Dear Night Who’ll Endure More Than Fourteen Hundred Medical School Nights
We do home-stays here
Like many before us
And some will continue after we leave
Breaking the fast at Abu Hamid’s home
On the edge of Rafah
On the border with Egypt
We show up: the Irish anarchist
The young U.S. Jew
The aging professor
We receive their hospitality
We savor their food
We listen to their silence and tales
We are not representatives of our governments
We are not officials of a “peace process”
We are not celebrities
We are nobodies
Visiting for a time other nobodies
Who gently or vigorously elbow us awake
To the way of the world as it is
And the way of the world
As it could be
Doc
–a chapter from Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine
