Mike Hanini Odetalla: When I was a small child living in our ancestral village of Beit Hanina, Palestine, I used revel in the stories my late aunts and the elders used to tell... Kharareef... We would fall asleep after a night of kharareef, comforted in the knowledge that good always triumphed over evil, the monsters vanquished.

PALESTINE: Children from the nearby village are shown by vegetable crops in a field, wearing the traditional dress of the villagers at that time. In the background, the Mosque of Nebi Simwail could be seen to the west of the village.

Mike Hanini Odetalla

 When I was a small child living in our ancestral village of Beit Hanina, Palestine, I used revel in the stories my late aunts and the elders used to tell. 

 

These stories could be summarized as a cross between folk tales & what they call in the West as "fairy tales", and Greek myths. 

 

The tales were often handed down orally through the generations of Palestinian fellaheen, or rural villagers, hundreds of which had existed in Palestine for millennia, each one with it's unique traditions and culture, all bound to the land of their forefathers.

 

Kharareef was the name given to these mesmerizing tales that my aunt used to tell us. 

 

Because our village, like many Palestinian villages in the mid 60's, had no electricity, we relied on the oral stories of our elders for our entertainment. 

 

We would sit around the flickering light of a lantern and listen intently, hanging on every word, and in the case of late aunt Zahiya (may God bless her soul), she was a master story teller, having memorized hundreds of ancient tales, all told in such an entertaining manner that always left us hungry for more. 

 

All these tales always had a happy ending with good triumphing over evil and the hero defeating the bad, whether people or creatures. 

 

We would fall asleep after a night of kharareef, comforted in the knowledge that good always triumphed over evil, the monsters vanquished...  

 

Which brings me back to the children of Gaza. For over 17 months they have been living a nightmare that no story teller could have ever dreamed of...

Of MishMish (Apricots) & Palestine by Mike Hanini Odetalla

                                           Of MishMish (Apricots) & Palestine

                                                     By Mike Hanini Odetalla

 

Have you ever tasted something so good, so special, that the taste continued to linger in your memories for the rest of your life? That no matter how many times you try, you are never able to duplicate it?

 

The memories of my childhood and my family’s fruit orchards in Palestine are still as fresh today as they were when I was there as a young boy. My family’s orchard produced an assortment of God’s beautiful bounty. We grew olives, peaches, figs, an assortment of plums, and the world’s best apricots. 

 

My favorite fruit had always been the golden, slightly blushing, sun kissed, apricots that grew on the trees that were planted decades before by my grandfather. These aged trees continued to produce fruit that we ate and sold to the neighboring townspeople as well as in Jerusalem.

 

I remember getting up early in the early summer mornings and running to the dew covered orchards. I would go directly to my favorite apricot tree and pick the cool, dew covered fruit that had fallen that morning to the ground. These slightly bruised golden beauties were absolutely the best tasting fruit the tree offered for they had been left on the vine to reach the peak of flavor ripeness. The point of getting there early was two-fold. I would get there early so that the birds would not have a chance to devour the fruit as it lay on the ground and it was nice and cool in the mornings. Since Palestine gets no rainfall in the summer, the principle water source for the trees and plants is the cool dew that blankets the area in the mornings.

 

I would scan the ground for the best looking fruit, pick it up, and lift it over my mouth. I would then squeeze the golden nectar from the fruit and let it drip into my mouth. The taste of that sweet, cool nectar emanating from the fruit is something that is well beyond explanation. It must be experienced for no amount of explanation or imagery can do it justice or come close to conveying the flavor and the feeling. The trees that produced such delicious beauty were planted by hand, on land, which had been in my family for hundreds of years. The soil that these trees lived off of was worked by the hands of my forefathers before me. Their sweat and tears were part of the soil and in turn translated into the sweet taste that I now enjoyed. This was not lost on me even as a child. For every bite that we took from the bounty of our land, we thanked God, and said a prayer for the people that made it possible.

 

I have now been away from my land and country for over 33 years. I have been back “home” to Palestine on numerous occasions, but never in the peak season when the apricots were ripe. Here in the US they grow apricots as well. I even make treks to orchards here to try to replicate the tastes and feelings that I have in my memory, but to no avail.  It is NOT the same. Not even close. 

 

The tastes, smells, and the experiences of my childhood in Palestine continue to haunt and taunt me. It is like an elusive love that is experienced and then lost. 

 

One can spend a lifetime trying to find and bring it back. To me the taste and smell of the nectar as it dripped from the apricot is something that I will cherish till my death. It is the essence of my life and attachment to a land that was stolen and continues to be from my people. For as long as I can remember the taste and smell of the bounty that my land and country produced, I will always yearn and dream of my return there…  That is why I am deeply saddened and outraged when I see pictures of olive groves and orchards being destroyed and uprooted by Israeli bulldozers. They are more than just trees…they are a whole lot more than most Israelis and their soldiers will ever realize or know…

 

Mike Hanini Odetalla

9-2002

 

Ramadan Memories By Mike Odetalla #Palestine #Community #Respect #BeitHanina

Lifta - لفتا: One Of Many From Lifta's Homes Still Stand As A Truth Witness. Palestine Remembered

 Ramadan Memories

By Mike Odetalla

 

The holy month of Ramadan is once again upon us, and its fasting. Muslims will fast from sun-up till sun down, abstaining from food, water, and intimate relationships. 

 

Each year around this time, my memories of Ramadan in our small village of Beit Hanina, a suburb of Jerusalem which was still without electricity, whereby people carried lanterns to light their way in the darkness as they went first to the mosque and from there to visit friends and family: a special part of Ramadan, are once again rekindled. 

 

Beit Hanina had a drummer, charged with the pre-dawn task of awakening the village to sahoor, the light meal whose end marked the beginning of each day’s fast. Closing my eyes and thinking real hard, still brings back the sound of Beit Hanina’s drummer banging away, and the delightful memories of joining the other children, carrying our decorated fanoosia lanterns with candles burning brightly inside them, as we ran along behind the drummer, singing, laughing and shouting to help awaken the sleeping adults and start them on sahoor and their new day. How I admired the drummer; how I wanted his job and to share his fun. 

 

In Ramadan 1979, my first visit back to Palestine since the ’67 expulsion, my cousin and I, both 18 and living in the US, finally became the Ramadan drummers of Beit Hanina. The Israeli invasion of 1967 and the subsequent occupation made the drummers’ job very high risk and today they are scarce: Ramadan drummers were often stopped, even beaten, and some have been killed by the Israeli occupying army. 

 

By 1979, the village had not enjoyed a drummer in 5 years, so my cousin and I delighted in our job of walking through the village each morning banging away on large tin cans. It must have been a very humorous sight: the elderly were happy to hear us; the younger people thought we were a great joke and made fun of the ‘bored Americans’. But everyone agreed that we had renewed some “life” that had been lost as we broke through the dark still nights of Ramadan. For me, however briefly, I was transported back to a happy childhood whose memories had never left me for a moment.

I still remember sitting by the family’s transistor radio with my siblings listening to the special programs as we awaited the “cannon” to go off, signaling that it was time to break our fast. The “cannon” was a World War I era English relic and merely made a loud bang, which was all that it, was good for. 

 

Ever since my children were very small, I had regaled them with the many stories of my childhood in Palestine, enjoying the look of fascination on their faces as they implored me to tell them yet “another story of when you were young in Palestine”… 

 

This past summer, I took my children to visit the grave of my grandmother which is located on a hillside cemetery off of Salah Eddin Street in the Old City. The cemetery is actually located inside the boundaries of the Palestinian village of Lifta which was ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian inhabitants, which included my wife’s family, by the Zionists in 1948. Many people, including my grandmother and her family members are buried there, although now it is considered part of Jerusalem.

As we made our way through the cemetery gates and up the hill so that we could read Al-Fatiha, which is the opening verse of the Quran at her graveside, I noticed a an old rusty cannon sitting on the top of the hill, virtually buried beneath the overgrown weeds. I decided to head up the hill and take a closer look. Much to my surprise, the cannon was an exact copy of the very same cannon that I had remembered as a youth. I called my children up the hill and showed them the cannon, surmising that the cannon was used to alert the residents of Jerusalem when to break their fast before the city fell under Zionist control. 

 

During Ramadan, my mother would always invite friends and relatives to our home to break the fast with us. As Muslims, we are obligated to share breaking our fast with others, especially those less fortunate than us. It is considered a blessing to do so. It is something that we continue to do here in America as we invite friends and loved ones to share in our blessing on this Holy Month, the essence of which are a time of prayer, fasting, and charity. 

 

Some of the best memories that I carry with me are connected to the month of Ramadan in Palestine when I was a child. The closeness and feeling of “community” that I felt during those times is something that is almost beyond description. The sound of the drummer, the Muezzin call to prayer, the static emanating from the transistor radio, the “boom” of the cannon, the enticing aroma of the special foods that we only ate during Ramadan, the sight of families huddled together on a mat covered floor around the evening meals, illuminated by the flickering light of a kerosene lantern, enjoying their meals, as humble as it may have been, in the company of family and loved ones… 

 

These are my memories of Ramadan before the Israeli invasion and subsequent brutal and inhumane occupation which has destroyed many families and communities and is now in the process of causing further havoc as Israel continues to erect its Apartheid Walls, checkpoints, and roadblocks which have reduced many Palestinian villages and cities to nothing more than walled off ghettos and open air prisons. 

 

Unfortunately, these will constitute the next generation of Palestinian children’s memories and experiences… 

 

Mike Odetalla 2003-2105 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Picnics & Palestine

 "One of my favorite memories as a child in Palestine was when my mother (AY) used to make her scrumptious meat pies for us to eat, picnic style, on the grounds of #AlAqsa compound in #AlQuds (#Jerusalem)...She used to get very early in the day, prepare the dough and take it with her to Al Quds (the old city) ahead of us...

 

Once inside the old city, she would buy her fresh ingredients of ground lamb meat, onions, parsley, and spices and take them to the old bakery in the area that she frequented and trusted.

 

Once at the bakery, she would make triangle shaped meat pies (ikraas), which she stuffed with her magic mixture of mouth watering ingredients and give them to the baker to bake in his oven, making sure that they were baked to her exacting standards of golden perfection...

 

Afterwards, she would take the piping hot pies, mouth watering aroma wafting through the air, place them in a large tray, covering them with a blanket to keep them nice and warm, and meet up with us at the ground of Al Aqsa, whereby we would have our picnic under the shade of the ancient trees...

 

She used to make extra pies so that when strangers happened on us, drawn by that intoxicating aroma, she could share with them...

 

Till this day, the fragrance of fresh baked bread evokes memories of my beloved late mother, may Allah have mercy on her soul, and those magical moments spent with her in the holy grounds of Masjid Al Aqsa!"  

 

Mike Hanini Odetalla