Arab Woman Talking

It's not smart to have an Israeli stamp on your passport if you plan to travel in the Arab World. This is common knowledge. Syria will definitely not let you in, Lebanon will give you a hard time, but with Egypt and Jordan it's supposedly kosher, given the 'peace' agreement. In October 2009, I was part of a dance performance that went to perform in Ramallah. The Palestinian Authority got us the visas. I tried to get a temporary passport for the trip, but Jordan had changed its laws and no longer issued them. I was advised to simply ask the Israeli passport control to stamp a piece of paper instead of the passport. This is common practice, or rather, it is a common request, but whether the soldier at the boarder will grant it is up in the air. My luck: the passport was stamped. I suppose I could have gotten a new one afterwards, but my passport was new, and I was too lazy and stingy to pay 57$ to get a new one. Besides, my stamp said "Palestinian Authority Only....

Disclaimer: I'm paraphrasing and making generalizations. "Voting is not a right, it is a duty!" I sign out with a slogan, to later realize that I missed the registration deadline and therefore can't vote, neither 'present' in Jordan nor 'absentee' in the US. My political naz3ah came too late. "Nonetheless," I told myself "I'll still follow up on the local campaigns, to learn about the political games." But overnight, and as the landscape of the city changed, I was completely turned off. My political naz3ah did not last too long. At first, I was entertained by the ludicrous slogans, photoshopped pictures and contrived smiles. It made traffic bearable, and even amusing at times. Some confirming the unspoken divides and others playing the religious card; slogans with questionable connotations, and my favorite, "nothing to say". I take my hat off. The woman jabat-ha min il-akher. After all, it's all B.S., so might...