letter #7: abu nakhleh: the adventures of ola y chau

Dear Chau,

Almost every time I am with baba at the farm, which is quiet often, he talks fondly about his palm tree, he would say: “look baba and see how tall and thin [he’s into the thin] and elegant and beautiful that palm tree is.” When there is a bit of wind, he asks me to look at the leaves of the palm tree and see how they move and he uses it as an indication of whether it was time to sit outside or not. Yesterday, for the first time he asked me to take photos of that tree. The tree has been there for almost 15 years; once a year it gets a trim. Last week it got it’s trim and baba sat watching it. He is also fond of the palm tree trimmer, he loves watching him climb the tree, he calls him Abu Nakhleh. I just checked on line, and baba’s tree is very similar to what is called the Queen Palm Tree. I think baba is still teaching me to see, to keep looking and observing. I promise, the queen is in my heart now.

Sometimes we hang out on his bed watching tv or more like gazing at it and commenting. Yesterday, we were hanging out in front of the tv and eating lots of grapes, I asked him if I could choose the channel and move away from the news for a bit. He agreed, he was not very happy with my choices but he kept quiet about it. He chose instead to have a conversation about breeding. He wants me to have babies. At least one. He wants to be a grandfather, and that if I granted him that it would be the ultimate happiness. He said I was perfect except for not bringing him children. So I suggested adoption, and he said I need one at least that has our family genes. I promised to think about it and changed the channel back to the news.

ola

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هذه المدوّنة هي جزء من المراسلات بين علا وديالا توثّق مغامرات أولى إي تشاو

This blog post is part of the correspondence between Ola and Diala documenting The Adventure of Ola y Chau

For more information | للمزيد من المعلومات

https://www.roccafamily.org/on-the-road