Mother and Daughter Bonding and Returning Home with Mona Hajjar Halaby

Mona Hajjar Halaby is a Palestinian refugee who recently spent time in Ramallah to bring peace through conflict resolution. She returned to the country with her mother, Zakia Jabre, who had been exiled for 59 years. The pair visit places and relive memories, encapsulating a youthful hopefulness from so many years ago.

As any good writer does, Mona chronicled their time together in her journal. That experience is the catalyst behind In My Mother’s Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home. We learn of horrible violence and war, but just as importantly, we get to see moments of everyday life.

Mona sat down with Good People, Cool Things to talk about her book, her experience as a teacher, and what she’s working on next.

Why did you decide to do a pilgrimage to find your mother’s home?

When you grow up hearing stories about your ancestral home, which was taken away from you by force, you long for it in unimaginable ways. I’ll quote from my book:

“I felt drawn to this land [Palestine] the way birds migrate with an internal compass and an instinct that defies scientific explanation. I, too, had flown here fueled by instinct, by the power of my mother’s stories and the need to know where I truly belonged.”

What do you hope readers get out of In My Mother's Footsteps?

I have many hopes for my readers. First and foremost, I hope that by reading the personal story of a Palestinian refugee in the Diaspora, they can better understand what happened to the 750,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven out of their homeland during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, the Nakba, the “Catastrophe,” as we Arabs call it. Those Palestinians were never allowed to return to their homes and land, which were confiscated by the state of Israel.

I hope that through my stories and travels, my readers will discover what everyday life looks like in Palestine— the pleasant, ordinary things like walking down the souqs in the Old City of Jerusalem, buying a loaf of pita bread, or having tea at a friend’s house, but also the challenges, like waiting for hours at Kalandia checkpoint, the humiliations, and brutalities perpetrated against the Palestinians at the hands of Israeli soldiers and settlers.

I hope my readers will see the devastating effects of military occupation on children in the Occupied West Bank. Those children, with whom I worked at the Ramallah Friends School (RFS), live in a constant state of anxiety, exhibited through their hyper-vigilance, fears, lack of focus at school, difficulty in resolving conflicts in a peaceful manner, and hyper-activity— all symptoms of PTSD. I felt honored to work with them on non-violent communication skills and giving them the tools to resolve their conflicts peacefully.

Do you have a favorite moment from teaching?

I have many, many favorite moments from teaching at RFS. At the beginning of my year, I found my students to be very passive. They whined and complained about this and that, and felt overwhelmed by things beyond their control — all aspects of living under Occupation. I began by teaching them how to articulate their problems, stand up for themselves and speak out against injustice in mature, non-violent ways.

By the end of the year, when dissatisfied with what they perceived as an unfairness at school, they knew they could speak their truth and seek out help by requesting a meeting with their teachers or writing their grievances to the Headmistress. They discovered there is power in numbers and that people will listen to them if they go through the proper channels.

I’ve been greatly inspired in my teaching by John Dewey, the American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He envisioned school as a microcosm of the larger democratic society. My students were learning how to formulate their problems and ask for help—essential elements in the development of problem solving, democratic values, and personal empowerment.

What’s it like living in exile?

Living in exile is living in a state of constant yearning— yearning for your friends and family dispersed all over the globe like little stars dotting the galaxies, yearning for the scents of jasmine and orange blossoms, for the delicious taste of a falafel sandwich at Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, for what you had and cannot recover. You imagine your home, confiscated and now inhabited by usurpers, and you yearn for its stone walls, its arched windows, its books, its soul. Yearning becomes so intimately known to you that it’s almost another member of your family. You are grateful for your new home in the Diaspora, but as a refugee, you will always continue to dream of your homeland.

How can people build stronger relationships with their mothers or children?

We know mothers have an extraordinary amount of influence on their children. From birth on, children look at their mothers for clues on how to be in the world. The challenge for mothers is to strike a balance between “modeling” to their children in their everyday interactions with the world how to behave, while at the same time “allowing” them to grow into their own selves. It’s not easy.

My own mother, Zakia, was a brave, independent, and feisty woman with a big heart. She stood up for her convictions and had strong opinions. She modeled to my sister and me that it was alright to be strong-headed, independent women in the world. I remember one time when she wanted us to wear fancy clothes to a party. We were teenagers and we pushed back. When our mother became irritated with us, I finally spoke up, “But Mama, aren’t you proud of us for standing up for our principles? We learned that from you, you know. You’ve been a great role model.” She shook her head, defeated, and smiled. That was one of those moments when she allowed us to grow into our own selves.

What’s next for you?

I am writing my next book on my childhood growing up in Alexandria, Egypt in the 1950s and the loss of my own home after President Nasser nationalized the country in 1961, and we became political refugees. It is a story about the life of a little girl, who basked in the love of her family and enjoyed the privileges of a private school education, who lived a carefree life at the country club and the beach, who lived in luxury, until it all crumbled down and everything was lost. I became like my mother in 1948, a refugee and I began my new life of exile in Geneva, Switzerland.