YUSIF’S 4th REPORT FROM THE HOLY LAND
My memory of my first trip was crossing the Jordon River on horseback, as a child. My second memory of travel was on a ship on my 12th Birthday, crossing the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean (Aug. ’47), landing at Ellis Island, observing the Statue of Liberty and the New York City skyline.
This traumatic experience set me up with contradictions, i.e. my Left friends think I’m right and my Right friends think I’m wrong. My ethnic friends think I’m too American and my American friends think I’m too foreign. I’m a global citizen with a Universal Mind. I’m a man without a country—a gypsy who feels at home wherever I am.
Feb. 1956 I was inducted into the U.S. Air Force (after Korea and before Vietnam) and spent 3 years in Germany. Having a lot of free time along with 30 day vacations, I used to fly in Air Force planes and visited much of Western Europe, the Netherlands and North Africa. I spent a lot of time in Cairo visiting my paternal aunt and her 9 sons. They migrated to Egypt around the same time I was exiled from Palestine.
In 1970 I had the pleasure of escorting a friend on a 45 day tour around the world. We began with a flight from Detroit to Hawaii (non-stop!), where we were served meals by a chef, from a cart in the aisle. From Hawaii we went to the World’s Fair in Japan. From Japan we continued westward until we arrived in France, where we got on the U.S.S. France for a 1st class cruise to New York.
In my travels, I have been in or driven through all 48 contiguous states and have made dozens of trips to many places in Canada and Mexico.
Though I’ve been back to the Middle East on many occasions and spent the last New Year’s Eve (’09-’10) in Gaza, my most memorable trip is the one I recently returned from— to the Holy Land. (All land is Holy— what that expression means in Palestine is “Land of the Holy”.)
I and my family were displaced from our home in Haifa on my 12th Birthday in August 1947. At that time, my sister, Leila, was 9 and since then she had never been back to Palestine or the Middle East. After 63 years of exile she asked me if I would escort her on a two month trip to see, hear and feel the sounds of the Holy Land.
We set off on September 2nd on a non-stop flight from Detroit to Amman, Jordon, where we set up camp at my cousin, Helen’s house— from where we set out on our 55 day odyssey to visit 7 countries on 3 continents. Helen’s father, Michael, was my father, Deeb’s younger brother. Helen was two years old when we all scattered. When we came to the U.S., Helen and her family went to Jordan and other relatives went to Egypt. On this trip the highlight was a visit to our birthplace in Haifa, Palestine.
Because we arrived in Amman on the last week of Ramadan, culminating in a 3 day “Eid”, we were delayed for 10 days, as nothing much gets done during that time of the holidays. (With the assistance of Helen’s twin sons, Ramie & Raed, we toured several places while in Jordon, which I will cover, along with pictures, in future reports.) Finally, on Monday, Sept. 13th, we set off for a tour of Lebanon and from there to Syria before returning to base camp at Helen’s.
On the morning, after we got to Syria, (17th day of the trip) my sister slipped backward, while walking down a set of slippery stairs, hitting her head, back & left elbow. Her head and back were bruised but not seriously. However, she ended up breaking her left arm just below the elbow, which over time, required 3 casts!
My sister, over the last several years, has suffered with rheumatoid arthritis for which she requires several medications, including a very expensive monthly injection. Due to insurance complications, which denied her the ability to buy medication two months in advance, she had to take substitute medications while overseas. To make matters worse, the orthopedic doctor, who put on the casts, told her she needed to stop taking the arthritis medication in order for her broken bone to heal properly.
Being that we had 6 weeks left on our trip, her arthritis began to flare up over time. By the last week of our trip, in addition to having to deal with a cast, which restricted her ability to function, and the pain from the broken bone, she began to experience a severe rash (which caused itching, pain and a great deal of discomfort).
To make matters worse, during our 7th and last country to visit, she experienced another freak accident, which just pushed her over the edge. While in Istanbul, Turkey, I arranged for her to get a relaxing foot massage from the spa (in the hotel where we were staying). My sister is a ‘no frills kind of lady’ who views massage as an unneeded luxury. It took a lot of persuasion to get her to agree to having her feet, and calves from the knees down, be massaged to help her relax.
Picture this event, as it is really hard to believe, that such a thing could happen, especially to her, in her condition. We got off the elevator on the mezzanine floor with her left arm in a ½ cast, in a sling around her neck and I’m walking besides her, holding her right arm and elbow as we walked in through the sliding glass door to the spa. As the doors slid open, we took one step forward, when for no reason, the doors suddenly and violently slammed shut! They hit her on her left broken arm and hit me with the same force on my right arm. The doors trapped us in that position and I had to force them open by using my weight to force the doors back to their open position. Leila was screaming, crying and writhing with pain. I was completely stressed out trying to calm her down and figure out how this could have happened, as 4 of the spa staff stood there in complete horror, as they observed what happened and did not know what to do. It took awhile to get her calmed down and finally persuaded her to get the foot massage after all.
I managed to continually motivate Leila and tend to her needs so that we maintained the schedule we set out to do and managed to see all that was on the itinerary. Despite her pain and health challenges she managed to persevere and actually enjoyed the 55 day, 7 country tour. She has come back with a lot of wonderful memories, not to mention the hundreds of pictures and hours of video. Despite the obstacles, she was a great trooper and completed the trip in good spirit.
At 2 am on Sunday night, the 25th of October, we boarded a flight from Amman to Detroit, through Montreal, Canada. After 16 hours we landed at Detroit Metro airport holding hundreds of wonderful memories. The trip, the broken arm, the arthritis and the uncomfortable rash all took a toll on poor Leila and she went to Emergency Room only hours after we landed in Detroit, where they kept her for 5 days!
The day after she was released from the hospital I packed her luggage in her car and drove her back to her home in Largo, Florida (near Tampa Bay). I spent 10 days there taking her to medical appointments, where they finally took her cast off. After getting her set up with physical therapy, and doing a lot of needed repairs in her house, I flew back to Detroit to pick up the pieces of my life, after 3 months of world travel.
The reason I’m telling you all this is so you can see that I had very little time to devote to reporting events in the Middle East. The 3 reports I sent already, were brief and I did some note taking, which I hope to share with you, along with some pictures, over time.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to be of service to my sister and to experience an extended trip to the Middle East. I’m especially grateful for my sister, Leila, for maintaining a hectic pace, for my sister, Nuhad, for sponsoring some of the cost and for my assistant, Kim, who held down the fort and e-mailed out the 1st three reports in a timely fashion.
