We leave Jericho the back way to get back to Ramallah. We do not want to take our chances with Mohammed at the previous checkpoint. Haneen says we will take what they call the Curvy Road. It will only take about an hour. I sit up front.
There are no street lights going the back way. It is black outside. There is no moon. The headlights of our cars are the only thing illuminating what is around us. We curve in and out of the mountains. Its like driving in Colorado, except there are no trees in this part of the West Bank and the earth and rocks are alabaster white.
The rental car starts doing this long, annoying beep. Its the sound you hear when your seatbelts are not plugged in or your low on break fluid. Whenever Haneen turns the wheel it stops or starts again. He tries hitting the dashboard but it won’t stop.
We come to an intersection with a main road. To the left you can see the lights of a checkpoint. Zuzu pulls up beside us and the boys start negotiating how we are going to get back into Ramallah. That checkpoint is “no good,” but Haneen knows a way around it. A shortcut through the north.
We stay on the Curvy Road and start driving through a small town. The car passes under a sign that says “Taybeh Octoberfest.” “Wait, are we in Taybeh? Where they make the beer?”
Haneen says yes, and that the brewery is run by a man, his brother, and his wife. These 3 people produce the only Palestinian beer in the world and it is arguably the finest beer in the Middle East. We’ve been enjoying it since we arrived and I already know that “taybeh” means delicious. http://taybehbeer.com. Its too bad we’re leaving before the Octoberfest. I wonder if anyone will be allowed through the checkpoint to go to it. Or will it be like Bethlehem at Christmas…empty.
The beep in the car is relentless. We’ve made a wrong turn. Zuzu pulls up next to Haneen again and they start arguing over where to go…then Zuzu stops and asks “What’s that annoying sound?” We keep driving.
Once again we pass underneath the Taybeh Octoberfest sign. Somehow we’ve gone out and back into downtown Taybeh. Mohammed keeps singing the Cha-cha Happy Birthday song trying to diffuse the situation, but we’re not laughing. We’re tired and want to be out of the car. It feels surreal to be lost in tiny Taybeh with Haneen’s rental car sounding like the van in Little Miss Sunshine.
He swerves past a big sign to the left onto a gravel road. Beeeeep…beep beeeep………beeeeeeeep. Zuzu follows us. I see some lights far off on a hill but they look too organized to be Ramallah.
Down the hill comes a big truck with a spotlight. It looks like a jeep and behind it is another one with blinking lights. Haneen stops the car. The jeep with its blinding spotlight is getting closer. Then a flare goes up into the sky. Everything freezes.
Haneen and I curse simultaneously.
While trying to find our way back to Ramallah, we have accidently driven into a settlement.
The flare gave it away. I am told that when someone gets too close at night, the settlers shoot flares into the sky to illuminate whoever it is approaching. Then a self-organized militia comes at you with guns. People have been killed. This is what is driving towards us right now.
Zuzu drives up behind us. We lean out the window screaming the word ‘settlers’ (me in English, Haneen in Arabic) and they high tail it out of there in reverse with us following. The spotlights stop moving toward us and we get back to the top of the road. Now we can read the big sign on the left with our headlights. It was dark before. It says something in Hebrew.
Zuzu and Haneen are fighting about what to do next. We drive through Taybeh one more time and approach the original checkpoint we had tried to bypass. The beeping won’t stop. We pull over for a few seconds to look at the car and see what it is. Zuzu is angry and has passed us. Mohammed starts singing Happy Birthday again. We are almost out of gas.
We can’t find the source of the beep. It now turns on and off sporadically. I am shaking from are brief detour into the settlement and just want to get to Ramallah.
But we have to cross this checkpoint first. If the loud beep in the car goes off while our passports are being inspected…the young soldiers will think we have a bomb….and…well..I don’t want to think about it. But the needle on the gas gauge isn’t really giving us a choice.
As we approach the beep won’t stop. I am praying for it to stop. It stops.
Haneen rolls down the window and hands the soldier our passports. My stomach is doing cartwheels and I am holding my breath. The soldier hands back the passports and says “Ok,” and waves us through.
The car moves 5 feet and beeeeeep..beep.beep.beeeeeeeeeeep resumes.
I start laughing and crying uncontrollably. Its either laugh until I cry or throw up….because I have never felt so afraid before. The whole day has been so absurd, even dangerously absurd, there’s no other way to process it. Mohammed starts singing Happy Birthday again.
Later that evening we are home with friends at Zuzu’s and Suad’s.. telling stories of this day over wine and nargila. Haneen is still nervous, puffing away, and rubbing his forehead. We are recounting the beep in the car and how Haneen drove us into the settlement and he interjects….”Between the beeeeeeep, Mohammed singing Happy Birthday, and Mary laughing….I almost lost my mind.”
Home at Zuzu’s
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