Voicemails to Siti

Mahava and welcome to the season finale of Sitti Stories. When I first initially thought of this episode, I knew I wanted to end the season in a way that really brought us all together. What better way than with your voices, your memories, your laughter, your stories, all wrapped in love for the Sitis who've passed the pieces of Palestine we carry today? I called it voicemail to Siti because my own Sitti used to leave me voicemails all the time. I still have them saved, and she'd call, and before you'd call her back, she'd already leave a full message just within that one minute span of time for you to like call her back. And she would always like talk like as if like you were on the line with her. It was always hilarious, and now that she's passed, I'm so grateful I can still hear her voice. And that's what this episode is for is remembering the stories and the presence of our sitties and using their stories as a way to carry us forward. So today we're closing out this first season with your stories, voicemails to Siddhi. Some made me laugh, some brought tears, and all of them reminded me of why I started this podcast in the first place. I hope you guys enjoyed this compilation of your Siddhi's stories.

Hi everyone. One of my earlier uh memories with my Siddhi, we also know her as uh Tita, and alhamdulillah, she's still with us, is actually her life prior to 1948. We're not entirely sure when she was born, what year and what month, but we do know that she was a kid prior to 1948. Her name was Fahriya, also known as Im Ahmad, and she grew up in a village west of Jinin by the name of Yahvad. And really, where Jinin was and where Palestine was in general prior to the uh 1950s was it was kind of a stepping stone for a lot of people doing Hajj. So you had people from Turkey, Albania, Syria, Egypt, even, that would pass through Palestine to go to Hajj. And prior to hotels and prior to a lot of these other modern amenities like planes and uh trains, people essentially would stay in a lot of these homes uh that happened to be a place where women could feel comfortable and really stop on the way there. And usually the route used to be to Jerusalem to see the uh Mestrid of Aqsa, and then go to Medina to see the Mestre the Nebuchadnezzar, and then obviously go down to Metca to go to the Kaaba. Uh, but one of the homes that um used to house a lot of these women happened to be my uh great-grandmother and great-grandfather's home, Fatma and Ali. And my grandma used to essentially be in service of a lot of these women. And I feel she learned a lot of hospitality and a lot of these different values that she still holds today. And I feel that's one of the biggest values that she communicates.

Sitisada was one of the strongest people I've ever known. She was born in a small village called Kofralik, and her life was shaped by both hardship and deep love. In her forties, she began to lose her sight, first in one eye and then the other. It was devastating for her, but it never stopped her. If anything, it made her even more determined. She lived in Dramallah, but during the next time when things became dangerous, she walked on foot with all her children back to Kufrmalik to find safety. My dad, her youngest, was just a baby and she carried him the entire way. That moment captures who she was, devoted, protective, and incredibly strong. Life wasn't always kind to her, though. She raised eight children while grieving the loss of one as a baby. Still, she held on to joy. She loved to laugh, tell stories, and be surrounded by family. Even when she sat quietly, she loved listening to the voices of others around her. When we moved to Palestine in 2003, I was only ten years old, and that's when I really got to know her. By then she needed help walking, and my siblings and I would guide her gently by hand. She always wanted to be near the action and part of the conversation. Her favorite spot was under the grapevine outside her house, the enba. She'd wait all winter for the warmth to come back so she could sit there again. We'd gather around her, eating fruit like figs, watermelon, and escadinia, talking, laughing, and sharing stories. It was simple, but it meant everything. She adored having her children grandchildren around. We played tag in her house, and one of her favorite games to play with us was Rabat al Fanajin, a playful game that involved hiding a ring underneath a fen gen. Sitisada passed away in 2017. Now most of her children and grandchildren live abroad. The grapevine still stands, but the space beneath it is quiet. Still, her spirit is everywhere in the stories, the laughters, and the memories she gave us.

We call her Taita, and we call um we call them Taita and Jiddo. So I wanted to share that we are Christian Palestinian, my family, and my Taeta grew up in Tabia, Palestine, and she has an amazing story to what happened with her family. But basically in 1948, she was about 11 years old, and she had she was kicked out of her home. Um and her father owned a uh rental property that he was about to start renting out to tenants, and the Israeli army took that over and kicked them all out. Um, and they never got any benefit from any of it. And they literally left with the clothes on their back and had to flee. Um, but something that she always tells us is she left her towel doll. She had a towel doll that her that her taped it had made her. Um, and it was the only doll that she ever had, and she had to leave it behind because she couldn't carry it with her. And she actually never had a doll her entire life for the rest of her life until the four of her adult children um got her one for her one of her birthdays when she was um much, much older. Um, and my dad is actually one of her four children, so I am her grandchild. Um, and I also wanted to mention that my sisters and I and my aunt actually created a cookbook of all of her recipes, um, mostly all of them. It got to be a little bit too much, but it's over a hundred recipes. And we actually self-published it on Amazon. It's called Teta Denise's Kitchen, A Legacy of Love, if you'd like to go and look at it.

Um, guys, about my Teta, my dad's mom, who super adorable humha. And she is, she's from Gaza actually, um, originally. She's one of they're, you know, one of the families that are originally from Gazza. And she got married to my grandfather, who lived and was from a small town uh about 20 kilometers outside of Gazza, but prior to the 1948 division, it was all part of the Providence of Gaza. Um, that it's called Karatiya, that's where my grandfather was from. So when my grandma got married to my grandpa, Mesido, they moved to Karatiya. And so my grandma lived in Karatiya at the time of the Nekbah. And when they were going to Gaza, she was just going to her go stay at her father's house for a little bit. Um, my grandma would always tell me that when the the Jewish people first started settling in Palestine prior to 1948, she was really excited about it as a kid because she had heard about what happened to them in Europe and that they were facing so much oppression and they were being killed. And she was really happy that they were able to take in these refugees onto their land. And she said that every time she would sew or crochet uh outfit for one of her children, she would make one for the refugee children who were coming from Europe. And she obviously did not know, you know, and even when she heard that they were coming, because she was so young, she got married very young. Um, she was, you know, a teenager at the time. She didn't really understand that what was happening. And I think a lot of people didn't understand what was uh what was actually happening um while it was happening. I want to talk about my teta in Fuad, my mom's mom, Ali R Hamha. She's from Birisaba, and she had just gotten married a few years before the nekba, and she had just recently moved into a new home with my grandpa, and they were expecting their first child, my mom, when the nekba happened. It's unclear exactly where my mom was born in Palestine because they were being displaced, violently displaced at the time of my mom's birth. They were on their way, making their way to Gaza. And at some point during this journey, they think it was closer to Gaza, but it's unclear. My grandmother gave birth to my mother on May 15th, 1948. So my teta, like so many others, just thought that she was gonna leave for a few weeks until the war was over, and then she would be back home. And she took a tatriz that she had been working on for my mother, her unborn daughter. Um, she had been working on a blanket for her. Um, and she took it with her, Yani Esali had to keep her busy, uh, to do something, to entertain her um on the trip um that they were thinking that they were gonna take for a few years, they made but they made their way to Gaza, and they never went back to their home. And the only thing that they had from their home was this incompleted, uncompleted blanket because my grandmother never wanted to complete it. You know, my teta, like so many other, so many of our tetas had to leave. She left, you know, when all of her children moved to the US, and um she moved to the US with her to live with her children. And I just remember my teta was always, always so sad. And when I would ask my mom why she was sad, she would always tell me because she wants to go home. And she died in New Jersey. And she hated that. And she she hated dying in New Jersey, and she hated not being buried with her husband.

Hello, my name is Bayyan al-Khatib, and I would love to send a voicemail to my paternal city, Maiteta Alaihthamha. Maiteta's name was Fatima Safi. She's originally from a small village called Talit Turmos, which is a sub-district northeast of Gaza. Before it was taken over in 1948, her family would farm orange trees, and I have memories of her sharing what that was like when I was a young girl. I'm admittedly struggling to find just a few things to share about Maiteta. Of course, her cooking was unmatched. Her love and dedication to caring for her family made her a pillar amongst my siblings and I. Her eagerness and perseverance towards education has influenced my own professional career and background. The list goes on and on. The main thing I would be so honored to share about her is through someone else's eyes. Her husband, Macedou, who alhamdulillah, will be turning 97 this year. When Maita passed away in 2008, Allah Hamha, Macedhu was left broken. Of course, I have countless stories of the hardships he endured in his life, his exile from his home in Farustin, having to rebuild with Maita and their kids in Kuwait. But I don't think anything left this deep of a wound for him. He would tell us of how he first saw her as he was going to school in a neighboring town of their village, and she was the only girl there, sitting and reading. When he inquired about who she was, he found out that she fought to go to school there, even if she would be the only girl. He says he knew from there that he wanted to marry her. They built a life together hand in hand, had six children, and to this day, he carries poems of her gently folded in his blazer pocket. His love for her truly reaffirms the incredible woman she was. She was the type of person that would show individual type love. What I mean when I say that, for example, is you know, she would be cooking dinner for us where we all gather on a Saturday and she'd be making makluba, but my younger brother didn't like makluba. So she would always have a separate dish just for him on the side. Or another example I can think of is if there was, you know, a necklace that I admired and would play with and grab out of her jewelry box when I was five years old. Um, every time we visited, she would give it to me, let me keep it, and then somehow, someway, managed to get the same exact type of necklace for my little sister, even though she bought it from overseas, just so that we both had our own necklace and we it wouldn't be something that, you know, we fought over. She would just make sure that we were each, you know, fairly given a necklace. Um, and she was just so generous, but also just so considerate in that way. She truly cared for us all. And Maisido would just love to just remind us of that. And he still shares how she was just the caretaker for all of us to this day. To this very day when he makes a cup of Turkish coffee, he shares how he would insist he would do this for her. And if he didn't insist, she would then push to make one for him. But he never let her. And this is just a small memory, a small gesture, a small testament to who she was. Thank you for allowing me to share a little bit about my teta.

My grandmothers are both very inspirational. My paternal grandmother, my father's side had a factory, and uh my grandfather passed away before I was even born. So and my grandmother was the one who kind of like spearheaded all of it. When we visited her in Ghazzi, she was like the boss lady. Everything was run by her, even business-wise, she was very on top of everything, despite the fact that my my grandmother had Mashal eight kids. She had six sons and two daughters, and she was still on top of everyone. I feel like having my parents see that in their lives, I think inspired them also to support women, having them be strong and having them be independent. My dad is so super supportive of me. Whatever I want to do, he's like, we have your back. We could we'll support you with whatever you want to do. And I'm sure that also stems from his mom kind of being like a boss lady, too. A lot of it is passed down through seeing like your parents and your grandparents, what they're able to accomplish and how strong they were. Um, and then how they their kids, which are my parents, and how they raised us. So, until I'm able to pass that down through my daughter also, which is like the goal.

What do you want to use to make it? It was so good. I I used to watch her make it, and how I'm how she made it, I don't know how she made it, but it was good, and I really want to make it too.

My teta Medium comes from a little village called Yado, where her family used to have dozens of grapevines. And every year in the spring, around late February or March, they would prune the grapevines so that they could grow more abundantly in the summer. And when they prune their grapevines, they would also cut their hair, which would symbolize a connection to the land as well as the hope that their kid will grow more, just like the grapes do. And that is a tradition that I will be carrying on. So I will be cutting my hair every late February or March. I sit needle in hand, threading the colours of Palestine into fabric. Stitch by stitch, I trace the map of the land I have never touched, embroidering cypress trees and sunbirds in flight, as if my hands alone could restore the stolen hills. I run my fingers over each cross stitch, knowing these threads are more than adornment. They're ink on the parchment of memory, a language of resistance passed from my grandmother's hands to mine. And as I wrap myself in the threads of heritage and what the rhythms of Palestine Palestinian lady folklore filled my soul, I become one with the generations of strong women who came before me. With every note I danced with resilience of my ancestors and read the tale of Freedom Hook and the unlate rang spirit of Palestine.

She was my dad's mom and the only grandparent that I had the privilege of knowing because unfortunately the others died when I was young. She was full of life and always on the move. Even in the hottest of days, we'd be in the baranga cooling down and she'd be out watering the plants and tending to the bar kook and mishmash trees like she was still 20. She was so sharp too. No one could haggle like her. She demanded respect without saying much. And her one of the wedding, no one could touch it. Just the little things that stay with me about her. Like how she never forgot to bring me those strawberry gummies from the putz. And then during weddings, even if it meant going on her way, she'd always grab me a can of soda. Can of soda soda was a commodity. It was like gold. And the whole village would be invited to weddings. So she'd always make sure to grab me one and put it in her uh ugh. So um I'd never leave disappointed. She'd pushed through the whole crowd just to make sure I had one in my hand. And honestly, what I admired the most was how she raised my my Amal Majdi. He had Down syndrome, but she never let that define him. She raised him with so much love and strength that he grew up confident, independent, and respected, just like her. She didn't just change his life, she shaped the way everyone saw him.

Both of my grandmothers originally from Bayema until they found themselves in 1948 migrating to Shijay Raza. Both women very dominant and strong, and that's where I definitely get my personality from and my strength from. My biggest memories with both my grandmothers was always sitting in the hakura and making bread fresh. Gather the hatab and get the big sarge. And flip it and make it a I have so many memories of them, but since the time frame that I do remember with them was during the first Intifada. It was always collecting rocks and putting them in buckets or hiding little boys running away from the jeizh under their salah or abayah, hiding them so they don't not they're not taken away. Eating fresh vegetables. We would pick eggplants off the tree as big as your palm, and we would just eat it fresh like that. As old as she was at that time frame, um she told me how to play Hejga. I don't know if uh if that's something that anyone would know what it is, but it would um it would consist of uh drawing uh uh with your finger um on the sand because none of the streets were paved in Gaza. And we would hop. It's a hopscotch. We would hop and kick the rock from one block to the other. I don't remember what the the rules of it was, but another thing that I do remember she would always sit us down in the Hakura and she would say, Ya lay it'll glool and we would play um pick up the the marbles and we would play glool. Another thing that I'm really good at, and it was taught by them was carrying the big sunni uh after making the bread. Sometimes when they're we we wanted to make a lot of bread, or she would tell us, yeah, little take the the bread to the faran. And she would p put wrap uh a cloth over my head and she would put the sunni on top of my head and she'd say, Yalla Ijri, Izra al-Farran, Halih Bizu raw hai. And I would go and I would do it. Aladdin Russahawalafia. We alhamhumyarub.

My first memory of meeting my sikti Amina was at 14 years old when we moved to Palace. Uh this was my dad's mom. I always felt avoid because up to this point I grew up without grandparents. It was a great experience to be able to interact with her on a daily basis. I loved having a 60. I loved talking to her, sitting with her, spending time with her, just poking up the feeling of having her in my life. Unfortunately, Amina had dementia by this time. I got to enjoy 50 Amina for one year before she passed away. Yeah, I mean it was it was the best best feeling. I I loved, loved having her. She was tall, she was skinny, um, but she was so strong, she was so headstrong. And I guess you would say like she was goe and people feared her. She didn't let anything slide. It was always her way. And uh living in Palestine for two years, I got to meet and really get to know my grandparents from my dad's side, my grandmother and my great-grandmother from my mom's side. Both both of these um amazing any grandparents were like just a true blessing in my life. Um, and I am forever grateful that we we lived there for two years. Alhamdulillah, I don't think I would have experienced having uh my 50 and you know, in my life. So I I really truly appreciate living in Philosophine.

Um, so I am gonna be talking about my grandma. So my grandma's name is Siti Aisha and uh I think the first time I met her was when I was like three or something and uh she is a very nice um grandma. She she cooks very well, um and she always like makes the best food more than my mom, at least. She's always there for me. I like that I have the best grandma ever.

Well, that wraps up season one. Thank you so much for listening, j not just to this episode, but to the entire first season of Siddy's stories. This podcast really came from my heart, and it's been so heartwarming to see the need for it because I I thought there was a need for it, but it it's been so nice to see that others are also looking for the same thing as well. Most podcasts have a whole team behind them. This has just been me writing and editing and recording and designing and emailing and posting. Uh, and so it's been a lot, but it's been really, really fulfilling. Honestly, during this horrific time of the genocide, there's moments where I feel like, what's the point? Like it gets really demotivating when you see all these horrific images and you see what everyone in Philistine is going through. And I just keep reminding myself that this is why it's important for us to share our stories. It's important for us to share our Siddhi stories, our Sito stories, our ancestor stories, because they just cannot erase our past. They cannot erase our history. And without them erasing our history, we will always have a future, inshallah. So seriously, thank you guys so much for listening and for being here and sharing your stories. I've got some really exciting things coming up. Season two is already in the work. We've got some amazing stories that I am so honored and that I have this platform to be able to share this with you all. In the meantime, before season two rolls out, um, I'm going to be working on some special projects like limited series and live events both in Chicago and New Jersey. So please stay connected. You can stay connected with us on our Instagram at cities.stories. Also check out our website, cithystories.com, and make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts, as well as to the website and our Instagram, so that you are as up to date as you can be. From my heart to yours, thank you for being part of this first season and thank you for honoring your cities with me. Until next time, stay rooted, stay resilient, and keep sharing your sithis stories.