Ibtisam gets one shoe on, cannot tie it, and discovers her family has already vanished in the darkness and sea of villagers. Mother tells them to put on their shoes, which they only wear for special occasions. They gather food, blankets, clothing, and Mother’s wedding dowry of gold bracelets.

Although shots ring out as Mother returns to the house to get food for their journey, she is unhurt. They urge the family to flee to the caves, then cross into Jordan. People escaping from other villages tell Ibtisam’s family that after the bombings soldiers sweep through villages, killing anyone left alive. Molly Bennet conducted the following interview with her. Barakat first came to the United States in 1986 to work as an intern at The Nation. The family sits in the garden irrigation ditch as night falls and forms a plan. Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat Ibtisam Barakat grew up in Ramallah during the late 1960s and 1970s. EDITOR’S NOTE: Ibtisam Barakat, who lives in Columbia, Missouri, is the author of the memoir Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood, recently published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. In this groundbreaking memoir set in Ramallah during the aftermath of the. Father calms her but explains that Israeli planes are bombing Palestinian houses. Buy a cheap copy of Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian. Instead of his usual smile and pocket of treats, her father brings news that war has started. While her older brothers Basel and Muhammad play outside and her mother cooks the evening meal and cares for her infant sister Maha, Ibtisam waits for her beloved father to come home. My two brothers, the noisy inseparables-Basel.

It is June 5, and Ibtisam is three and a half years old when war erupts. I was three and a half years old but still wanted to be the one rocking in my mothers arms.

Tasting the Sky by Ibtisam Barakat