Filling in the Blanks.

These following journal entries were written in my frail journal from May 16th to July 5th:

16 de mai
monday 816pm

i'm on a malev airplane scheduled to reach budapest in two hours and fifteen minutes. I regret the time that went by not spent on documenting my ideas in this little book.

all the stewardesses are getting ready for take off. Around me, I hear Dutch, English and Hungarian.

after landing in Budapest, we'll have to remain there for ten hours.

just now our friendly, reliable Hungarian captain gave us the preliminary flight announcement in English. His accent was so elastic, up and down like a bobbing buoy in the precarious grip of a wave in a mild tempered sea.


1 de juin
1131pm
haifa, israel


boundaries on maps are arbitrary. They're easy to change. Think about how many times that's happened.

{there's a picnic of Uzbekis outside my window. The street is full of their voices.}





9 de juin
jerusalem, israel
muslim quarter



i'm sitting in the Hashimi Hotel in the Muslim Quarter. Leaving the hotel, you enter the curvy, vibrant market corridor filled with the pungent smell of Arab spices. My ears are telling me that I could buy many things for ten shekels. The sun is hot and EVERYONE has somewhere to be.





11 de juin
1243pm
en route to ramallah, palestine



walking around, yesterday in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, I saw bare white feet and then a white American male dressed like the common European portrayal of Jesus Christ. He had a wide smile on his face that looked infused with something eerie and extraterrestrial. His bare feet paced through the narrow corridors of the Arab market picking up bits of old rotten cabbage, spit, and butchered animal entrails with them. To everyone, he said GOD BLESS YOU with a gaze that threw off their steps.

NOW, I'm in the bus. I hear the call to prayer echoing all about the beige stoned city.




12 de juin
1732pm
hebron, palestine


i'm sitting speechless next to Abraham's tomb, Isaac's tomb, Rebecca's, Sarah's and Muhammad's preserved footstep. Hebron is a fucking warzone controlled by Israeli border patrol and Israeli Defense Forces or IDF. Old Arab markets that were bustling sometime in the blurry past are covered in dust, debris, stars of David and broken windows thanks to the rocks that were thrown through them.


On our way to the tomb of Ibrahim (or Abraham or Avraham), which is located in an old mosque, we passed through a market. Looking up at the sky, my view was cluttered by bricks, bottles, boots and piece of glass sitting on an overlying fence thrown by Jewish settlers with hopes to ruin the stability and security of Palestinian life.


I spoke to a Palestinian and he told us how a family of ten was killed by a Molotov cocktail that flew into their dining room.

When he oes home, people throw all sorts of shit at him. Now he's a beggar. In a way, he is Palestine: small, weak, desperate, and thinking of him depresses me.


He gets spit for Zionism. He probably lives in a refugee camp, a concrete skeleton of a home.


Zionism spits on him and his people. I saw some vigilante graffiti that said "Gas the Arabs!" Gangs of Zionist zealots walk around the Arab neighborhoods terrorizing what lies in their path.


And then I think of that Palestinian guy we spoke with whose father was shot in the leg while praying in a mosque. These settlements expand and expand suffocating Palestinian life. In Hebron, the Jewish settlement begins where an old souq (Arab markey) was once in use.


The first soldier upon entering the settlement was confused as to why we'd want to come to Hebron. He said we should go to Tel Aviv to drink and smoke (to numb our senses, to blur our vision of this very real violation of human rights going on behind the armed IDF checkpoint).


Two people stick out in my mind. Two children under the age of 13. A girl and a boy:

As we made our way out of the Jewish settlement to head back to Jerusalem, I looked to my left up at the Palestinian section and saw a little girl with her little brother who had run away previoisly from the picture I was about to take of him.She walked down the stone stairs covered in rubble. I said kif halik (how are you)?


She said alhamdulillah which translates to "Thank God" or "Grateful". This little girl really moved me. She was proud despite all the violence, hatred and degeneration around her. She stood up for her existence despite those wanted to diminish it. She was helpless, but she was grateful.

An hour or so before this episode, there was a little boy that particularly caught my attention. We were speaking with an Australian border patrol, when two pre-pubescent boys came into our view. As children behave in the height of their curiosity, the two boys were peeking into an abandon house. The patrolman must've thought they were causing trouble. He yelled something in Arabic to the boys. They either didn't hear or chose not to hear. "Shu (what)?", one of the boys asked. The guard repeated himself. Shu? responded the boy again. The guard repeated himself like a broken record. Shu? said the boy. This eleven or so year old boy was playing with the nineteen year old Australian who left Down Under to go "home" as many Jewish people say who make aliyot or move to Israel for the rest of their lives fulfilling their duty to return to the Land of Israel.

This little boy stood up for himself. The size of an Israeli gun didn't matter. Growing up in this "shit hole" as the patrolman described it, this little boy probably had nothing to lose, just like the numerous Palestinians giving their lives to end Israeli occupation in the West Bank.


Ruh! said the Australian to the boys, which means Go Away. They walked away.



I saw apartheid and racism masked in security today. I think again back to when we first entered the Jewish settlement in Hebron's Old City: the man that led us, the Palestinian who's been rendered a beggar by Israeli occupation, who wore old scars on his neck and face, who has to live in this abomination and accept it. He has to accept rejection in his own land, the land of his forefathers. Walking through the military checkpoint, the guard who knew him, asked him the usual questions like why, what, when, where. Jacob and I asked if he knew him (the Palestinian). The guard said "yea, he's alright. Sometimes, he make trouble, but he's alright."


15 de juin
haifa, israel
the last sunset


once again, there i was with my good friend jacob in the carmel park across from the school. when we left our repose on the park bench which sat before the view of the valley leading to the Mediterranean sea, enlightened by a razor sharp orange, we encountered the rise of a gargantuan moon. It sat perfectly on the other side of the sky, directly opposing the sun. I remember its size vividly. It loomed up there like a person less halo, it was just this gray disk suspended in the heavens, observing. Very eerie. Leaving the park, we didn't realize that this was the beginning of a lunar eclipse.


16 de juin
istanbul
18:32

I am on the plane that will bring me to Addis Ababa. I'm going to Africa, the motherland. But will I be welcomed in the same way I will welcome the differences of this mystic land? The same way I've always welcomed it?

I will be the second to my sister to reach Africa since my ancestors were brought to the New World in chains. My people came from the West. I am going to the East where all people came from.


21:08

I am having thoughts about what are now memories, my life in Haifa, Israel. It's all in the past now. The setting sun is replaced by a rising moon and the the setting moon is replaced by just night. Soon after, we see the rising sun again and on and on it all goes.


The image of my empty room right before leaving for the airport sits slothfully in my thoughts. Suddnely, the deserted rom is replace with various glimpses of the times when life filled the air with laughter, sex, grief and that which comes with living.

Before I locked the door behind me forever, it was just a room, Just Talia 221 Apt. 1 like in the beginning.


Shit! How profound is the meaning people can put on the inanimate. Looking at that desolate room, I broke the monotony with golden memories. At times, I laughed like I've never laughed before in that room.


20 de juin
monday
9:19am
addis ababa, ethiopia
the taitu hotel

I hear a bird singing a sweet song. It goes: dadadadadadada da dada, dadadadadadada da dada. I guess a straight recording would be better.

In a way, my upbringing has distanced me from my own people in the Old World. In my efforts to coexist coolly on the Addis Ababa and Shashamene streets, the sounds from my tongue throw up a barrier. Oftentimes, more than I think...


11:20am

Sitting on the lawn near the main library of Addis Ababa University. The building for Ethiopian Studies was the old palace of Ras Tafari or Emperor Haile Selassie.

There's always a feeling of camaraderie in an academic setting. For brief pockets of time, I forget the nation I am in because I am in the microcosm of the University.


18 de juin
saturday
noke, Shashemene
ethiopia


this place is a real thrill. The next moment is as unpredictable as the moment after that one.


Shashemene is the Rastafarian capital of the world. Many Jamaicans have migrated here to "escape Babylon" as Ras Fitzi told us earlier in this little museum/room full of Rastafarian memorabilia, history, artifacts, like Nyabhingi Drums.

Filling in the Blanks

This entry was written in my frail journal

Written May 7th 2011 Outside Somewhere in the Extreme North of Israel.

Today we walked around Tzvat, one of the four Holy cities in Israel out of Jerusalem, Tzvat, Tiberias and Hebron in the West Bank. Following the curvy and narrow beige streets under the sharp blue sky, I could help but imagine what this place must have been like hundreds or thousands or years ago. Same architecture, same cobble stone streets but very different people.

Small children ran after each other in the streets yelling youthful Hebrew through laughter. These children were Orthodox Jews, committed before their birth to carry on this ultra-conservative tradition. I thought to myself: Would they have chosen this life for themselves? In a certain way, ignorance bliss? Not knowing the possibility of any other life would leave one happy in whatever life one is tied to.


We stopped at one point to see some street music performers. I'll never forget the Israeli Bell Drum that one man played. It looked like a turtle with both a dorsal and an anterior shell without a head or any appendages. Hitting the outer edges produced a high bell sound and hitting the interior produced a low deep "boom". It was really interesting and hypnotic.


Next we went to a Kabbala painter's gallery and watched in awe how he explained the interconnectedness of the world and of man in this world through psychedelic charged visual art. It was cool to say the least and this man was extraordinary.


Now I am going to sleep out here in the grass beneath the observant stars. Goodnight.

Independence Day: May 10, 2011.

Today is Independence Day in Israel, the day Israel prevailed over all the resistance of its establishment. I hear music blaring from the park. I hear people singing to the music.

In fives days, it will be Nakba Day, the day marking the subjugation of the Palestinian people and their flight from lands placed under Israeli rule and independence.

Today the West Bank could either be silent or tumultuous. The air is probably thick with an unquellable bitterness masked in voiceless humility.

On this same day, one group rejoices and the other laments.

Everyone's Right (or Wrong)

Why does it have to be about Christ or Moses or Muhammad and Heaven and Hell?


This earth has been floating in space for a barely definable amount of time.



Think of all the religions that have come and gone.



Why were the Arawak Indians heathens?




Who really knows anything?

Taksim Square, Istanbul. 21st of April.

Everyone here thinks I am Muslim.

It must be the beard.

Istanbul is definitely one of the most diverse, eclectic, lively, vibrant, aesthetically beautiful cities I've ever been to in the world. As the second largest city on the globe, we cannot deny the empirical evidence that people over the course of history have naturally gravitated to this place. Turkey has been a civilization for the Byzantine, the Persians, the Greeks, the Ottomans and other historically esoteric ethnic groups. All this past gives birth to a present glowing, sparkling, exploding with cultural splendor.

This place also has its retardation. There are many things that are old fashion. On most street or alley corners there are shoe shiners wearing dusty shoes. They've got lustrous golden shoeshine boxes with brushes and sponges sticking out at the sides. They sit on the sidewalk begging people to be their servant. From the eyes of a person conditioned in the West, this is an archaic method at dealing with the merciless, skewed distribution of wealth.

Also, there are men who pick up trash form the streets in a way I've never seen without looking at a black and white picture. They roll these massive carts holding a bag that could double as a parachute up hills, downs, where ever trash lied unattended. This too was old fashion to me. Seeing this triggered thoughts of ancient Egypt, slaves of Ramses carrying colossal stones through the sand. This reminded me of a primary resource I read about Brazil in the 1870s which made accounts of slaves carrying their masters who sat on these chair-like things on their backs into town for an evening of amusement.

I hold no offense to Turkish society. Any society whether American, Israeli or Chinese has its ugly attributes.

On Taking Photos. (Written April 20something 2011)

Walking through Istanbul's windy streets laden with ancient cobblestone overshadowed by mosques, the most magnificent, spectacular architectural phenomena in the city, I feel the urge to take photos. All that which surrounds me awakens within me the obligation to replicate this image for future admiration.

But really, the photograph cannot capture all the splendor, all the surrealism of a mysterious place. The camera cannot grasp the humbling brilliance of the dense orange sunset, the last stand of the sun's enlivening rays behind the silhouette of the mosques sitting on hilltops with distant pigeons gliding over the city pulsating with life. A picture cannot explain the sounds, the smells, the sensations. It can only attempt to remind the photographer. But he, in his focus on aesthetics, can fail to remember that which breathes life into the image.