{"id":32,"date":"2020-04-28T17:11:05","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T17:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/?post_type=rara-portfolio&#038;p=32"},"modified":"2020-05-08T14:25:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T14:25:33","slug":"minerva","status":"publish","type":"rara-portfolio","link":"https:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/portfolio\/minerva\/","title":{"rendered":"Minerva"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"flex-container\">\n  <div class=\"image-container\">\n    <img\n      src=\"http:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/files\/2020\/04\/minerva-2-scaled.jpg\"\n      alt=\"minerva 2\"\n    \/>\n    <p class=\"poem-caption\">\n      Mamma Mervat and Aunt Noon, the women who cared for me in Amman. They are originally Palestinian, from Nablus.\n    <\/p>\n    <img\n      src=\"http:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/files\/2020\/04\/minerva-1-scaled.jpg\"\n      alt=\"minerva 1\"\n    \/>\n    <p class=\"poem-caption\">\n      Mural on the Edward Said Music Conservatory in Ramallah, Palestine. The little cartoon boy is Handala, a symbol of Palestinian resistance that Mervat loved.\n    <\/p>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"poem-text\">\n    <p>\n      I tell strangers about her<br>\n      A Palestinian from Nablus<br>\n      Tell them she\u2019s my grandmother<br>\n      An Al-Masri\n    <\/p>\n    \n    <p>\n      We live in the basement<br>\n      She doesn\u2019t believe in heaters<br>\n      I wear the socks Aunt Sabah sent<br>\n      They\u2019ll keep me warm\n    <\/p>\n    \n    <p>\n      She smokes like a chimney<br>\n      Marlboro Light Blues<br>\n      She never eats with me<br>\n      \u201cI\u2019m just too full of smoke\u201d\n    <\/p>\n    \n    <p>\n      Always talking on the phone<br>\n      \u201cEllo? Ello? Ah salaam alaykum!\u201d<br>\n      She\u2019s rarely ever home<br>\n      Unless the Turkish soap opera is on\n    <\/p>\n    \n    <p>\n      A well-educated single mother<br>\n    She covered at 45 when religion found her<br>\n    There were three men who called her their lover<br>\n    But she rejected them all for God\n    <\/p>\n    \n    <p>\n      Or was it for her freedom?<br>\n      She comes and goes like the wind.<br>\n      Each day I go and I come<br>\n      Always out past curfew\n    <\/p>\n    \n    <p>\n      I leave the house before she wakes<br>\n      Running to the local cafe<br>\n      By 7 hiding in its coffee and cakes<br>\n      She gets worried if I\u2019m not out\n    <\/p>\n    \n    <p>\n      She gets worried if I\u2019m not being wild<br>\n      Tries to get me to marry one of the 5 cousins<br>\n      \u201cSo you can really be my child.\u201d<br>\n      I protest like a storybook princess\n    <\/p>\n    \n    <p>\n      I refuse like she did<br>\n      \u201cLook for a man, Kendall, not a male\u201d<br>\n      By 23 she was divorced with a kid<br>\n      It made her strong and wise.\n    <\/p>\n    \n    <p>\n      Like the goddess of wisdom<br>\n      Minerva<br>\n      She is the queen of her own little kingdom<br>\n      In the building on Jakarta Street\n    <\/p>\n    \n    <p>My Muslim Mama Mervat<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\n  I tell strangers about her<br \/>\n  A Palestinian from Nablus<br \/>\n  Tell them she\u2019s my grandmother<br \/>\n  An Al-Masri<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":13,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","rara_portfolio_categories":[2],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rara-portfolio\/32"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rara-portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rara-portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"rara_portfolio_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wofford.edu\/presidential-international-scholar-exhibit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rara_portfolio_categories?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}