Fishers of Men

I want to tell you about a wonderful man here in Palestine, without whom my year would not be the same. He is a taxi driver.

"Iham" has lived in Palestine his whole life, and received education at a Lutheran school in Bethlehem. When Iham was in 9th grade, his father died, leaving his family without means to sustain themselves. Iham, though a true academic at heart, dropped out of school and began work to support his family.

Iham has seven children ages ranging from 10 to 25. His eldest daughters have graduated college, one to be a doctor and another to teach German. There's no mistake that they inherited their father's aptitude for education and thoughtfulness.

Every time I call Iham, I'm greeted with a deafening "Maddi! How ya doin?", and assurance that he can come pick me up from wherever I am and take me where I need to go. Iham often has a tired demeanor, as he works every day of the year except for Christmas and Easter. I always ask about his kids, his family, his wife. Sometimes I ask him if he went to this local event or that, always to hear "no, I have work". Iham's cab car sees more of him than his family.

I've had many insightful and challenging talks with Iham driving through the streets of Bethlehem at night on the way home, or to an event. One night, I commented on how I'd never seen a homeless person in Bethlehem. His response was very confusing--he talked about how they're there, just secret. Sometimes, he said, you can tell when you meet them, but no one talks about it. It was when he said that sometimes they live in flats together, clearly negating the whole "home-less" gist of it all, that I was clued in to our miscommunication. Iham thought I had said "homosexual".

"Ohh, homeless!" His booming voice had said. "No, we don't have here. Families take care of their own".

Another night, my president had just decreed an order for Palestine under the name "Peace Plan".

"I don't understand how he can just announce something about a country that not his own and it comes true", I had told him.

"Money means power." He said, eyes unwavering from the rain-slicked streets we zipped through. He then sighed and said, glancing off to the view of the hills of Bethlehem lit up by the little twinkling lights from hundreds of apartments and buildings, "We don't get a say in what happens to the land of our homes. I don't know what will happen".

I said nothing. For the millionth time this year, my mind begged, "what do you say to that?"

Last night I made one of my favorite memories with Iham. Anna, a fellow YAGM, and I were making a journey from Beit Jala to Beit Sahour, a thirty minute drive, depending on traffic. We asked him the usual questions, how are the kids, how was the day of work. Iham gave us some tired responses, clearly at the end of a long day. After a thoughtful silence, he asked us, from seemingly nowhere,

"Where you're from, are there lakes?"

Anna is from Minnesota, and I'm from Wisconsin.

"Yes", we replied, explaining the "land of 10,000 lakes", and the proximity of Lake Michigan to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, (my hometown).

He then began to tell us about his trip to Germany last year, something we've heard about many times, as it seemingly made a large impact on him.

"In Germany there are many lakes", he told us matter-of-factly. Then he asked, "do you ever go fishing on the lakes where you're from?"

We talked about the members in our family which enjoy fishing, and introduced the phenomenon of ice fishing.

He then told us a story about the one time he went fishing, on that same trip to Germany. A family he was staying with, who had volunteered in Palestine years before and paid for Iham's trip to Germany, took Iham to a nearby lake to try fishing.

At this point, Iham was beaming like I'd never seen before. The corners of his mouth lifted up his entire face.The look in his eyes revealed his mind was clearly not in the cab car with us, but remembering the summer breeze upon that lake in Germany.

He recounted how the nine of them fished for a little over two hours, catching nothing. He chuckled, sharing with us how a thirteen-year-old boy had come and caught just one after another, further shaming their empty fishing rods. But he smiled the whole time, remembering the boy's skill.

We came to a stop where we were going, yet made no move to get out of the car, as he hadn't finished his story. He pulled out his phone and slid through photo after photo--him with the family, him with the teen fisherman, the fish this boy had caught, and, my favorite, one someone had taken of him, smiling up at the camera from the dock, beer in one hand, fishing pole in the other. It was impossible not to look at that picture and grin ear-to-ear.

The man in that photo seemed almost a different person than the one I rarely see out of a driver's seat. That moment was such a high point in this man's life, and it's one not unlike hundreds of moments I grew up experiencing most summers.

It was impossible to miss how much Iham treasured each and every photo taken, even the blurry, low-quality shots of the lake. He swiped from photo to photo and paused with each one, telling us everything he remembered about it, who was in it, where it was taken, absolutely beaming the whole time. We smiled and laughed with him, feeling privileged to experience a moment I now treasure, and will continue to treasure for years to come.

I am so so grateful for Iham.

Beit Sahour at dusk