lost and loster

A couple weeks ago, during my first visit to an UNRWA site, I took a Mumayaz (Distinguished) taxi instead of the good ol’ yellow ones. These unabashed Mumayaz taxis are supposed to be more plush, reliable, traceable, punctual and (consequently) expensive. To be honest, every time I’ve taken a Mumayaz taxi it hasn’t been because of its comfortable cushions or its stellar reputation. Thrift is my middle name, but when yellow cars are nowhere to be seen, silver becomes my next-favorite color.

But the car paint and driver proficiency have little to do with it. Twice now I’ve been dropped off at the wrong place. The first time, I was dropped off at the wrong UNRWA office. The one I was looking for was a mile or so away. I walked it.

The second time was yesterday. I was dropped off on the wrong mountain. You heard right — the wrong mountain.

“Here’s the girls’ school in Nuzha,” the cab driver said. “This is it, right?”

“Sure.” I said, as my mind worked hard to pronounce eureka.

I stepped out of the cab. Astonishing. Last year, there was trash littering the alleyway. This neat brown wall didn’t exist. The principal’s office was in a different spot. Renovations work wonders here, I told myself. Wishful thinking, Tamatim. (Needless to say, a healthful walk to a main street and a taxi drive later, I was immensely pleased to come upon the trash I recognized. Ah, the smell of familiarity!)

I told my aunt about yesterday’s blunder, and she exclaimed that her husband would have been so worried if he’d known. He doctors at one of the UNRWA camps so he may well know about the risks of ambling about.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a naive out-of-towner. Maybe that’s why I felt quite at ease. After all, it was broad daylight. I tend to walk purposefully when alone, like I’ve a meeting to catch, and I amply survey my surroundings. I’m dressed not unlike residents of the camp — in a abaya, albeit a relatively new one. And I overcompensate on my first visits to places so, on both occasions, I’ve arrived with time to spare.

This is new to me, it really is. Not the getting lost part — that’s definitely old. The not-panicking is new, and welcome.

I’m the girl who’s been chauffeured by mother, father, sister and brother her whole life. The girl who, taking a new route on her own, can’t remember if it was the 70 and 71 freeway, goes for one, discovers it’s the wrong one, freaks out, parallel parks in some shady neighborhood, calls people who don’t pick up, tries the notoriously useless GPS (or gypsy as my brother calls it), then finally uses elementary logic to create an “escape strategy” and sets out again. At the end of my expedition (alas not in a Ford of the same name), aA I do have a way of arriving at the right destination.

Maybe that’s a synecdoche for my life. I sure hope so.

fool’s gold

I didn’t do a lot of traditional learning today. Here are some gold nuggets (maybe fool’s gold) that I did manage to collect:

I learned (the hard way) that the 405 S that leads to Irvine, while the 405 N leads to the beach.

I learned that the air conditioning in the car is toxic after 3 (cumulative) hours of driving.

I learned that Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has personification in every other sentence. And can be slow going. Very slow going.

I learned that a (pseudo) surprise graduation party for you is fun. And that a graduation party for your friend is even more fun.

get out of the car

Baba recited a four-line poem in Arabic. Did I understand a word of it? No. Why? Because it was in a Libyan Bedouin dialect even he doesn’t speak. Did that stop my language-savvy Palestinian mother from decoding it? Absolutely not.

“Oh, it’s about someone shredding his papers after passing.” Well that certainly clears things up! Ten minutes and two parental explanations later, here’s what I found out:

In Libya (we’re talking some 30+ years ago, so this isn’t exactly dependable empirical evidence here), the conductors of driving tests would sometimes have some fun at your expense. For example, it’ll be your right of way and the guy’ll tell you to stop stop stop! If you stop, then that’s a mistake. And if you make one mistake, you’ve failed. No three-strikes out rule. So for those of us (who will go unnamed) who made every possible mistake without failing the test (including driving against traffic), we can thank our heavens that people like us are allowed to keep America’s streets safe.

So the poem was about a lil’ ole’ somebody’s frustration with the system: going through the queues, taking the test, making a mistake, giving the conductor a paper to have him write ‘Failed’ across the top, and stepping out of the car right then and there. (For worst results, repeat steps 1-5). The poet’s persona is so pissed, in fact, that, when he finally passes, he tears the paper to shreds. I would too. That, or I’d drive without a license. According to my brother, who’s been to Libya, everyone seems to be driving under some wacked out non-alcoholic influence anyway.