Over summer mornings with mostly clear skies, I grew up in a normal family in Gaza, with a strict father, a loving mother, and naughty siblings with whom I fought a lot. When I was a little boy, my grandmother would wear her shawl, the fabric preventing the sun from touching her wrinkly skin, to take me to the local market to buy groceries, fruits, and vegetables.
I remember the merchants using a curious device with two plates, where you put whatever you wanted to buy on one, and a chunk of iron — a weight, I know now, on the other — and try to balance them.
Without a word, my grandmother would, with a raised eyebrow, nod at the merchant, who would then add or remove some of weights, or some of the fruits and vegetables. Then he would wrap the produce up for us, my grandmother would pay him, and I would be left to do the heavy lifting.
That curious device became known to me as a traditional scale, old, venerable, and rusty. People used it to take something of value and give back something of equal value in return: ten shekels for two kilograms of tomato, five for a kilogram of apples, ten for two kilograms of cucumber, and ten for three kilograms of bananas. Equal exchange: it was a simple principal that the whole economy of the local market depended upon. It goes without saying that no one dared to violate it, even to this day. Order, peace, and prosperity are governed by the scales.
Indeed, those years were light, and they passed, until in 2017 when I was a sophomore in high school preparing for the YES program, a foreign exchange student program that I learned about in an English class. I went steadily through the same selection process as everyone else: I was tested for my English proficiency, was deemed worthy to be tested again, and then I advanced to an interview in which I spoke English and communicated like never before, until even I was impressed. Next, I had to provide a lot of paperwork before being told I was a finalist.
I was bursting with joy at that moment. I couldn’t wait to tell my parents that their son’s “futile endeavor” and “participation in a lying program” had borne fruit. But it was much more rewarding to see the look on their faces — sad with a dash of disbelief — as I crossed the borders of Gaza.
However, what led to the moment of departure was anything but pleasant. My group and I had to wait for our permits from the Israeli authorities to be issued, which took a great deal of time, several weeks longer than usual, leaving us with all the negative thoughts our heads could imagine. What if we didn’t get a host family? What if the visa was denied? What if we ended up not going on this amazing and life-changing journey?
Our program coordinator at the Gaza office had taken care of all the necessary preparations: ordering the tickets for the trip, contacting the necessary institutions to get our permits, and explaining our situation to his higher ups. But we were left in the dark to wait.
Eventually our permits arrived. I saw my name in green on the data sheet. The auspicious day was upon the other Gazan exchange students and me. I was on the road as well as eventually in the skies to the United States! My trip was long and full of checkpoints after leaving Gaza, but it took the most entertaining path for us as young teenagers. We went to Jericho, where the sun and humidity could melt you down if you stood outdoors, to Jordan where the heavenly shawarma tasted just as good as the rumors had suggested, then we got on the plane to Germany where some students went to study neurosurgery. Finally, fourteen of us arrived in the United States, the land of equality and Lady Freedom with her scales of justice, balanced.
We landed in Virginia and took a school bus to Washington, D.C., where we were welcomed by a most loving staff of Americans and other YES alumni who volunteered from all over the world, with whom we stayed for the duration of our arrival orientation, along with students from various countries around the world: Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Macedonia, Lebanon, South Africa, and many more. It was the most culturally diverse group I have ever been with.
Then something strange happened. A government VIP came to us and asked us, specifically the students from Gaza, to get ready to go to the White House.
I didn’t know if my jeans and blue YES shirt were enough, so I also put on my best cologne before I joined the others. Moreover, we were exhilarated as a group. Getting to spend some time in the White House as Gazans is not something you hear about or have the opportunity to do every day.
The security was rigorous. We had to go through screeners, leave our phones, and get searched before going inside with a lot of eyes falling right on us. The walk was long, but at last we were led to a room inside the White House with a lot of men in black. A senator gave a speech. He talked a lot; the gist of what he said was that they were extremely happy to have us in the U.S., and that he knew it took so much work, effort, and coordination to get us here. Naturally we clapped, and then they took us downstairs to the basement, to a room that has a certain fancy scent of oak to it, a room I’ll bet most Americans have never seen: Harry Truman’s bowling alley.
To be honest, it seemed absurd to me. I would not have thought, several months before, that my first time ever bowling would be in the basement of the White House, nor that I would excel at it, as if I were born to bowl. My three fingers fit perfectly in the ball, my feet were steady after changing into special shoes, I swung that heavy ball exactly the way professionals do on TV, and BAM! Strike!
Then we went back to our hotel, finished our orientation, having been made aware of how to budget our allowance, listen to our host families, and do well in school, and to avoid motorized vehicles, late parties, and lending our money away. Then we traveled to our states — mine was Kansas City, Missouri — and met our host families. The rest is the history of an American high school year, free from the shouting and rigidity of teachers, physical punishment, bullying from other kids, and a lack of sanitary bathrooms, some of which I experienced in Gaza.
I met new people of different backgrounds and colors, I experienced things I never imagined I would, like traveling to other states, ice skating, and riding a water jet ski, and I made life-long friendships with two Pakistanis, a Chilean, and a Macedonian. And I ended up with two more families that I can call my own.
It was wonderful, beyond perfect, but later on, it dawned on me that the people who hosted us at the White House had us as special guests and let us bowl there. Perhaps they did it to apologize for how difficult our journey, indeed, our everyday lives in Gaza were, dealing with travel permits, checkpoints, and spending a whole day on a diverted road for what should have only been a two-hour drive.
Our right, as Palestinians, for freedom of movement, was denied at home. We are still oppressed in this way to this day. Yet American officials, who could, perhaps, do something to help improve the lives of Palestinians, tried to compensate us with one round at a bowling alley. Does that balance on the scales of justice? I don’t think that is a fair exchange at all.
