It's impossible to convey his heavy Southern accent on paper. "So help me God, man" appears in almost every sentence. He stands in the vegetable garden in his home, with the Hebron Hills in the background, wearing a wide-brimmed white hat and Ray-Ban sunglasses, planting olive trees. When he began to speak, I rubbed my eyes in amazement: Alabama in the South Hebron Hills? America in Palestine?
In the remote village of Tarrameh, not far from the Adurayim army base, lives a U.S. citizen, a former sailor and diver, an electrical engineer who fought in Vietnam and whose son is serving in the U.S. Marines. His arms are tattooed all over and he lost three fingers on his left hand under circumstances he is not willing to reveal. Rumor has it that he lost them in Vietnam, but he is not willing to talk about Vietnam.
Sayyal Ghanam left this village at the age of 12, after his parents died. He hitchhiked on trucks for three days to reach Aqaba and later convinced a Greek ship captain to allow him to join his crew. He was at sea for many years - a Palestinian sailor, who when he reached dry land worked as a shipbuilder in the shipyards of the U.S. Navy in Mobile, Alabama. He lived in Alabama for decades, was married to two American women in succession and had three American children. About six years ago, he decided to return to his native village and build himself a house.
Now he has a young Palestinian wife and two young Palestinian children, but says his heart remains in the West, far from here, in Alabama. "America is my mother and father," he declares. In Tarrameh, he misses steaks; nor can he get macaroni and cheese or Kruger's coffee, not even in the Be'er Sheva supermarket. In his free time he secludes himself in his room on the ground floor of the magnificent house he built and listens to country music, hard rock, Phil Collins and the other bands and singers he loves. When the longing for America gets strong, he drives to Be'er Sheva and eats a Big Mac in memory of those days. He is a supporter of Barack Obama.
He is 61 years old, with an athletic body, his face scorched by the sun. He is trying to relearn the Arabic he has forgotten. Only once in all his years in Alabama did he meet an Arab, and that was a long time ago. He was the youngest of his 10 siblings; his parents died, one after the other, when he was 12. Only two sisters were still alive when he returned to his village from his long years in exile.
"I was a bad boy," he says, beginning to tell his amazing life story, which could be the stuff of a novel. At first, he refused to talk. We had heard a rumor that in the South Hebron Hills there was a Palestinian who had fought in Vietnam. Some Palestinians suspect him of being a CIA agent. Recently, masked men came to his home in the middle of the night, and he is convinced they were Palestinians who wanted to search his house. Ghanam asked to see a search warrant from a federal judge, as is common practice, and when there was no such thing, he chased them out. Now he wants to ask Israel for a weapons permit for self defense, also common practice. In America, that is.
His older brothers used to beat him up a lot when he was young, Ghanam says. At the age of four and a half he registered for school, after proving that he could reach over his head and touch his hand to the opposite ear. That was the age test at the time in the South Hebron Hills, then part of Jordan. Three years later he was expelled from the village school because of his behavior, and transferred to another school in the nearby Al-Fawar refugee camp, where the children studied in tents. Now he recalls the teacher, Tahbub, scourge of the pupils. After three years, he was expelled from this school too.
When his parents died, he discovered he had nothing and embarked on a journey to Amman. He lived there for three months with his aunt, but he soon got tired of that too, and then he began his hitchhiking journey to Aqaba, which at the time was a city of refuge and exile, like our Eilat. He saw the sea for the first time and was fascinated by it. He worked for several months in his cousin's vegetable store in Aqaba, but was more drawn to the sea, and began to work as a longshoreman in the Aqaba port.
One day he boarded a Lebanese ship, Master Fawad, entered the mess hall, and met the Greek captain. He says his life history reminds him of Mike Tyson, the legendary boxer, who grew up penniless in a ghetto.
The captain asked him if he had a passport, and his face fell. No child had a passport at the time. After brief negotiations, the captain was persuaded and promised the boy that if he could get a passport within four days, the time the ship would be anchored in Aqaba, he could get on board. Young Ghanam began a race against time. He traveled to Hebron, got a birth certificate from the village mukhtar and gave a two- dinar bribe to a clerk, who had slapped his face because of the strange request for a passport. He was given a Jordanian passport. Ghanam was not yet 15 when he joined the ship's crew. All the officers were Greek; the sailors were Egyptian and Syrian. They transported logs from the countries of the Black Sea to Jordan, and phosphates from Jordan to Romania, Bulgaria and Russia. As his first job, he was put in charge of cleaning the engine room.
After two years at sea, he began to dream of America, and at the age of 17 arrived there for the first time. One of the voyages led him to Mobile, Alabama, and there he stayed, after falling ill, being hospitalized, and meeting someone who offered him work in the U.S. Navy shipyards.
Ghanam is a wonderful storyteller. He remembers every detail, paints every event in strong colors. He can tell the story of how he became a U.S. citizen, for example, down to the last detail. How he would not agree to give up his Jordanian citizenship, how he was given the runaround until he finally received the Green Card and then the desired citizenship, in a ceremony in which he swore to be a loyal citizen of his new country. "So help me God, man."
All the residents of Mobile, Alabama are rednecks, he says, and so was his first wife, Mary Innbanet; the couple had two daughters, Sarah and Angie. Ghanam hurries inside to bring their latest pictures, two American women in their thirties, who recently sent their photos to Dad in Tarrameh, South Hebron Hills.
We are sitting on the balcony of his new house: a spacious stone balcony with arches, a mixture of Palestinian and Alabama architecture, and parrots in a big cage. The picturesque landscape of olive trees in the valley is breathtaking. His two daughters now live in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Here is a picture of his son, Joseph, who was born to him and his second wife, Karen Moseley, whom he met in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Joseph is now 28, and in the photo wears a U.S. Marine uniform, at his base in North Carolina. His father thinks he has left the Marines now and is working in a civilian company that works with the Marines. He is not sure.
"I tried twice," says Ghanam, who is also separated from his second wife. The two separations were apparently difficult, and in 1980 Ghanam decided, on the advice of his bosses at the shipyards, to leave Alabama for a while. He returned to Aqaba, working for six years for a fertilizer company, where he earned a good salary, he says. As mentioned, he is not willing to talk about the years in Vietnam, 1970-72, except to say that he arrived there on the deck of a merchant ship. During the years he worked at the shipyard, he also went to sea often to check the ships they built or renovated. He worked as an electrician and a diver.
After six years in Aqaba, he missed Alabama and returned there in 1986. The children were grown up, and he could be close to them without getting involved with their mothers. He went to work at the shipyards again, and wanted to study electrical engineering. After difficult exams with a Pakistani teacher, Dr. Rahman, known for his toughness, the man who had no more than six years of schooling in the South Hebron Hills succeeded in being accepted to the University of Southern Alabama in 1990.
"I looked at myself and couldn't believe it," he says now. He was the oldest student, almost 40, but he finished successfully, before the others. His final project dealt with electromagnetic fields.
Ghanam loves Alabama. "I'm proud that I grew up and raised my children in Alabama, in a Christian society that knows how to distinguish between good and evil. Alabama is the best that I had." He says he never experienced discrimination because of his origin. During vacations he would travel to Florida to dive, and he played soccer at the University of Southern Alabama. He lost contact with his family in Tarrameh almost completely.
In 1997, cracks were discovered in his vertebrae, from all his years at sea and the hard physical labor, and he was forced to leave his job. Ghanam thought this was the time to begin another life. Two years later he came for a first visit to his native village. In all the years since he left he had been almost everywhere in the world, except Israel and Palestine.
Ghanam says, "I thought it would be a quiet place to begin a new life," when he arrived in his village, which meanwhile had been occupied by Israel. He has never taken an interest in politics. "I was a sailor who studied electrical engineering, not politics," he says with a smile. After another visit home, he decided to settle here - a returning resident. He married Liga, a native of the village, as his third wife. She is now 28, and the couple have two children, Adam, 2, and Rian, 3 months, both of whom already have American citizenship. Liga does not dare come out to greet the unfamiliar guests, but only sends out little cups of instant coffee on a tray with her husband's nephew. Ghanam wanted to buy a small bulldozer in Israel in order to better cultivate the plot of land he bought for himself. He has already built terraces all around and planted fruit trees and sunflowers at the edge of the field. He complains about the decline in the value of the dollar and about the many snakes he found. He says he has not become accustomed to life here, has almost nothing in common with his neighbors and relatives, and speaks Alabama English with his children. He says he will teach them not to hate anyone. He learned that in America.
