The main streets of Ramallah centre are normally quite lively. Today the usual chaos of pedestrians and street traders mingling through the heavy morning traffic reached a so far unforeseen level as clusters of young people were filling up every free space in the streets. When I reached the office it was clear to me that something was going on.
Normally, the first hour or two at the office will go by in a calm pace, everybody silently agreeing on a certain level of drowsiness. To the scent of freshly brewed coffee people will get ready to launche themselves into the projects of the day and slowly the office will be buzzing with activity. But today was not the day to have a decent, humane wake-up. As soon as people met, they threw themselves over any available phone line, they chatted, cheered, clicked their tongues and clapped their hands. At first, I was lost in a state of complete, but cheerful bewilderment as the reason for the festivity remained a mystery.
It did not take too long, though, for somebody to realise that I was in need of a bit of cultural and linguistic translation. It turned out that today all the results for the graduate students' final test are made public and everybody was eager to find out if they had done well. As soon as the reason was made clear for me, the joyful atmosphere in the office had no need for further translation.
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