Why Ramallah women are publicly smoking

I had a friend once. She was a terrible friend mind you but that is another story of gossip and Egyptian fashioned drama. She was the type who chased after people, had a loud shrieking laugh, changed her accent to Lebanese when she spoke to guys. Her heart was good but she gave it away to popularity too many times. Once we were standing outside of work, both of us California expats struggling to somehow make it. The winters here remind me of sitting in my father's convenience store cooler. It is colder indoors than it is outdoors, and we stood waiting for a taxi as it lightly drizzled. We were miserable

My friend had been stressed, we both were going through a lot. It was not easy out here adjusting. While I carried a flimsy bag with the bare essentials, my friend was the opposite. The bottle of expensive perfume, make up, cell phones, wipes, giant wallet, mirrors, brushes, hair clips all stuffed in her giant bag. And then she pulled out a pack of cigarettes as we waited. She wasn't a smoker.

"Why do you have those?"

"I dunno, just in case I feel like it."

Uh what?

It seems in Ramallah the trend of smoking has increased among the women folk. Stroll into a wedding and the women's side these days is filled with cigarette smoke, and they will ash them out on the table cloths or stomp on them during dabke. It is quiet normal at work for women to openly go take cigarette breaks with the men,  99% of them who carry a pack of cigarettes that starts with a letter G. And they will ask you, very casually, do you smoke and if you have a lighter.

Now this is alarming for someone like me, because in the diaspora we are taught that everything normal in America is taboo. But in the states none of my female friends carried packs of cigarettes. Here on a casual outing of a group of 4 girls, at least one has to bust out her cigs. I have at least one aunt who smokes, which is a miracle coming from a really conservative family. And of the hundreds of cousins I have, the women guests who come to our home, the business meetings I have with women, it is standard now that there is an ashtray around.

Usually we just brought it out if we knew one of my uncles was coming over, but now it is always on the coffee table--assimilated for all to use.

It is not a question of health risks, nor judgement, nor cultural standards that makes this phenomena interesting to me. It is how it came about and why women do it. All of us go out and smoke hookah, but carrying a hard or soft box in the purse is a bigger commitment.

With the change in clothing styles in Ramallah to sleeveless and shorter skirts, more women working, a lot of women going out, the introduction of bar scenes and night clubs, and overall  more traffic between regions of the West Bank and visitors from abroad, the atmosphere seems less tense for a woman as more diversity and interactions increase. But in some ways of course, there is always stress, and while it would be a stupid statistical error for me to say that stress may be a reason why women are smoking, I can throw in a few more reasons that are just as statistically weak (since no one here seems to do statistical studies, anyways, I have nothing to lose).

The desire to be cool and sophisticated may also be a reason to publicly display smoking rituals. I hardly see women from villages openly smoking, but instead the cafe hopper fashionista who tends to smoke is all over the place. The statistical error is obvious when it comes to this possible conclusion, as my experience and where I go is obviously affecting my opinion. Who knows maybe in the village they are getting high and taking it to the next level.

The will to die slowly could be a goal for some women and maybe this is why they smoke publicly, as awkward half assed proclamations at suicide. Maybe they hate their lives and like to cough up tar every morning and enjoy torturing themselves.

Maybe they want to lose weight. That one is obvious. 

Anyways somewhere along the line there was a point when women smokers felt ok to go light up in public without feeling uncomfortable. And along that thread in time, men were also cool with it.

So let us celebrate a culture of smokers here in Palestine, now that the women feel free to smoke, everyone is smoking sheesha and boys as young as 12 (from my knowledge) take their first puffs in a lifetime commitment to the cigarette industry. A toast my dear friends to the new additions to the smoking scene--the argele queens and their sisters, the glitter smokers.