Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood

Father is the provider and protector for the Barakat family. He works outside the home to provide them a safe home. His personal drive reveals his love for and commitment to family. Father gets Mother and Muhammad out of the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp, which is something many other residents are unable to do. Father works multiple jobs to afford a small rental home in Jordan after the family flees and fixes up their home in Ramallah so the family can be together. Home and homeland are deeply important to Father. Father’s “biggest hero” is the boxer Muhammad Ali, but Father also reveres the Egyptian leader Jamal Abdel Nasser, who fought for Palestine.

Despite his determination, Father struggles to be the family’s leader and protector through the war and afterward. Ibtisam knows that he cannot protect the family or achieve the freedom to be head of the family as he desires. Memories of the war of 1948 and the 1967 war “[live] inside him,” causing him nightmares in which he fears that he or family will be killed. Ibtisam understands that her father’s loss of freedom, loss of personal agency, and loss of homeland are all consequences of war and the subsequent occupation.

A devout Muslim, Father does not drink or smoke. Father attended school through first grade, then “eager for learning,” studied math and the Qur’an at a mosque for a half year (106). He, like Mother, values education, but he resents that teenage Ibtisam’s higher education and her skill with the English language have usurped his authority over her.

Father is young Ibtisam’s hero. He, unlike Mother, shows unconditional love for her, and she feels that he treats her as unique and special. Father brings the children treats, plays with them, and tells them stories. It is Father who wants to bring the children out of the orphanages—but Father also betrays the children’s trust by killing Zuraiq: both this trust and the death of Zuraiq are significant losses in Ibtisam’s childhood.

Mother is “cleverer” than anyone else Ibtisam knows, which proves challenging for teenage Ibtisam, who chafes under her restrictive authority. Ibtisam feels “occupied” by both Mother and the oppressive Israeli soldiers. Mother is demonstrative, volatile, and protective. She is fearful during the war, and fearful through the years of occupation following: She waits for something bad to happen. Her fear is a war wound.

Mother is 24 in 1967 and has four children. She is 20 years younger than Suleiman, whom she married at the age of 15. Mother was forced to give up her pursuit of a higher education when her family could no longer afford school for her after sixth grade. She values education, craves learning, and at times seems frustrated with her traditional role of wife and mother. Ibtisam knows that the war makes Mother fearful and lonely. Mother longs for social contact and mental stimulation and does not like being alone. She uses her sewing skills to both earn money and draw people to their home on the hill, becoming known as “Mirriam of the Mountain” (94).

Young Ibtisam sometimes doubts Mother’s affection. Mother often seems distant from the family, lost behind the “veil” of imagining, while at other times she is physically forceful with the children, compelling them to eat, and poking, cursing, hitting, and threatening them with violence. Mother’s “guiding proverb” in life is “Be invisible if you can” (8). She urges Ibtisam to keep her unhappy memories repressed and ignores her husband’s night terrors. Ibtisam recognizes that Mother’s advice is wrong for her and chooses to face her past rather than hide from it.

Basel is three years older than Ibtisam, and Muhammad is two years older. They are “the noisy inseparables” (19). Ibtisam follows them everywhere and would rather watch her brothers play with the other boys in Hamameh’s town than run or play with other children her age. She is thrilled when Basel and Muhammad decide she is old enough to play with them when they return home after months away as refugees.

Ibtisam feels a strong bond with her brothers and thinks that they share the same thoughts and feelings “as though we were one” (73). Muhammad is the one who notices her missing when the family first flees and offers her his shoes when they reunite. Both boys protectively teach her how to quickly lace and tie her shoes. They defend Ibtisam at the orphanage when another boy strikes her, and they teach her to smile in the face of punishment and pain to show her spirit is unbroken. They heroically save her and carry her home when she falls into the icy soldiers’ trench. Basel and Muhammad, like Ibtisam, have a willful streak, as shown in their spontaneous pastry theft. Together with Ibtisam, the boys suffer losses of childhood innocence because of the war itself and how it informs their parents’ decisions. Although Basel and Muhammad undergo circumcision, which begins their transition out of childhood, it does not affect their bond to Ibtisam. They continue to be close, sharing their school lessons and looking out for one another. Ibtisam calls her brothers “the two heroes of [her] childhood” (v).

The water truck driver’s wife initially curses Ibtisam’s mother when Ibtisam’s family commandeers their ride to Jordan, but the two women soon become friends. Hamameh provides much needed social contact and support for Mirriam in the shelter. The two spend the days together talking and become “war sisters” (55). Hamameh’s name means “dove” in Arabic, and she shows all the calmness, helpfulness, peace, and grace that the dove symbolizes. Hamameh looks to the positive: When people in Jordan open their homes to refugees, Hamameh comments that “God does not forget anyone” (35) showing her faith and hope. Hamameh warmly invites Mother and the children to stay in her tiny, one-room home until Father comes for them and worries when the family plans to return to Ramallah. Hamameh represents “the kindness birthed from the cruelty of war,” and Ibtisam knows that Mother will never forget her friend (55).

People tell Ibtisam that she resembles her “strong and beautiful” Grandma Fatima (120). Grandma fled her home village in Kharrouba with her husband and Ibtisam’s mother and her siblings during the war of 1948. Grandma Fatima now lives in a one-room home in the small rural village of Beit Iksa, where she works the land caring for her orchard trees. Grandma Fatima embodies the Palestinian love for the land and adheres to traditional Palestinian customs and beliefs, like wearing traditional Palestinian dress, helping Mother prepare for the circumcision celebration, and helping after Mother gives birth.

Ibtisam’s first-grade teacher is, to Ibtisam’s surprise, blonde and blue-eyed. Lilian is a kind teacher, unlike the strict, punitive teachers Basel and Muhammad encounter in the boys’ school or the preschool teachers who struck Ibtisam in the orphanage. Ibtisam adores Lilian and feels empowered by her role in the class as Lilian’s junior aide, helping teach her fellow students. This positive early experience with learning and showing her knowledge gives Ibtisam confidence and a measure of personal agency. Although still fearful of things outside school, thinking about Lilian makes Ibtisam feel strong.