1937
Where did all those oranges come from ?
It was august 1968 and I have just landed in Frankfort
getting ready to enter my studies that would make something
out of a 20 years old Beirutee.
The first time in Europe , the first time in the West
the first out into the first-world.........
My first cultural-choc was that the public-toilet-rooms
in Frankfort have had a slot-machine which opens the doors
only if you would drop a 10 pfennig coin .
And I wondered then , how does a German do it,
if he has no 10 pfennig coin ???
So I learned my first lesson , quickly
and without contesting the German way of life.
I joined the Student's life and started promptly
getting acquainted with the German "grundlischkeit"
and most of all I started using my wrist-watch
more than 10 times per day ........
and not as a jewel anymore.
Of course my next cultural choc came when ,
in the Supermarket I saw that each orange
was stamped my the letters " J A F F A "
I asked my German friends what "JAFFA" is
and they explained that :
"The Israelis have turned the Palestinian-desert into a green-land
and that they were planting Oranges in that same desert"
I asked them : Why call it Jaffa , because Jaffa is " Yaffa"
which is a city in Palestine which has had Oranges even
before Jesus was born...... and not after the coming of
the Israelis !!!
Everybody told me that I were wrong and that those Oranges
come from the desert of Negev and that Jaffa is not Yaffa.
I were to be mistaking and that Israelis did wonders in the desert
and that I am only a jealous Arab....
At the age of 20 , forty years ago
the Yaffa oranges were Palestinian
in my mind and they still are , today .
Israelis never planted any oranges in the desert
and I hope that my German-friend do know it , today.
What the Israelis planted in the desert were 5 prisons
to fill them with Arabs and one Nuclear-Atomic-Factory.
Europe later got filled with Jaffa-oranges , until in the 1970's
Morocco started competing with Israel and Morocco won
completely......but none of my European-friends has told me
that the Moroccan grew their oranges in any desert....
Because only Israelis do miracles
and Moroccan do plantation only !!
40 years later ,
you still have to pay in a German-toilet
and Israel still makes miracles......while Moroccans don't .
Raja
1 comment:
My Gosh, very smart remarks, I liked it! And Jaffa is Yafa whatever it takes
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