The prize was a bag of M&M’s, which Amna won and put aside for dessert after lunch and a hard day’s work. “Want to share with them?” I asked her.

Amna grinned sheepishly. “Only if they work hard. And they have to show me how many olives they picked and sorted!”

Bilal had already laid the tarps by the time we arrived. We got to work right away, toiling among those ancient trees as the sun inched along its arc. Amna taught me the proper way to pick olives. “Some of the lazy boys try to just shake and hit the branches to make the olives fall, but that’s wrong. My father says it’s wrong to beat a tree that’s giving you blessings. Do it like this,” Amna said, picking one olive at a time with rapid dexterity, letting them fall onto the tarp laid beneath the tree. The plop of hundreds of olives falling at once from the trees all around made music like rain from clear blue skies.

Five or six people toiled at each tree, picking as far as we could reach. Some, like Amna, climbed on ladders and filled buckets of olives from the high branches. Some sat on the tarps, sorting the olives into baskets according to color and ripeness. Children too small to pick ferried the baskets to and from piles destined for the olive press. Jumana, Amna, and I worked alongside each other on one side, Bilal, Wadee, and Faisal on the other, listening to a radio another family had brought. We talked. Sang. My arms grew sore and moist patches darkened the underarms of my shirt. The air was refreshingly cool against my face, even as beads of sweat rolled steadily down the groove of my back. I had never known the pleasure of such physical toil. Soon the smell of fresh bread wafted between the trees. It was nearing time to pause for the food being spread at the top of the hill, not far from the road where Bilal’s car was parked.

“I stink!” Jumana sniffed her armpits.

“Who’s the city girl now?” I smirked.

Amna suddenly made a strange sound in her throat and dropped her bucket from atop the ladder, spilling its contents on the ground. The sun was in my eyes. I couldn’t see her, but Jumana would later describe the fear on Amna’s face. Before we could say anything, a little boy a few tiers up the hill screamed, “The Jews! The Jews!”

People scrambled to their feet, gathering as many olives as possible. I ran to Amna. Her legs were trembling, and I reached up to help her down the ladder as Bilal ran past us up the hill. Wadee and Faisal followed, ordering us to “wrap up the olives.”

“Allah yustor,” Jumana prayed, hands shaking as she scooped the olives into buckets.