As part of one of my classes, we’ve been required to write a Personal Statement, something that could be used to apply to law school or graduate school in the future. We were encouraged to link together 2-3 stories that illustrate one of our strong qualities. I guess you’d call it the “golden thread” (thanks, Brother Skinner) that runs through a personal narrative.
I sat down to write. I thought about Jerusalem, and what could I write about that would make me appear charismatic or hardworking or independent or human. As soon as I started writing about Jerusalem’s Domari community Didi and I visited, however, I found that the assignment evolved into something very different. Read on, let me know if you like it. I’m thinking about writing a few short stories about my experiences abroad. Disclaimer: this is not my Personal Statement.
The taxi driver was inexplicably lost. When we’d approached the man at a produce market outside of Damascus Gate, he’d signaled that he’d understood my garbled murmors in Arabic and agreed to take my friend and me to the address scribbled on the back of a travel pamphlet. Now, as we zipped through the back allies of Jerusalem and zigzagged through midday traffic, my friend and I were not entirely sure the driver had his bearings. “Should we call?” I ventured, hoping for a response. Nothing. I repeated my question hestitantly in Arabic; a quick nod and a curt “aywa” was all the affirmation I needed to pull out my phone and dial Amoun’s number. Amoun was a single, middle-aged woman living in Jerusalem, an anomaly in the Arab society in which she was raised. Amoun’s irregularity was reinforced further by her matriarchal status in the community she had amassed and sustained for over twenty years. Neither Palestinian nor Israeli, Amoun and her community were Domari gypsies, though a far cry from the Roma one encounters in Paris or Italy. The Domari were proud of their non-Palestinian heritage and resented the label “dirty gypsy” they had been given by Jerusalem’s other inhabitants. According to the pamphlet, Jerusalem’s small community of 100 Domari families descended from Indian migrants who had journeyed to Palestine in waves during the seventeenth century.
A short conversation with Amoun reassured our driver, who pulled a U-turn in full traffic and continued in the opposite direction until we’d located the sign labeled “Domari Gypsies” in Arabic. Everything in Jerusalem appeared sand-colored, its beige contours indistinguishable from the desert surrounding the city. The Gypsy building was no exception, except that its walls were a little dirtier, a little more grime-covered when examined up close. My friend and I approached the door and rang, unsure of how we’d be received.
Our visit, as much as I disliked the idea, was largely business in nature. The study program which had facilitated this four-month sojourn in Jerusalem had, in past semesters, encouraged students to serve the Gypsy community by teaching English or instructing women to use sewing machines. Under the program’s new administration, however, such volunteer efforts had been rescinded. It was now our task, mine and Didi’s, to soften the blow which had already been dealt the previous week.
“I don’t understand,” Amoun started irately. “Last semester students from your church were coming every week to help teach and tutor. We got many new clothes for our women from a donation. Our children were finally learning, even those who’d dropped out of school. What happened? Why can’t you help us?”
Amoun threw her hands emphatically in the air to illustrate her frustration but her eyes revealed fear and distrust. As the head of her community, the responsibility for feeding and teaching the homeless children lay squarely on her shoulders. Without anyone to turn to, facing rejection from every facet of society, Amoun had grown distrustful of everyone around her. Fear had hardened her and made her cynical. This fresh disappointment seemed just another rejection in a long line of rejections. Didi and I exchanged a look of helplessness before jumping into our explanation. We explained that we couldn’t officially set up a volunteer program without permission from our church back in America. The Domari could not depend on us so heavily, we said. What would happen if a Third Intifada broke out and we were sent home? How, then, would the community survive without our help?
Trained from childhood in English, Amoun heard our explanations perfectly. But she didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. Even as I was speaking, I felt my hollow words shrivel and disintegrate in the face of Amoun’s colossal worries. Convinced of her own aloneness, Amoun had developed traits of self-sufficiency and resilience from a young age. She dropped out of school, a source of torment and intolerance from her Palestinian peers, and worked through her adolescence to support a starving family. She was a sole Crusader, a woman on a mission to save her family and usher in a new era of acceptance from Jerusalem’s Arab population. Her wrinkled face was leathery and dark, an abnormality in a city where women dutifully smothered their faces in white foundation in order to fit their perception of Western standards of beauty. Amoun would never be accepted by those women, no matter how hard she fought for recognition from community leaders or the Israeli government, because she was Domari. Even within Jerusalem’s Domari population, an authoritative, vocal woman like Amoun was a source of embarrassment, not strength. Her independence was both a saving grace and her greatest weakness.
Since my conversation with Amoun, I’ve been forced to evaluate my own life with a critical eye. Was there inherent value, as I’d been taught, in being independent? Could I ever hope to attain personal victories on my own? Had my own inner drive and personal crusades ever hardened me to the idea of success? Does acceptance from others constitute a triumph? I’ve since learned that while independence is a critical—no—vital quality to existence against insurmountable odds, nothing can be achieved alone. Amoun believed she’d failed before she’d even tried because more than her cause, she believed was alone. You are not alone, I repeat to myself. You are never alone.
