...kick the cat

Yeah, that's a trashcan

A cat died last night, I think. Moving from under one open window to another and then ever quieter into the distance the howl traveled. It was as if the temperature dropped for a moment. I imagined what terrible event could be happening to make the cat utter such horror, but quickly set it out of my mind. Yesterday morning as I walked to work a stray half-dog-half-wolf sprinted up and across the street to a safer, abandoned patch of land where he could feast on some long forgotten food or carcass. Two days ago something scuttled almost under my feet to avoid being preyed upon. I spun around to see a lizard the size of my hand perched in the shade, his twenty or twenty-four claws clenched unsuccessfully on the tile floor ready to run, his eyes locked on me, his predator. I moved away to let him escape and watched him leave the frictionless tile and scale a wall. He gave me one last look before disappearing.

PETA would not be happy here. In the states we find kittens cute and name everything that moves; here, one finds a snake, puts it in a bottle and shakes it to be entertained. Horses and mules look sad as they bear weight everyday, suffer kicks and heat and urban air, and compete with traffic for space on the hard tar.

Half-goat half-alien?

It is a lot to swallow, sometimes, but what my ethnocentricity finds unbearable, is more than made up in interpersonal relationships. Perhaps we, in the States, are the ones with the odd perception of animals. Either way, no matter where I am there is always a kind face welcoming me to Palestine. From young school children to aged men on their stoop, no social inhibition or fear of awkwardness stops these people from shouting AHlan wasaHlan! You are welcome! We wave and say Shukrahn (Thank you) or AHlanbik, the traditional response. Often people stop us and we converse until the limits of our fluency.

Weird Animals

A day ago I was approached by two school boys with wide, genuine smiles. Well, let me digress for a moment: I mentioned the unbelievability of Arab smiles before and I am convinced a big part of their beauty is the genuinity woven into their entire faces when they smile. Their grins are uninhibited, their eyes become watery with excitement and their cheeks and eyebrows rise in anticipation. Never before have I seen such smiles.Tim said it well when he confessed that describing these smiles is impossible to do with words that aren’t cliché. It is as if they are genetically designed to smile. I think I agree. Anyway, these boys immediately grabbed my arm and pulled me eagerly to the meatshop they are proud to work at. Inside it smelled raw, but I’m sure they have become inured to it. They sat me down and had their uncle make me some coffee, which he did with meaty hands. One of the two spoke better English and we conversed about homes, America and football. I should mention that I had already been invited into his house. That came in sentence 4 or 5. We weighed ourselves on the meat-weighing-machine (I’m a solid 87 Kilos) and looked at pictures of American celebrities in the paper. But soon I had to excuse myself to go back to work and quickly they pleaded with me to come see their football game after work. So I did. For a moment.

There a young man, perhaps 14 or 15, began speaking to me. It was the usual but I left fairly quickly. When I said I was leaving he looked at me with shocked eyes. He then pushed over and beckoned to the newly made seat.  La! La! Sit! You are welcome! I thanked him and apologized and left, chuckling as I descended from the stadium. We could barely communicate, the two of us, and yet, even just the connection was important enough to deserve a lengthier period of time. I can still see his face in my mind’s eye, a genuine, unashamed expression of desire; I still feel guilty to let such an expression go unsatisfied.

So perhaps the animals are looked at with cold eyes. A pregnant cat was tossed on my lap the other day and I swear it was the first time this poor girl ever got her neck scratched. And as I pampered the half-stray, seeing to its comfort and pleasure, I realize it is a bit silly to judge the Arab. To them, I am the half-stray and their care is more than a nice scratch on the neck.