The Petersburg Romaines: STORIES OVER THE DINNER TABLES

Above are pictures of Workcamper Fadi and his family. Mom is the director of community relations for the local hospital and Fadi's dad is a chemistry teacher in the public school system. The food we had there was scrumptious! Always there is discussion over the meals of past and present. In this blog I will tell you a few of the stories we heard.

In 1948 in the coastal city of Jaffa, a young Palestinian man worked in the shipyard. When the Israelis invaded they warned the workers to leave or they would throw nets over them. Calling their bluff, the workers did not leave and nets were thrown. All were killed but a handful. The young man was one of the workers killed. His small son fled inward toward Nablus with his grandparents. Both grandparents died along the walk, leaving the 10 year old grandson to fend for himself. That young boy's name was IBRAHIM NAIROUZ.....Father Ibrahim's grandfather and namesake.

In the 1970s, Sami was throwing stones at the Israeli army. They started chasing him. Sami was faster because he had no weapons or gear, so he fled to the house of someone in town. They lady of the house pulled the refrigerator out from the wall, pushed Sami into the corner and them pushed the refrigerator back. The soldiers came to the door adamant that they saw Sami run into the house. They searched and didn't find him.....so Sami escaped a trip to prison.

Also in 1948, we heard a story from Workcamp Majd's grandfather. He was a young teenage boy at the time. When the Israeli army was headed toward Nablus, he was given a whistle and a yardstick and told to guard the border. He was instructed to blow the whistle to let those in town know they were coming. He laughs now at the idea of rebuffing the Israeli army with a whistle and a stick.

Sami was taken from his home for a 3 day stint in an Israeli prison once. They were made to sit on a "block" for three days....no standing, no moving, no laying down. The first two days they were given no food. The last day, they were given the scraps from the plates of the Israeli soldiers guarding them. At the end of three days, he was told to go home and given no reason for his imprisonment. When he applied for a visa to come to Workcamp, he was asked why he was imprisoned for those three days. His reply, "I was hoping you would be able to give me the reason!"

In 2002, Father Ibrahim was sitting on the family's small balcony having tea in Ramallah, when an Israeli sniper fired at him from a distance. The bullet bounced off the metal door frame and grazed his leg. Apparently they gunmen were just trying to pick off any Palestinians outside their homes that they could single out. The dent in the doorway still exists....I ran my hand across it.

The same happened to a young Muslim woman. We were told the story by her sister. The woman was working in her kitchen in 2002 and taking care of her young children. A sniper shot through the window and killed her in her own home.