgia and a mosaic of emotions from joy to grief. &#8220;Take me  home; I want to see Jaffa before I die,&#8221; says Umm Muhammad.</p>
<p>Words escape me &#8212; I feel a sharp pain in my gut and a certain struggle  to breathe. I realize my privilege, my non-Palestinian status, my  foreign identity, and my ability to exist in freedom even in spaces like  refugee camps. Ashamed of this privilege, I fail to offer any  consolation to both Abu and Umm Muhammad.</p>
<p>Sensing my guilt, Abu Muhammad continues: &#8220;Palestine is not an identity,  land, home or some &#8216;right&#8217; in international law! It&#8217;s this memory we  chase of a time that has long gone by, and knowing so we live in the  shadows, chasing what used to be.&#8221;</p>
<p>I ponder his words and ask, &#8220;Would you return?&#8221;</p>
<p>He opens his mouth to reply but he stops himself. He then reaches for a  pack of cigarettes and lights the last one. I watch him carefully as his  thoughts get the best of him; in that moment he was completely alone  with his conscience.</p>
<p>&#8220;Have you ever loved something so much that it destroyed you?&#8221; asks Abu Muhammad.</p>
<p>I pretended that I didn&#8217;t hear his question and ask, &#8221; Would you return?&#8221;</p>
<p>My perseverance pays off as I watched him extinguish his cigarette  abruptly. He crosses his arms and leans forward, I can now make out his  face, even through the dark. He chooses his words carefully, as if each  were carefully picked from years of internal debate and thought.</p>
<p>&#8220;I remember Jaffa well. As a boy I would walk around for hours. I can  smell the oranges of Jaffa. I feel the earth of Palestine under my feet,  the fresh breeze of the sea, how the waves chased me back and forth. I  remember in great detail my home, and in particular the door to my home.  I try and unlock it every time I see it in my dreams. But no matter how  hard I try I can never go inside it.&#8221;</p>
<p>As the power returns, it brings with it an awkward abrupt pause to our  conversation. Abu Muhammad abandons our discussion and resorts to  talking about his shop affairs and Umm Muhammad returns to asking me  more questions about my marital status, family and religious beliefs.</p>
<p>After I leave their humble dwelling, I find myself wide awake that  night. I remember watching a home demolition in East Jerusalem, the  faces of refugees in the occupied West Bank and my dear friend Aya. Her  radiant smile as she visited the remains of her village. The journey we  made to make her return to her original village, how she filled an empty  bottle with sand to spread on her mother&#8217;s grave in exile. I remembered  how she silently wept at the loss of her land and marked her coming  home. It is in that moment the lines between memory and return become  blurred and in a beautiful summer sunset there is momentary peace.</p>
<p><em>Lamya Hussain is a Toronto-based activist and a researcher on issues around Palestinian refugees.</em></span></p>
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