Every 50 meters the road had a speed hump or was torn up. The Lonely Planet-listed 15 kilometers had already turned to 20 and the time from 3:30 to just beyond 4. The brewery was supposed to close at 4. “But she knew we were coming, right?” we thought with a big dose of dread.

We were heading uphill and away from Ramallah in a taxi. Our destination: the Taybeh Brewery. Back in Jerusalem, I called the brewery to ask the best way to get from there to Taybeh. Take a bus from East Jerusalem. Get off there. Find a service taxi near the center of the city. Take the taxi to the brewery for about 8 NIS.

We got the bus part down. We didn’t know this yet, but a service taxi is something different than a taxi taxi. Who would have guessed? Anyway, the meter in that thing was steadily churning and bubbling up, but we thought somehow that it didn’t matter. We would agree on a price later, the driver seemed to agree to then. We found the brewery. Or, we found a building with a big painting of a beer bottle on it. No one was around. We got out. I walked around looking for a soul or an entrance or something. It was maybe five or 15 past 4. Suddenly, a voice from a face on a balcony.

“Are you looking for the brewery?” the face said in perfect English.

“Yea!” I shouted back.

“It’s closed. But give me a second. I’ll be right there to open it for you.”

Problem solved. The face became a body, and a body with keys no less, and soon enough we were inside the Taybeh Brewery for a private tour. Amid the colorful stacked boxes of lagers and ales, the young woman who’d opened the door, sat us down to watch a quick video about how Taybeh was founded. After the video, the woman walked us around to the various tanks and machines and we sampled some of the goods.

Taybeh is sold in the territories, in Israel, in France and Germany and they’re working on Asia. Despite the fact that the family who started the brewery is just a bunch of ex-pats, the U.S. is whole different story. It’s basically an impossibility, she said, to get a box of anything with “MADE IN PALESTINE” stamped on its side into America. And to go the couple dozen kilometers into Israel proper is day-long endeavor for these people. Even so, she was able to rattle off a long list of bars and pubs in the Holy City that serve this Palestinian brew. And in Ramallah and the surrounding towns, there’s a different set of issues. An old Jordanian law, which for some reason still holds influence in the territories, says that one cannot openly advertise for alcoholic beverages. Word of mouth is the way of business here.

Micah, my travel buddy, bought a sixer. I just bought a poster. “Drink the Revolution,” it reads, though its unclear against whom or what or which people this revolution is directed.

We finally got back in the cab and started heading back toward Ramallah, and this return trip would prove to take even longer than the first. There was a pit stop on the edge of village. Thirty feet away a dry and wavy hill of beige grass crackled and suddenly erupted into flame. A tossed cigarette, no doubt. And back on the road we joked about youth and being old, about Obama, about Bush, or we were just laughing because we really didn’t understand who was saying what, and what about.

Then there was another stop so the driver could get another pack of cigs for himself. He hadn’t had one since the drive up the mountain and given that he smoked three in that 30-minute span, I wondered how he had made it this whole time without. Then we were back in Ramallah and after he parallel parked, the meter had ticked all the way over 150.

In the brokenest of Englishes, he told us, after Micah asked, that we could pay whatever we wanted, if we wanted. We realized we weren’t in a fabled service taxi. That became clear when Micah asked our brewmistress friend back in Taybeh how much to pay the man for the ride. She said 40 was a good price. So Micah handed him two of those plastic 20-Shek notes. Immediately,  after all the good-natured chit chat and feeling of universal brotherhood with this man, we had hit a wall, and we had only to pull ourselves out of the wreckage to see that it was bad, real bad. He was insulted. What is this, these two bills? Do you see the meter?! In between our failed attempts to explain why we’d given him that much, he’s asking us if we want him to call the police so they can sort it out. No, definitely not. We get out of the taxi. Ramallah’s a lively city. Even on this side street where we were parked, people were walking this way and that. A handful of women stopped to listen in on the argument. We asked if they spoke English. They did, and the translation mediation began. This goes on for another 10 minutes, and we’ve gotten basically no where. The 40 Shekels was an insult. We either pay the 150 or we call the police. One of the women is asking if we can pay it, not if we want to. Clearly, in their eyes, of course we can. We scream American. We scream tourist. What’s the big deal, you know? And it’s true. We could cover the fare. But that wasn’t the point. We felt cheated. He felt cheated. There had to a compromise. Now, a handful of men approach and are listening in. Micah’s giving me the eyes that say, “let’s get the fuck out of here,” and I’m thinking that 150 doesn’t sound so bad after all.

Finally, our team of translators reaches a breakthrough. The man will take 120, but he’s not happy about it. The money’s exchanged, we thank our new friends who are already walking away and onto something else and we walk fast. Back in the main square, where we’d picked up the cab in the first place, we scan the shops to find coffee. A place to sit and breathe. Up in the sky, above the packed city center and even higher than the banners of green and black and red, a sign for Stars & Bucks.

Yep. They love us and they hate us. And we? The wealthy, privileged, free, young American observers of all of this. How do we feel? It’s hard to say. Let’s find our way up there for some coffee and sheesha and talk it out.

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