Looking for our house in Jericho

All I knew was that the house my dad grew up in was somewhere in Jericho. And that the house is still legally under my grandfather's name but had been sold illegally by some members of the family.

It sucks yeah? But what really sucks is that nobody in my family seems too bothered by it. Nobody is trying to evict the tenants, reclaim or even visit the house. My dad, the most gun-ho Palestinian nationalist in Dallas, is sitting in Jordan a few miles away as he scrapes for excuses not to come.

So as the eldest daughter who happens to be in Palestine - it was up to me now. I must save our house!

It's sad that I've been here for 10 months and it didn't occur to me to rescue the house until now - but better late than never!

With no address and no contacts in Jericho, I hopped on a taxi to Jericho and anticipated how my mixed luck was going to help me find the house.

If there is one thing I learned I can do, it's that I can Daber 7ali, or 'figure it out'.

I sat in the backseat in an all-male passenger car. There were two kids, probably in their early teens, sitting in front of me.

"Khala (Auntie), there are two (older) guys sitting in the back, if you want, you can sit with us."

"Khala?"

"..."

"KHALA?? How old do I look!?"

They laughed. And then I laughed. Though it really wasn't funny.

As the car took off, I finished my cocktail drink that I got (which is so good for the summer!) and didn't know what to do with the empty disposable container. I hate carrying food/drinks while commuting so I asked,

"Is there a trash can?"

The two guys sitting next to me laughed.

"Your asking if there's a trash can inside the taxi?" the guy sitting next to me asked, and then told the kid who called me 'khala' to take it from me. The kid, who tried to do damage control by saying it was my sunglasses that 'made me look older', took the cup and dumped it out the window.

Ugh. He just littered. Or, maybe I just littered.

I was about to put on my headphones when the guy next to me pulled out a black Macbook from his backpack.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"America"

"For how much?"

"$400"

"No way! Those are at least $1,000"

"Yeah but my sister got it from a nigg**"

"OH. yeah. okay. that's why. But you shouldn't call them that."

"Why not? They call themselves that. Okay. I'll call them 'homies'"

"Homies?"

"Yeah. We have a lot of 'homies' in Jericho."

"Oh yeah. Palestinian-Africans."

"Yup. They tell us to call them 'homies'."

We conversed throughout the commute to Jericho and as always, within 10 minutes of talking to me, they realize "I'm not from here". But that's improvement, it used to take 5 minutes for locals to catch my American accent or grammar mix-up.

I almost never tell them I'm from America unless they figure it out. Which they always do. And the question marathon began, but I got an unusual one this time.

"Are you Muslim?"

"Uhh...are you really asking me that?" (maybe he couldn't see the hijab?)

"Well. Some Christians wear it, you know, from the heat..."

"Right...."

We passed some sand dunes and camels before finally feeling the scorching heat of Jericho. The windows were not allowed open at some point, though the (weak) AC did little to alleviate the heat.

The oldest inhabited city in the world - 20,000 years and going strong - most people associate Jericho as the city in-route to Jordan or where the Dead Sea is.

There's more to Jericho, of course.

But today, I was not interested in checking out the historic and tourist spots of Jericho - I came to find our house.

How? I had NO idea. But I knew that Palestinian men almost never turn down a request for help. And I am also aware that Palestinian men in Palestine, at least outside of Ramallah, will go out of their way to help you. Whatever it takes. Whatever appointments they would have to miss or fiance's they would piss (off). That's almost a rule of thumb. (it's a broad generalization but I've come to discover the double standards of criticism - positive generalizations are almost always OK)

The two guys from the taxi were perfect examples of my stereotype. But I only needed one, so the macbook guy left and the 'Are you Muslim?' guy stayed with me.

We went to a coffee-shop (like, an all-male one where 50'year old's hang out) right across from the main duwar and asked two guys sitting outside --who were miraculously tolerating the suns heavy rays--- if they knew my grandfather who lived in Jericho in the 60's and 70's.

"What's his name?"

"Ahmad Dirbashi"

"Deer Shaba?"

"No. D-I-R-B-A-S-H-I"

"No. Never heard that name."

My accomplice added that I came from America to find the house. (A bit of an exaggeration) and we were soon circled with more middle-aged men , all who were glowing varying degrees of the sun's marks on their faces.

What was supposed to be questions for me became a discussion amongst the men.

"There is no Dirbashi. But, there are Darweesh and Ibish and Ajaweh"

"Are you giving her choices?"

"I'm trying to think. The house you are talking about. Who lives in it now?"

"She doesn't know."

"It might have been a house that got demolished a while ago because nobody lived in them."

"No the house was apparently sold. So there are people in it. We just don't know who."

After about 30 minutes, it was concluded that because my grandfather lived a generation before them, I should find the mukhtar, or the unofficial mayor, who is wise and knows all - but most importantly because he was really old.

They pointed to us the coffee shop he always sits in, right across the street. So my accomplice and I went in. Though the man was a fossil, with more wrinkles on his face than I could count, he had no clue what or who I was talking about.

It was still too early to give up.

On our way out, two of the men from the earlier coffee shop were running towards us.

"We figured it out! We figured it out! We know where it is!"

"Really!!? Ahmad Dirbashi's house?"

"Yes. We found a guy who used to be your neighbor. Or your father's neighbor! He's inside that car, we can take you to it."

Excited and in disbelief - I got in the car and that man introduced himself as "your dad's old neighbor." I was a little skeptical. It couldn't have been THAT easy to find it.

"So you knew my seedo (grandfather?)"

"Yes of course. And your grandmother. They lived together for a long time."

"What do you know about my grandmother?" (testing him)

"From Jerusalem and her Arabic was broken right?"

"Yeah! That's her!" (he passed)

The car stopped in front of a big square garden that was so dried up it looked like a slice of the desert. On the other side of the garden stood three very modest stone dwellings barely visible from the overlapping citrus trees.

"It's the house to the right" my dad's old neighbor said before dropping us off.

The gate was locked so we knew people were living in it. But nobody answered the door bell or our constant knocking so we asked a kid on his bike who was living in the house.

"A family from Hebron, they come every few weeks or so."

Ah. My dads house was turned into a vacation house. It was bought as an EXTRA! I was going to feel bad if I tried to take back a house that people were living in, but this was clearly a rich Hebron family's EXTRA house.

We are so going to try to get it back! Even if the house looked like an old stone box - it is OUR house. The Dirbashi's only property in the land of Palestine. And WE WILL TAKE IT BACK!

I already prepared some of the papers to prove it was still legally our house. So I took the name of the family and will hunt them down in Hebron.

..bet they won't be expecting a Palestinian-American at their doorstep demanding the Dirbashi right of return to her house in Jericho.

Ya Ya, I'm trying to take back a piece of land from fellow Palestinians. So the dramatization is not necessary. But still. A vacation house? How insulting!

Nobody - Palestinian or not- turns our only footprint in Palestine into a getaway house!