Palestine: slingshot, olive, key. Symbols of self-determination over a 1918 map of Palestine, showing Palestinian and Jewish villages of the time. Keys, hopes and aspirations for a right of return to the homeland, a memory of what grandmothers held to after the Nakba, symbols of destroyed homes and villages. Olives, aspect of a land-based culture, of history and economic sustenance, feared and destroyed by the settlers. The slingshot, a symbol of resistance and struggle, and of youthful uprising against apparently invincible forces. I realize that all those symbols have a certain nostalgia to them. Like this website that sells old-school made-by-hand prints, today’s struggles may be communicated through text messages and media posts, but when the lights are turned out, we return to faded paper maps, rusted family keys, makeshift slingshots, and the ancient olive trees that still give life…
Ojalá in Spanish is derived from the Arabic insha'Allah, God willing, used commonly in my language as "hopefully," "someday."
