Catherine Visit: Day Five (Ramallah)

Thursday was a low-key day. I went to the gym in the morning while Catherine stayed with Libbie. In the afternoon, we took a bus with my friend Rebecca to a city called Ramallah, which is in the West Bank just north of here. The bus took us about an hour even though Ramallah is less than ten miles from here. The checkpoint took fifteen or twenty minutes because we got stopped (unusual going into the West Bank--usually the checkpoints are only an issue when entering Israel) and everyone had to show their travel documents. The officers checked everyone's carefully except when they got to us we held up our American passports and they didn't give us a second look.

As we got off the bus and walked down the crowded streets of Ramallah, we were instantly hit with what Rebecca and I have only been able to label as "the smell of Palestine." It's a hard smell to describe--we think it is a combination of the smell of their signature sesame-covered bread rings and the classic spice zatar. It's a good smell, and has come to mean a lot to me these last few months. It seems significant that a couple of Americans can get off a bus in the West Bank and define a smell as "Palestinian"... much of the world may not recognize Palestine as a nation, but we, at least, can recognize its smell.

Catherine was amazed at the stark difference between Ramallah and Jerusalem. We boarded the bus in our quiet neighborhood in Jerusalem and got off in the heart of bustling Ramallah:

Banner featuring Yasser Arafat
(I think. Can anyone confirm?)

Rebecca and Catherine... two of the three women on the street without their heads covered
(Slight exaggeration but not too far off)

After waiting in the cold for a bit, we met up with our friend Tony who drove us to his house. We picked up Emily (his wife), dropped him off, and headed to Darna, "the nicest restaurant in town," according to our friend Carolyn who also went with us. (Sahar met us there, too, which made six of us: Emily, Rebecca, Carolyn, Sahar, Catherine and me.) We had a lovely dinner. I inquired about the stuffed pigeon but it wasn't available that night. We shared a bunch of salads (hummus, baba ganoush, tabouleh, etc, as is traditional with Arabic food), ate some amazing fresh bread, and barely had room for our main courses. We took home big bags of the leftovers for Ben to enjoy the next day. I think it was this meal that really got me excited about the spice zatar. I'll be taking big bags of it home I'm sure.