{"id":3857,"date":"2015-03-10T07:51:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T05:51:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-01-08T19:58:20","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T17:58:20","slug":"epalestine-restoration-of-buildings-vs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/2015\/03\/epalestine-restoration-of-buildings-vs\/","title":{"rendered":"Restoration of Buildings vs Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arabic: http:\/\/bit.ly\/buildings-vs-memories-al-ayyam-Ar <\/a><\/p>\n

English: http:\/\/bit.ly\/buildings-vs-memories<\/a> <\/p>\n


\nRestoration of Buildings vs Memories<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Sam Bahour<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Home of Jamil Al Husseini, \u2018Ein Siniya, Palestine (Photo credit: DHIP)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I\u2019m almost embarrassed to admit it. I\u2019ve
\nlived in Palestine for 21 years and passed by the village of ‘Ein Siniya
\nhundreds of times, but can\u2019t recall ever actually visiting it, that is, until
\ntoday.<\/span><\/p>\n

‘Ein
\nSiniya<\/span><\/a> is a small Palestinian village
\nin the West Bank\u2019s Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, 10 kilometers north of
\nRamallah, northeast of Jifna, the village renowned for its apricots. It lies in
\na valley surrounded by olive and fig terraces. Its population has grown from
\n701 persons in 2007 to 885 today, a whopping 12% increase. It was the home of Faisal
\nHusseini, the legendary Palestinian leader who spent his life defending
\nPalestinian rights in Jerusalem. \u2018Ein Siniya is what one would call a sleepy,
\nlaid-back village, but today it came alive and I was there to witness this
\nrefreshing awakening.<\/span><\/p>\n

I arrived to ‘Ein Siniya driving behind
\na minibus from <\/span>The Danish House in Palestine<\/span><\/a>
\nthat was transporting people who were heading to the same venue that I was.
\nTurning off the main road into the village, we turned right and then took the
\nfirst left. The first thing I noticed is what one usually sees in all
\nPalestinian villages, a group of children. This group was a cheerful one of young
\ngirls seemingly excited at all the odd traffic crawling up their street. A few hundred
\nmeters up the hill, on the right, was the historic home that we were coming to
\nvisit, the home of Mr. Jamil Al Husseini.<\/span><\/p>\n

Standing in front of this huge, run-down
\nhome was actress Faten Khoury. She was oddly standing halfway in the street,
\nnot to be missed. She was frozen in a pose, staring at the long, stone
\nstaircase that hugged the backside of the building and led to the first floor
\nof this abandoned, eerie home. She held a suitcase in one hand and a white photo
\nalbum in the other. As we exited our cars and the bus unloaded, many stopped to
\ntalk to Faten, but she would not budge. She just stared up the staircase,
\nclearly leading us to where we were to go, without saying a word.<\/span><\/p>\n

Upstairs we entered through an old,
\ntraditional doorway, narrow and with a heavy steel door. We then walked across
\na sheet of metal flooring, placed on an old outside terrace that led to a large
\nroom. Along the way there were rooms to our right, the first had two young
\ngirls, in traditional costume, sitting on the floor kneeling bread dough. The
\nnext room had a young man, also in traditional dress, manually milling freshly
\npicked olives with a stone. At the end of the terrace walkway we entered a
\nlarger room, possibly what was once the family\u2019s living room.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Emilie Simonsen (Photo credit: Mohammed Abbas)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The room was full of people sitting on
\nthe ten or so rows of chairs. In the front of the room was a table, with a
\nforeign lady sitting alone. She had her headphones on and reverted back and
\nforth between diligently typing away on her laptop and putting on a pair of
\nwhite gloves, before picking up an artifact, pieces of a colorful broken ceramic
\ndish, which she used a small brush to meticulously brush the edges of the dish
\npieces off. We later learned this she was Ms. Emilie Simonsen, a Danish actress
\nvisiting Palestine, playing the role of a historic restoration expert.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we found our seats, more and more
\npeople flowed in, young and old. Emilie paid no attention to all the buzz in
\nthe room; she just kept doing her thing. Sitting behind me was a row of the
\nmost beautiful young girls from the village. The sat diligently waiting, trying
\nto understand who were all these strange people who all of the sudden arrived
\nout of nowhere. I asked them where they were from and what they were all
\nwaiting for? Without hesitation, one replied, \u201cWe are from here, ‘Ein Siniya,
\nand we await the skit, there is going to be a skit here. Where are you from?\u201d I
\nreplied, \u201cAl-Bireh, near Ramallah,\u201d thinking they would only know the larger
\ncity near mine. One of the girls, around 9 years old, answered, \u201cI know where
\nAl-Bireh is; it\u2019s where the Al-Bireh Secondary Girls School is located.\u201d I was
\nclearly not needed for these girls to navigate their geography.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not before long, there was only standing
\nroom left. Then entered an older, well-dressed man. He was ushered to sit in
\nthe first row. This was the owner of the house, Jamil Al Husseini. It was then
\nannounced that the show was about to begin. The room fell silent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Actress Faten hesitatingly entered the
\nroom, still holding her photo album as she placed her luggage to the side. She
\nthen spent the next ten minutes thrashing around the room, talking to herself,
\nreminiscing about days long gone. She recalled her father\u2019s descriptions of his
\nhome back in Palestine, this home. She walked through the rooms, shocked that,
\nalthough she never lived in this home, she felt like she knew every nook and
\ncranny\u2014the wooden window frames, the arched windows that separated the rooms,
\nthe porch, the now-broken vase sitting on Emilie\u2019s table waiting to be logged
\nin her laptop, the tiled floors, and so on. She spoke of the home as if she
\ncould see all its long-gone residents still there. Actually, as Faten
\nreminisced, a group of young actors and actresses from <\/span>Ashtar
\nTheater<\/span><\/a> were playing out the home\u2019s original
\nfamily members, as if they had come back to life. As Faten moved from one room
\nto another, she slammed a door, startling Emilie, the foreign actress.<\/span><\/p>\n

Emilie abruptly stopped bushing the
\nartifact in her hand, threw off her white gloves and removed her headphones to
\njump up and scold Faten for being in the house. Emilie explained that the house
\nwas very old and is being restored and no one was allowed in. Faten replied, in
\nvain, that this was her family\u2019s home and she could envision all the memories
\nas if they were alive. Emilie was unable to see this, being only privy to the
\nmaterial artifacts that she was brushing and logging into her laptop. As photos
\nof past times, when the home was full of life, were displayed on the stone wall
\nof the living room, Faten, frustrated with Emilie\u2019s inability to feel the
\nliving past of the home, summed up the stance: \u201cYou are only interested in the
\nrestoration of the buildings, not the memories.\u201d The audience was moved. I had
\na serious outbreak of goose bumps.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Emilie Simonsen (L), Ashtar team, Faten Khoury (R) (Photo Credit: Mohammed Abbas)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

A few minutes later, the skit ended. It
\ntook this talented team of actors and actresses merely twenty minutes to strike
\na deep chord in each of us. Lost homes, time passed, history maintained through
\noral storytelling, refugees coming home, today\u2019s material world seeking to
\nmerely see the stones and not the families who lived in the homes or what
\nhappened to them, or where they went, or how they died. In those short, twenty
\nminutes, a number of deep feelings that every Palestinian has was touched.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following the skit, the floor was open
\nfor discussion. The first to speak, remaining true to our culture, was the owner
\nof the home. He thanked everyone for coming and welcomed us to his home, a
\nheavy-on-the-heart welcome given the condition of the building, but an
\nexceedingly warm welcome taking into consideration that it was now filled, once
\nagain, by village boys and girls, adults, and everyone else, most importantly
\nJamil himself, the homeowner.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I spoke during the discussion
\nperiod, I challenged the young ones in the room. I told them I\u2019m going to write
\nthis article about the event and want them to send me their reflections so I
\ncan include them. Immediately after the event, the entire group of young girls
\nwho were sitting in the row behind me came up to me. One of the girls, Bisan, an
\nunquestionable future leader, garnered enough courage to speak to me on their
\nbehalf. With her red cheeks and beautiful smile, she said they wanted to ask
\nhow they can send me what they write. I gave them my business card and told
\nthem my email is listed. One of the girls asked if she can send hers to me on
\nFacebook, or Face<\/em>, as she called it. Another sign of the times. They
\nwere so excited, they made the rest of a normal day great.<\/span><\/p>\n

I barely got home that evening when I
\nfound this message from Bisan:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I am Bisan Jabr Ahmed, I was in \u2018Ein
\nSiniya theater and I\u2019m ten years old. I felt that this play expressed our
\nPalestinian heritage and took me back to the old days, how our parents used to
\nlive, while now everyone is busy with Face. How in the old times my parents and
\nI worked together in our home and how we cooperated and how we disagreed.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

She then asked me to let her know next
\ntime I come to ‘Ein Siniya. Bisan and her generation are thirsty to live, while
\nthe military occupation that keeps its boot on their necks make it hard for
\nthem to even breathe. <\/span><\/p>\n

Then a few hours later, I received this
\nmessage:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I am Sama\u2019a Khater. I\u2019m nine years old.
\nI loved the skit which was played in ‘Ein Siniya. Although it was short, it
\nexpressed the feelings of people in old days, and made me feel very sad.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea to bring Palestinian oral
\nhistories to life has been the passion and project of actress Faten Khoury for
\nyears. With the support of The Danish House in Palestine and many generous others,
\nshe was able to link with the professional Danish actress Emilie who works in
\nDenmark to revive history through theater. This skit was a pilot for a much larger
\nproject that Faten is working on, the creation of a Theatrical Museum of
\nOral History<\/em>. I support this project wholeheartedly and made it my firm\u2019s current
\ncorporate social responsibility project. Please help bring it to life if you
\ncan by visiting <\/span>here<\/a> and making a donation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bottom line, ‘Ein Siniya\u2019s population in
\nthe 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, was
\n114. Today in 2015, ‘Ein Siniya\u2019s population is 885 persons strong. Given every
\nact of the Israeli military occupation for the last five decades has been
\ndesigned to get Palestinians to leave Palestine, ‘Ein Siniya is a living testament
\nto our resilience and determination to not only remain on the land, but to grow
\ndespite all odds. I, for one, commit to redoubling my efforts to ensure that
\nBisan and her friends will all have a future worth living for.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sam
\nBahour is a Palestinian-American business consultant from Youngstown, Ohio
\nliving in Ramallah\/Al-Bireh in the West Bank. He is an Advisory Committee
\nmember of <\/span><\/em>The Danish House in Palestine<\/span><\/em><\/a> and co-author
\nof “<\/span><\/em>Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians”
\n(1994). He blogs at <\/em><\/span>www.ePalestine.com<\/span><\/em><\/a>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Arabic: http:\/\/bit.ly\/buildings-vs-memories-al-ayyam-Ar<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arabic: http:\/\/bit.ly\/buildings-vs-memories-al-ayyam-Ar  English: http:\/\/bit.ly\/buildings-vs-memories Restoration of Buildings vs Memories By Sam Bahour Home of Jamil Al Husseini, \u2018Ein Siniya, Palestine (Photo credit: DHIP) I\u2019m almost embarrassed to admit it. I\u2019ve lived in Palestine for 21 years and passed by the village of ‘Ein Siniya hundreds of times, but can\u2019t recall ever actually visiting it, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","iawp_total_views":3,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[942],"tags":[571,572,573,574,570,575,576,577,395,578,579],"ppma_author":[936],"class_list":["post-3857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sams-writings","tag-ashtar-theater","tag-buildings","tag-danish-house-in-palestine","tag-dhip","tag-ein-siniya","tag-faten-khoury","tag-husseini","tag-memories","tag-ramallah","tag-restoration","tag-village"],"authors":[{"term_id":936,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sambahour","display_name":"Sam Bahour","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bca109c333bf6d8ae807746dd512adde46265d37c923f6cd0fc4aab437f8e9aa?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9055,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions\/9055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}