Rats - when I travel to particularly austere places I usually take a medical kit with me. It's got a couple of useful things, like finger splints, Zofran, a reflective blanket, an epi-pen, but I figured, hey, I'm going to a city where there are hospitals, why would I need any of this stuff?
Actually, Dina's being taken to not just any hospital, but to the Flagship Project's emergency hospital (the "Flagship Project" involves making a complex of hospitals in to a "center of excellence" for Palestine, and includes a pediatric hospital, a surgical hospital, both of which are undergoing completion, the renovation of the Ramallah General hospital, and the aforementioned emergency hospital, which is currently up and running). What do they need me for?
Dr. Taroub is looking for someone to drive us there, not quite frantic, but by no means nonchalant, either. Dr. Taroub is the local chief-of-party for the Project; she's in her mid-fifties or so, practiced family medicine, but has been working in development for the past 27 years. Her family is from Ramallah, in fact, an uncle founded the city in 1556, and there are very few places in town where you would find someone not related to her. Palestine is who she is.
We arrive at Sheik Zayed, but no Dina - Noor has gone to pick her up from the site of the accident, but there is confusion as to whether she's taken the ambulance or her own private vehicle. Dr. Taroub paces, and free-associates with me. "My brother is a cardiologist in Iowa. He started this hospital. I just want you to see Dina and make sure she's okay." She explains that she has little confidence in the local hospitals, having opted to take members of her own family to other medical centers in Jerusalem for treatment in the past. To put it mildly, how unfortunate; the checkpoints can delay care for precious hours, and the people here need healthcare they can have confidence in.
Dina arrives by Noor's car. She and her sister, both young women - girls, really (I think her sister is actually in high school) - were in the accident, and as they walk up Taroub envelopes them in an embrace, a concern that can be described in no other way but maternal on her face. I give them a quick once-over - they're fine. It is awkward for me to look the doctor on duty in the eye. Dr. Taroub, however, is reassured.
Now, given her long-standing and well-established history in Ramallah, Dr. Taroub and Dina certainly may have been related, but Taroub's reaction to the news of Dina's accident is emblematic of the attitude of the people involved in this project: it's all about the love. In the morning Wafa rings a bell and everyone staggers in to the conference room, little cups of strongly cardamom-scented Arabic (or Turkish, depending on whom you ask) coffee in hand and begin good-naturedly joking with each other, put-downs and praise mingling with the ease of people comfortable with one another, without fear. There are, of course, many Muslims, but there is also a surprising number of Arab Christians in this office as well, and perhaps a few Jews, although I haven't confirmed it, all of these people gathered together, peacefully trying to build something out of dust and USAID.
Dr. Damianos is a small, white-haired, bearded man who's the deputy chief-of-party, and several times a day he stops by my desk, shakes my hand warmly, and says, "thank you for coming, thank you for working with Noor, we love her, we love both of them!" gently patting Noor's pregnant tummy. Noor is actually a Palestinian American, speaks English with an American accent, trained as a paramedic in Florida. She's pregnant with her second child, and she'd rather give birth here while trying to make the emergency health care system work - another part of Ramallah becomes a family thing. Everyone butts in and good-naturedly gives her advice on how she's managing her pregnancy, an extended work-family, aunts and uncles of different religions and ethnicities to her unborn baby.
This kind of love is infectious. Tomorrow may be the start of Ramadan, and I think most of the Christians in the office will fast during the day as well so as not to stumble or harm their Muslim friends on this project. At times during the day, I find myself thinking, I could stay here with these people who have such big hopes for this place. It's all about the love.
Maybe it's all about the tiny cups of really excellent coffee.
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