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UNRWA Commemorates 1948: Abu-Yaser recalls life in Tel el-Safi Dheisheh camp, April 2008
A handwritten note on Abu-Yaser’s office door is a stark daily reminder that on 8 July 1948 he and his family were forced to leave their home in Tel el-Safi and have never been allowed to return. Abud-Yaser now lives in Dheisheh refugee camp. Abu-Yaser recalls that life in Tel el-Safi was simple yet comfortable. He remembers grinding coffee in the mornings before going out to work in the fields. Rhythmically knocking the wooden stick on the sides of the vessel in which he has put a handful of coffee grains and a couple of cardamoms, Abu-Yaser skillfully demonstrates how the coffee grinder doubles up as a musical instrument. “At 8 o’clock in the morning you could hear people grinding coffee like this.” he explains. “I still grind my beans in this way,” he says handing us each a cup of freshly brewed coffee.
As a boy in the mid-1930s, Abu-Yaser went to Bisan to study. There was no electricity at the time, and he used to watch in awe as the municipal labourers hung lanterns in the streets at night, and enjoyed helping collect them again in the morning. Abu-Yaser used to love the railway that linked Bisan with Akka. He was reduced to tears when he visited Bisan again in the 1980s, after more than 40 years away, to find that the railroad no longer existed. The father of Abu-Yaser was a farmer, who sold the fruit, wheat, olives and sesame he cultivated at the markets in Lid, Ramle and Hebron. Abu-Yaser himself sold grain in Jaffa, where he used to enjoy listening to famous singers in concert. Then in Tel Aviv, he would play soccer with his Jewish friends, who oftentimes asked him if he needed anything, to which he would reply, “All I need is a pen with which to write my poetry.”
By Vicky Samantha Rossi and Tarek Ismail Abu-Yaser’s account of life in Palestine before el-Nakba will be featured in UNRWA’s 1948 commemorative photo exhibition, “I Come from there…and remember.” The exhibition will premiere in the oPt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon in May 2008, and will be available to tour commencing in June 2008 UNRWA Commemorates 1948: Abu-Yaser recalls life in Tel el-Safi
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Ever
since he was a young boy, Abu-Yaser has been a keen poet. “I’m 83 years
old now,” he says, “but writing poetry makes me feel like I’m 10 again.”
He tells of how he would enjoy reciting his verses aloud, hearing the
words “echoing” in the vastness of the Tel el-Safi countryside. His
poems were about the weather, the seasons and the landscapes. Today,
they have become a channel for the pain of the last 60 years and the
suffering of those around him.