Dear All,
Today I went to school with my host sister Majd. She is in 12th grade. We left the house at seven o'clock in the morning met her friend Iman on the way down to the main street and got a taxi to her school, which is in Al Khader village. This girls' high school is next door to an Israeli Army base and soldiers often come into the classrooms. I just saw two jeeps go by when I was there.
I went into Majd's classroom where I made friends with everybody while Majd went to the headmistress' office to ask if it was cool for me to be there and if I could take pictures inside the classroom because I was doing a photo project about Majd to help her with a scholarship to study in the US.
First period was English. The teacher came in and I introduced myself and asked if I could take pictures in the classroom. There was a million-dollar (US tax dollar) view of the Army base from the classroom. She said I should ask the girls but that it was probably nicer in the schoolyard. I decided to wait for the headmistress' answer. Majd came in late and sat down.
After the first three minutes of the English lesson everything about the way most
Palestinians speak English made sense. They had learned their mistakes in school.
Aside from the sentences in the textbook, the class was conducted exclusively in
Arabic. The teacher translated every English utterance into Arabic without a moment's hesitation. The textbooks were 1970's Jordanian textbooks with readings all about Jordan. They were the most tedious readings I have ever read not to mention the fact that it just doesn't make sense to have dialogues in English between Omar and Ahmed about how the conditions in the village vastly improved since Ahmed's childhood when he had to carry water from the well. As I sat there in the front seat as the girls repeated their teacher's mispronunciations I entertained fantasies about standing up in front of the class, seizing the chalk, and taking over the class IN ENGLISH.
I created an English textbook for Palestinians and other Arabs in my mind. There would be one in for girls and one for boys as most of the schools are single-sex. They would follow the lives of several American students their own age and include relevant historical, political, and cultural readings. There would be personal and thought-provoking writing assignments. For students in their last year of high school when the Palestinian Authority issues a huge exam which decides the future of the students there would be a textbook about the American college application process and the students would take the American SAT test so they could understand how American students are stressed out about college and their future. My reverie was broken when the teacher asked me to introduce myself but as soon as I tried to get the girls to come to the definition of a word on their own the teacher translated it for me.
The lesson was on late advice, that is "should haves." The examples were painfully moralistic. "Noor is sad. She must have got a bad mark on her examination. She should have studied harder."
One student, Hanan, excitedly suggested this advice for the girl who came to school late, "She should have taken the bus."
"No," the teacher said, "She should have waken up earlier." [sic]
At the break between classes all the girls gathered around me again and Majd told me the news. I was not supposed to be at the school at all. Majd was supposed to call someone to take me home (Can't I use a taxi myself?) and it was forbidden for me to take pictures. That made me feel like someone had stuffed my soul in an small air tight box. All throughout the Arabic class, I thought of how I could overcome this problem and how this order made me feel and how it was essential for me to photograph.
Unlike American schools where the students change classrooms with the subject, in this school the teachers changed the classrooms. In the break between classes Majd gave me to some of her friends in the next classroom because her next class was religion. Many of the girls were hastily putting on scarves they had stuffed in their backpacks just for this class. The religion teacher was the reason that the headmistress had barred me from the school. I had soon made friends with most of the girls in the other class but apparently there hadn't been enough time because during the class the girl behind me asked if I could write Arabic, the one next to her asked what my name was, and one girl from the back found her way to the front of the classroom and on her way back asked me, "Do you have boyfriend?" I had just enough time to answer, "Laa," no, when the teacher barked, "Maha, Iman!" (The girls who were sitting on either side of me.) And then she went on about how I had to go back to Majd. I tried to negotiate with her to sit on the chair on the side but soon discovered that it was in vain so I went out of the classroom but didn't go to Majd's because that would get her in a lot of trouble. Instead I sat outside her classroom out of view the barred window and wrote on the back of my N80 camera manual, the only paper I had with me. How could the girls survive so beautifully in this oppressive prison of a school? The answer was obvious. First, they didn't know any different sort of school but moreover, it their warmth, love, and insatiable energy that I was welcomed with that kept them from losing their souls. Palestinian people are known to be very warm and loving people and my experience especially in Al Khader Girls' School was no different where I was caressed, asked questions, and exclaimed over by a gaggle of about twenty smiling faces.
Outside of the watchful eyes of the teacher and Majd's frightened warnings about taking pictures I got my N80 out and carefully composed and focused my pictures because who knew if the snap of the mirror inside my camera with bring the notorious religion teacher out and put an end to my creative expression. She didn't come out so I gathered my courage up to take another one. I started to plan out that I would take pictures under the cover of the noise of the F-16s flying over head. They fly over the area a lot but go so fast that you can't see them. I've never seen anything come out of them. I put myself in the shoes of Jude Law in the film, Enemy at the Gates, in the scene when you first see that he is a magnificent sniper. Nestled in a pile of bodies in a Stalingrad fountain Jude Law picks off one German soldier after another, shooting right at the moment a bomb explodes in another part of the city. Anyway, back in Al Khader Girls' School I was not really Jude Law. After discovering that the sound of the teacher's voice was louder than my SLR, I shot 11 frames, exploring how the school looked like a prison.
At the next break between classes, Majd and her friend Hiba whisked me through the school yard like a hostage to her aunt's house across the street where I drank tea, talked about the Occupation, and watched Erin Brokovich with Arabic subtitles until school got out. Then I took pictures of my new friends and went back home to Dheishe Camp.
All my best to all of you,
Love,
Larisa
No comments:
Post a Comment