IN STEREO

Don’t they sometimes say ‘family tree’? This is the family tree. This one is the original, the mother, and these are her daughters, her grandchildren. They are a whole family. This smallest tree is ten months old now. I gave it my son’s name because of my love for the tree. There is a relation between us. I mean, it’s like home. Of course, the tree has rights. I know what it needs. I don’t think, I know. For example, when [it needs] water, when it needs pruning, when it needs ploughing. I like giving it as much as I can. [But] above all, you have to love it. The tree is like a child. One has to always be on the land every day. We have a proverb in Arabic. The farmer and the tree were talking to each other. The farmer told the tree, “I’ll stop ploughing you.” It told him, “I won’t fall.” He told her, “I’ll stop pruning you.” [And so on.]

In the end, he told it, “I’ll stop visiting you.” Then it told him, “Here, I’ve fallen.” So the farmer has to stay present on the land, beside the tree, looking after the tree, because there is a relationship between [them]. I was born here. I always bring the boys here, so that they love the tree and the land, so we remain attached after me. I mean, look, we inherit this intergenerationally. It was my grandparents’, then my parents’. They’re gone, of course, and now we are the third generation. We give generation after generation to preserve this heritage. We will be gone one day, so they have to carry this message, to keep it. I sit here a lot, you see? I sit maybe for an hour. I think of the tree; I sit enjoying it. I say, “After I’m gone, what will happen to the tree?” I think about that a lot. I always think of the tree. – Salah