Free?--Stories Celebrating Human Rights by Amnesty International UK

Author:Amnesty International UK [International, Amnesty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781406342635
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2012-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

Later that afternoon, when all was calm again, Uncle Meena asked me if I wanted to go for a walk with him into the centre of Ramallah. I jumped for joy. But Grandma protested.

“Noora is no longer a child to be taken everywhere,” she said. “She’s now a young woman. She has just turned thirteen, remember!”

“I think it’s good for both young and grown-up women to see as much as they can of the world. Why don’t you come with us?” Uncle Meena said playfully to Grandma.

I was so happy to hear that becoming a woman didn’t mean having to stay at home. But Grandma wanted to take the time to prepare Uncle Meena’s favourite meal for dinner.

“Just don’t be gone for long,” she said. “The situation in the city has become very dangerous lately.”

“We’ll be careful,” we assured her.

Uncle Meena and I held hands as we ran up the steps to the street. I was eager to tell him everything I knew that he did not. If he learnt of all that had happened, I thought, he perhaps would feel as though he had never left us.

“Grandma is upset because she can no longer pray at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem,” I told him. “The Israeli army now requires a permit for Palestinians crossing between Ramallah and Jerusalem, and very few of us are granted this permit.”

“I thought only men younger than thirty-five were barred from crossing. Now even old people can’t cross?” Uncle Meena raised his voice in protest and sorrow, and I felt bad that I’d upset him. But he asked me to tell him more.

“Grandma thinks that one prayer at al-Aqsa Mosque is worth a thousand prayers anywhere else. Now she just prays at home. She says al-Aqsa is the home of her heart and that is why she doesn’t go to pray at the mosque in Ramallah.”

“I understand,” Uncle Meena said. “Although I do not pray, I too miss al-Aqsa when I’m in America. It’s a magical mosque. I have its picture above my desk. Did you know that the huge golden dome that you can see from anywhere in Jerusalem covers the rock from where Prophet Muhammad made his journey to heaven?”

“You mean he flew from the mosque where Grandma likes to pray?”

“Yes, that’s what the story says in the Koran. He travelled on a winged horse named al-Buraq, which flew as fast as lightning, first from Mecca to Jerusalem, then all the way to heaven and back in one night.”

“Wouldn’t it be great to have a horse like that, Uncle!”

“Where would you go on it if you had?”

“I’d take Grandma to Jerusalem every day to pray and to shop in the Old City, and come and visit you in California so that I could see where you live. We could walk across the Golden Gate Bridge – you sent me a postcard of it last year, right? – and I would ask you all my questions.”

“What questions do you have?”

“Do you really want to hear them?”

“Of course I do.

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