Rahmah and Hannah

Warning: Long post..spare sometime..;-)


When Rahmah was born she kept her eyes shut tight for a long long time…For it was unpleasant to trade the comfortable darkness of the womb, her residence of past nine months with the unwelcome and scorching Arabian sun. Having a good roof over the makeshift hospital was a luxury in Palestine those days…The walls inside the delivery ward had more bullet holes than plug points and the windows hardly any drapes to give Rahmah’s mother the luxury of dignity. Needless to say, nobody cared about dignity in a place where doctors are sometimes not sure whether the ticking sound comes from the medical equipment or a bomb planted nearby…Being alive was way over the price of dignity. And against all odds, Rahmah was born that summer.

In Palestine every new born is greeted by the organization as live ammunition…literally ‘LIVE’. An ammo which doesn’t come under the control of economic sanctions and other global niceties like arms embargo...For them every new born is a potential suicide bomber, a sacrificial lamb for the greater cause...And for every mother a coerced sacrifice which she never wished to see…

Brooklyn, 2003

Rahmah is 9 years old now and attending the Joan of Arc School. The teachers loved the cutest girl in class…energetic, charming and sporting a toothy grin hard to ignore... The day was special coz she was going to sing ‘Edelweiss’ for the annual school talent event.

‘You will just do great Rahmah….don’t worry!!’ Melanie quipped as she drove her to school.

Rahmah was never worried as she kept gazing outside the window enjoying the morning traffic…Rather she was more concerned about Melanie making it to office in time. In fifteen minutes the car drove into one of the finest schools in Brooklyn.

‘Do well… Rahmah….’

Rahmah hugged Melanie and plucked a kiss on her cheek…Melanie hugged her back and bid goodbye to Rahmah….While beating the New York traffic on her way there was a smile on Melanie’s face…

Finally she felt like a mother.

Brooklyn 1992

It is difficult for new immigrants to find a job in this country, especially if you are not precisely from a country and rather a settlement called the West Bank. When Fatimah arrived with her husband as refugees on the run they were madly in love and hanging on each other’s shoulders like teenage hippies on a long road trip... But you know fantasies don’t last long and they figured out in America where people don’t live on goodwill alone, Dollars maketh the man! So after a few months when Fatimah knocked the doors of a wealthy Brooklyn couple for a job they accepted her as a secretary at their home office...

West Bank 1994

Three years of negotiations and several summits later…

‘Arafat and Rabin win Nobel prize!’


The headlines flashed all over the place…People were euphoric in West Bank…It seemed, finally things were going to change…Abdul and Fatimah were among them , back in the land they were born… With renewed hope of a lasting peace, Abdul had no second thoughts about flying back home…Brooklyn did not have a soul he said when Fatimah protested….It is easy to fall for it when you passionately phrase your dreams to the other person …

“Fatimah…Don’t you wish to live near a house at the banks of Jordan, near your mother humming songs of Fairuz and watch our children play in the vineyards we would grow….Or do we live in this concrete country far away from our people…Don’t you have dreams? ”

Fatimah had dreams, but she never felt a foreigner in the country with someone like Melanie who was not just an employer, but a friend...Melanie found in her a companion who brought sanity to the fast lives they were living…They had become pillars of strength for each other.

“Fatimah…Do you really have to go”

“Yes Melanie…There are probably…hmm… some vineyards in Palestine”


Gaza strip 1995

When Rahmah was born Fatimah shrieked in pain…cried in agony for giving birth to a child whose father died only a day ago in an air strike. It was a desperate cry to save her child of the misery than the physical pain…. In Palestine it is rare to find a complete family…Often someone is missing for not so natural causes.

At the make shift hospital, the nurse wrapped the baby in white linen and kept her beside the mother…

‘Rahmaaah…….’ Fatimah whispered to her child…

Rahmah finally opened her eyes to the Arabian sun…

Cairo 1996

Melanie and Kauffman are very tense at the airport. Flying from Egypt to US is usually not a big deal but if you have unauthorized cargo tugging along with you and especially if it is an 8 month old baby, you ought to be tense…A few months ago when Fatimah wanted to ask Melanie to take her back in America, the rules of the world had unfortunately changed…she instead sent a letter.

The family from Brooklyn did not have a child…infact they couldn’t conceive a child….Fatimah wrote a letter to the family with an offer...an offer which they could not deny.

The border between Egypt and Gaza is usually like the cosmic black hole but when people desperately want to escape, they somehow find a way out….Rahmah was smuggled to Egypt in a daring escape…A prophet had once crossed the same path long ago for survival of a people from persecution…And today a little baby took the road west.

Melanie would have a lot of explaining to do…but American wealth would help sometimes…


Gaza strip 2004

There is no other place in the world which is called a strip….Probably it is named like that coz it is stripped of any human spirit….stripped of any desire to survive like the drying Jordan river.

The refugee camp was now administered by the Israeli army. Everything was screened...people...food…commodities…letters…These days you never know how they send those bombs… Sharon the tall guy from Tel Aviv was posted recently at the refugee camp. The army treated him well and he had finished the rigorous training with the green berets a year ago…With a wife and baby there was a lot in life he looked forward to.

That day Sharon was shocked when he found one of the letters for the refugees had the photo of his little baby, Hannah. ‘How could it be possible…?’ Lieutenant Sharon wondered holding the card!!

The letter came from Melanie his collegemate whose house he had visited a few months ago. He stayed at their place during a family vacation to the States...….He had met Rahmah whom he could recollect from the card, the beautiful American girl…daughter of Melanie Kauffman…

He volunteered to deliver the letter…curious to know the recipient …

Sitting near a parched well was this woman who looked like around fifty years old…He asked for her papers… she was only 33.…He showed the lady the photograph…

‘Do you know her?’

She looked at the photo of Rahmah holding Hannah the daughter of the Israeli soldier standing in front of her….

10 years of war…a lost husband…life of a refugee…devoid of any ambition…but she still did smile…


“Yes...she is my Rahmah”

The Israeli soldier walked back poignant after handing her the card…He was trained to be devoid of emotions…But…


Two daughters born probably just a few meters apart….unable to play together due to destiny of war…Two adults from across the fence who cannot hug each other…..But there was Rahmah holding his daughter Hannah thousand miles away as if it was the most precious thing she ever knew…

P.S. Orginal photo from flickr

P.P.S. The real name of the girl is Rahmah as well..