f
Click the title to edit it.Rate this Trip
0
Itinerary
-
18 Dec 08 Israel (Home)
-
18 Dec 08 Picunches, Argentina
-
18 Dec 08 New York, NY, USA
Add Comment
.
News Feed
Israel (Home)
Travel Blog
Photos
Videos
Weather
WikitravelOther Posts in this area:
Old City - Note 1
(12 miles)
Nancy -
Sun 27 July 18.00
Clear
Before we approached the closest of the several possible entrances to the mosque complex Adia stepped into a doorway and pulled out two white garments from her plastic bag: a long skirt and a hijab for her head. She puts them on and frowns… she does not feel particularly comfortable in them! We don our headscarves. The Israeli soldiers that guard this entrance do not seem particularly concerned whether we are Muslim or not, and are quite relaxed about letting us through, once they have looked at our passports. However a Muslim man – someone who keeps the area clean - hovering just inside the entrance takes one look at us (particularly Becky) and insists that we should not be allowed through… we are not Muslim! Look at her eyes! They are blue!! Adia then argues with him at some length…but without success… we will not be allowed in that entrance. But this is not a problem. There is another one by the Western Wall that allows anyone through. As we set off for that one, Adia stops us, and we wait while she whips off her white garments and stuffs them back in her plastic bag! “Whew! they are too hot and uncomfortable to wear!” We cannot restrain from giggling at this charade!
We go into the square in front of the Western Wall, which is very busy this morning with people praying and others watching people praying. We move onto the wooden ramp which passes over the controversial Israeli digging and excavation that caused such anxiety within the Muslim community here. Adia quickly pulls on her garb again and we cover our heads. We are waved through the security barrier by the Israeli soldiers and we enter the complex and move towards the Al Aqsa Mosque where we are waylaid by a Muslim man who speaks to Adia in Arabic. She is determined to get us in so that we can see one of the most important holy places for Muslims, but they are being very strict: only Muslims are allowed inside. (I had been allowed in two years ago when we went with a Muslim scholar who was our guide, but these visits are quite rare) No amount of arguing is able to persuade him. She acknowledges defeat and we move on to the Dome of the Rock.
This time there appears to be a ray of hope. The guard of this beautiful gold-domed mosque tells us that the rules are not his… they are the Jordanians, who are the guardians of the two holy sites. If we are to enter, we must seek their permission. Adia sets out with a determined march towards the Jordanian office where we are escorted in to meet the Jordanian official. With typical Arab hospitality, we are asked to sit and offered coffee. Adia goes through her argument once again (which, although we do not speak Arabic, we suspect she is suggesting we are interested in Islam which is why we would very much like to see the mosque.) I note that I have learned in my Interfaith meetings that Islam simply means ‘belief in God’ or ‘giving oneself totally to God’ which would then easily cover anyone who believes in God. She agrees and says this has been part of her argument! This time her persuasive powers have had their desired effect: we are given a guide and told we can enter the Dome of the Rock. It IS a magnificent building inside and out, and we are grateful to Adia for all of her determination and effort on our behalf.
Once outside again, we are able to exit from the passage where we earlier denied entrance… this time the suspicious man hovering in the area does not impede our exit. Once outside the compound Adia again steps into a doorway and, reminiscent of Superman, she whisks off her white long skirt and hooded top and stuffs them back into her plastic bag, breathing a sigh of relief! What a woman! This wee woman of great stature is quite amazing.
We return to the hotel for a ‘briefing’ meeting and Adia moves towards the bus station and a hospital appointment. Then we set off to meet Jan Benvie for lunch on Nablus Street. Jan has been in Palestine for many months as part of the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT) near Hebron. She is also a friend and fellow member of the Third Order of the Society of St Francis in Scotland! Our bizarre day continues as we go to a restaurant she has had recommended to her. We are alone in the restaurant, but this in itself is not unusual. We are given a menu; we choose our food and give our order to the waiter who seems a bit perplexed, but we assume it is because he does not speak English and we speak little Arabic. But we point to what we would like, and he takes down our order. After perhaps 10 minutes, our drinks arrive…(when he says something about vegetables and the market and needing to wait 15 minutes… we think!) but nothing else… another 15 minutes… and another 15 minutes… and we are becoming concerned as we need to get back to the hotel for 3 pm and Jan needs to get away too. We decide to give them another 10 minutes when a gentleman walks in and comes over to us and welcomes us. We tell him we are waiting for our food, but it has been very long and he seems quite bemused when he tells us he is the manager, and the kitchen is closed for repairs! He cannot understand why an order has been taken, and apologises profusely for his staff, none of whom understand any English.
All we can do is take this with good humour, and head down towards the main road off Nablus Street to find a café to get some lunch! We find a very reasonable place with fresh falafel on the menu, and order this. It arrives promptly within about 5 minutes and is delicious! It has been wonderful to catch up with Jan and all she is doing in her work… she is such an inspiration to us!
The rest of the afternoon is spent on a tour of the Old City with Colin and his harem… 8 women of varying ages and sizes and forms! Dinner at the hotel… and then our first presentation from the Director of the Lifegate Project.
Nancy -
Sun 27 July 18.00
Clear
We explore the area around the hotel, heading for the American Colony Hotel to get a few books at the bookshop there, but before we reach it we discover a local ‘Educational Bookshop’ with the most comprehensive and wonderful array of books and novels in many languages – all about Palestine and/or by Palestinians. Elsie and I both are unable to leave empty handed, and I choose one by Raja Shehadeh, a Palestinian laywer/poet whom I had heard at the Edinburgh Book Festival on ‘Palestinian Walks’; another of conversations by Edward Said and Danial Barenboim called “Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society” ; and one more by Kahlil Gibran, “The Vision: Reflections on the way of the Soul.”
My friend Adia Abou A’tta (a Muslim Palestinian woman whom I met 2 years ago at an Interfaith Women’s Group in Jerusalem) meets us at the hotel and we go to the Arab bus station and get on a bus that takes us through Abu Dis and Beit Ania to El Alazaria where we meet her friend Rashid and his family. Rashid helped Adia enormously when she got ill, after her husband’s death and while her 4 children were finishing their education in various universities.
Rashid’s family lives on the edge of the village and the ugly concrete wall is only a few meters from their back garden. Every night Israeli soldiers make themselves ‘at home’ in their garden and make noise all night long. It terrifies the children, and they keep their back door locked and do not sit in the porch room… the coolest room in the house, out of fear. Rashid takes us for a drive in his neighbour’s car to Al Quds University where we stop at a local café for a cool drink. We engage in conversation with the owner and some of the local men there about ‘the situation’ and once again, when we leave and try to pay, the owner will not accept our payment… “you are welcome…” al ham dalala” is his answer! “Thank you for coming to visit us, and for caring…”
Rashid picks up some fresh pita and falafel and other Palestinian delicacies for lunch, refusing my offer to take them out for lunch. He is horrified! Go out to a restaurant when he has a home to offer us hospitality in?! It would be rude to refuse…and we are treated to a delicious but simple lunch and joined by his father and his 3-year old son, Mohammed.
Rashid then travels back on the bus with us to Jerusalem, and when we are stopped at the checkpoint into Jerusalem it is the young Palestinian men’s ID’s that get checked over and over by the soldiers who board the bus. This time, they let everyone pass into Jerusalem, but sometimes they are not so lucky, and they can be turned back without a reason being given. The humiliation which they endure day in and day out is appalling… the anger in me at the injustice begins to boil…
Back in Jerusalem, Adia leads us to another bus which will take us to her home village, Anata. It passes out of Jerusalem, out past a huge refugee camp (whose residents were forcibly removed from their homes in the Old City to make way for an expanded area for the Jewish people around the Western Wall. ) There are now 56,000 of them in this refugee camp. Adia’s home is lovely, set in a large garden with a fruit orchard and fountain in the back (but without water flowing… it is too precious, and is sometimes cut off without notice). Her orchard has peaches, pears, olives, figs, almonds, apricots, apples, avacados, and pomegranates. She and her husband spent many years building this home for their family, but now that her four children are grown and married, she lives alone in it.
She has many concerns now about what is the best way to provide her with some financial security in her retirement (she was a lawyer). Selling the house is one of them, but it saddens her to even think about it, given all the memories in it for her and her children. However it is in a vulnerable village and they are not sure whether it will be annexed into the ‘greater Jerusalem’ or end up behind the wall… there is so much uncertainty as they pray for the international community to come to their aid by putting pressure on the Israeli government to honour the 1967 borders and all of the UN Resolutions which have been passed since the occupation in 1967. But up til now, they have waited in vain…
(A few days later, when we go to Bethlehem, we see some graffiti on the wall which says “…in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends…” It sent shivers down my spine!)
Nancy -
Sun 27 July 18.00
Clear
We carried on down Jaffa Street as far as the end of Prophet Street (where Beit Tabor – or the Swedish Theological Institute (STI) resides) before hailing a taxi to take us (and our backpacks!) the rest of the way to our hotel in East Jerusalem. The taxi driver was a friendly Palestinian Christian man who asked if we would mind if he picked up a friend along the way? We didn’t mind! His friend was a British priest who had come to Jerusalem many years ago, intending to stay only a couple of years, but has now been here over 20 years…
We checked into the Holy Land Hotel and walked up the Mount of Olives, getting into a long political discussion with a couple of Palestinian men touting maps and trinkets for tourists. They were delighted to find a few people willing to linger for a while and talk about the wall and the occupation and what it feels like for them, living on the edge of society.
We entered the Old City at St Stephen’s or the Lion’s Gate and walked through the Muslim sector to the Christian sector to Amigo Emil’s for dinner. Then we walked back through the Muslim sector towards Damascas Gate, but along the way we couldn’t resist walking into some of the small shops filled with spices! The spices were sometimes presented in artistic formations, and in one of them, where there was a mountain of the ingredients that make up za’tar, the man behind the counter insisted that Elsie have a sample pack of it to take home.. he refused any payment, but just said ‘welcome’! This was the first of many experiences where the hospitality to strangers was more important than payment, and we were touched by the generosity in the midst of so much poverty and unemployment.
Nancy -
Fri 04 July 09.00
The travellers of 'f' haven't posted anything public here... yet.
- EnTrip Loves it.
EnTrip 1.6.3:entrip | © EnTrip Ltd. 2010
Page Generated 2010-05-17 15:38:35
Page Generated 2010-05-17 15:38:35
