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Ladies Who Rally by Tanya Habjouqa

Tanya Habjouqa 9 November 2013 1 دقيقة قراءة

The Middle East’s first all-female racing team has gained a lot of media attention in its short existence. But for all the approving press, it’s a trial to succeed on the track. The Speed Sisters are the Middle East’s first all-female auto racing team and part of the Palestinian Motorsport and Motorcycle Federation. Composed of six women, the Speed Sisters represent the diversity of what Palestine has become, with racers hailing from the fragmented corners of the West Bank and showing the differences in lifestyle determined by the varied economic opportunities of cities divided by checkpoints, settlements, walls and different ID cards.

For Noor Daoud, Palestinian motor racing is curbed by a host of fundamental deficits: no proper race tracks to practice or compete on, for starters. Rallies have to be held in impromptu open spaces in Jericho, Hebron, Jenin, Bethlehem and Ramallah. While the British Council did try to beef up the racing federation’s flagging BMW reserved for the women, the car was just too old to make competitive and, most importantly, bears yellow license plates. Only Israeli citizens or Jerusalem ID holders can drive it, which means only two Speed Sisters can legally race the team’s sole car.

Driving, in many ways, is an escape from all that, maybe even a view of a different type of life. “When I drive, I understand freedom. As speed racers, we get a taste of normality,” Ennab says. “We are used to being stopped at checkpoints, but on days we have races, we fly through checkpoints.”

Noor Daoud, 21, prepares to take off during the final race of 2011 in Jericho.

Noor Daoud takes her car out to practice in the Israeli Ofer prison parking lot. Open space where the women can practice is limited in Ramallah.

Despite the economic, geographic and political limitations, racers like Muna Ennab improvise and make do, like everyone else in Palestine. They throw down traffic cones wherever they find free space to train. A favorite site lies in the shadow of Ofer prison, one of the largest Israeli prisons in the West Bank. It was built to accommodate mass arrests during the Second Intifada. Here and in abandoned lots and empty Friday afternoon fruit markets, the racers practice.

Mona, a “Speed Sister” from Ramallah, trains with colleague Noor at the Qalandia checkpoint during a quiet lull during iftar in Ramadan.

Betty Sa’adeh pulls on her aviator shades to block out the hordes of male fans as she edges her souped-up, candy-apple red Volkswagen Golf GTI toward the starting line at the track in Jericho. Earnest, prepubescent kids with peach-fuzz mustaches stare through the tinted windows in amazement as she purses her lips, applies lipstick and fluffs her blonde hair.

Betty Saa’deh, 30, prepares before a race. She works full time at the Mexican consulate in Ramallah when she is not driving.

Members of the Speed Sisters team and their supporters watch a race in Ramallah. Zahalka’s father, Khaled, tells a favorite story: One day, years back, he was shocked to discover his new car had gone missing. It did not take him long to work out that his youngest daughter was also gone, and when both car and ten-year- old returned from her joyride, he vowed to nurture her passion. He has given her every resource available to his tight-knit family of six, but his daughter has an expensive gift. He worked his way out of Jenin’s refugee camp and now makes dentures in a clinic. That accomplishment is an inspiration for his daughter. “People here often look down on people from inside the camp,” she says. “But they do not make that mistake around me. The camp provided my father and those around him with the inspiration to study and achieve. He is a son of the camp and that strength is inside of me.”

Born in Mexico and raised in Bethlehem, Sa’adeh works at the Mexican consulate in Ramallah. She’s part of a racing family. Her father won rallies in his youth in Mexico, and her older brother is a famous fixture on the Palestine speed circuit. It would be easy to not take her seriously at first glance, with that mane of blonde hair and a demeanor that says diva, but her ferocity on the track is a reminder that femininity and fearlessness can go hand in hand.

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Tanya Habjouqa

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Ladies Who Rally by Tanya Habjouqa

Tanya Habjouqa

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