82. Jericho, 2001 - Tanks and phones do not mix
In which Eleanor loses her phone.
Eleanor loses her phone in the desert. An Israeli tank finds it.
Eleanor
“We found your phone” Khalil says, handing it to me with a wide grin. I take it, and do a double take. Khalil laughs. It’s been crushed completely flat, everything smashed. Like something rolled over it. I look queryingly at Khalil. “My guess is one of the Israeli tanks rolled over it,” he shrugs nonchalantly.
Well it certainly looks like a tank has rolled over it.
“Well, rather my phone than me,” I shrug too. “Where did you find it?”
“Out where we were riding yesterday,” he gestures out beyond the paddock, towards the Jordan River. “Ronit and I went out this morning, as we heard the tanks last night, and we wanted to see what they’d done.”
“And?” I ask.
“Nothing much. Looks like they were just driving around in the desert. There are tank tracks everywhere.” This is the new routine—checking what happened overnight.
“Well, this is one to keep for a keepsake, isn’t it,” I laugh, tucking it into my bag.
I’m down at the stables in Jericho as usual. It’s become my refuge and my sanctuary these last few months. One can’t forget that the Intifada is waging, the stables are too quiet and devoid of people in comparison to their pre-Intifada bustle to forget that. But their tranquility and quiet is also something I’ve come to treasure and seek out more and more. Palestinians from Jericho can get to them, as they’re inside the checkpoint, but the Palestinians who used to come from Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem, and Hebron, they either can’t get out or can’t get in. More of the expats have started to come though, the stables providing a welcoming calm and sanctuary.
Khalil’s a former bodyguard of Arafat, and the stables are his dream child. He has built them from the ground up over the last four years, wrangling donations of prize Arabians from King Hussein of Jordan, using his contacts to get them across the border. The Israeli Olympic team has also donated some of their retired horses to the stables, so we have a mix of hot-blood Arabians and European warm-bloods. The stables are kept spotless. The two rings, outdoor and indoor, are raked meticulously every morning. Ronit has added other touches, planting flower boxes and adding comfortable seating under the eaves so that one can watch the work-outs in the outdoor ring from the comfort of seats and shade.
They’re an incongruous couple: one the former Israeli Olympian, the other a former bodyguard of Arafat, united by their love of horses. Since the start of the Intifada, Ronit has spent most nights with Khalil, rather than driving back and forth between Jerusalem. It’s been bitter-sweet to see the realization dawn in her: the gap between what Israel tells its people and the reality on the ground for Palestinians. It’s traumatizing her, this profound disillusionment between what she believed about Israel, and what she sees and experiences with her own eyes.
And for us both the checkpoints can be tricky. As I drove in today, I thought a soldier’s hand signal was “proceed,” and I approached the check-point slowly, only to find an Uzi quickly raised and pointed directly at my face through the windscreen, while the soldier frantically waved for me to stop. The soldiers are jittery, especially the younger ones. You can never be too careful.
Today I’m riding Leila, one of the warm-bloods. She reaches around with her head and gives my hands a soft nudge as I check the girth, blowing out through her nose. Her breath is soft and warm on my hands, her whiskers tickly. She has a playful, gentle spirit, even though she’s one of the more powerful horses in the stable. I take up the reins in my left hand, resting it on the pommel. I place my left foot in the stirrup, balancing for a moment on my right foot, and then in one practiced swing, stand up on my left leg, bringing my right leg over and down into the right stirrup. I settle into my seat, feeling the soft leather of the saddle, the muscular roundness of Leila between my legs. I take up the reins in both hands, and think walk. The tiny shift in my seat signals Leila to move forward.
The ring is quiet, with only the chitter of sparrows in eaves, and the soft thud of Leila’s hooves in the sand. Dust motes hover in the air. We move into a steady, even trot as we warm up. I rise and fall rhythmically, focusing on keeping my hands still and soft, letting Leila’s rising back push me up as I lightly touch it on each down-beat in the trot.
Ronit comes in after a bit, and our lesson starts. We’ve been working on half-passes and flying changes. Leila is an experienced dressage horse, so really it is she who is teaching me, not me her. She won’t let me give her sloppy instructions with my hands, legs, or seat. I focus on really feeling her, hands light, body relaxed, becoming one with her. It’s so different from rowing, yet also not, as two become one.
As I focus on me, Leila, and Ronit’s quiet coaching over the next two hours, I forget everything else for a while.
Ronit, Khalil, the stables: they are my island of sanity and love and hope.
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Bonus Material
The stables in Jericho: my sanity and sanctuary
Khalil and Ronit: a story shaped by their nation’s history and geography
Final Book Club Aug 9 with 2 Special Guests
Our last Book Club will be on August 9.
Two special guests will, hopefully, be joining us.
Tim Martin, who was the Canadian Representative at the same time I was there. Their office truly was located in the same building as ours, and they truly did help to get us out of Ramallah on that fateful day. He subsequently went on to chair the Kimberly Process to ban conflict diamonds; was Canada’s Ambassador to Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia; and was the last Representative of Canada in Kandahar. He is the author of Moral Hazards (based on his time in Somalia) and Unwinnable Peace, and a mentor to me as I work on book 2.
If her schedule permits, Lyse Doucet - now a veteran BBC war correspondent and BBC’s Chief International Correspondent - will also join us. Lyse is an Arabist, and has covered every conflict in the Middle East, and lived and worked in Pakistan and Afghanistan. If you’ve watched BCC, you’ve probably listened to her reporting from somewhere in the world. Hopefully we won’t have some world crisis in August that will have Lyse jetting off to another part of the world!
Both Lyse and Tim were part of Jerry’s “Sunday Walkers” group.