Nostalgia

Here is something wonderful.

I spent the end of last week with a visiting Hassan who came to New York on his way to the Bahamas. I know, it's a tough life for a Harvard student. In the aftermath of the weekend, he linked me to an online photography exhibit of one of the travelers from our visit to Deheishe Refugee Camp in the West Bank this summer; the artist (the oft-christened Frenchie) was also a resident of the Faisal with us.

The presentation surpasses artistic convention; all the text is in French so my true capacity for political unease is limited. I feel compelled to highlight the section about the Faisal Hostel because it really underscores the sense of what I enjoy about that part of the world. It is also making me nostalgic for an experience, while now five months bygone, feels like it could have happened an entire lifetime ago.

In places as random as a half-decrepit hostel, for 25 shekel shared rooms, all the tea and mint you can consume, and endless free internet, you can meld into East Jerusalem beside the walls of David's city and encounter the most uncommon people. I feel like it's not my place to cut or interpret anyone's art on their behalf, but what I saw and felt and remember are the textured profiles I can now revisit.

A dissident, a leftist, a former PLO soldier, an anarchist, a revolutionary, all of whose views I hated but needed; to see their pictures makes happier to have encountered them. Mohammed, the gatekeeper of sorts, who knew my secrets from inspecting my passport, but kept me welcome though I'll never know what he might have thought of me.

See what a couple of pictures can do?