<![CDATA[AramcoWorld Magazine]]> 0001-01-01T00:00:00.000+00:00 urn:uuid:0bf6eab3-6bb6-438e-9a42-ea197bc58ffd <![CDATA[Somaliland’s Midwife]]> urn:uuid:fa961d14-9fa2-460c-a9e4-5c79c1f7b2c3 2018-07-23T16:31:48.000+00:00 2018-07-23T16:31:54.133+00:00 ]]> Edo (Auntie), Edna Adan has helped Somaliland recover from a civil war and inspired a rising generation of women leaders in medicine, public service, environmental conservation and even the arts.]]> ]]>

My mother uses her quiet voice on the phone

Are they okay? Are they healing well?

She doesn’t want my father to overhear.

And she was radiant in hue, like a lighted lantern

Surely she must have been imprinted on my heart

How else could I be so intoxicated by her?

Inside my breast she tick-tocks to me like a watch

She has been a mother to Muslims, wherever they might be

To those fleeing from danger, countless thousands of them,

She offered a refuge, without thought for herself.

Bring unto us, O God, relief in Maryam’s plight.

<![CDATA[The Fragile Songs of the Sumatran Rhinos]]> urn:uuid:63d378d6-4e65-4756-b235-7e2e683121d8 2018-07-23T16:31:35.000+00:00 2018-07-23T16:31:41.063+00:00 ]]> “The more I know, the more I love about the Sumatran rhino,” says veterinarian Zulfi Arsan  about the smallest and oldest rhino species. With only a few dozen left in the wild, captive breeding may offer the rhinos their best—and perhaps only—hope.

As lead veterinarian of the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (srs) on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, he watched as the rhino named Ratu gave birth to her second calf. The calf, who later would be named Delilah, was coming out wrong—hind feet first. This meant the umbilical cord could strangle her. Arsan was ready to try to help.

A minute passed. Then, a breath. And another.

Thus was Delilah born, the youngest Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, the smallest, oldest and most endangered species of rhinoceros in the world. With fewer than 100 left of her kind, her first breaths gave hope that Sumatran rhinos still could be saved from extinction, largely thanks to advances in science and the day-to-day work of men and women like Arsan.

Lanky and handsome with a black beard and smiling eyes, Arsan, 42, has a ready grin, and in conversation he can jump easily from the technicalities of Sumatran rhino physiology to a chat about a particular animal’s personality.

“The more I know, the more I love about the Sumatran rhino,” Arsan says. He grew up with animals, both wild and domestic—including a favorite pet heron. Having decided to be a vet at a young age, Arsan graduated in 2003 from Bogor Agricultural University in West Java. As a student, he interned at the srs, located deep inside Way Kambas National Park in southern Sumatra. In 2014 he became the sanctuary’s head veterinarian.

It is a job that requires sacrifice: Arsan spends more time with the srs’s seven rhinos than he does with his own wife and four children, who live 300 kilometers away in Bogor, a suburb of Jakarta, capital of Indonesia on the island of Java. He’s with them only about eight to 10 days a month.

When he tells them goodbye, he sets out on a nine-hour trip that plods though Jakarta’s traffic, ferries across the Sunda Strait and then navigates potholed, sometimes-flooded roads through the rainforest.

“As a father and a husband, it is hard to be away from my family. They need me, and also I need them,” Arsan says. “But we have to do it, and they also understand and [are] proud for what I am doing here.”

His older children, 12 and 10, text him to check in on the rhinos. His four-year-old twins, he says, “love the rhinos.” One day he hopes to bring them to meet the rhinos in person.

For the rhinos, his job carries the highest of stakes.

There are few big mammals on the planet today closer to extinction than the Sumatran rhino. Only the vaquita porpoise, in Mexico, is closer—about a dozen vaquita are thought to remain.

While officials estimate there are still around 100 Sumatran rhinos are left in the wild—down from some 200 a decade ago—most independent experts believe the number is smaller, not more than 80 and possibly as few as 30. These are spread among four geographically disconnected populations. No one really knows if, with these numbers, any of the populations can prove sustainable.

This makes Arsan, the team at the srs and others like them the best hope for the species. At the srs, each of the seven rhinos lives in its own 10-hectare enclosure. Two of them— Andalas and Ratu—have produced offspring, in 2012 and 2016, respectively.

With these recent successes, conservationists say what needs to happen now is to bring more wild rhinos to the srs—or similar facilities—for captive breeding. Like many big mammals, Sumatran rhinos are slow breeders: Females can give birth at most every three to four years, and gestation lasts 15 to 16 months. (Then they spend a couple of years raising the calf.) Females mature sexually at six or seven; males at 10. With a life span estimated at 40 years, a healthy female could bear seven to eight young, at best.

While Arsan works to help his charges create new life, across the Java Sea, in the Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo, another vet is doing all he can to preserve a life.

Zainal Zahari Zainuddin has spent the last few months trying to heal a Sumatran rhino named Iman, one of two rhinos housed by the Borneo Rhino Alliance (bora). She and a 30-year-old male named Tam are believed to be the last Sumatran rhinos of Malaysia.

Iman was captured in 2014 after a camera trap revealed her traveling route. With a pit dug and covered, the team waited eight anxious months before they safely captured her and flew her by helicopter to the bora facility.

On first inspection, Zainuddin recalls that she looked pregnant. But it turned out to be a uterine tumor, a common problem for female Sumatran rhinos linked to the scarcity of mates.
Zainuddin, 59, came to bora in 2010 with 15 years of experience with the species. He knew something was wrong when Iman refused to leave her wallow.

“When they are sick, they always go back to the wallow,” says Zainuddin, who describes a wallow as a kind of “sacred place” for a rhino: Every Sumatran rhino builds one by digging out a puddle where it can enjoy a comforting mix of mud and water.

Eventually, Zainuddin and the bora staff were able to coax Iman, by then also dangerously dehydrated, out of her wallow into her night quarters, where the bora medical team could attend to her.

Iman’s tumor had ruptured. Zainuddin feared she wouldn’t pull through.

“Some days we gave her 15 liters of fluid, and it took us eight hours to finish 30 bottles,” says Zainuddin. “It took us almost two months to get her back to near normal condition.”

Iman was likely Malaysia’s last wild rhino. A year after her capture, officials declared the Sumatran rhino extinct in Sabah—their last place in the Southeast Asian country. As recently as 2008, researchers had estimated there were 50 rhinos left in Sabah. Although in hindsight this had likely been a mistake, counting wild rhinos is imprecise: They are rare and difficult to see, and their tracks are nearly identical to those of tapirs. Even a rhino wallow can be difficult to identify conclusively.

The Sumatran rhino is unlike any other. Although a full-grown one weighs in at nearly a metric ton, that’s only half the weight of male African white rhinos, which also stand half a meter taller at the shoulder. A Sumatran rhino also sports a shaggy coat of sometimes-reddish hair. While it has two horns—hence its genus name Dicerorhinus, Greek for “two-horned rhinoceros”—it’s not related to Africa’s two-horned rhinos nor to either of Asia’s, the Javan or Indian rhino.

Junaidi Payne, executive director of bora, calls the Sumatran rhino “the last living relic of the Miocene era,” which lasted from about 23 million to five million years ago—ages before we humans showed up. As a genus, he explains, Dicerorhinus split off from other rhinos around 20–25 million years ago. Despite being little known by the global public, there is nothing remotely like Dicerorhinus left on Earth.

“The Sumatran rhino is particularly special because it is the most ancient of the remaining rhino forms,” says Payne. “Most significantly, it represents a genus, not just a species or subspecies or race of rhinos.”

Two of its four surviving populations are in southern Sumatra, in Way Kambas National Park, where the srs is located, and in Bukit Barisan National Park. A third population survives in remote Aceh, at the northern end of Sumatra. A fourth population, discovered in 2013, lives across the Java Sea in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. The Bukit Barisan and Kalimantan populations are the most fragile—so much so that they may be nearly, or even already, gone.

Historically, the Sumatran rhino had ranged widely in southeast Asia, as far north and west as Myanmar, Bangladesh and India. Millennia of hunting, slaughter for its horn and deforestation meant it has been all but wiped out, one by one. Yet despite this dire picture, a recent genetic study suggests that the Sumatran rhino has been struggling against extinction since 9,000 years ago, when scientists estimate a minimum of 700 survived climatic changes and, likely, hunting by early humans. In many ways, it’s amazing they had survived the Pleistocene (2.5 million to 12,000 years ago) at all when other large mammals of the epoch, including mammoths, giant sloths and wooly rhinos, had not.

The cold prospect of extinction is not merely a biological loss, says Zainuddin. It is also an emotional one: Sumatran rhinos are sophisticated communicators, gentle and lovable in their relations with humans.

“They tame easily to you,” says Zainuddin. “They can associate to you and … they will accept you within the species. You can go close to them.”

This trust gives keepers the ability to train the rhino to come when called and to lie down passively when, say, they need a footbath or another procedure. Arsan calls them “clever” animals that “can learn.”

“Tam is the perfect gentleman,” Zainuddin says. When Tam eats, he always sniffs the food first and never goes “for your hand.” (In contrast, he says, Iman is a “shredder.”)

Tam has even learned to open his night-stall door by lifting the bolt with his head and moving it aside.

“He does it so confidently,” says Zainuddin. “One flip, second flip, and door is open. He just pushes [the] door in, and he walks in. He’ll make a noise, calling for the keepers.”

Still, behavior depends on context. Sumatran rhinos are malleable and calm in their pens because they have come to associate them with human territory. But in the wild, Sumatran rhinos will be protective of their territory.

“Every keeper and I treat the rhinos as family,” says Zainuddin. “They are never pets to us. We understand their feeling and their moods.” For example, he adds, when they are ill, “they let us handle them, and they give in to us, knowing we want them well. [They] can sense this. They are survivors and never give up hope as long as they know we are there for them.”

Both Zainuddin and Arsan stress that each rhino has a distinctive personality, and bonds to its keepers. Zainuddin says that when he and his colleague leave the pen for a time, they hear Iman “yelling from the gate, calling for them.”

In addition to snorting through its nostrils, a Sumatran rhino produces a sound from its larynx that experts compare to a singing whale or a whistling dolphin, as if the rhino is squeaking out a tune.

Arsan says he believes the rhino’s “song” is commonly used when the animal is “asking permission.” He says the rhinos tend to sing when they are waiting to be fed fruit, or wanting to leave their pens to go back to their wallows. A calf will sing out if it loses sight of its mother.

But aside from a short study in 2003 in the Cincinnati Zoo in the us, no one has researched the songs of Sumatran rhinos.

“There is so little known,” says Susie Ellis, executive director for the International Rhino Foundation, which helps manage the srs.

“Everything that we know about their biology has been learned in the captive setting because it’s just very, very difficult to study [in the wild].”

Given their rarity and timidity, very few experts have even actually seen a wild Sumatran rhino. Neither Arsan nor Zainuddin nor Ellis have ever seen one. Payne saw one, once, in 1983.

This paucity of knowledge makes support for captive breeding especially challenging. In the 1980s and 1990s, conservationists captured around 40 Sumatran rhinos for captive breeding, but it took 15 years just to begin to understand how they bred. By that time most of those captured had died.

Finally, on September 13, 2001, Andalas was born in the Cincinnati Zoo. He was the first Sumatran rhino birthed in captivity since the 19th century.

Arsan explains that Sumatran rhino females are “induced ovulators,” which means they require something outside themselves to kick off ovulation. Biologists still aren’t certain what the female needs, but they suspect that natural breeding behavior—chasing, fighting, ramming and wallowing with a male—activates the required hormones. This is difficult to impossible to trigger if no male is around, and doubly worrisome given the high risk among females—such as Iman—for uterine cancer if they do not breed.

“I think the normal cycle for female [rhinos] is that they are pregnant, have a baby, and then wean and then are pregnant again,” Arsan says. “Waiting is not normal.”

Tumors can lead to infertility. This has likely proven catastrophic: As wild populations declined, surviving females would meet fewer males, likely leading to a more frequent incidence of uterine tumors, all hastening the demise of the population.

Uterine cancer has also plagued captive populations. Last summer Zainuddin had to euthanize Puntung, bora’s other female. Puntung, who had survived losing a foot in a snare as a calf, suffered from both uterine and skin cancer.

At the end, says Zainuddin, she couldn’t even sing.

“That’s when I had to make the decision that we can’t let her go on like this,” Zainuddin says. “It’s a really hard decision to make, but it had to be made because she was suffering.”

Fortunately, Iman’s time has not come: Her condition has only improved. She has been allowed to return to her wallow, and she is eating close to her regular amounts. Still, Zainuddin is skeptical she will ever give birth.

That makes the best chance for the bora program in vitro fertilization. bora has collected 10 eggs from Iman to date, and it hopes to secure Indonesian government approval to send them to srs to be implanted for gestation.

“We shouldn’t give up,” Zainuddin says, noting he thinks extinction can be avoided if Indonesia “acts soon” to do more.

For Arsan, his relationship to the rhino requires a dichotomy. On the one hand, he says, he loves them each individually, sometimes as if they were his own children. On the other, he knows he also has to treat them professionally as a mammal population on the brink of extinction: He has to keep his gaze on the horizon and do everything possible to keep the species going.

“We are aware how important our work is,” Arsan says. “And we are also aware … there [are] many pressures that come with it. All eyes and ears will go to us ... if bad things happen.”

In the face of such scrutiny, he and his team focus on “doing our job” and “keep[ing] our protocols.” They are in constant contact with experts around the world, and they work hard to learn from the mistakes of the past.

History proves that dedicated people can save a species this close to extinction. Both the European bison and the Arabian oryx at one time survived only in captivity. From a population that was down to just 12 animals, the bison is today more than 2,000 strong in the wild, and it thrives in several European countries. Like the Sumatran rhino, it is a rare survivor of the Pleistocene, having avoided the fate of mammoths and cave bears. The Arabian oryx is now more than 1,000 strong, and it has been reintroduced into the wild in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Jordan and Israel.

Payne believes the best chance to save the Sumatran rhino now would be “one program, managed by experts” with the goal to “boost births by any and all means possible.”

“What gives me hope now is that … people are realizing ‘Oh my gosh, we have this window of time that’s going to be a make-or-break window,’” says Ellis. This year, she adds, she has seen increased attention and funding for the species.

Thus nothing brings on unbridled celebration more than the birth of a healthy calf.

At the srs, all eyes remain on not-so-little-anymore Delilah, who turned two this May. She is healthy, playful and, according to Arsan, more independent than her older brother.

“Delilah loves to be touched and rubbed, and she knows and trusts us who care for her daily,” he says.

She is spending less and less time with her mother, and soon they will part—just as they do in the wild. And in about four years, when she’s ready, Arsan hopes she can bear children.

Her name, Delilah, was chosen by Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. In Javanese, the name means “God’s blessing.” It’s an aptly optimistic choice for one shouldering hopes from both her own 20-million-year-old species as well a much younger fellow mammal—from among which a few individuals are dedicating their working lives to her songs and those of her future kin.

<![CDATA[Listening to the Land]]> urn:uuid:4e3250a3-97ab-460d-ae38-7ee0a6ed7172 2018-07-23T16:31:12.000+00:00 2018-07-23T16:31:20.437+00:00 ]]> ]]>

 “Architecture is a sin,” says Ammar Khammash, 57. “I don’t want to be visible, and I don’t want my buildings to be visible.” Standing in the building he designed, this unconventional man—artist, designer, engineer, geologist, musician and polymath—faces a view of dark-green treetops awash in spring sunshine. The forest is silent but for birdsong and cicadas. He names two world-famous “starchitects."

“I want to be the exact opposite of them,” he explains thoughtfully. “Architecture is not that important. Buildings should not become monuments or luxury statements. They can be impressive without being expensive.”

We are meeting at the Royal Academy for Nature Conservation, built by Khammash for Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (rscn) and officially opened in 2015. The academy stands at the entrance to an rscn-run nature reserve established in 1987 to protect forested land beside Ajloun, a town 70 kilometers north of the Jordanian capital, Amman.

Though Khammash’s small architectural practice can claim prestigious private and government clients, he is best known for a string of rscn commissions ranging from Dana, a remote mountain village, to the heart of Amman. His stripped-back designs, using locally sourced materials, referencing vernacular traditions and exemplifying acute environmental sensitivity, are on show in visitor reception centers, rangers’ offices and rural guest houses all around Jordan, enhancing places that many tourists visit—and that many Jordanians cherish.

Chris Johnson, a British ecologist who worked with Khammash for 20 years, speaks of the architect’s “uniquely Jordanian” style. “Ammar has an amazing ability to create new buildings that are respectful of their surroundings and Jordan’s cultural heritage,” says Johnson, whodirected conservation for the rscn in the 1990s, and from 2005 to 2013 led its sustainable-tourism unit “Wild Jordan.”

Growth in outreach has been mirrored by growth in skills development. Since 1997 the rscn has trained around 250 specialists a year, from Jordan and across the Middle East, in management of protected areas, conservation research, ecotourism and socio-economic development. Around 2005 the idea emerged to formalize training in a single, dedicated building. “We had been pioneering capacity-building in conservation throughout the region. With success came demand,” says Johnson, who initiated and managed the project to build the new academy.

For rscn Director General Yehya Khaled, the academy pointed to a breakthrough in public education on the environment. “We wanted the academy to be a model, representing rscn values [in] conservation and community development,” he says.

A site was identified inside the Ajloun Forest Reserve but, as Khammash explains, “I kept passing a quarry just outside the reserve boundary, and I said, ‘Why should we cut another wound in nature when we already have this cut? Let’s fix this and celebrate it as a human intervention.’

 “Whoever was driving the last bulldozer in the last week this quarry was operating—back in the early ’90s—never knew that he was designing the front elevation of my building for me,” Khammash continues, with typical self-effacement. “He left a cliff, and I followed it. This building is designed by chance.”

Khammash had the quarry pit cleared, but instead of bringing in stone for construction, he used the rubble, which would normally have been discarded. The result is external walls of unusually small limestone rocks neatly fitted together. The impression is of a building at one with its setting, as if it has been lifted whole from the quarry and placed on the ridgetop.

To reach it from the road, Khammash designed what was (until he built a longer one last year) the longest masonry arch in Jordan, an elegant bridge extending 30 meters over the now-empty quarry. “This bridge has almost no foundation,” he says. “Its lateral thrust is like when you take a cane and bend it across a corridor: It can’t go anywhere, so the more load it takes the more it pushes into the quarry sides.”

The bridge delivers you to the building’s public entrance, a slot in one flank that opens to … almost nothing. The lobby, like its architect, impresses by stealth. You could cross this low transitional room in four paces, but a glass wall in the opposite flank keeps the forest in view. The ambience is of spacious calm. Free of adornment, displaying a deliberately rough finish of raw concrete, it is artful.

Khammash calls it simply a “void” where the building’s two functions meet. To the right a restaurant generates income to help pay for the training courses that are run in the rooms to the left.

The restaurant area draws you out through airy interiors to shaded rear balconies woven about with foliage and forest views. But the heart of this building’s beauty shows when you turn left.

Double-loaded corridors—ones that have doors opening
on both sides—tend to be dark. Here, though, sunlight moves across the rubble-stone walls: Khammash has opened a glass roof above the corridor and created an end-wall of windows facing west. In summer cool winds flow through as natural ventilation.

The architect explains how he drew inspiration for this sinuously angled passageway from Jordan’s famous ancient city of Petra, where you enter through a towering cleft between mountains lit from above by shafts of sunlight. “The light pulls you in the right direction,” he says. “And the bending is important. If you expose the whole length of the corridor, it’s too much. Also, the bend mirrors the profile line of the quarry outside.”

Underfoot, Khammash has used ceramic floor tiles that are familiar from Jordanian apartments—but with a twist. “I specified the cheapest tile in Jordan,” he says, “but here we spread them wider and filled the gaps between each one. You end up with this interesting pattern, like a carpet with pulled threads.”

This lack of pretension, eschewing the temptations of Italian marble, Scandinavian wood or even plaster for the walls, can cause confusion: Visitors seeing rough, concrete walls and gappy floor tiles ask when the building will be finished—and then tut when they hear it is.

Some think it’s a joke, but Khammash says he is demonstrating how low-budget ideas can deliver high-quality outcomes. “Materials pick up social value,” he adds. “People want to imitate Amman, using expensive imported stuff, but the result is a hodgepodge. This is a crude finish, but very durable, and it should age nicely. It’s a very rugged building.”

Another consequence is an agile minimalism. Khammash’s balconies, for instance, narrow to the slenderest of cement edges, supported beneath by angled beams anchored in the smallest possible foundation. To stand on one is to fly above the trees.

But visuals tell only part of the story. The building, completed in 2013, deploys an array of environmentally progressive techniques, from straw-based insulation and gray-water collection to geothermal energy for heating and cooling. During this two-year, $3.9-million construction project in dense woodland, not a single tree was felled.

Johnson talks of Khammash’s “artist’s eye.” For Khammash, it’s synesthesia that underpins his creativity. “I’m into sound,” he says. “Every time I see light on geological formations, I hear music. It’s like a waterfall hitting rocks, and the light is playing a sound. There’s some strange connection in my brain. The sun plays this corridor differently according to the season and the time of day.”

Once you tune into Khammash’s aural architecture, you find it everywhere. It draws the sounds of the forest—creaking of trees, whistling of wind—into the building. And it sends the sounds of the building—voices, footsteps—spiralling together in unexpected pools and pockets.

"My dream is to teach a course of architecture for blind architects, to force architects only to use the ear, not the eye," he says. Architecture has been hijacked by the visual. What about the sound of the building, the smell of the building, the idea of earthing, experiencing architecture through our feet?”

For the conference hall, located in the academy’s sloping western cantilever, the architect examined how opera houses dampen acoustic reverberation with walls of slatted wood. Adapting the science to the local context, he built walls of cinder blocks but laid them sideways so that their slatted, open cores face into the room. “This is a nice, interesting way of using these blocks. Sound stays in the holes. You don’t need a microphone for a speaker to be heard clearly at the back of the hall,” he says.

Khammash’s architecture blends here with conceptual art. “People could write notes and push them into the holes or keep pencils in there. Another idea was to bring local students to fill the upper third of the walls with branches and twigs pushed into these blocks. Wood is good for acoustics, and this could also help people feel they own the building—they could come back and say, ‘You see that branch? I put it there 10 years ago.’”

Khammash warms to his theme. “Architecture is a beginning. Let others add to your work. You see this in art installations, but architecture can do it too. Buildings can change if you just give people the skeleton to start with.”

In 2016 the academy was shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture—“a great privilege,” says Khaled, not least for international recognition of the building’s potential to deliver a new generation of conservationists. He tells me the rscn is developing curricula for training programs that can be run here with international partners, including the University of Montana, and that it has brought local socio-economic projects developing biscuit-making and handmade-soap production into the building. Rebranding the academy as “Wild Jordan Ajloun” is next, which will help consolidate the efforts to deploy it for tourism as well as education.

Khammash watches with pride. “Architecture is problem-solving,” he says. “This is the spark for me, and every time I design, that’s in my subconscious: Can we solve the problem without the building? If I can, I will. The site is the architect, and I listen to it. Ultimately, I’m just a draftsman, a technician under the site’s command.”

<![CDATA[Kufiya Nouveau]]> urn:uuid:15623869-c652-4590-8cb5-901050322205 2018-07-23T16:30:54.000+00:00 2018-07-23T16:31:03.943+00:00 ]]> Once a traditional Arab headdress of white cotton sewn with traditional patterns in black or red, the kufiya is being pulled by designers onto the streets and runways of global fashion.

With origins as a plain headdress meant to protect from the sun in summer, from cold in winter, and from wind and dust in the desert, the kufiya is traditionally woven in black or red thread in several well-established patterns. Called kufiya (kuh-FEE-uh) mainly in the Levant, it is known by other names in other regions—ghutra, shamagh or hattah, most commonly. (See “Names,” sidebar below.)

Across the Arab social spectrum—from  hinterlands to capitals, from shepherds to software developers, revolutionaries to royalty, the kufiya has long been a sign of Arab identity. With fashion’s insatiable appetite for fusion, and especially since the proliferation of social media, the kufiya has been crossing historic cultural and geographical boundaries to step—confidently, it appears—into the lexicon of global cool.

Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design, and director of research and development at the moma, says the kufiya was chosen for the exhibit because “it has had a profound effect on the world at both global and local levels over the last century and, indeed, over millennia. It has been used as a practical accessory that helps people navigate local climates and environments,” she continues. “It has also become imbued with deep political significance. It has also become a fashion accessory that is, in some iterations, completely divorced from its original context and used for its esthetic merits alone.”

To Lebanese architect Salim al-Kadi, who designed the trio of kufiyas that the moma displayed, the kufiya “is transformative.” It “speaks to different geographies, different people and different issues. Depending on how it is worn, it can be a symbol of resistance and protest, or a disguise. [Today] there is no demonstration anywhere in the world where there isn’t at least one person wearing a kufiya. But it also indicates the strength and power of the downtrodden. Like a Wonder Woman bracelet for Arabs, it feels like it protects.”

To make his point, al-Kadi gave literal form to his metaphor with a kufiya made out of Kevlar body armor—painted gold. It was flanked on the gallery wall by traditional cotton kufiyas, one black and white and the other red and white.

The breakthrough into high fashion began a bit more than a decade ago. In 2007 the Spanish fashion house Balenciaga included in its collection French designer Nicholas Ghes’s black-and-white kufiya-designed scarves with pink flowers and frills imposed on the fatha design. (See “Reading a Kufiya,” below.) Brazilian supermodel Flávia de Oliveira wore it on the runway, Vogue Japan featured it on its cover—spurring record sales of kufiyas in Japan—and former InStyle Accessory Director Meggan Crum put the scarf on her “Top Ten Accessories.”

That same year, upscale us label Urban Outfitters featured kufiya-styled scarves and shirts in a variety of colors. Though criticism for cultural appropriation on the one hand and being “pro-Arab” on the other forced the store to pull the line, they were all back the next year with price tags up to $115.

At the lower end of the spectrum, “street kufiyas” have hung for sale in shops selling jeans and T-shirts in many western capitals as well as across the Arab world, priced usually between $10 and $20.  Many of these are imported from China and made of synthetic cloth with printed, not woven, patterns.

More recently, French fashion powerhouse Chanel in 2015 used both red-and-white and black-and-white kufiya designs for a range of garments and accessories, including dresses, jackets, shirts, skirts, blouses and clutches. Fabrics comprised silk and wool, and leather accents appeared on some items. Models showing them on the runway included us supermodel Gigi Hadid.

Reina Lewis, who teaches cultural studies at the London College of Fashion, dates the first appearances of kufiyas in trendy shopping areas of London to the early 1970s, where “they would be part of ensembles that included Afghan sheepskin coats.”

By the 1990s, when other fashion items started to be made in the uk from kufiya-patterned cloth, “some people were offended. They felt it was the commoditization of a garment that for others was a marker of cultural, political, or national authenticity and pride—cultural appropriation.” But fashion, Lewis points out, “constantly plunders cultural symbols,” and “what some designers call inspiration others will see as cultural appropriation.”

Lewis says that while the garment has cultural and often political connotations to many, this is partly generational. “Millennials are completely unaware of its cultural and political associations and see it simply as a scarf,” she says. For many youth in London, multicolored kufiyas are “part of their fashion essentials, like a leather jacket or jeans.”

Kufiyas came later to the us, says Ted Swedenburg, a professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas who studies identity and symbols in Arab cultures, including kufiyas.

“I first began seeing the kufiya in the United States around 1983, without fully understanding its context,” says Swedenburg. “In the last decade, kufiyas, in all colors, are being worn by actors and celebrities.” He goes on to namedrop Mary-Kate Olsen, Kirsten Dunst, Cameron Diaz, Colin Farrell, David Beckham, Justin Timberlake, “and even [us Senator] John McCain’s daughter,” Meghan McCain.

For many, however, wearing kufiyas was largely “a matter of trendiness,” says Swedenburg. “I think we have to ask why the kufiya became trendy, or edgy. That relates to the growth of antiwar sentiment in the us in the 2004 to 2008 period.” It also coincides, he explains, with the moment low-cost kufiyas became more widely available.

“You can’t draw a straight line, but that was an important part of the context,” he says. “People with progressive politics began to wear them as part of their statement.” Now, “maybe the kufiya need not choose between being a political or a fashion item. It can be both, and it can be educational, a conversation starter.”

Far closer to the roots of kufiyas are the designers and textile artisans of the nonprofit Social Enterprise Project (sep) in Jordan. Their designs are pushing toward what kufiyas might become while holding to the cloth’s traditions. sep kufiyas often include embroidery—a traditional art especially in the Levant—and thoroughly nontraditional but trendy and seasonal colors—grays, beiges, oranges, reds-on-blacks and more.

What makes these designers distinctive is that they all work out of refugee camps, explains Roberta Ventura, a Geneva-based investment banker who supervises the design and production of handmade kufiyas in the Jerash Camp in northern Jordan. To start, women use the traditional red- or black-and-white designs on cotton, linen and cashmere, before combining them in a series of different colors with the distinctive, fine cross-stitch embroidery used in traditional Palestinian dresses. The crafted kufiyas then sell in high-end stores across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

The kufiyas, Ventura says, are among more than two dozen fashion accessories made in the camps for sep Jordan and sold to support the women workers, who are paid middle-income salaries. “The kufiya is our bestselling item,” says Ventura.

“They go like hotcakes, and they’re sold to middle class, to wealthy people, lawyers, managers, from anywhere between $65 to $100. They’re sold to people,” she continues, “who are usually aware of the political and cultural association, but who are also clearly willing to make a statement that they are wearing it for its beauty.”

Ventura is thrilled at the success of the kufiyas, which is poised now for a next step: After years of selling online and in select stores, this year it is producing an exclusive, top-end kufiya for the department store Boutique 1, where it will sit alongside scarves by designers such as Missoni, Rochas and Elie Saab. While the design is not yet finalized, Ventura says, “there’s more embroidery.” The price is set to hover around $280.

Ventura adds that Boutique 1 “already sells our kufiyas, and they wanted to go onto the next level. They are selling them as a fashion statement. They are aware of the political symbolism, but they are also fully buying into our concept, our brand concept, which is, ‘forget the political statement, this is beautiful’—and you buy it because it is beautiful.”

Working from an Amman penthouse studio, Palestinian Serbian architect and kufiya designer Rashid Abdelhamid is  similarly fusion oriented. He dismisses talk of cultural appropriation, and his website, Made in Palestine Project, displays kufiyas in an abundance of colors and combinations of fabrics. Original black-and-white or red-and-white fatha fabrics are incorporated, but more frequently they are being replaced by other colors and styles. The original kufiya designs are always present and visible, but always fused, combined, highlighted and sometimes only exist as accents that gives a thin root to the designs, gentle nods of recognition.

Abdelhamid asserts that while indeed his kufiyas reflect his own Arab European hybrid identity, they also symbolize contemporary historical context.

“I was born in Algiers and studied in Florence and Grenoble [France]. I travel between Dubai, Ramallah, Tunis and Amman. What I wear reflects these multiple cultures and identities—and many people are like me,” Abdelhamid says.

He handpicks the fabrics, including cloth from areas and communities not traditionally associated with the kufiya. “I include Tunisian velvet, Egyptian cotton, Turkish brocade, Anatolian peasant designs, Caucasian linen and sheer silks, and I combine them with the fishnet kufiya in a multitude of colors,” he says. “Each piece is unique and handmade, like each one of us.”

From his studio, he creates two collections a year. Internet-based sales, he says, “are exploding at around $100 a piece, and I have orders from high-end boutiques in Florence and London, which sell them for $300 to $500.”

Fashion historians from the Arab world agree on several facts concerning the history of kufiyas. Both the concept of the ‘iqal and the original fatha design originated in Iraq; the cotton used to make kufiyas came largely from Egypt but also from the Indian subcontinent; kufiyas were initially produced on looms mainly in Damascus; and it was the nationalist movements of Palestinians that in the 1960s first made kufiyas globally famous.

According to the Hirbawi family, which owns and operates the only kufiya factory still working in Palestine, three factories in Damascus began to flourish in the early 20th century when the use of the Ottoman tarboosh among men declined along with the empire that had popularized it. Rural men began to change the manner the kufiya was worn by no longer wrapping it  like a turban but wearing them more loosely like headscarves.

Swedenburg points out that in the 1920s and 1930s, as Syrian and Palestinian opposition to European colonialism gained strength, urban men too began to wear kufiyas that, at the time, were only either black and white or plain white. This adoption of the previously rural headdress by urban elites as a marker of national unity signified, he says, a moment of “inversion of social hierarchy.”

The red-and-white kufiya has origins that are also military but relatively recent, says Widad Kawar, a Jordanian expert and collector of traditional garments. In the 1930s, Jordan-based British General John Bagot Glubb (also known as Glubb Pasha) sought to create a distinctive headdress among Arabs loyal to British rule. He is credited with ordering the production of red-and-white kufiyas.

These red-and-white kufiyas, mostly manufactured in British cotton mills, were of thicker cotton, and their pattern more densely woven, than traditional black-and-white kufiyas. They quickly became popular among men in the wintertime and in the desert, where the nights could be bitter cold.

“All the men loved the red-and-white one,” says Kawar. “Glubb Pasha could not control who wore it. The Syrians loved it, as did the Iraqis and the Saudis.” The red-and-white kufiya became standard-issue headwear for Britain’s colonial Palestine Police Force, Sudan Defense Force and Libyan Arab Forces.

In the 1960s, black-and-white kufiyas became synonymous with Palestinian nationalism, and thus “the last kufiya factory in Palestine,” Hirbawi’s, in the city of Hebron, has taken on an iconic significance. Founded in 1963 by Yasser Hirbawi, the factory is now run by his three sons.

“When my father founded the factory in 1963, there were no other kufiya-making factories in Palestine,” says 60-year-old Judeh Hirbawi, Yasser’s eldest son. All were made in Damascus. In 1963 Yasser bought two Suzuki mechanical looms made in Japan, which produced some 300 kufiyas a month, explains Judeh. They were all black and white—like the ones from Damascus.

By 1965 they started to make red-and-white kufiyas as well. Six years later the Hirbawis had six machines and were producing around 900 kufiyas of both types each month.

“By the 1980s the ‘salad’ design was introduced by my younger brother Izzat Hirbawi, who combined up to six colors to modernize the kufiya,” says Judeh. Today Hirbawi’s produces 42 different color designs, but the most popular is still the black-and-white classic, followed closely by the red-and-white.

It was not until 2000 that the Hirbawis began to export. Today the Hirbawis have 14 mechanical looms, still Suzukis, and 10 new ones were delivered last year. Annual production is around 60,000.

“Business is up, and we are exporting to new designers in Amman and Europe, says Judeh. “The kufiya is in fashion again,” he adds with a smile.

<![CDATA[Defining Meaning in Cultural Objects]]> urn:uuid:733344bc-e4e0-4d25-afc8-5fe1fbbcb117 2018-07-12T11:59:44.000+00:00 2018-07-17T20:23:44.265+00:00 ]]> ]]> For students: We hope this guide sharpens your reading skills and deepens your understanding.
Common Core Standards met in this lesson: RI9-10.2/SL9-10.1 (see details below).

—The Editors
—Julie Weiss

Kufiya Nouveau

Kufiyas are headscarves, originally worn by people in the Arab world. In recent years, kufiyas have become fashionable among many people from elsewhere. How does an object like a scarf become a world-wide phenomenon? And what about it—if anything—changes in the process? These activities give you a chance to explore the uses and meanings of the kufiya. By the time you finish, you will be able to:
  • Identify the original purposes of the kufiya.
  • Explain what the kufiya has come to mean among people in the Arab world.
  • Compare that meaning with the meaning of kufiyas as fashion statements.
  • Define cultural appropriation.
  • Evaluate the relationship between the conditions of kufiya production and cultural appropriation.

One way to get more from what you read is practice some pre-reading skills. Begin with the headline. If you don't know what nouveau means, look it up. Discuss with a partner what you think the headline means. What do you think might be nouveau about the kufiya? Hold that thoughts as you look at the photographs and read the captions that accompany them. Based on the photos and captions, as well as your thoughts about the headline, what do you predict will be the main ideas in this article? Write them down so that you can compare with what you read to see if you're right.
Layers of Meaning

For the purpose of these activities, you can think about the kufiya as having many meanings, starting the practical, including the political, and finally the esthetic. Let's look at each of these in turn.
1. Uses

Before it was anything else, the kufiya was an item that people used for specific purposes. Who were the people who first used kufiyas? What did they use them for? What qualities did kufiyas have that made them well suited to these purposes?

2. A Sign of Arab Identity

But objects often take on meanings apart from their intended uses. Think about how this happens. Take motor vehicles as an example. The purpose of a passenger vehicle is to get people from one place to another. But different vehicles can express different meanings, including different driver identities. Consider these different kinds of vehicles:
  • hybrid cars
  • trucks (the kinds for passengers, not 18-wheelers)
  • limousines
When you see each of these types of vehicles, what kinds of assumptions do you make about the people driving? Quite likely that the people driving the vehicles have those same associations, and they chose their vehicles only in part to get from one place to another. In part, the car becomes a sign of the driver's identity.

Kufiyas, too, have come to be more than just objects used for specific purposes. People attached meaning to them, and so they become signs. Think of signs that show a place is handicapped accessible. Instead of signs on walls, kufiyas become signs that people wear. Find and highlight places in the article that talk about what the kufiya signifies. Write a sentence that explains what kufiyas are signs of. (Here's a hint: Consider museum curator Paola Antonelli's statement that the kufiya "has become imbued with deep political significance." What might she mean?)

3. Fashion

In recent years kufiyas have become fashionable. People wear them for reasons other than protection from elements or as statements of identity. Find and mark the parts of the article that address kufiyas as fashion. Write a sentence that summarizes kufiyas as fashion statements.

You may notice that the discussion about kufiyas and fashion includes the subject of cultural appropriation. Understanding what cultural appropriation means enables you to engage in the debate that's touched on in "Kufiya Nouveau." How do others define the concept of cultural appropriation? The Oxford Dictionary defines it this way:
The keys to the definition are the parts about "unacknowledged" and especially "more dominant"—the power imbalance between the people who adopt a custom and the people whose custom is being adopted, generally without giving credit for the idea. Do some research online to see the types of situations that are criticized for being instances of cultural appropriation. It's rarely clear-cut, and in your exploration, you will no doubt come across cases where people disagree about what should be considered cultural appropriation and what should be considered simply cultural mixing. As you read these examples, compare them to the Oxford definition, and see what you think. You can do this activity on your own, with a partner, or with a small group. Then have volunteers share with the class examples that they found they believe are or are not cultural appropriation and share why they think so. Then go back through "Kufiya Nouveau," and find the parts that address cultural appropriation. Notice how different people cited in the article discuss the issue.

The article also includes information about how and where kufiyas are produced. Read about the Social Enterprise Project and about the Hirbawi family's production. Discuss with your group if or how this information changes your sense of whether or not kufiyas as fashion is an example of cultural appropriation.

Layers of Understanding Kufiyas: Culminating Activities

Choose one of the two following activities to pull together what you've learned:
  1. Find a way to show others what you have learned about kufiyas—what they're used for, what they signify, and what it means for them to be fashion items. Be creative. Here's an example. You could think of nesting dolls—the dolls that fit inside other dolls. The uses of kufiyas could be the smallest doll, representing the actual purpose of the items. That doll could rest inside a bigger doll that represents the kufiya in a more abstract way—as a signifier of Arab identity. That doll, in turn, could rest in an even bigger doll, which would stand for kufiyas as fashion—arguably the purpose for which kufiyas reach the most people. Come up with your own idea and present it to the class.
  2. Hold a class debate about this question: When people make kufiyas into fashion accessories, are they engaging in cultural appropriation? To hold the debate, divide the class into three groups. Two of the groups will debate the question. The third group will evaluate their arguments.

Common Core Standards met in this lesson:

 SL9-10.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one on one, in groups, and teacher led) with diverse partners on grades 9–10 topics, texts and issues, building on the ideas of others and expressing them clearly and persuasively.

<![CDATA[More Than a Team]]> urn:uuid:aedd96e6-78f3-4bd4-bf61-191e02412b8c 2018-07-11T18:35:08.000+00:00 2018-07-30T15:02:13.745+00:00 ]]> ]]>

He was following a path that had been established by Palestinians who had begun arriving in Chile in the late 1800s. They struggled at first, but in ensuing decades they created both businesses and institutions, including schools, professional associations— and Club Deportivo Palestino (Palestinian Sport Club), the soccer team popularly known as “Palestino.” Founded just more than a century ago in Santiago and a member of Chile’s premier league since 1952, it has played such a unifying role in the community that its banner proclaims “Palestino—Mas que un equipo” (Palestino—More than a team).

The club’s history is intertwined with the Palestinian community in Chile and its roots in the Middle East, explains team spokeswoman Valeria Apara Hizmeri. Last year, the team even launched an effort to bring in soil from different communities in Palestine to spread on its home field to emphasize its enduring connection.

“The team unites Palestinians and brings families to the stadiums together in a healthy, sporting environment” that includes Arab music and food, she says. “The club also represents the Palestinian spirit. It brings the Palestino flag to the highest level in international competitions [in South America],” she says.

Though there are no official figures, an estimated 300,000 of Chile’s roughly 17 million residents can claim Palestinian descent, and this makes Chile the nation with the largest single diasporic group of Palestinians outside the Arab world. So many took up residence in the long, narrow country on South America’s Pacific coast that locals began to quip, “En cada pueblo en Chile, hay un Palestino, un sacerdote y un policia” (“In every village in Chile, there’s a Palestinian, a priest and a policeman.”)

For his part, Majluf set up a small store. He did well, and soon his brother followed, explains Majluf’s 30-year-old great-grandson, Anuar Majluf. Next came their respective spouses and children, who had remained behind Beit Jala, a village south of Jerusalem that is now part of the Palestinian West Bank. Once the siblings were established, around 1911 their in-laws followed, too.

When World War I engulfed the Middle East in 1914, still more Palestinians—many of them Orthodox Christians—emigrated to avoid being drafted into the armed forces of Turkey, which had allied with Germany. Many moved to Chile.

Still more Palestinians arrived after the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, when tens of thousands fled, and ever since, others have continued to trickle in. At the bakery named Panadería y Pastelería Fufu—which has branches both in Santiago and in Beit Jala—I meet baker Johnny Abu Jeries, who says he arrived in Santiago only five years ago.

Anuar Majluf, an attorney who is also executive director of the Palestinian Federation of Chile, tells me his family’s story as we sit on the patio of the Palestinian-owned Hotel Loreto in Santiago’s barrio Bella Vista. It was in this area, and in the barrio Patronato to its south, he explains, that numerous early Palestinian immigrants built homes and opened factories and businesses in the early 20th century.

Now, Bella Vista has become an artsy quarter of clubs, restaurants and galleries, says Majluf, who also once led the General Union of Palestinian Students in Chile.

Manuel Hasbun Zaror, a 74-year-old engineer and, like Majluf a former head of the Palestinian Federation, says his forebears and other Palestinian immigrants struggled at first because they lacked resources, education and connections. Initially, they also faced some discrimination from Chileans with European roots.

“Hard work, a thousand-year-old culture, faith and dedication to family led to our success in Chile," Zaror tells me over lunch at the Palestinian Club in the upscale barrio Las Condes. Those accomplishments are on full display at the club’s expansive, palm-dotted enclave, which sports an Olympic-size pool, tennis courts and other facilities. Street signs are in Spanish and Arabic, and a doormat at the main entry to the club says, in Arabic, ahlan wa sahlan (“Welcome”).

 Al-Murshid, the Santiago Palestinian community’s first Arabic newspaper, began publishing in Patronato in 1912. Though the neighborhood now is home to immigrants from Korea, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Haiti and more, it’s easy to find evidence of the district’s Palestinian past and present. Just down the street from Hotel Loreto, the Rincon Arabesco (Arab Corner) restaurant serves grilled-meat shawarmas, rellenos Arabes (peppers stuffed with meat and spices) and other Arab-influenced dishes; on a nearby avenue called Pio Nono, named for Pope Pius IX, which leads away from the famed San Cristobal Hill and its green funicular cable cars, a curbside stand sells dulces Arabes—Arab pastries such as halva and kunafah.

On one morning, I enjoy a cup of strong coffee and baklava sweets at El Majrur, a café that takes its name from a neighborhood in Beit Jala. It stands on the same block in Patronato as the Orthodox cathedral of St. George, which is, along with the city’s two mosques, another community for Chileans of Palestinian descent.

To watch Club Deportivo Palestino play, however, it’s a 17-kilometer drive south from Patronato to La Cisterna, the stadium the team calls home. For this game, they are playing a top rival, Audax Italiano, a team founded by Italian immigrants early in the 20th century. (Among the league’s 16 teams, there is one more with ethnic origins, Unión Española, founded by Spanish immigrants.)

According to Zaror and his distant cousin, 84-year-old Carlos Hasbun, Palestino was established in 1916 to compete against other Palestinian clubs in a national sporting competition held in Osorno, in southern Chile.

Palestino won, and it went on to other successes, but it folded around 1930. Three decades later, it was revived, says Zaror, who adds that it was his brother Raul, now in his 80s, who helped restart the team and even played on it. In 1952 the club made the jump from the second division to the premier league—the top level of professional soccer in the country.

While this day’s game proves an exciting back-and-forth contest that ends in a 1-1 draw—aided by plenty of raucous cheering from the home crowd—I quickly see just how Palestino is, as its motto goes, more than a soccer team. I hear time after time how it represents the Palestinian diaspora, not only in Chile, but also throughout Latin America and even around the globe.
Accompanied by Majluf, I arrive early for the 5:00 p.m. game and, as a leader of the Palestinian Federation, he seems to know everyone. We settle into seats on the west side of the field with most of the Palestino hinchas (fans).

But my eyes and ears are soon drawn to the east side of the pitch where several drummers are booming out a rhythm and a man stands high on the rim of the stadium waving an enormous Palestinian national flag. This despite the fact that on the team’s current roster there is not a single player of Palestinian descent, though former defender Roberto Bishara now serves as a training coach.

Majluf tells me how in December 2014, when Palestino qualified for the Libertadores de America competition for the first time in 35 years, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sent the club a personal letter congratulating its coaches and players. (The team made it to the quarterfinals, and its games were televised in the Arab world.)

“On behalf of all Palestinians worldwide, I want to thank you for this joy that you gave us in this special moment,” wrote Abbas. “You are players and also ambassadors of our colors throughout South America.”

In 2016 Palestino actually flew to the West Bank city of Nablus, where they faced a local, all-Palestinian team—and lost 0-3. The match received full-page attention in the sports section of El Mercurio, the Santiago newspaper, and one columnist put the loss down to jet lag.

Elsewhere on the La Cisterna stadium property, painted murals boast of the team’s two premier-league championships (1955, 1978) and show off more colorful representations of the Palestinian flag.

Majluf smiles as he describes growing up wanting to play for Palestino. “But that wasn’t realistic, just a childhood dream,” he says with a chuckle, noting that today, the fan base of the team has spread well beyond the Palestinian community.

“In a way, the team helped Palestinians integrate into Chilean society,” he says. “This is a very socially stratified country, and even as we began to rise economically, many doors remained closed. But through soccer and fielding a successful premier-league team, the acceptance of Palestinians grew.”

Palestinians have achieved success in Chilean politics, too, he adds, noting that in recent decades, around a dozen communities in Chile have elected leaders of Palestinian descent. Recoleta, the Santiago borough in which the barrio Patronato lies, recently elected Daniel Jadue alcalde (mayor). Isabel Plá Jarufe, descended from Palestinian immigrants, is serving in the cabinet of President Sebastián Piñera as Minister for Women and Gender Equity.
For Majluf, who attended university in Jordan and has traveled to the West Bank several times, “win or lose, the soccer club proudly represents the State of Palestine and the diaspora in Latin American and around the world,” he says.

On another morning, I meet Mauricio Abu-Ghosh, whose father came from Beit Jala with his family at age 10 in 1951. He recalls his father telling him how, as a young man, he had worked as a peddler, helping to support the family by walking from town to town selling needles and sewing supplies.

Abu-Ghosh, 54 and also a former official with the Palestinian Federation, is an engineer by profession. He spent a decade working for LAN, the Chilean national airline, before opening a clothing company with his wife, Andrea, in Patronato. A big soccer fan, he says he played on recreational teams until he turned 50.

Several years ago, he visited Beit Jala with his family. He calls it “a joyful experience to see the home where my father grew up, and where he kicked balls around in his backyard.” At the same time, he adds, “It was bittersweet because while the villagers were extremely welcoming, the occupation is hard on them.”

He says his relatives follow Palestino both online and, at times, by waking early to watch games live via satellite tv.

That makes them not unlike Palestino fans in the rest of Palestine as well as Jordan, Tunisia and other parts of the world, where they follow Palestino on its social-media channels, says the team spokeswoman, noting that wherever they live, many of these hinchas wear Palestino jerseys on game days.

“They [Palestinians] are happy we support them and that’s one of the reasons why Palestino means so much,” Abu-Ghosh says. “It is a great symbol for the diaspora, one of the most valuable things we have. And not just for us in Chile, but also to the people in the motherland. Palestino shows that we are still alive, and we will not forget where we came from.” ]]>
<![CDATA[Flavors: Kurus with Spoon Salad]]> urn:uuid:413408aa-7abf-4406-8747-84b1345c9be0 2018-07-11T15:23:29.000+00:00 2018-07-11T15:23:41.253+00:00 ]]> My mother made kurus a lot for my brother and me because it was inexpensive, easy to prepare and, most importantly, delicious.

<![CDATA[A Conversation with Saudi Filmmakers]]> urn:uuid:81541fcf-4923-4834-a748-e4b5271778f2 2018-07-10T11:51:26.000+00:00 2018-07-16T12:48:05.626+00:00 ]]> ]]>

The event was the second edition of Saudi Film Days, sponsored by Ithra, the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, in collaboration with the Saudi Films Festival. Each screening included a panel discussion with Saudi and us film directors. Here are the highlights.

Josh Welsh, president, Film Independent and panel moderator: I just got back—my colleague and I were just in Saudi Arabia until two days ago for our first trip over there.… It truly feels like a historic moment there, where there are significant changes coming to the film and tv and cultural landscape. So I'll start by asking each of you, "What is unique to Saudi filmmaking?"

Mohammed Al-Salman, director: In Saudi Arabia we have untold stories, and our own culture and myths that we can transform into this film form. And also because we have, in our [Arabic] language, kind of metaphors, so we can interpret these into films, with metaphors and surrealism. And lots of filmmakers that I know [also] have this distinguishing sarcastic tone in their films. When we have an issue or something in our culture, we make a joke about it—in writing or now in film.

Shahad Ameen, director: I feel that no matter how many things I try to write, I end up in some magical situation and fantastical one. And I always feel that it goes back to our language, because our language is very metaphorical. And it has vision. If you read an Arabic poem, you’re seeing pictures.

Andy Tennant, director: It’s important to learn from the audience, and I think it’s going to be interesting for [Saudi] filmmakers to actually hear what the response is…. You don’t necessarily give the audience what they want, you give them what you’re feeling.

Mohammed Al-Bashir, screenwriter: There are stories in Saudi that haven’t been even touched before…. We are used to the oral world and oral storytelling. So introducing this image and way of expressing ideas and emotions, and myths and legends, is very exciting for us as modern storytellers.

Welsh: I’m curious about the different regions in Saudi Arabia and how they might influence filmmaking. Are there particular storytelling traditions in those regions that show up in your work or that you think we can expect to see from other Saudi filmmakers?

Ameen: There are diverse voices, and that’s kind of wonderful…. Cinema does not stand on one person solely, or one genre solely.

Al-Salman: I think there are diverse filmmakers…. There are comedy films and realism, and also this surreal and also the sarcastic tone that I talked about. I’m not sure if the region would have this effect.

Welsh: There’s sometimes a perception that Saudi film is starting today, but that’s clearly not the case.

Abdul Rahman Sandukshi, director: At the beginning, when we were starting the experience of filmmaking, we were very excited, and we wanted the first movie to be the best and perfect…. [I worked on a film about] Alzheimer’s that took one and a half years. People would say, “Wow, you took too much time on this movie.” But I wanted it to be perfect. Then, I learned stories really don’t end. There are millions and trillions of stories. You can find a story anywhere. By the door you can find a story. Stories are everywhere. So just finish that [film]…. That I learned the hard way. Just finish the movie and start with the next one.

Al-Bashir: It all started as a personal effort [for me]. I mean, names like Haifaa al-Mansour, Bader Alhomoud, Abdullah al-Eyaf and Ahed Kamel. Those are names that are big now in Saudi film, but they started with their personal efforts and then going to film festivals and winning awards. But all of that was very independent by their own choice and their own funds and support Now there is a more organized kind of approach.

(Question from audience:) Do you see this as a way to change the perceptions of Saudi Arabia?Al-Salman: Sure.… We need to form and tell our stories by our own.

Ameen: I believe film is an emotional experience, and we can’t humanize people [if] we don’t see their emotions. So seeing work that’s coming out of real stories, real emotions from our point of view, an Arab story, I think will just bring us closer because it’s going to humanize us more, and you realize at the end of the day after watching these films you’ll say, “We all feel the same things, and we’re all just humans.”

Mohammed Al-Faraj, director: I see what is happening here as a plant. And this plant is growing out and blossoming. And hopefully it’s going to be fruitful for everyone.

<![CDATA[First Look: The Shining Jewel]]> urn:uuid:d0e34a69-2df2-44c1-959e-2e50e4e95d1a 2018-06-05T11:43:50.000+00:00 2018-07-11T15:30:15.307+00:00 ]]> ]]> As an architect and a photographer, I wrestle constantly with how to expand on the notion of seeing things from all angles. Often an angle least considered is the bird’s-eye view—straight down. This came to mind when I thought about photographing the Kung Abdullah Sports City Stadium, designed by Arup and inaugurated May 1, 2014. Located on the north side of Jiddah, along Saudi Arabia’s west coast, it is now the second-largest stadium in the country.

From about 500 meters, in the moments after sunset when the sky was fading into dusk, the interplay of light and dark brought out lines, spaces and patterns. Isosceles triangles and V-frames fused the stadium’s references to Islamic geometry with futurism, creating a faceted symmetry, ringed with parking lot lights like beads, that shows how the stadium has earned its nickname, "al-jawhara al-mosha’ya”—“the shining jewel.”
—Saleh Alhathloul
<![CDATA[Understanding Perspectives in Storytelling a Life]]> urn:uuid:28863aa2-bc47-4f86-a29b-69f23fdcfd32 2018-05-07T17:33:01.000+00:00 2018-05-11T13:56:17.156+00:00 ]]> ]]> For students: We hope this guide sharpens your reading skills and deepens your understanding.
Common Core Standards met in this lesson: RI9-10.1/RI9-10.2/RI9-10.3 (see details below).

—The Editors
—Julie Weiss

Iraq's First Archeologist

There are lots of ways to tell a story, even when its the story of someone's life. What part or parts of the life you tell will you focus on? How will you decide which are the most important events and details to include? At what point in the life will you start the telling, and at what point will will you end it? Reading "Iraq's First Archeologist" and completing these activities will give you opportunity to explore these questions while you learn about someone who played a key role in shaping the field of scholarship called Assyriology. By the time you finish, you will be able to:
  • Explain why a biography might include certain facts but not others.
  • Translate written text into a graphic organizer to help see more clearly a sequence of events.
  • Discuss how similar facts can be woven into different stories and what those stories might be like.
Life: A Sequence of Events

"Iraq's First Archeologist" tells the story of Hormuzd Rassam. It begins the telling in 1846, recounts his many activities and accomplishments and concludes with his passing in 1910. One way to grasp the story of Rassam's life is to make a visual image that will help you see what took place and in what order. To that end, make a horizontal timeline of Rassam's life as it is recounted in the article. Above the line, write where Rassam was and what he was doing. Beneath the line, write what he discovered and why it was important. One way to make sure you have enough space to include all the information is to make the timeline a class project made on butcher paper that you unroll across a wall of the classroom.

Once you've placed all the key dates and activities where they belong and included the significance of each, step back. Sometimes it is possible to identify specific periods within a person's life. For example, you may be able to think of your own life as defined by which school you attended during given periods of time or by where you lived. You probably hear people who are older say things like, "these are the years I went to college," "this is when I worked for this company," or "this is when my children were young." Look at Hormuzd Rassam's life across the timeline. What distinct periods can you identify? Find a way to show the time periods on your timeline. Label them.
Different Ways to Tell a Story

Now that's you have received an overall picture of Rassam's life, let's take a deeper look at how writer Jane Waldron Grutz narrates the story of Rassam. Remember, although there are indisputable facts about Rassam's life, Grutz made a series of decisions about which ones to include and how to piece them together in order to tell the story. First, you might have been surprises to notice that she does not begin the story until Rassam is 19. Maybe you thought that a biography was obligated to tell a person's life from birth to death, but that's not necessarily the case. Discuss with a classmate why Grutz might have decided to skip the first 18 years of her subject's life. Hint: Look at your timeline to see the types of activities that the article includes. Then take note of the kinds of events and actions Grutz excludes. Based on what is there and what is missing, what would you say is the focus of this biography of Rassam.
Different Stories to Tell

How else might Grutz have told Rassam's life story? If Rassam had been a religious figure, she might have focused on his spiritual experiences. If he had been female, she might have included more about children. The title of the article, "Iraq's First Archeologist," lets you know that the article is a biography. But you have seen that it also includes information about archeological discoveries. Imagine a different article, one that might be called "The Origins of Assyriology." With a partner, study  the Rassam timeline and write what could serve as an introduction to that other article about Assyriology. What would you include from Rassam's life? What might you not include in the new article? What questions might you have about additional information you might need to add?

As a class discuss the fact that there are many different ways to approach a story. Is one way right and the other wrong? In the case of Hormuzd Rassam and Assyriology, would one way of telling the story be more accurate than the other? While point-of-view can change and different information be included or excluded, what must remain unchanged in any story of a person's life or any historical event?

Common Core Standards met in this lesson:

<![CDATA[Walking, Meaning and Identity]]> urn:uuid:dd110c5c-801f-4beb-b481-8c80fb9d219d 2018-05-07T14:44:14.000+00:00 2018-05-11T13:57:27.608+00:00 ]]> ]]> For students: We hope this guide sharpens your reading skills and deepens your understanding.

—The Editors
—Julie Weiss

Hike Palestine

  • Evaluate the assertion that walking contributes to identity among Palestinians.
Your Own Walking Habits

Walking in Palestine: Meanings, Obstacles and Identity

If You Build It, Will They Come?

Walking in Your World: Applying What You've Learned

Common Core Standards met in this lesson:

<![CDATA[Iraq's First Archeologist]]> urn:uuid:250585ab-1fe7-4398-8d80-9c33a3f4df40 2018-05-03T13:46:49.000+00:00 2018-05-03T20:40:58.167+00:00 ]]> ]]>

December 20, 1853, Rassam gathered his men.

<![CDATA[Flavors: Chicken Dahiwala]]> urn:uuid:04de51fd-93d9-4052-9101-3ca035f97f66 2018-05-02T15:48:43.000+00:00 2018-05-04T18:19:41.111+00:00 ]]> 's origin is northern Indian, but many mothers across India make this dish with their own spin.  This recipe comes from my home; my mother used to make it for us during the hot days of summer.]]> ]]>

Sprinkle with the chopped cilantro, and serve.

<![CDATA[I Witness History: I, Down the Drain]]> urn:uuid:338dcf3a-2dfc-4692-ab55-6747a7b195ce 2018-05-02T12:11:12.000+00:00 2018-05-03T20:45:51.023+00:00 ]]> ]]>

Arabian by birth, Indian by design and Roman by trade, I know more than most about the hardships of living in your human world. Toppled obelisks and exploding temples have nothing on me, for I had a white-knuckled tour of duty on the hand of a Roman imperial soldier. I would prefer a view of the Aegean Sea or the Nile Valley any day to watching men die a mere sword-length away.

I am, after all, a gemstone of red jasper from the Arabian Peninsula, something prized among your spiritualists as a healer and bringer of peace. I therefore made no complaint when someone carried me off to a workshop and into my mineral flesh carved a picture—quite a pretty one. I bore the intaglio image of a distinctive parrot perched on a leafy branch. Borrowing the Latin of theserviceman who later owned me, the winged creature is nowadays known as Psittacus torquatus, an alluring green squawker with a bright red neckband, a hooked beak and a long, plumed tail that curves jauntily upward. These exotic birds hailed from north India, but merchants hauled them west in fancy cages to eager buyers in the Levant and across the Mediterranean. One of them appears in a mosaic from the Pergamon acropolis in modern-day Turkey. Prized as companions, these parrots can be trained to chatter in many of your human languages. According to Pliny the Elder, patriotic Roman citizens taught them to screech “Ave Caesar,” but he added that these birds tended to fall forward onto their heavy beaks. For such creatures, Roman poets wrote elegies.

With such an image emblazoned across me, I guess it is no wonder that I can speak to you so well. My next adventure was to be trimmed around my edges, into an oval that measures about 14 millimeters wide. I was then set into a sturdy iron finger ring, where I became a personal signet. But about all who possessed me, I cannot tell. You see, a signet must pledge loyalty to its latest owner, forswearing all before. I still faithfully serve the Roman warrior who acquired me last, and none before him. He was a typical man of his times, muscled and mouthy. Against my nature, I occasionally had to punch those who angered him, leaving a little parakeet bruised into the offender’s jaw. Sometimes I was swung too slow, and it was my bearer who toppled, ironically, onto his own heavy beak.

At his bidding, I journeyed to lands far from Arabia and India. He served his master as I served mine. Roman soldiers lived most of their adult lives in the legions, taking up posts along the vast frontiers of their empire. Many of them wore rings like me, each set with a small but impressive treasure carved from jasper, cornelian, nicolo, amethyst, plasma or quartz. Every gemstone bore a specially chosen image. Some types you would naturally expect as adornments of fighting men: imperial eagles, heroes, horsemen, weaponry, and fierce deities such as Mars. Other stones betray their abiding concern for safety and prosperity with depictions of cornucopiae, money bags and deities of health and fortune. I suppose my parrot meant something personal to my ring bearer, perhaps an homage to a lost pet. Then, too, my owner may simply have liked the exotica of the East and the sense I conveyed of the wondrous world he watched over. To each his own.

Eventually, my bearer and I traveled about as far west as we could go, all the way to the frost-fringe of the known world, a region now called Wales. There he soldiered with me until the fateful day we parted company, the day my life went down the drain. I mean that literally, for I spent nearly 2,000 years clogging a drainpipe that emptied the baths of Rome’s Second Legion Augusta (ii Augusta) in the province of Britannia. Yes, I was lodged in that filthy prison by the swirling bathwater of thousands of soldiers and their dependents, the compatriots of my erstwhile ringbearer. I was hardly alone there, and I shared this unpleasant fate with many other inmates, including the soggy carcasses of frogs, rats, cows, sheep, pigs, fish, ducks, geese and other fowl things. Mostly there were table scraps dropped by bathers. I lay surrounded, too, by shattered glass, broken pots, nails, and a collection of human teeth. If you have ever felt revolted by the sight of a giant clog, imagine me, living in one, for centuries. I would have given the entire orbis terrarum to see the bright skies of Arabia again. It was all dark, damp and deeply depressing.

My long nightmare took place specifically in the central drain underneath the main building of the military base at Isca, now called Caerleon, or “Fort of the legions” in Welsh. The Romans built the original camp on virgin soil during the reign of first-century-ce Emperor Vespasian—“Ave Caesar,” as the parrots might say. Isca became the home of ii Augusta, which had previously served in Hispania and Germania. You might remember Vespasian for his engineering miracle, the Amphitheatrum Flavium, now known simply as the Colosseum. But baths, which the Romans called thermae, like those at Isca, reflect the true zeal of Rome. Why conquer the world if you cannot keep it clean? The industrious Romans constructed public baths wherever they soldiered and settled—a legacy passed down for centuries in the Levant. In fact, it was around the turn of the 10th century that Hilal al-Sabi’ reported that the Abbasids had out-built even the Romans by constructing some 60,000 bathhouses in Baghdad alone.

Nothing so grand took place at Isca. In 75 ce the local Silurian tribe watched from their thatched huts as soldiers in the thousands erected for themselves a little Rome away from home. The provincial governor happened to be a general named Sextus Frontinus, an expert on water supply and the author of a book about aqueducts. Like the servicemen of every caesar, men like Frontinus were the busy builder ants of the Roman Empire. They fabricated the finest roads, aqueducts, bridges, amphitheaters, basilicas and—yes—baths. As Isca’s largest structure, the massive thermae aimed as much to impress the Silurians as to improve the lives of the legionnaires.

I know I should not blame the boys of ii Augusta for building the baths that became my prison; they meant well, all 5,000 of them and their families. The latter, of course, were something new by the time I reached Isca. Until the reign of Emperor Septimius Severus, Roman soldiers had to stay bachelors until their discharge after an enlistment of about 25 years. Once the Romans started building permanent garrisons like Isca, soldiers gradually became less mobile, making it possible to marry and more or less settle down. Legionary fortresses, like the three built in Britannia, slowly became cities as their bustling canabae (civilian suburbs) expanded around the original military camp. These areas included family housing, shops, taverns, temples, private clubs and so on.

Why enlist for such a long life in the legions? Well, besides a regular bath at the thermae, you got job training, medical care and money. I remember the smile on the face of my ringbearer, early in the third century ce when Severus’ son, Emperor Caracalla, announced a salary increase of about 50 percent. Not shabby at all, but then his smile dimmed with the news that Caracalla also debased the currency at the same time: Give a gift but take some back, I learned, was something of an imperial motto. The government was trying to stretch its silver while also keeping the legions happy. Times were tough with wars up north in Caledonia, now Scotland—where Severus died—and there were problems along the Danube frontier and big trouble brewing in Syria. Quite a few lads in the ii Augusta had to be temporarily redeployed to these hotspots. Their departures, called vexillationes, left the ranks awfully thin at Isca.

It was about this time that I slipped from my soldier’s hand and, worse, slid down the main drain beneath the baths. How sad I was to see those familiar surroundings gurgle out of sight above me! I remember fondly the palaestra, that colonnaded exercise yard and, in case of poor weather, the basilica, the vast indoor training facility; the natatio, or outdoor exercise pool, stretched alongside the baths holding 365,000 liters of water. Attached to the natatio used to be a beautiful nymphaeum, a fountain-house that cascaded a continuous supply of fresh, clean water into the pool below.

The baths themselves constituted a soaring edifice of brick and concrete faced with dressed stone. Tall glass windows towered overhead, framed by gaily painted walls beneath an amazing triple cross-vaulted ceiling accenting the thermae’s three main chambers. Mosaics decorated the waterproofed interior like an art gallery. Even though the Usk flowed nearby, bathers did not rely on river-water. Such a source could too easily be fouled, so spring-water was drawn down from the hills about eight kilometers away. That explains the coal-dust that afflicted me in the drainpipe, brought there as tiny traces from the coalfields located near the spring.

My memory, you see, is still keen, and at times it was all I had to keep my spirits up. So many times did I observe firsthand the rituals of my bearer and his countrymen bathing. After a bracing round of exercise, or simply to relax in the afternoon, they entered the baths and undressed in the heated apodyterium. There, bath attendants guarded (not always diligently, I heard) everybody’s clothes and other personal belongings. The first of three bathing rooms was the frigidarium because, obviously enough, it featured cold water.

The patron could take a dip in a cold plunge bath and perhaps oil down, scrape away dirt, dead skin and sweat along with a splash of the facility’s perfumed body oils. All of this slurry drained into the main pipe, either through subsidiary lines in the basins or through a large grate in the center of the room. Next, our bathers circulated into the tepidarium, which featured warm water and, finally, the caldarium, which was the hot room. The floors of these two chambers were raised on piers so that furnaces could deliver heat underneath them. This ingenious hypocaust created a steam system and fueled hot bathing pools. Hollow channels in the walls funneled this warmth upward, and in the bitter winters of Britannia, this felt like a miracle to the patrons. Thoroughly refreshed, the patrons wandered back through the building to the apodyterium to retrieve belongings, get dressed and leave.

Mind you, from what I observed, all of this activity at Isca sounded just as loud, and smelled just as strongly, as anything in the more famous imperial baths in Rome itself. If you haven’t had the pleasure, unroll a copy of Seneca’s epistles, and read for yourself. He describes the bellowing and grunting of the patrons, some of them wheezing while trying to lift weights, others crooning as if in love with their own voices, and arguments as hot as the caldarium when they came to discussing sports. You’re deafened by the slapping of expert hands during a massage. Oblivious blokes sing in the tubs or thrash around in the plunge baths, carelessly dousing water on everyone. Professional depilators make grown men cry as they pluck unwanted hairs from armpits and other places. Food vendors stroll the rooms, hawking sausages, cakes and other delights, some snacks, some whole repasts. Their aromas mingle with sweat and filth for a memorable experience. Imagine gym class, lunch and bathtime all rolled into one.

The by-products of this recreational activity usually got swept in my direction. Lead drainpipes linked together all the plunge-baths, tubs and pools of the entire complex, so whatever hit the floor or dropped into the basins would end up where I finally did. In the old days, that journey started in a brick-lined underground channel 60 centimeters wide and 70 centimeters high, sloped with a precise downward gradient. It ran below the building and, some 12 meters beyond the baths, made a sharp left turn in order to travel alongside, rather than beneath, the outdoor exercise pool. That abrupt bend was a mistake, for it disrupted the flow of water. Within a quarter-century the main drain became so congested that drastic measures had to be taken.

During the reign of Emperor Trajan in the second century ce, soldiers remodeled the thermae. They raised all its flooring, unroofed the drain and called on engineers and artifices plumbarii—you call them plumbers—to assess the problems. Their solution was to lay down over the debris a new base of stones and to heighten its walls—in essence building a larger drain on top of the older, clogged one. This new channel was 1.3 meters high, with gentler turns to improve the flow of water. For a while, it drained with the best of the empire’s conduits. Yet, a century later, there I got stuck, by then beyond the reach of even the finest artifex plumbarius in the land.
Like cellmates in the dark, those of us incarcerated in the clogged drainpipe shared miseries in whispers. Beneath me, in the older layer of trash, we heard muffled cries from the detritus of Isca’s beginnings. Those old-timers formed a distinctive group washed down when the aboveground bathers consumed only light snacks, mostly mutton chops, chicken legs, shellfish, eggs and pork ribs. The later legions acquired a taste for heartier fare, and we saw how they filled the upper part of the drainage channel with bones from bigger cuts of meat. In my day, bathers devoured whole meals while relaxing. I’d like to believe that the occasional rodent and frog that came down to join us had been an intruder dispatched in the baths, not something on the menu. I was never quite sure.

With more substantial foods came more dishware, poking us with shards of bowls, plates and drinking cups. Since the meals had been prepared off-site, I was at least spared the company of cook-pots and frying pans. Nothing was free, so patrons brought money to pay for these meals and some of that, too, trickled down to me. Not that I could use it. The oldest coin I ever saw was already more than 360 years old when it rolled down: a silver denarius from the Roman Republic, and probably some unlucky soldier’s lucky talisman. Plenty of games were played in the baths, so along with wagers, a few dice and game pieces came my way too, either through carelessness or tantrums.

Women and children were there too, always in time-slots separate from the men. Bits of jewelry and numerous lost hairpins tell their tales, the latter a losing effort to keep elaborate coiffures high and dry in the baths. Even though I remember their shrieks and laughs, I can prove to you the presence of kids by their jaw-droppings. I met a handful of human teeth over the years, and some of them were milk-teeth. I’m guessing the older, decayed molars down here were pulled by a barber/dentist, since among Romans the same guy did both jobs.

I, of course, was never the only gemstone in the clog—hardly. Our roll call eventually included 87 others: 32 in the older channel below and 55 up in the newer drain with me. Every time one of my fellow gemstones took the plunge and joined the clog, we could hear its desperate owner wail after it, with one eye squinting through the drain cover at the hopeless situation down below. I doubt they regretted the cost of the stone as much as its sentimental value.

That was the dilemma, you see. Patrons never liked to leave their talismans in the apodyterium, where they might be stolen. Besides, the soldiers needed their rings to protect them from evil forces that allegedly grew more potent when men were without their armors, leathers and weapons. Of course, gamblers among the lot simply had to wear their good-luck charms. These concerns convinced most Roman bathers to accept the well-known risks of losing gemstones in the thermae. Set into iron rings using bitumen or resin, the steamy, wet conditions easily loosed stones from their mounts, sending them slipping off down the drain and into the sludge that was my millennial home.

You might say that it was an artifex plumbarius of sorts who finally rescued me
in 1979. By then, the plumber had a new title—archeologist. A non-Roman, his name was David Zienkiewicz. The ii Augusta, and with it the empire it protected, were long gone when I emerged from the drain. Liberated at last from my prison, I enjoyed—with no loss of irony—what I had craved for centuries: a nice long bath. I and the other leavings of the lads and ladies have since found a refreshing, dry, well-lit home in the National Roman Legion Museum at Caerleon. Of all the engraved gemstones to gaze upon in these fine new barracks, I am surely the most impressive. After all, you might expect to see gods and goddesses, horses and chariots, soldiers and weapons. But I am the epitome of the Pax Romana that allowed a stone from Arabia to capture a charming little chatterbox from India and bring it to Wales perched on a Roman’s finger. Think about that the next time you sink into a nice warm, civilized bath.

<![CDATA[FirstLook: Inside/Outside]]> urn:uuid:3ddec3cd-e517-430c-b164-fe7c579a2ca3 2018-05-01T16:31:30.000+00:00 2018-05-14T14:28:35.366+00:00 ]]> ]]>

—Tuba Koymen

<![CDATA[The Ottoman Carpets of Transylvania]]> urn:uuid:e37eaa0e-a87d-4f18-b859-b01a06818aa3 2018-05-01T14:00:05.000+00:00 2018-05-14T14:30:06.816+00:00 ]]> Some of the finest carpets ever made came from Ottoman workshops in western Anatolia between the 16th and 19th centuries. One of the best collections of them can be found displayed and stored among more than a dozen churches in Transylvania.

How these carpets arrived in Transylvania not long after they were woven, and how they remain there today, is a story of pluck and perseverance. Recognized by the world’s top connoisseurs and collectors, these carpets have only lately been given their due, and they have animated discussion about the interplay of endangered property, ethnic pride and the ownership of cultural patrimony.

Inhabited in antiquity by Dacians, the region had long been a prize contested by outsiders. Romans, Hungarians and Turks were the most powerful players, even if often from a remove. Romans left behind their Latin-based language, Hungarian kings sent their princes to rule in their stead, and the Turks collected tribute for protection and nearly complete internal autonomy. German Saxons from the southern Low Countries and Rhineland arrived in the 12th century at Hungarian invitation as a population buffer against inruding tribes from the east.

Instead of serving as Hungary’s buffer, however, Transylvania ended up a few centuries later serving as an Ottoman vassal. A 16th-century miniature captures the relationship as Hungarian King John ii Sigismund Zápolya kneels in fealty before Ottoman Sultan Suleiman (the Magnificent) in 1556. This would have been the heyday of Transylvanian Turkophilia, as reflected in the carpet collections of today. Although the  demand for Ottoman carpets appears to have dampened by the early 18th century, when the Hapsburgs took control of the region and several Anatolian manufacturers closed, it endured through the early 19th century.

To its advantage, and despite its Carpathian fortifications, Transylvania sat astride a major east-west trade route, with many of its traders doing business with the region’s prosperous German Saxons in towns such as Sibiu, Sighişoara and Braşov. Luxury and other goods were exchanged under what was called “the right of staple,” which meant that passing merchants were obligated to offer all wares at fair prices in the town market.

Among the wares were carpets. A Braşov customs register from 1503 recorded that 500 carpets passed through the town in that year. While Western Europeans were accustomed to placing carpets under foot, Transylvanians often used their carpets to adorn walls—nowhere more than in churches, where they were also frequently placed on pew fronts. There was reason for this: The Reformation came to Transylvania in the late 16th century. Its reformers whitewashed or destroyed Catholic frescoes, some dating from the 14th century, while the new Lutheranism did away entirely with figurative images and icons inside its places of worship. In their places, for decoration, they hung Ottoman rugs, many of prayer niche or arabesque designs, including distinctive white-background designs known as Selendis, after the Anatolian village of their manufacture.

Indeed, as art historian Agnes Balint-Ziegler pointed out, Ottoman carpets were a means by which a church “was stripped of the everydayness and imbued with a sacred character.” In this essentially public setting, Ottoman carpets donated by artisan guilds became equivalent to corporate status symbols, and those given by patrician families became a similar “means of private posturing.”

English writer Emily Gerard, whose essay in Blackwood’s Magazine titled “Transylvanian Superstitions” inspired Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula, lived in Sibiu and Braşov in the early 1880s. Her book The Land beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures, and Fancies from Transylvania described Braşov’s mix of Germans, Romanians and Hungarians alongside “other figures red-fezzed, be-turbaned, or long-robed, which, giving the population a kaleidoscopic effect, makes us feel that we are next door to the East, and only a few steps removed from such things as camels, minarets, and harems.”

Bucharest’s National Museum captures well Romania’s multiethnic society at the time. There hang portraits of men with such titles as serdarul, or cavalry officer, a word derived from Persian via the Ottoman language; negustorul, or merchant, the name taken from Latin; and voievodul, or prince, this one from Old Church Slavonic. (For each, the Romanian suffix –ul, denotes a definite article, just as the name Dracula, from drac, means the devil.)

“In the church itself,” Gerard observed further, “hang some of the most exquisite Turkish carpets I have ever seen—such tender idyllic blue-green tints, such gloomy passionate reds, such pensive amber shades, as to render distracted with envy any amateur of antique fabrics.” Unfortunately, Gerald continued, these masterpieces were not “purchaseable for even the untold sums of heavy gold.”

Awestruck by the value and beauty of the carpets, Gerard wrote, some foreigners coveted them, yet their longings were in vain, for they were not for sale. “There was ein verrückter Engländer (a mad Englishman) here some years ago,” a churchwarden informed Gerard, “who would have given any price for the pale-blue one up yonder, and he remained here a whole month merely to be able to see it every day; but he had to go away empty handed at last, for these carpets are the property of the church, and not even the bishop himself has power to dispose of them.”

Not until 1898 were the rugs catalogued, and Romania’s 50-year period of communism further isolated them from scholars and enthusiasts. Only recently has an Italy-based Romanian independent scholar named Stefano Ionescu taken on the task of cataloguing, protecting, replicating as necessary and generally defending the carpets as one of Transylvania’s most beautiful artistic treasures, one that should stay in its historic place.

Braşov’s Black Church, believed to be the largest church between Vienna and Istanbul, is so called because of a fire in 1689 that burned many of the carpets in the nave. Those held in the sacristy survived, and it still holds almost half of the carpets still in Transylvania. Only some can be easily seen: The more valuable ones, including those brought from the town’s other parishes of St. Bartolomeu and Blumena, as well as those from the nearby fortified village churches of Prejmer, Sânpetru, Râşnov and Hărman, are stored away. Many, however, still hang throughout the church, giving its interior the appearance of a tactile patchwork of red and yellow pile threads against the austerity of its flat, white walls.

Ionescu, along with a Lutheran church administrator named Frank Ziegler and a handful of pastors in nearby towns, work as the carpets’ foremost champions. Ionescu calls the survival of these carpets a “fascinating intercultural phenomenon” and attributes their number to more than mere trade—not just in carpets, but also tenting, blankets, towels and fine clothing. (Local Hungarian nobles and urban Saxons, with Greeks and Bulgarians, were among the first Europeans to adopt articles of Eastern dress.)

Ionescu largely credits the religious tolerance of Transylvanians to explain the presence of the rugs’ frequent Islamic symbolism in a Christian setting, noting also the practical role that carpets play in everyday life—as a kind of bridge walked across, whether from one side of the room to another or from one culture to another. German Saxons certainly saw them in almost entirely secular, commodified terms—as prestige items—as painter Robert Wellmann showed in “The Adornment of a Saxon Bride,” an early 20th-century painting that shows, draped on a table beside a young woman being dressed, a Selendi “bird” carpet.

Similarly, it was not uncommon for 19th- and 20th-century Romanian painters to feature Ottoman carpets in their interior scenes. Nicolae Grant, whose English father was a diplomat and rug merchant, studied under the famous French orientalist painter Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris. Modernist Gheorghe Petraşcu painted Transylvanian rooms in the style of Henri Matisse’s Moroccan tableaux, strewn with patterned textiles and upholsteries.

Ziegler notes that for some time it was a Transylvanian tradition to honor visiting dignitaries with gifts of carpets from the municipal guilds. In the 17th century alone, an estimated 1,000 carpets were given away.

Among Ziegler’s favorites, is a Lotto—so called after Lorenzo Lotto, an Italian painter who favored this style in his paintings. “Red, with yellow branches, and a narrow border, it represents 100 percent our uninterrupted heritage here,” he says. “It was never bought or sold again once it was given to the church, possibly after a funeral when the casket of the donor’s relative rested on it at the altar, or maybe it had dressed the church for a wedding or baptism. In any case, it transmits the value of past generations to all of us living today.

“We are not as much interested in holding copies as we are in maintaining the originals. Each bit of missing pile or stain speaks of our story too,” Ziegler adds. Some carpets have donation inscriptions written on the borders in black ink, “so we know the names and dates of the carpet’s donor.” For example, an early-17th-century prayer rug given to the church in Sibiu is noted with the date 1720 and “D. Mays.” Still vividly hued, a late-17th-century double-niche carpet was given to the church in Ghimbav in 1706 by Hannes Merglers. And more.

Nineteenth-century English writer and poet Charles Boner traveled through the Carpathians and wrote of its various guildsmen—furriers, goldsmiths, cabinetmakers and others—sitting in St. Margaret’s Church in Mediaş, a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Braşov’s Black Church. There, he wrote, “oriental carpets hung upon a great number of the pews as a sort of arras,” and carpet fragments were used as seat covers and possibly wintertime lap rugs.

St. Margaret’s still holds the most exquisite of the collections, including four Holbeins and an Ottoman çintamani design marked by its tiger stripes: three dots and a squiggly line, lightheartedly translated into German as katzenpfoten (cat’s paw). The collection also comprises those with vogelkopf, a “bird-head” pattern, as the name implies. A replica carpet with an animal motif woven a few years ago in the Anatolian town of Konia, based on a 1930s photograph of a now-lost carpet, hangs next to a 16th-century Holbein fragment that first hung in a nearby church in Băgaciu; also there is a 17th-century, fully intact Lotto from Agârbiciu.

Such esteem goes a long way toward explaining why Teodor Tuduc, one of history’s greatest rug forgers (to the extent that carpet buyers often call any kind of fake “a Tuduc”), who worked in Braşov between the two world wars, chose to make and sell hundreds of fake Transylvanians before trying his hand at faking Persian, Caucasian and even Spanish carpets. As a result, there are still many unrecognized Tuducs in the market, and even some of those known for what they really are have become collector’s items in their own right.

According to Walter Denny, a professor of art history at the University of Massachusetts and a carpet consultant for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Tuduc’s fakes can tell us much about how the original carpets were valued and perceived at the time the forgeries were made. “He imposed a precision and symmetry on artistic traditions that today we know once valued more improvisation,” says Denny. Thus to an expert, Tuduc’s fakes are easy to spot precisely because they were too perfect in pattern. They “imposed an element of outline and linearity on traditions we now realize exploited color first and foremost.” In other words, he exaggerated the perfection of form and neglected to perfect his color palette.

An Ottoman fatwa dating from 1610 may help solve another mystery about Transylvanian carpets: Why are there among them so many “double-niche” carpets? These are carpets in the style of a traditional Islamic prayer rug, in which a pointed center field, designed after the Islamic mihrab that, in a mosque, points the direction of prayer. The double-niche carpets, however, show two points to the center field, as if the mihrab has two directions. This is no small question: According to a recent worldwide inventory, among 17th-century Ottoman carpets, 337 are double-niche designs, most in collections outside Turkey, and many in Transylvanian churches.

Ionescu believes there may be a connection between this and the 1610 edict by Ottoman Sultan Ahmad i that forbade the export of carpets with specifically religious patterns to Europe: By adding the mihrab’s mirror image on the opposite side, a carpet woven for export could not be considered—strictly speaking—a prayer rug.

At some point in Transylvania, one encounters Dracula. The northern town of Bistriţa figures in the first chapter of Bram Stoker’s novel. Protagonist Jonathan Harker heads there and, as he says in the novel’s opening, “The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East.” After spending a troubled night, “I did not sleep well though my bed was comfortable enough…. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika.”

It is odd indeed that Stoker, giving voice to Harker, should blame his insomnia on paprika. The Ottomans introduced the dried and powdered New World pepper spice to eastern Europe in the 16th century—just about the same time that the first Ottoman carpets arrived in Transylvania. From a purely culinary point of view, Harker might as easily have blamed other Romanian staple foods and beverages with names borrowed from the Turks—ciorbă, or soup; ceai, or tea; and covrig, a pretzel.

Bistriţa also provides its own tale, this a cautionary one on the nexus of community and patrimony, as told by Hans Dieter Krauss, the ebullient pastor of the town square’s grand gothic church. Pastor Krauss is trying hard to keep his flock intact despite its dwindling numbers in the latter years of the 20th century—first from the depredations of war, then communism and finally the call from the Federal Republic of Germany for ethnic Germans to return to the homeland. The 1910 census recorded 12,000 Germans in town, but that dropped to 5,000 in 1940, and by 1996 there were only 223 counted. (Since the fall of communism, some 1.5 million Germans have left Romania, leaving behind a national total of 36,000.)

Krauss, however, mourns more than the loss of community. In 1944, fearing the arrival of the Soviet Red Army, the town’s Saxons took 53 fine Ottoman carpets from the church for safekeeping in Germany, where they remain today in the Nuremberg Museum. Now he wants them back “because they are ours,” he says simply, “and they belong to their home parish.” He cites the principle of national patrimony as well as the basic property rights of Romania’s Lutheran Church and its Saxon culture.

Because Krauss stayed put when so many of his fellow ethnic Germans left, he feels a personal claim for their return. In the interim, Ionescu and others are arranging for authentic facsimiles to be made in the Sultanhanı weaving center and to donate to Bistriţa. Such work requires high-resolution photos and knot counts transferred to precise designs, and no fewer work hours as the originals. A red field-column carpet has already been donated to celebrate the church’s 500th anniversary.

Bruno Fröhlich is the senior pastor of the main German parish in Sighişoara, first recorded in 1298 as a Dominican church that later converted to Lutheranism. Among its 40 carpets is one with a donation inscription dated 1646. Pastor Fröhlich notes how in the 19th century the church took over from the guilds as the custodians of German patrimony, as industrialization displaced the highly skilled craft workers. As the laymen lost status, churchmen became the community’s symbolic representatives.

He muses about the carpets engaging in a kind of unspoken interfaith dialogue for the 21st century. “Romania is a meeting place of many faiths and ethnicities,” he says. “Go to Dobrogea [the Black Sea region], where prayer is called daily from minarets in Babadag, Constanţa, and Mangalia. And they are not just ethnic Turks and Tatars in mosques there. Many Arab students came to Romania during the Soviet period, and married and stayed on. Just as Braşov merchants controlled the Eastern trade routes, the physical distance—or should I say proximity?—has not changed in today’s times.”

Despite the ethical and moral rights of custodianship, others question the degree to which small churches are able to care properly for carpets that now carry so much value. Light and heat are damaging; there is a risk of theft. The fortified church of Biertan, a unesco World Heritage Site near Mediaş built high on a crag and for three centuries the bishop’s seat, has two Selendi white field carpets. Five years ago in a London auction, a similar carpet sold for over a third of a million dollars, despite a condition report indicating reweaves, repairs, repiling and uneven overall wear—nothing like the fine state of those in Biertan. Carpet thieves are not necessarily deterred by having to climb a crag.

In Sibiu, the Brukenthal National Museum displays carpets that have helped make Transylvania’s Ottoman legacy most famous. Ionescu lauds an early-17th-century prayer carpet there as the best-known example in the world: Its lobed mihrab and star-and-cartouche border, with a lamp motif in the spandrels, is modeled, he says, on the stained-glass design in Sinan the architect’s great 16th-century Mosque of Suleiman, a conclusion Sinan scholar Gülru Necipoğlu-Kafardar called “fascinating.”

Other pieces in the Brukenthal collection help close this story’s circle. A painting of St. Jerome by Lorenzo Lotto, whose painting of another saint, “The Alms of St. Anthony,” in Venice, gave his name to the most recognized design motif in all Anatolian carpets, hangs not far from a Lotto carpet originally from a nearby church. Just across the floor from this is a painting by the Romanian Theodore Aman, also born nearby, of an Orientalist room strewn with Ottoman rugs. Might his models have been some of the carpets now in the museum, once displayed in churches, one of them, perhaps, that very same Lotto?

<![CDATA[Hike Palestine]]> urn:uuid:b0198767-79dc-488d-9d9f-ab264699b3dc 2018-05-01T14:00:00.000+00:00 2018-05-08T18:36:15.115+00:00 ]]> ]]>

Earlier, on the opposite, eastern side of Jerusalem, I spent most of a day with the serene crunch of my own bootsteps on a dry trail that echoed down through the canyon of Wadi Qelt. Velvet heat rose in waves. At the end, the palm trees of Jericho appeared through salty lashes like beach umbrellas, stuck into liquid heat-haze on the floor of the desert in the distance below.

“Walking like this makes a new connection to Palestine. Your belonging becomes less poetic and more concrete,” says Rosann, a local college graduate.

Palestinians have always walked the land. But now walking is changing how many Palestinians feel about the land.

“The previous generation—I’m talking about the 1930s and 1940s—they were out there walking, especially Wadi Qelt in spring, when everywhere is filled with flowers,” says Ali Qleibo, professor of anthropology at Jerusalem’s Al-Quds University. “We see them in old pictures. This is part of the foundation of the Palestinian identity.”

But even earlier, when walking was a necessity for the lack of transport (other than four-legged varieties), Palestine still had a tradition of walking for pleasure. Qleibo mentions local writer Raja Shehadeh, who describes the concept of sarha in his 2007 book, Palestinian Walks:

The idea of walking for pleasure survived war and social dislocation. Shehadeh himself led walks in the hills around his home city of Ramallah in the 1980s and 1990s. But since the intensification of Israeli occupation two decades ago, checkpoints, road closures and other impediments have made it difficult for Palestinians to move around the West Bank.

Horizons shrank, says tourism entrepreneur George Rishmawi. Many people live their lives in and around their home neighborhoods. Walking in the countryside faded from view.

“There are generations that don’t know Palestine,” he says.

Beside the physical blocks, there’s also a mental one. Arabic has no word for “hiking.” Different dialects substitute their own circumlocutions, but Palestinian Arabic relies on sarha, which connotes a less purposeful kind of wandering, or shattha, which means an enjoyable outing, such as a picnic. Neither really fits, and an idea without a name is always hard to grasp.

Rishmawi was involved in the first of Palestine’s initiatives to reintroduce long-distance walking for pleasure. In the late 1990s, as part of the un-backed “Bethlehem 2000,” the Palestinian government sponsored the creation of the Nativity Trail. Developed by tour operators Alternative Tourism Group and Siraj Center, this trail forms a 160-kilometer walking route from Nazareth south to Bethlehem that roughly follows the journey taken by expectant parents Mary and Joseph before Jesus’s birth.

Rishmawi remembers the first thru-hike, in December 1999: “We arrived to Manger Square in Bethlehem with three camels, a donkey and a lady on the donkey who was pregnant [representing Mary, soon-to-be mother of Jesus].”

At that time Palestinian walkers didn’t really feature in the equation.

“The idea was to attract foreign tourists,” says tour operator and walking guide Mark Khano. At Khano’s invitation in 2000, two British explorers, Tony Howard and Di Taylor, walked the Nativity Trail and published a pioneering English-language guidebook.

“Palestine wanted products, and the Nativity Trail was one of the first ideas linked to mass-market tourism,” says Raed Saadeh, a leader in sustainable tourism development.

“This sort of ‘alternative pilgrimage’ attracted a lot of visitors who felt a link to Palestine. But tourism is a platform for identity. What we’d like to see is a trend toward connecting to the local community, rather than just a trend to walk.”

A sunny fall morning in Bethlehem sees municipal workers clearing leaves in Manger Square, the main public space. On the edge of a small group of fit-looking Europeans and Americans kitted out for hiking, two middle-aged Palestinian men are getting acquainted. Silver-stubbled Yusuf Salah, with a few belongings clutched in a plastic bag, says he’s done a bit of walking before, but never this route.

His new-found trail buddy, Hani Abu Taih, smiling under a straw hat, concurs.

“This will be my first time walking long-distance in the countryside,” Abu Taih says. “Twenty years I’ve been walking—one or two hours every morning, but just around my village near Nazareth, and always alone. I want to try walking with a group.”

Slightly removed by language and appearance from their fellow hikers—some of whom are tourists, some resident expatriates—the two pals psych themselves up for the day ahead walking the Masar Ibrahim, now the best known of Palestine’s long-distance hiking trails.

Masar is the Arabic word for path, and Ibrahim is Arabic for Abraham, the founder of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: The name translates into English as Abraham’s Path.

Unlike the region’s numerous and ancient pilgrimage routes, the Abraham Path is a modern creation, devised in 2006 by a group from Harvard Law School in the us headed by William Ury, a specialist in negotiation strategy. Ury’s idea was to help fuel cross-cultural understanding among the peoples of the Middle East—and bring transformational socio-economic benefits—through the power of the simple act of walking. As he puts it, walking creates space for people to envision fresh solutions to long-standing challenges.

Abraham is said to have walked with his family all across the Middle East from Ur, his place of birth (often identified with Ur in Iraq, but also linked with Urfa in southern Turkey), through Syria and Jordan to Palestine, where his tomb is honored today at a mosque in the city of Hebron. Further traditions place Abraham—known as al-Khalil (the Friend), for his embodiment of loyalty and hospitality—in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

There is no documented historical evidence for Abraham’s existence 4,000 years ago, or for the routes he might have followed. No pre-existing path links these places. All we have are stories. After listening to local people, however, researchers with Ury’s nonprofit Abraham Path Initiative (api) were able to begin mapping a constellation of traditions, folk memories, tales and legends that suffuse the multiethnic cultures of the Middle East. A trending line began to emerge, connoting linkages in a shared Abrahamic heritage. From that a physical walking route could be plotted.

For most of the last decade, api has painstakingly built local capacity along sections of that route through a loosely affiliated network of trekking scouts, community-outreach volunteers and partner organizations on the ground. Today, as api steps back from trail development toward a quieter role in funding, ownership of the route’s active sections has passed fully to local partners.

In Jordan, for example, guides, tourism professionals and community activists built on the Abraham Path’s early growth in one remote highland region to develop a full-blown national hiking project. The result was the Jordan Trail, launched in 2017 as 36 day-hikes that link together to form a six-week, 650-kilometer trekking route from one end of the country to the other.

Elsewhere, southern Turkey had 170 kilometers of Abraham Path trail open by 2012, though war in Syria cut further progress short. Specialists are currently working with api to explore trail development in Saudi Arabia. In Egypt, three Bedouin tribes, backed by ngos and local volunteers, in 2015 launched the 250-kilometer Sinai Trail, which links the Red Sea coast with the summit of Egypt’s highest peak, Mt. Katherina.

Support is shared: Partners of the Sinai Trail, beside the Jordan Trail Association, include Masar Ibrahim al Khalil, the Palestinian ngo that has developed api’s route in the West Bank.

That route begins at Rummana, at the northernmost limit of the West Bank near Jenin. It winds south, through the cities of Nablus, Jericho and Bethlehem, to end among the villages south of Hebron: 330 kilometers in total, divided into 21 day-hike stages. It deliberately zigzags, binding otherwise marginalized rural communities into what has become a national trail.

“Masar Ibrahim bypassed the old trails,” says Raed Saadeh. “It is a community endeavor, built in such a way as to induce community empowerment.”

It has also drawn substantial international funding: In 2014 the World Bank gave the project $2.3 million over four years. The French agency for international development, afd, provided €1.4 million ($1.7m) in 2016, and French ngos and private-sector bodies continue further support.

This has paid for trail development, waymarking, training for guides, ancillary support along the trail such as homestays and guest houses, a staff of 10 at offices near Bethlehem, and a subsidized public program of weekly walks. High-quality digital cartography by us trail developers David Landis and Anna Dintaman forms the basis of a detailed website. Local and online marketing gets the word out.

Such open access to the trail, however, means assessing success is difficult. Rishmawi, who serves as executive director of the Masar Ibrahim ngo, explains that by using data from partners, guides and guest-house owners, he can estimate that last year, 6,000 people walked on the path. Between a half and three-quarters of them were Palestinian—some individuals, but mainly organized groups that included students and youth associations.

Rishmawi speaks passionately about the value of creating new reasons for Palestinians to visit the countryside.

“We have such a beautiful country, but it’s not been utilized before for this kind of [local] tourism. This is an opportunity for people to reconcile their heritage,” he says.

One of Masar Ibrahim’s founding partners is the Rozana Association, set up to help overcome rural problems of economic disadvantage and loss of community. Headquartered in the pastoral university town of Birzeit, a tight tangle of cobbled lanes in the hills north of Ramallah, Rozana has facilitated architectural restoration in Birzeit itself, including converting an Ottoman mansion into a science center that draws school groups and establishing an annual cultural festival that now brings 35,000 visitors to this town of around 7,000 residents.

“The question was, how to strengthen this attractiveness? You need to have tourism demand, especially local,” says Saadeh, founder of Rozana.

“So, in 2008 we created the Sufi Trails. This is different from Masar Ibrahim, which is a long trail that zigzags from village to village. The Sufi Trails starts with a hub, then creates a cluster of routes to villages.”

The resulting web of generally unmarked footpaths connect to centuries-old monuments to Muslim mystics, known as Sufis. Many such sites dot the hills of the northern West Bank, and today they often stand half-forgotten.

“Walking helps protect this type of heritage,” Saadeh says, explaining that Rozana sources funding both for preservation of the buildings and conversion of the surrounding areas into small community parks. “They’re spiritual, sentimental places that tell stories. They become an attraction,” he says.

Rozana’s principle of clustering also avoids imposing a new system of external management by combining the abilities of pre-existing community organizations. In the highland village of Deir Ghassaneh, one of Rozana’s rural hubs, the head of the local women’s association, Insaf Shuoibi, speaks of the economic benefits that have accrued by joining forces with a neighboring village to work on their local trails.

“Five years ago it was mostly foreigners visiting, but now the word is spreading, so we have more Palestinians,” she says.

Another of Masar Ibrahim’s founding partners is nonprofit tour operator Siraj Center. For Siraj’s ebullient director Michel Awad, the last few years have seen an astonishing shift.

“People never thought of walking as a journey. It was just a way to get from point A to point B,” he says.

“Now they’re discovering hiking for pleasure. They’re beginning to understand the beauty of this land.”

Ramallah-based mountain guide Wael Haj runs Palterhal, a firm offering rural hikes and eco-retreats for companies.

“Managers used to organize corporate retreats indoors, in hotels, but now they’re asking us to take their staff out to small villages and into nature,” Haj says. “This makes a big change in how Palestinians see their own country.”

After chatting in Bethlehem’s morning sunshine, the hikers in the Masar Ibrahim group that includes Yusuf Salah and Hani Abu Taih take their first steps, down the steep streets leading out of Manger Square. Their route soon leaves the city behind, passing a spring in the hills before winding through a fertile valley to end almost five hours later in the village of Tuqu’.

There, householder and construction worker Salim Saba greets the walkers, bustling them through the narrow hallway of his house and out to a shaded rear balcony where glasses of cold juice and sweet tea await.

“The walk was better than I was expecting,” grins Abu Taih, looking across to the 2,000-year-old hilltop fortress Herodium just beyond Tuqu’.

“The guide, the company, the landscapes—what a great opportunity to share this path.”

As Saba shows the group into his dining room for a home-cooked lunch of chicken, rice and salad, he tells me: “I believe in this 100 percent. For economic reasons, it helps support my family, but I’m really enjoying it, meeting all these people.”

He shows me the guest rooms he has fitted out with help from the Masar Ibrahim ngo, which split its cost with him. The ngo will retain ownership for five years, after which the beds (and their neatly branded covers) become his. Then he takes me through to the half-built extra rooms he is adding to the house to accommodate the increasing numbers of walkers passing through.

The group’s Palestinian guide is George Giacaman. Wiry, pencil-thin in Lycra, he explains that he just came from leading a group of 35 Norwegians on an 11-day Nativity Trail trek, and that he is proud to be involved.

“The Masar Ibrahim is especially helping women in the villages, who work at home. They make food for people walking through, or products to sell,” he says.

This is a familiar model for sustainable development: Relatively small amounts of external funding spur creative input from local minds building trust and skills that help open new markets, bringing new consumers into direct contact with rural suppliers.

Dutch economist Stefan Szepesi was another of those who grasped the potential early on. He arrived in Palestine in 2006 to work on governmental projects with the European Union. But he had itchy feet.

“I first started walking out of curiosity. What was Palestine like beyond the confined view of a diplomatic car?” he writes.

Eventually, the walking took over. Szepesi switched jobs to become executive director of api to work with the Masar Ibrahim ngo and others. He also published a thick, full-color guidebook of walks around the West Bank.

But, as he readily acknowledges, English-language books have limited local readerships, and foreign tourism is simply not big enough in Palestine to deliver sustainable economic growth.

Enter social media: Over the past decade, it has brought walking into the Palestinian mainstream.

Outdoor enthusiasts have created dozens, maybe hundreds, of online and email groups where like-minded people can share information on routes and publicize excursions and weekend hikes.

Szepesi’s Facebook group “Walking Palestine” was one of the first, alongside others created by students in Ramallah, Nablus, and elsewhere. Szepesi has stepped back from active involvement, he says, but “Walking Palestine” continues with almost 5,000 members.

“Walking didn’t happen until it became formalized, thanks partly to the work of Stefan Szepesi,” says Ihab Jabari, director of the Holy Land Incoming Tour Operators’ Association.

“I’ve just done Wadi Qelt with my kids. This is so new for us as families. It gives you a sense of belonging again.”

Seeing shared images posted by local walkers out in the countryside, and hearing their first-hand accounts, has brought a fresh sense of scale, immediacy and possibility, says Walking Palestine’s current moderator, Simon Jaser.

“It’s the 35-to-55 demographic who are really into walking. These are professional people,” he says.

Sharing tea at one of Ramallah’s busy sidewalk cafés, Jaser tells me he has covered most of the West Bank on foot.

“First, I study Google Earth to find possible trails. Then I try to do experimental hikes on my own before I bring people out. Every Sunday I take a taxi somewhere and walk into the hills.”

Besides working part-time as a consular official, Jaser is a successful independent guide who also channels some of his profits back into rural communities; he also offers his services for free. Each weekend he advertises a walk via Walking Palestine, which can draw as many as 120 people.

One of his regulars is Issa Abu Dayeh, 74.

“Last Friday we were around 100 people, ladies and young men—I’m the only old one!” says Abu Dayeh.

“I love it: the wilderness, the trees, open nature. We pay very little, only around $10 to cover the bus.”

Jaser is clear about his motivation.

“I want Palestinians to walk throughout the land, and not just a kilometer or two outside their city,” he says.

“That’s my priority—to show people the vast open spaces.”

A striated wilderness of canyons and scree slopes reaches out near Rashayida village, southeast of Bethlehem. This patch of highland desert—a rarity for Palestine—leads out to cliffs that gaze east directly into a breathtaking sunrise over the Dead Sea. It’s gaining renown as a weekend getaway.

“Lots of people go onto my Facebook page asking about these landscapes. ‘Can we really go there?’ ‘Do we need a permit?’ ‘Is it safe?’ These are Palestinians from Hebron or Nablus: They have no idea such places even exist in Palestine,” says Farhan Ali Rashaydeh, a guide from the local Bedouin community.

“It’s only in the last couple of years that Palestinians have started coming. Now, month by month, you can count more and more of them. They are amazed by it all. ‘Oh wow, this is our country, this is a magic place.’ I see the relationship between these people and the land deepen while they’re here.”

The impact of online networking is being felt everywhere.

In Battir, Sabrina Zaben was out for a country walk with her partner, Ahmed Abu Haniya, and two children. “When I have a chance, I like to walk here. It’s easier than before, by following social media. There are lots of hiking groups online,” she explains.

“Social media lets people come together and plan something. It’s becoming much simpler,” says hiker Joudeh Abu Saad, resting outside Bethlehem with friends after a day’s walk.

Nearby, one of his companions pipes up: “We’re creating our own story. Facebook is the only way I could have found my way here.”

For tour operator Mark Khano, the last few years have seen a happy coming-together of influences.

“Masar Ibrahim began focused on foreign tourism, but inadvertently also started the ball rolling domestically,” he says. “Technology has lowered the barrier to entry for new players, creating new ways of mobilizing groups.”

For Ghaida Rahil, program manager at Masar Ibrahim, networking on Facebook led her to set up the Palestinian Women Hikers Club, a group of around 30 women who meet once a month to spend a day on the trail.

“We need to teach women to take care of themselves. Women don’t have the same chances as men to go outside, but why should we only see the people around us? No, we should go out and experience other places and other people,” she says.

This all makes the trails more than simple footpaths. The Masar Ibrahim, the Nativity Trail, the Sufi Trails and the informal path networks in Battir and elsewhere all exemplify a bottom-up, community-led model of both cultural and economic inclusivity. They become platforms for a form of national reconciliation, linking far-flung communities together in a shared experience of outdoors.

That sharing extends to the most deprived. On the edge of Jericho, the Masar Ibrahim diverts into Aqbat Jaber refugee camp, a low-income neighborhood where in 2014 the local women’s association converted a traditional mud-built kindergarten into a guest house.

“It was an idea from Masar Ibrahim, to let people passing through from Wadi Qelt stay here,” says association director Jamila Abul-Assal.

The ngo split conversion costs with the community, which now has a marketable resource: The Mud House is the only lodging of its type in Palestine, and it draws outsiders looking for experiences they can’t get anywhere else.

“We know more people, we have more relationships, life has changed a lot. Aqbat Jaber is now on a par with other communities because of Masar Ibrahim,” says Abul-Assal.

It’s a similar story at Rashayida, where Bedouin patriarch Mohammed Ali Rashaydeh, known as Abu Ismail, has carved out a business catering to walkers and weekenders seeking desert solitude.

“First, I made just one communal tent here, in a quiet place outside the village. But nobody knew about it. I had to go to Bethlehem to tell tour guides myself. By chance, I met George Rishmawi and brought him here.”

That meeting led to an offer of partnership with Masar Ibrahim. Under the ngo’s shared costs approach, Abu Ismail built a sleeping block and toilets, and he brought in beds and bedding. Now his tent is an overnight stop on the national trail.

“Life feels very different now,” he says with a hawk’s frown, and eyes to match.

“Even Palestinians are coming to experience nature and our Bedouin culture. Everyone working here is making money from tourism. I’m supporting my community. I’m very proud.”

After lunch in Tuqu’, Yusuf Salah returns home to Bethlehem, but Hani Abu Taih presses on, crossing the desert with Giacaman, his guide, and the group for a night of campfire conversation—and that amazing Dead Sea sunrise—with Abu Ismail.

As we stand by the tent flap after breakfast slurping a glass of hot, sweet tea, I ask Giacaman if he ever gets tired of walking.

“Never,” he says. “We are pioneers. We are opening up Palestine for Palestinian people.”

With a shout, he gathers his group, shoulders his pack, and hits the trail, destination Hebron, two days away.

<![CDATA[Evaluating Art as Visual Representations]]> urn:uuid:93305d25-a6ab-4f50-b43d-13cd231b8e1a 2018-04-17T14:43:37.000+00:00 2018-04-24T18:24:47.101+00:00 ]]> ]]> For students: We hope this guide sharpens your reading skills and deepens your understanding.
Common Core Standards met in this lesson: RL/RI.1, RL/RI.2, W1 (see details below).

—The Editors
—Julie Weiss

The Art Bridge

"Art brings people together," writes Lee Lawrence in the first paragraph of "The Art Bridge," just before asking whether it is true or not. The rest of the article presents four case studies of art projects that were funded as Building Bridges by New York-based Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for the express purpose of bringing people together. Although, as Lawrence asserts, it's difficult—maybe even impossible— to measure how well Building Bridges fulfilled its aim, it's still worth trying to figure out if it did. In the activities that follow, you will use the content of "The Art Bridge" to answer Lee Lawrence's initial question, "Does art bring people together," by:
  • Identifying different ways that art may bring people together.
  • Providing examples from the article of these different bridging methods.
  • Making a visual representation of art as a bridge.
The Metaphor of the Art Bridge: Starting and Ending Points

Begin by thinking about bridges. Go online and find some pictures of famous bridges, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, the Tower [of London] Bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, the Bosporus Bridge and so on. Choose one bridge and find out the following: What two places does the bridge connect? What does it cross in order to connect them? Share with others what you've learned about your specific bridge.

Now think about bridges as a metaphor. Remember that a metaphor is a figure of speech in that something represents or symbolizes something else. To talk about art as a bridge is an example of a metaphor. The Building Bridges program doesn't build actual bridges. Instead, building bridges is a metaphor. Based on what you found out about actual bridges, what do you think an art bridge might be a symbol for?

For the rest of this activity, make a visual representation of a bridge. You can make it on a wall or on the floor, using pieces of paper as symbols of the pieces of an actual bridge. Start by asking about the Art Bridge the same two questions you asked about the famous bridge you looked at before. First, what two places does the Art Bridge connect? To answer the question, read the article, "The Art Bridge." As you read, highlight or make a list of how different people explain where they assume people are starting—the origination point of the bridge. For example, people start with their own experience, such as their own music and their own kind of clothing; people also start with stereotypes about others. Share your starting points with others in the class; then have another student or two find a way to display the starting points as one end of your Art Bridge. Go through the same process with the end point—the place artists hope people will get to. For example, people learn about the experiences of others; people learn about unique, complicated people, and so on. Develop a way to display the far end of the bridge.

With both ends of the bridge in place, consider the second question: What does the bridge that connects both places need to cross? The famous bridge you looked at crossed a body of water. What does the Art Bridge cross instead of actual water? Identify the space between the start and the end of the bridge. Draw and label it. You might, for example, draw it as a body of water, but label it with what the water stands for.

The Art Bridge: What Is It Made of?

Now you've gotten a clear sense of what amps and photos can tell you about Khartoum. But maps and photos can only go so far. Alone, can they really help you know the heart of the place? How can a magazine article give a reader a real sense of what Khartoum is like?

Yes, the bridge is made of art; hence the name. But let's look more closely. How does art bring people together? The answers to that question form the pieces that make up your bridge. You can find the answers in different parts of the article. For example, some of the offset quotes (short sidebars) provide information from scholars. One of these is an explanation of "joint attention," which could be one of the pieces of the bridge. Your might write the following: "Joint attention—looking at and appreciating art with another person can make you feel more positive about that person." See if you can come up with at least five steps for your art bridge. For each step, provide at least one example from the article that shows that step in action.
Evaluating the Art Bridge: Does Art Bring People Together?

Look at someone else's art bridge. Think about where people start about the steps they take as they walk across the art bridge. Do those steps lead them to the other side? Do they bring them together? Talk this over with a partner or small group. Then, choose one of the following as a culminating activity:
  1. Write an essay with the thesis statement: Art brings (or does not bring) people together. Provide supporting evidence to convince a reader of your point of view.
  2. Create a work of art that shows either how art brings people together or how it fails to do so.

Common Core Standards met in this lesson:

<![CDATA[Constructing Maps from Texts Using Symbols to Represent Human Features]]> urn:uuid:feb2a82c-5d68-459d-90ce-3c74a0ae788a 2018-03-05T14:28:41.000+00:00 2018-04-24T19:04:11.203+00:00 ]]> ]]> For students: We hope this guide sharpens your reading skills and deepens your understanding.
Common Core Standards met in this lesson: RI.9-10.1, RI9-10.2, RH9-10.5 (see details below).

—The Editors
—Julie Weiss

To Know A Place: "Khartoum, A Tale of Two Rivers"

When you know a place well, how do you convey to others what it's really like? That's what writer Louis Werner and photographer David Degner did in their story about Khartoum. With words and images, they have created a profile of this complex city. In the activities that follow, you will learn about Khartoum by exploring what they say and show about the city. You'll also step back and examine how they chose to tell the story, how they constructed their rendering of the city. By the time you finish these activities, you will be able to:
  • Identify different parts of Khartoum, and the individuals and institutions that writer Louis Werner has chosen to represent them.
  • Create a map of Khartoum that shows what different parts of the city are like.
  • Analyze how writer Louis Werner conveys a sense Khartoum.
Using Maps and Photos to See a City

"Khartoum: A Tale of Two Rivers" presents a city using a variety of tools by the writer and photographer create a portrait of Khartoum. A map shows one view. What can you learn from it? Make a map for the class of Khartoum on  a large piece of butcher paper or several sheets of chart paper. Make sure the map is big enough to put information into different areas. For now, look at the maplabel its different elements. As a class, answer the question, "What does this map tell us about Khartoum?" Make a list of your answers and then use a different color to make hyptheses based on the map. For emple, you might hypothesize that since there separate parts of Khartoum, each with its own name, the three parts, at least in some noticeable ways, different from each other.

What about photos? What can they tell you about Khartoum? Photocopy or print out the photos that accompany the article. Put each photo in the area of the map where it belongs. According to its caption, for example, the Chinese locomotive is at the Khartoum Bahri train station, so put the photo in the Bahri section of your map. You can determine where to place the photos by using the captions and written text of the article to find out where each belong. When you're done, discuss as a class what the photos add to what you know of Khartoum based on the map.

How to Know a City

Let's see how Louis Werner did it. Follow the article as it "visits" eof the three cities-within-the-city of Khartoum. At each location gather the following information from the article and write it at that location.
  1. History: Write a phrase that summarizes the area's history, such as "the sof Ottoman leadership."
  2. The Institution: Make a sign for the institution (e.g., a university) that Werner chose to focus for each geographic area.  Below the sign, make a bulleted list of two or three key points about the institution.
  3. The Person/People: Put the names of the people in the photos you already placed in each area. Below the photos make another bulleted list to identify two or three important pieces of information about the people.
Divide the class into three groups, assigning each group one of the geographic areas to focus on. With your group, study everything you've posted on the map of your region of Khartoum. What central ideas emerge about your area? Put another way, what do you think the author is trying to tell you? Have a spokesperson for each grouop share with the rest of the class the theme his or her group identified. When you put all three groups together, what can you say about Khartoum?

As you've done these activities, you've been looking at two layers of meaning. The first layer is information about Khartoum: its history, its institutions, its people. The second is more about how a writer (or anyone, really) goes about telling others about a city. For this second layer, you observed how the writer, photographer and editors chose to create a story of Khartoum. What did they choose to focus on in order to give readers a deep sense of the city? Hint: Look at each step of the lesson that you just completed. Together, they create an outline of how to represent a city.

Follow Up

Try a similar exercise closer to home. Post a map of your town or a neighborhood within your city. Relying on the same criteria the article used, make a visual similar to what you did for Khartoum. Decide on your own what institution you would use to represent the area, and who would be someone whose life would show something about the place? What photos would you include, and why those? Share final projects with the rest of the class.

Common Core Standards met in this lesson:

W9-10.1 Analyze how a text uses structure to emphasize key points or advance an explanation or analysis.

<![CDATA[Flavors: Kushari]]> urn:uuid:7c8b6015-a777-4132-8f25-54baa99e75e7 2018-03-05T04:05:02.000+00:00 2018-03-06T21:36:35.242+00:00 ]]> Kushari is a simple, yet hearty vegetarian dish that is popular on the streets of Egypt. It is often considered poor man’s food because it is cheap and filling.]]> ]]>