Driving Questions

Last night I drove a friend back into town after she visited us for dinner. The friend is a catholic sister from South Africa whom I met right when we moved to Jerusalem. We were talking about our experiences living in Jerusalem during that difficult year of the second Intifada - 2001-2002.

I took Sasha in the car with us and we drove, as I usually do, through the West Bank - route 375 past Beitar Illit (an ultra-Orthodox settlement, population about 30,000, median age 11) and Husan (the Arab town across the street, population about 60,000).

On the way home, Sasha started asking me about a high wall on the side of the road as you drive between the tunnels through Beit Jala. He wanted to know why it was there - he thought it was for shade. I told him it was to stop people shooting at us - then got worried that's not the kind of thing you say to a four year old. So I told him not to worry, it had been put up a long time ago, that's not happening now. Perhaps I made myself feel better. The shooting did not seem to concern him, he just said "It's to stop people going peyuw peyuw," imitating a gun.

Then as we drove past Husan he asked me if we were home, and I said no, we were going past Husan and Beitar first and he asked me if we could visit Husan. So I said no, we don't go there, and then he wanted to know why. I wasn't sure what to say. I said because it's an Arab town and Jews and Arabs live pretty separately here, and then I said they speak another language and we don't understand it, and that went into a discussion of languages and which ones Sasha knows and doesn't know.

And I got to thinking about how it's different to have a son than a daughter, and what's the right thing to be teaching him, and I have no idea. YMCA camp starts in 2 weeks and he'll meet kids and adults who speak Arabic for the first time.