![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mcmhub.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/20220327-a-ride-to-gratitude-01.jpg\")
It did not take long until God taught me the principle of gratitude. We could not even make to the next village before that rental Prius gave up on us. My father, unwilling to ruin his new Massimo Dutti blazer that he bought specially for this occasion, also gave up on the Prius very quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was determined to reach my cousin Suhaib\u2019s engagement party on time, which was supposed to start at 8 p.m. by the way. I was wondering all along why we had to leave so early but believe me the next few hours will explain it all. Regardless, my father, full of determination, spots a taxi driver sitting on the pavement with a cup of coffee in his right hand and a Marlboro cigarette in his left and he shouted excitedly: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy friend! Can you take us to Bethlehem?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The driver smirked, revealing his crooked yellow teeth, and said: \u201chow much are you willing to pay uncle.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is not the time for this conversation, I will pay you whatever you want,\u201d my father said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indeed, as they say in Beit Soreek, the Gulf privilege reeks out of us, and my father just gave himself in to a greedy man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sat in the backseat of what seems to a car that works on coal\u2014one manufactured before the industrial revolution. The seats are covered in silicon that sticked\/stuck to my thighs and the back of my sweaty arms. But hey! Yaser the taxi driver thinks that the silicon keeps the car brand new. Of course, Yaser also refused to turn on the AC because turning it on will \u201cfinish the car\u2019s fuel.\u201d Yet again, God never fails to teach me gratitude. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No. I was mistaken when I thought that God was teaching me gratitude then. God taught me gratitude when we left the city of Ramallah and our taxi that barely had the engine power to drive on crooked asphalt drove into the \u201cspiral roads.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The spiral roads were a death wish. They were not mere roads; they were a dystopian reality that spoke volumes on apartheid and occupation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To speak in technical terms, the spiral roads are 2-way roads that are built around the mountains instead of going through them. To cross a mountain, the taxi had to drive all around it in a circular fashion. There were no barriers between those ascending the mountain and those descending it, and there were no barriers at the cliffs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although still determined, my father looked outside his window to see a parallel road where cars drove on a safe straightforward highway and said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey took the good ones and gave us the bad ones.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I, on the other hand, could not see anything but trucks descending towards us as we were ascending the mountain. With every passing truck my heart drops into the abyss. I search for it in my ribcage, I check my pulse and look for blood in my veins, but it is nowhere to be found. So I clinch my eyes, hold my breath, and I whisper in my own ear: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI will kill you, Suhaib.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I open my eyes, I see it. I finally see it. The tacky board that says, \u201cWelcome to Bethlehem\u201d and the blue fairy lights for the mayor\u2019s campaign around the central roundabout. I look at my hands and it seemed that my tanned olive skin has turned yellow, as if someone has drained the blood out of veins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I take a moment to exhale, to hear my pulse and to feel my heart returning to my chest again and pumping blood back in my body. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gratitude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jana Aljamal Eleven O\u2019clock. The roaring sun sits right above my head and our Prius\u2019 air-conditioning works no better than a blow-dryer. I can feel every drop of sweat lingering down my neck. Perhaps my dress is too tight for the weather, or maybe I should not have worn those leather heels. \u201cBaba can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,43],"tags":[17,46,27,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-3263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-features","8":"category-magazines","9":"tag-community","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-international","12":"tag-leisure"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}