ode to Waleed.....

Taxi’s…..
One of the big tricks to living here in Palestine is finding a taxi driver that you love and making them your regular person. Of course for me it also means finding a taxi driver that speaks English, that doesn’t want to rip me off, that respects that I am be an international but that they need to treat me like a Palestinian women (ie that I am not going to sleep with them). Once you find that person they become like a personal assistant. If you need a simple errand run they can do it for you. If you need clothes dropped off at the dry cleaners you give them 10 shekels (the price of a normal fare) and they drop them off or pick them up for you. Want take out? Call your taxi driver..
And as with the case of our beloved driver in Nablus, he has taken to teaching them Arabic in the evenings.
In Nablus it took me a few months but I finally found Waleed. Finding him improved my life dramatically. He is a really good person. I have gone home to have lunch with his family and met his daughter. When I went home for Christmas, his wife was one of the few people I HAD to bring a present back for. He has learned to love Safwan as much as i do and worries for him all the time. Through me, he has become part of the sisters life just as much part of mine.
Kaitlin one of the teachers at my old school was recently telling me that a few weeks ago one of the street kids near the school actually came up and grabbed her breast. Of course she called the school but the first person that she called was Waleed. She knew that HE would take care of it. He would find the kid, call the police talk to the neighbors and get it dealt with in the proper Palestinian fashion. She knew that if she needed something to get done the best person to call was Waleed.
Waleed is from Nablus but worked in Saudi Arabia for a German drilling company for more than 16 years. He learned to speak both English and German there. When he came back to Palestine it was during the second intifada. I know Waleed well. I know for sure that he is not an extremist or a militant. But somehow he got shot in the leg by the Israeli soldiers. This isn’t something he usually tells people but in January when Safwan was in the hospital I found out. Waleed brought Safwan back and forth between the hospital here in Ramallah and in Nablus a few times. The first time we had to find the hospital. Went to the wrong place many times but when we finally ended up at Abu Raja, Waleed sat there in disbelief. He told me that he used to live there at this hospital for many months. He then showed me his scar where he had been shot. He was horrified but strangely comforted that little Safwan was going to stay in the hospital that he once lived.
Several times after he dropped of Safwan over the next few weeks Waleed called me to check in on Safwan..
I miss Waleed…
I am still searching for a Ramallah Waleed…..

I thought I had found a replacement but then he started charging too much and got sleazy..

So my search continues….

Now I walk down to the street and get in a random taxi… drivers always give me their card in hopes that they will be the new Waleed…..
But I am still searching..