Something To Be Proud Of.

This summer my Palestinian/American friend “Pali G” decided to vacation in the Middle East, he wanted to go to Palestine but decided it would be too dangerous and that Lebanon would be MUCH better. This is his story….
When the bombing started my first thought was “man I cant wait to write about this”, then it struck me, Pali G! I rushed to his MySpace page to see if he was still active online and thus, ALIVE.

The message on Pali G’s page said, “you will never know what its like to wake up to the concussion of bombs!” Now that I knew he was alive we could exchange messages which we did until his page read, “I’m Coming Home!”

Yesterday I called him, he told me some funny stories about him almost getting bombed on the beach and how he would hear jets, missiles and explosions, respectively. You could tell he’d already told the story a million times but his excitement skyrocketed when he told me the next part.

The ESCAPE.

About two and a half weeks after the bombing started he was finally notified by the U.S. Embassy that a ferry boat would take him to Cyprus and from there a U.S. military aircraft would return them to U.S. soil. Pali G arrived at the dock at 6 a.m. where he was instructed that he and 3,000 other people would have to wait. They stood and waited till 8 p.m. when they were loaded onto an Egyptian ferry boat. (The Egyptian boat was probably late) I felt so proud when Pali G, who makes fun of Egyptians all the time, told me that the Egyptian ferry boat crew were the kindest, most generous people he had ever met. They invited him into the control room where they made him tea and insisted that he stay in the control room with them for the duration of the trip. Upon leaving he expressed to the other passengers how kind and sweet the crew was to which they responded, “Yea of course they are Egyptian”. I wish I was making this up! Over the course of the escape he ended up on his feet for 22 hours but as he put it, “the Egyptian crew made it enjoyable and when we arrived in Cyprus I didn’t want to leave the ship”

I couldn’t be more proud, so to all you Egyptians who take pleasure bashing on your fellow countrymen, I hope you take pride in the love and hospitality your people provided to strangers during an extremely tough time.