Indulging on my birthday, and feeling a bit guilty over Buram

by Ray Hanania (Palestine/USA)

It was my birthday and I found Paradise. The sweet life. All about pleasure.

There I was, sitting in bumper-to-bumper evening rush hour traffic behind the wheel of my car, a Lincoln LS, which I bought because, as I get older, it was harder to climb out of the Porsche Turbo any more. Life’s luxuries. That’s what it was supposed to be all about.

My knee was pressed against the steering wheel to keep the car from swirving to the side and smacking the car next to me in the next lane. Although the looks I was getting from the cars driving next to me, I wanted to smack them and smack them hard.

The index finger of my right hand was ready to go and in my left hand was Heaven. A 16 Ounce jar of “Buram.” Pure Bee Honey, with nuts.

You know, Baby Boomers, especially those who are Arab American, have little joy these days. The 30-somethings, 20-somethings, Generation X’s, (rebels), Generation Y’s, (lifestyle focused and openminded about too many things, maybe) and even Generation Js (journalists) have started to fill out the line behind us as we get closer to the “exit.”

My “exit” is still a ways off. My generation’s 50 is my father’s generation 30. The idea that my dad had a sense of humor is foreign to me. He was old school Arab. Smart but tough. Loving but firm with the kids. His idea of conflict resolution was the Belt. So I think I have a few steps ahead of me before I “go into the light!”

And it was with that in mind that I celebrated my birthday. In traffic. Thinking about the next Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour that will take place in Israel June 5 – 18, but with no takers on the Palestinian side to host a show in Bethlehem or Ramallah. Conflict. Conflict. Conflict. No one’s happy. Everyone is mad.

WHy is it my responsibility? So I aimed that index finger and dived it into the open glass jar of the Buram. I didn’t have a spoon. And scooped up a chunk of nuts dripping with honey and ate that jar’s entire content between downtown Chicago’s Loop and the exit that let’s me off on the Silk Road trail, Harlem Avenue. (Harlem Avenue is the artery that runs through the heart of Chicagoland’s suburban and Middle class to wealthy Arab American community, from Burbank, Oak Lawn through Bridgeview, through Palos to Orland Park, where I live.)

And I ate. And ate. And ate. I know that had Palestine not been partitioned an dtorn apart by the greed of the Western World and turned into a sacrifice for the world’s role in the Holocaust against the Jewish people, I’d probably have been born a sheep herder, sitting on the side of a mountain on my family’s 10 acres of Olive Tree covered land just south of Jerusalem and not too far from Bethlehem (which I can’t seem to sell). And I’d be doing the exact same thing. Dipping my finger into a small pot of nuts drenched in Bee Honey.

Yum!

I get the Buram from Ziyad Brothers Importing, the family-based wholesalers located not too far from the heart of Chicago’s Arab community. We have two mosques, now. And two Arab churches. Mostly Palestinian, about 65 percent. The next largest group, Lebanese. Followed by Jordanians. And then a mix of Syrians, Egyptians, some Yemenis and a few others.

Buram with nuts is a fascinating concept. Some little old lady sits in a factory someplace with these brand new little glass jars that must glisten in the sunlight. She puts a waxed tube in the center that leaves only a little room between it and the jar’s lip. And one by one, she places the nuts in a row along the side of the jar with her finger. The bottom is dark brown Almonds. Above it are sliced almonds with the white facing out. Above them is a row of green colored pistachios that go all around the jar like a belt. Above that row is a row of full Walnuts, looking like butterflies in a collection. Another row of Pistachios. The top row, Peanuts.

And when she is done completeling this Picasso masterpiece of food, she pours a mixture of diced mixed nuts soaked in Bee Honey into the center. When she is done, she carefully pulls the waxed paper out of the jar leaving a work of art that I can buy and enjoy. On my birthday.

But I am guilty. All I can think about is that lady who painstakingly made this jar of Buram.

I look at my right hand. It is sticky with the honey residue. Fingers were made to grab chunks of lamb and rice in a large dish of Mensiff, but not to scoop up honey. I hope she washed her hands. Of course, I am sure she did.

But as I am driving, I realize that life comes in different jars, all packaged differently.

What would have happened to us Arab Americans if that Virginia Tech student had been Arab and not South Korean?

Who was that young Arab student, Reem Samaha, who was among the students killed at Virginia Tech? I think I knew her. Had she sent me an email, writing once about journalism?

Buram. Too much honey. It does make you think.

– Ray Hanania
www.hanania.com