Pomegranate, Cactus, Fig and Olive - by Rana Abdulla, Canada
Land Day is an important date on the Palestinian calendar, for it remembers our people’s sovereignty and independence. It is a day to embrace the land in solidarity, in tribute to those who gave their lives for our homeland and national identity. Land Day is also a day of protest against the theft of Palestine, a land emptied of its people and occupied. The history of Palestine’s indigenous people has been eradicated by its occupiers, such that, not recalling their identity, they would seem never to have existed.
To mark Land Day, I have chosen to honour a woman who dedicated her adult life to protecting and honouring our family property in Palestine. A brave and honourable woman who lived unmarried and without children to preserve our family legacy, she is nearing the end of her life. The family land, farmed and lived on by my ancestors since antiquity, is maintained and thriving in Palestine because of the actions of my dear aunt. By her love of land and family, she has kept a haven to which we may always return.
As I write about my dear Aunt Raya, I recreate Palestine within the folds of deepest memory and imagination. As a Diaspora writer with a profound love for Palestine, I have invariably come to compensate for my loss by recreating Palestine in prose. As a woman writing in 2010, I will never experience what it was like for a woman to do what she chose to do in 1967.
My Aunt Raya was born in Balaa in 1929, the second of five children. Her parents raised her like many other Palestinian daughters, to be ready for marriage and children. Alongwith her brothers and sisters, they educated her in their knowledge of managing the land and preserving the family heritage. Her schooling was brought to an end as a consequence of the war, others of which included displacement from the land, loss of national identity, the violation of her spiritual innocence, exclusion from civic and communal participation, and eventually, exile from the oppressive military occupation of Palestine.
In every Palestinian’s blood, upbringing, and heritage is the connection of “love and passion” to the land. Raya was the same as her family before her. Nothing short of death would separate her from the land. She cultivated the hills with thousands of pomegranate, olive, and fig trees, preserving the inheritance of the family.
During her lifetime, like so many her age, she saw history unfold before her eyes. Her 82 years of existence became a spiritual quest, in which she witnessed and experienced events of world significance. She experienced life’s most wonderful moments and also its worst. In its winding course, her life changed, deepening in meaning, leaving her with a future few would dare embrace and survive.
It seems that some people on this earth are here only on loan. They are the people who light up every room they enter and are able to touch everyone they encounter. These people are not, as we say, “a dime a dozen.” Raya was able to share her light, her energy, with many people. Perhaps this light was her special gift to us.
My memories of Amti "aunt" Raya are of a woman who never complained, taking on as her life’s work the protection of the family holdings, tending the land that had been in our family for centuries.
Raya rooted herself to the land, holding firmly to it. As a child, she planted the trees and watched them grow. She knew every tree and every fruit. They were her children. As a child, she walked the fields alongside her beloved father, helping to tend the vineyards and olive groves, listening to the story of every tree.
Her father told her of the usurpers threatening the land. She saw his tears and promised him to be loyal to the land, to the olive trees and every stone. She worked in the fields, defying the Zionists. When they uprooted one of her beloved trees, she planted new ones. When they came to steal her land, she stood up to them, protecting her land with her body. Raya had fear of neither tear gas nor bullets. She reached for the nearest stone and defended the land of her ancestors.
In choosing this role, her life was not her own. Somehow, though no one else was permitted to reside with her on the family estate, she managed to make it work. She took the necessary risk and gave up her future, freely gave her life to her family, so that we would always have a stake in Palestine.
She was a striking woman, noticed by all. Her hair was dark, straight, and thick. Her heavy eyebrows, joined above her eyes, are those of a woman of confidence, vision, and strength. In her Frieda Kahlo way, she made it the artful expression others would accredit to her living example. She was a woman on a mission. She worked hard and moved fast--fie to the person who could not keep up with her.
Raya always had a biting sense of humour--as she had to have, in order to deal with the not-so-honourable people around her. She had to be tough and strict, so they would know not to try to pull anything over those thick-browed eyes, aware of everything happening around her. When the stories were devastating to the spirit, she held her own. She never showed weakness to anyone.
She told her stories with a sharp sense of humour because what kind of life is this, if one cannot see its bitter ironies? Choosing to see the lighter side of things, if at times this was a defense mechanism, gave her the strength to deal with the senselessness and absurdity amidst difficult circumstances.
To remain unmarried in our culture means living a different life. For Raya, not having the companionship of a husband with whom to share stress and joy, having no children to take care of her in her old age, gives meaning to her sacrifice. Raya stayed unmarried, so that the land would become her companion, of which she knew everything, from one end to the other. She knew the layout of every farm, what fields bore which fruits, not to mention the power of the soil and its meaning. In her life, she did not sit back and watch the world go by.
I saw her several times in my life. Once, when I was a young girl, she took me and my siblings by donkey along the lands of my heritage, containing vine, fig, pomegranate, cactus and olive trees. We picked grapes from the vine trees, roamed the land, and enjoyed the fragrance of the earth and the gentle massage of the wind. All of God’s gifts that we received that day filled our hearts and lungs with love and laughter. We walked on the narrow roads of Balaa and on its hills and slopes. Stone houses that hosted various members of extended and distant relatives greeted us on each side from top to bottom.
Autumn is her festive season. Harvesting of the pomegranate begins in October. Olives are gathered between October and December, and at the same time, the pressing of the olive oil begins. As the only stakeholder in the land, she worked from pre-dawn until post-harvest when she brought her produce to the markets.
Raya happily counted down the days until harvest season. The entire village together harvested the olive trees, the same hardy trees cultivated by Palestinians over the last 5000 years. The olive tree is sacred to Palestinian culture, a symbol of the land and its people’s struggle, holding special status in holy books. It is true that, as Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, said: “If the olive tree knew the suffering of its owner, its oil would turn into tears.”
As I walked with Raya among the hilly olive groves, verdant in the golden sun, she was singing what to my ears sounded like love songs. When I asked what one especially poignant song was about, she told me it was an improvisation about the olive tree, as it is a powerful symbol of endurance and steadfastness, since they live and produce for centuries.
As we walked a grove or two away, Raya gestured to various trees that marked the death or birth of family members. Every tree held a memory. When she was holding Zatouneh "means olive", her cat, I noticed her arms were wrapped in intertwining gold snake bracelets, each inlaid with ruby eyes, their scales worn out by years of scrubbing and polishing, of embracing and releasing, of dressing and undressing. Her other hand bore a lirat, a heavy bracelet threaded with genuine Osmali and Inglizii coins. Her body swayed as she started to mimic the rhythms of the harvest. To watch her dance and worship the olives was a remarkable experience.
Work in the groves was beautiful in a way difficult to describe. Everywhere along the ancient hillsides of Balaa people were busy amidst the olive trees. Working women held their toddlers with one arm, both reaching into the branches. Using special combs, they culled the olives from the branches, which fell into a round metal pan, fruit separating from leaves.
She took my long hair that simulated an olive tree branch and combed it in her hands, telling me, “This is how we pull the olives. It is not just the invigorating smells of the olive leaves and whiffs of olive oil but the shape and feel of each olive as our hands comb the tree, like I am combing your hair right now, and olives shall fall like a soft rain to the ground.” As we sat on the ground in the sunlight, the sight of family members gathered around, tending the same tree before moving on to the next, greeting their neighbours who would stop by to say hello or comment on the production of the year, gave me a sense of the love and passion that Aunt Raya had for the land.
I observed how she pickled the olives, cracking them and submerging them in water, salt, lemon juice and lemon leaves. Other olives were to be pressed, a process done with love, symbolizing a tender relationship between children and parents, as well as the closeness of the immediate and larger extended family.
As we walked, carrying the olives for pressing in the machine, we could hear the other farmers, overjoyed with the results of their olives, perhaps also thinking about the things they would be able to purchase with the money from their harvest.
As we continued on our way, I saw an elderly man talking to himself. He was staring at a picture of his son, jailed by the Israeli army. I wish I had something consoling to say, but there is little to ease the anguish of knowing you are living by someone else's rules, that at any time someone could impose their power, taking your home and ending life as you know it.
I will never forget the determination and successes I was privileged to learn about, the living tableaux, the hospitality in the Palestinian way, memories of time in the fields, relationships formed between farmers and their children. Yet, my thoughts take me to the Palestinians who lost their olive groves to the colonial settlement, as a result of which over one million of Palestine’s trees have been uprooted. The picture of the old woman hugging her tree being cut out from the land by Israeli occupiers is never far from my mind.
Israelis have targeted farmers’ labour conditions to marginalize their production. Israel has decided to ration severely Palestinian water, reserving over 80% for their own use. This puts Raya and her Palestinian neighbours in a vicious cycle of supply shortage and debt only a miracle could overcome. For the 20% of the water supply remaining to Palestinians, they pay triple the original price.
As these were the circumstances she found herself in, Raya planted trees that could survive just on rainwater. Others gave up and went away, but she dug in, giving even more love to the dry soil, its nutrients shrivelled away from the dryness of the heat.
Raya taught me a history of living memory, what cannot be found in books. She showed me the olive trees, explaining better than a horticulturalist how the olives in the tree family grow under her love and care. I remember learning from her that dense young leaves and flower sprouts promise a season of bountiful harvest. She showed me a Palestine of prosperity, happiness and love. She taught me love for the land that is mine. With her stories, she taught me about my culture, about the folklore the Zionists are stealing. Her steadfastness and bravery in the face of Zionist terror will never cease to inspire me, and her wisdom will never cease to guide me.
She was not literate because her opportunities for a formal education ended in 1948. While this may have been a hindrance to her, it did not stop her from learning. She was a very intelligent and progressive woman, always on par with current issues of the day. She sat in the living room with the men, offering her opinions, and they listened to her. Every family member knew her sacrifice, recognized her strength and thoughtfulness, no matter where they lived or how old they were.
It is for this that family constitutes the fundamental building block of Palestinian society. Family status is based largely in honour, whose foremost measure is the respectability of its daughters. In her 82 years, Raya was held in the highest regard and very well respected. She never chose a short-cut or even thought she could do something against her values.
She lived her full and eventful life quietly, in spite of constant Israeli occupation. The barrage of challenges and harassments that fell upon her only steeled her sense of belonging and place, of life centered in one's neighbours and faith.
I see her as though it were just this morning she stepped up to me, so that we were face to face, and looked me square in the eye. She evoked a hint of mischievousness, of working the magic of the muse, which we now realise is how she inspired the land. It was not about what she said. It was the way confrontation with her spirit required your participation.
With people who are on loan, you seldom get the opportunity to spend as much time as you would like with them. Their gift is much too valuable for you to be allowed to hoard it. They belong to everyone. Raya belonged to everyone. She belonged to the land of Palestine, and God sent her to influence as many as she could.
Through tears of saying goodbye, I will always be able to smile, even laugh, knowing that Amti Raya would not really be very far away from me. Even when she was halfway around the world, in the forgotten land of Palestine, I knew she was the same woman, with the same gift.
I have concluded that to pay tribute to those we love who have struggled, resisted, given, and died, is to hold onto their life, their vision and story, sharing it in our deepest, most lasting memory.
Some time ago, Raya fell into dementia and departed us, taking with her precious secrets and strands in our tragedy, what may have held answers to one thousand and one questions. She gave me little opportunity to narrate her story, and I am unable to prompt her memory and record it in detail.
Raya says nothing, except to greetings. She nods her head with her gaze turned inward on hidden thoughts. Her childlike smile never left her mouth. Yet, we are able to discern the important part of Palestinian history that lay buried within her. In her pocket, she carried a handkerchief wrapped around a handful of soil from her village, Balaa.
As you lay dying and suffering on your death bed, dearest Amti, may your fragrant memory continue to inspire generations of Palestinian women and men and all those who believe in freedom, justice, and dignity for the poor. It would take more than a thousand of us to make one of you, which makes this loss even more important to share. We have comfort in knowing that God will give you an afterlife you deserve, and for that, it gives us peace for all of your sacrifices.
Amti "aunt" Raya
born in born in Balaa Palestine in 1929
died April 12, 2010
713-526-5738
