Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood

Ibtisam grows closer to her brothers, who enjoy sharing their lessons with her and describing their school days, including their epic fights with other boys. Ibtisam absorbs the new knowledge but thinks the school, with its strict teachers and their corporal punishment is “cruel.” The boys also bring home many illnesses, including tapeworms and open, itchy sores on their heads that resist treatment. Mother’s penicillin injection fails, but Father’s idea to bathe them in Dead Sea water succeeds. The tapeworms require a costly clinic visit. In wintertime, the siblings play around the soldiers’ abandoned, water-filled, iced-over trenches. Ibtisam falls into one, and Basel and Muhammad break the ice to save her. Ibtisam develops a fever, and Father treats her by cupping her back. Mother stops them from playing outside in wintertime.

Inside, Mother knits, refurbishes their clothes, and listens to radio shows including Rasa’el Shawq or “Letters of Longing” in which Palestinian refugees who are separated from their homes emotionally communicate with friends and relatives in the occupied territories. The program brings Mother and Ibtisam to tears. In spring, Ibtisam delights in the flowers, but not in the soldiers who return to their training ground and occasionally knock on the door of the family house.