A Night of Culture in Ramallah

The other night four of us made our way to Ramallah for an Oud concert. An Oud is a traditional Palestinian string instrument that looks like a short, fat guitar. Accompanying the Oud was a percussionist, a bass, a cello and a clarinet and it was, in all honesty, a spectacular concert. The Oud player, who was the headliner/main attraction of the show was Mohsen Subhi and his talent was apparent. His manipulation of the instrument through his ten minute original compositions were truly impressive and I was immediately sold on the concept that the Oud (or any other "traditional" or "folk" instrument) could be made to transcend cultural barriers. The music met me with a sense that it retained an exotic originality - if you'll allow my instinctive Orientalism - and still be made to feel Universal... It was a fantastic performance and when I get home I'll have as many of you listen to my copy of the CD version of the show as possible.

My cultural experiences weren't finished after the Oud concert though, afterwards three of us followed four Palestinians we had met earlier in the week to a restaurant close to Ramallah's old city. There we were met with the standard spread of a dozen or so salads already laid-out on the table for us. Humus, Taboulegh, Coleslaw... we dug in and were immediately met with soup - a traditional pre-meal ritual more common to special occasions. And in some ways it was to be a special occasion.

The night before, in response to the continuous use of our windowsills by pigeons, A. had announced again that he wanted to eat a pigeon. Those three Palestinians, sitting in our livingroom told him that they could arrange that for us immediately. A. insisted that he "had a lot of work to do", so they declared that the next night we would go to a restaurant where we could eat pigeon. And as the plates arrived, T. explained to the three Palestinians that sometimes, in North America, people say that they "want" or "will do" something that they really have no intention of going through with. They didn't get it.

The Pigeon was small - with it's wings tied together it looked like a small roast chicken. But it wasn't - the meat was dark, dry and with its neck and gizzard still attached it wasn't a pretty encounter. But each of use ate the damn thing - after a bit of "psyching" each other up for it. And it wasn't bad. It wasn't GOOD - and it looked like... well.... a pigeon. But, we declared in a fit of bravado, if we were starving, we would eat it again.

But only if we were starving.

Which we won't be.