I lost my passport in Bethlehem. I'll keep this as brief as I can, here's what happened: I left my passport and my visa on a bus (don't ask). Someone on the bus spots it and gives it to the driver. He puts the word out with local taxi drivers and finds the taxi driver who's taxi I got in - so he now knows where he took me, he also gives my passport to a guy called Abu Yakoub in Bethlehem because he is going back to Jerusalem. The driver phones the Tent of Nations farm, where the taxi took me, to tell them that Abu in Bethlehem has my passport - Bethlehem is not a small place. Daoud at the farm comes to find me in the field and tell me. I am slightly worried(not least because I didn't know that I'd lost my passport - doh), and also mightily relieved. I get a lift back to the outskirts of Bethlehem at the end of the day, wondering how I am going to find Abu Yakoub. I decide to look for a bus and ask the driver if he can help me. As I am walking into Bethlehem I see a bus at a bus stop, so I go up to it. I think it may be the same driver in this bus that I had in the morning, only he looks different now without sunglasses - it's dark now. It is him ! He is as surprised to see me as I am to see him and says 'yes it was me, it was me' and he shouts through the window of his bus towards a guy on the other side of the street, who comes over and passes my passport back through the bus window, I presume he is Abu Yakoub but who knows. I am re-united with my passport, my visa is still inside and I thank everyone very much. Everyone carried on as though this was normal, but it was a wee miracle to me : )
I've done my day's hard labour at the Tent of Nations Farm. This is an amazing place www.tentofnations.org. I caught a taxi out of Bethlehem and the driver took me as far as he could, towards the gates of a Jewish Israeli settlement. He was visibly nervous as we approached the settlement and said that he couldn't go any closer in case the guards caused him trouble. I got out of the taxi and followed my directions down a small road alongside the settlement, and I came to these road blocks, apparently put there by the Israeli military. I climbed over the road blocks and reached the farm. It's owned and run by a Christian Palestinian family who have lived here for three generations. The farm covers 90 acres of land including this hilltop. The Nasser family have fruit and olive trees, which they harvest every year, it's a working farm, all manual labour. But the land is wanted for a new Israeli settlement. The surrounding five hills all have Jewish Israeli settlements on them, all built within the last ten years. The settlements are security fenced and with new roads. There is a small Palestinian village on the slopes of the valley below. As I approached the farm I could see that the battered steel gates were chained and padlocked. Hmmmm. Then I voice shouted hello from amongst the fruit trees, yippee i thought, there's someone here. George Nasser welcomed me and asked if I wanted to come in, he was pruning fruit trees. So I said that I had come to help and he took me to a group of typically Palestinian buildings, this was the farm. There is also a cave which is where the family live. He set me to work helping him and told me the story of the farm. They have good crops of fruit, grapes and olives. Last May hundreds of their fruit trees lower in the valley were bulldozed one week before harvest by the Israeli military. I can't begin to imagine how this felt. But here's the thing, the family say they refuse to be anyone's enemy, and you see it in the way they go about their work and their business. To remind visitors, this is what they have painted on stones along the pathways. And there are many visitors, last week it was a group of Rabbis. There are children's camps on the farm during the summer for families of all faiths, where the theme is peace and reconciliation. Two brothers work the farm all year round, and another brother and two sisters come to help at harvest. They also do social work with some of the women in the Palestinian village. It was a great day, and I was well tired at the end of it : )
I'm on the bus to Bethlehem and I've just had my first view of the wall. It is ugliness in every possible respect......in an otherwise beautiful country.
Things I've noticed about Jerusalem: This is the world's capital of weird beards, it's also the capital of weird hats and side burns. People don't say what they really mean. Thursday night is the big night out, but nowhere does pound-a-pint. They have a thing about stones - some people like to touch them and kiss them, and other people like to throw them. Some people like very big straight squarish stones, mostly made into big walls and other people like smaller roundish stones - presumably because they're easier to throw. They'd be better off looking at softer things like hearts rather than stones.
Baka and Sharaf, they made me coffee. Up to now I had refused everyone who had offered to gave me a lift or show me the sites. But I couldn't refuse these two. They had shouted a warning to me as I was walking along a path. They may have had other reasons to get my attention but hey, I can't refuse young people when they're being good. They want me to come back to their house where they will make me coffee, I ask if their parents will be home, hoping they will. The answer I'm given is unconvincing but we walk on. Baka says that he has lived in America for six years, I ask whereabouts and he says Pennsylvania. I've met a few Palestinians who have lived in America, but I'm not sure which America it really is and wether or not it's real. We arrive at their house, or to the yard outside their half-built half-falling down house and a young girl comes across the street carrying a baby. In this way Sharaf and Baka introduce me to their extended family. This is the best Jerusalem tour ever. I ask Sharaf if his parents are here just as Baka comes across the street carrying a tray with coffee. We walk up the outside steps of a house and sit on the balcony-come outdoor sitting room. They just want to be hosts, and they're very funny. They're keen to know if the coffee is good. So I find out that dad is working driving a taxi and mum is selling in the market and I realise I shouldn't stay around for very long. But I appreciate that these kids are looking after themselves, and also looking after me. Sharaf is keen to show me something outside the house and I follow him back down the steps, wondering what'll come next. He leads me through a few passage ways past building materials and piles of rubbish. He wants me to go down some more steps at the bottom of a low cliff, it all looks dodgy and I wonder if I'm about to be entombed. He goes down the steps urging me to follow him. Ok, so what am I about to find I think, is it stolen goods or just a pile of junk. At the bottom of the steps is an iron gate and I can hear running water. So I think he's brought me on a sewer tour, except that through the locked gate Sharaf points to a sign which reads HEZEKIAH'S TUNNEL. I read the rest of the sign and realise that Sharaf has brought me to a significant place. Through the gloom I can see a tunnel cut into the rock with clear water bubbling up into it. The tunnel is straight sided and high enough to stand up in. Sharaf is showing me the Gihon spring at the end of the Siloam Tunnel. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_tunnel. I ponder on the madness of the situation. I'm stood amongst a pile of junk and rubbish in someone's back yard, looking at a 2500 year old biblical spring of fresh water, quite a tour : )
Cemeteries on the Mount of Olives, there's no living peace here. I'm stood below the city walls in East Jerusalem, which is called a Palestinian area. Jewish settlers are moving into houses here. In the left foreground is a new path with Jewish markings on it, in the left middle distance there is an Israeli army post, overlooking the new path where the Palestinian path joins it. Coaches are parked on the road in the distance, bringing Israeli tourists to the neat but highly-fenced Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives. In the bottom of the valley there is a rough path with jumbled and broken grave stones and shell-damaged tombs, these are Muslim. The rough path leads across the hillside on the right to a Palestinian village. In the distance to the left is the Church of all Nations. For me this image represents Jerusalem. I stood looking at it for a while, feeling the tension. I decided to drop down into the valley and walk along the old path towards the Palestinian village. I had got about a hundred metres when I heard children shouting, "No No, No go here". There were two boys waving at me, I ignored them............for a while. Then stopped and turned back. They came towards me and met me on the path. They told me I would get stoned or worse if I walked along here, I didn't know wether to believe them or not. "I am Baka", "I am Sharaf, we have been to America" we shook hands : )
I wanted to get down into the Kidron valley which runs towards Arab East Jerusalem, immediately below the old city. I left from what I now know was an ultra orthodox Jewish area. I cross a road and see a path descending the steep hillside. After about 50 metres I'm in an Arab area, I can't believe it's so close. I know it's Arab because of the flags flying and the livestock inside the garden walls. The houses cling to the hillside untidily, rubbish is everywhere, barking dogs, sheep, chickens and children. I make my way around an old fridge and some bags of rubbish on the path. There is poverty here. My senses are trying to get used to things changing so quickly. Within the space of 4 or 5 minutes I've gone from sitting on a neat stone seat outside a Jewish learning centre with smartly if not weirdly dressed religious young people laughing and joking to this, grubby children living in poverty. I come out onto a flat area where there are old cars and a young boy, he watches me pass. Where you go? he asks quietly. I say that I just want to get down into the valley and he points towards the way, expressionless, maybe wondering what I'm doing here. I thank him and carry on down a track. I reach the bottom of the valley and the landscape looks as though it's remained unchanged for hundreds if not thousands of years. But I remember reading about how bitterly this area was fought over in the 1967 war, I imagine shells and gunfire flying across this valley. The cliff sides are pitted with what look like ancient caves and I wonder who has lived or hidden in them. It is quiet, peaceful, olive trees, someone has ploughed in between them. I look up and see only a few hundred metres away, buildings on a road which I know is lined with luxury shops and restaurants. The extreme contrasts in Jerusalem numb me. I'm glad I've come down here and I walk in the quiet towards a jumble of Arab houses I can see not far away. As I come onto the road I see that it's like the roads I experienced in Palestinian Nazareth. Broken, dusty, litter strewn and you realise that you can't protect yourself walking down here. This is different to the Jewish-Israeli orderliness, wealthiness and tidiness I've got used to in the last few days. Male adults look me in the face, look through me. I take care not to alter my expression. I walk round cars on the pavements and keep a pace. There is a steady stream of males coming down the road, I realise Friday prayers are over. I pass an untidy looking Mosque, no golden dome only steel sheeting for a roof. I'm heading for a Church I know is down here somewhere but right now I'd be happy for anything with as Israeli flag. I'm ashamed that I don't feel quite safe with these Palestinians around me. A few days ago I lived with them. I see a path between some houses, going upwards and I wonder if this will take me where I want to go. There is a man stood motionless at the entrance to the path and he's looking at me wondering what a European idiot is doing down here. I decide to go for his good side and cross the road to ask him for help. Do you speak English? A little he says. He doesn't change expression but I think I'm on a winner. I say I'm a Christian (rather cowardly to impress upon him that I'm not Jewish and therefore I'm not after taking his land) no change of expression. I say that I'm looking for the Church of All Nations (which I'm sure will feel like a safe home when I find it). He looks at me as though I'm stupid, which I probably am, and then points up the road. I ask if I can go up his path and he says no, not here, up here and he points again. I've pleased I've had a conversation with him and I thank him, half smiling. I carry on up the road past jumbled Arab houses, crappy cars and two horses tethered to a tin canopy. Past sheep and goats and chickens and shops. The road is climbing now, I'm still probably only quarter of a mile from the old city walls, inside which is a very different world. I see an Israeli flag flying from a house. As I get closer I see high steel fences and barbed wire around the house and an armed security guard with dark glasses sat on a patio chair on the roof. They clearly take their personal safety seriously here. I carry on up the road past more people, small rough looking shops and rubbish. After a short while I see a Jewish guy in the street with a broom, he's outside what I assume is his compound and house, because it has an Israeli flag flying - for some reason. He's having a discussion with two young men who don't look like his close friends. The discussion seems to be about parking and he's pointing to a car parked awkwardly across what maybe his gate. Voices are not raised, just emphasised and I wonder what is really going on, I suspect far more than I can see. It occurs to me that he's brave, or obstinate, taking on two Arab guys in what is a tense neighbourhood. Then I notice a man with a holstered gun leaning casually on a railing about ten feet from him. I decide that he must be one of the Israeli paid-for security guards I've heard of and I see where the Jewish guy's confidence comes from. The intensity of Jerusalem; it's history, religions, wealth, poverty, conflict, tension, emotion, happiness and sadness could bring you to tears.
This morning I stumbled into King David's tomb. I had climbed up Mt Zion by the unorthodox route, walking at one point through someone's garden where a young man was stood swaying and praying. My path climbed up and disappeared into a labyrinth of stone-arched tunnels, no signs, not obviously leading anywhere. But I could hear singing, I hadn't a clue where I was. I made my way towards where I thought the singing was coming from and I arrived here. I stood in the doorway for a moment then collected a kippa for my gentile head and went in. They were singing and dancing, I couldn't understand what about but they looked happy. A man with long curls asked me where I was from, he asked if there were any Jewish members of my family, he was very keen to know if I was related to any Jewish people, maybe he was trying to find out if I was friend or foe. When I said that I was an Anglican he seemed happy. He told me they were praying for peace and prosperity for the world and invited me to dance with them. I declined, giving the excuse that I just wanted to watch. I could also see a doorway on the other side of the room and I was keen to see what was in there. I had to push my way passed the dancers in the small space and made my way through to an even smaller space where there was a tomb and an old man sat on a chair, he was leaning on the tomb praying and I stood there for a while, feeling happy that I'd found a way here. My friend saw me again and said that if I wanted to send him prayers he and his friends would pray for us. What struck me most about this encounter was how easy it was. These people genuinely welcomed me being there. I'm glad I stumbled in to them : )
Looking down on the poor people. It's what you do from City Walls, it reminded me of (London)Derry. Today I'm heading back up to the walls to experience Friday, it could be interesting. I was chatting with Hillel just after I arrived on Wednesday, he's my host's son who has just come out of the army having done his compulsory service. I sensed he didn't want to talk about the army but we talked about everything else. He gave me a lot of hope, I often gain hope from young adults. Hillel is not tainted by the possessiveness which characterises the actions of the older adults here. He wants everyone to be happy in this city, that's not naive, it's visional. He encouraged me to see everything and go off the tourist trail, to people watch and see Friday prayers and the Sabbath. To see the intensity with which religious people behave, he was intimating that they forget to be peaceful, kind and forgiving and whole. He's walked the Comino de Santiago, he knows about peacefulness : )
Sim Sim guest house in Nazareth on Monday. I was greeted here by welcomes, smiles and sharing Arab tea with Sami. This is his house, he and his guests live in rooms above the old market. He's struggling to make a living, especially after the recent war in Gaza. To get here I had walked up tiny winding streets covered with canopies and stalls spilling out onto the stone walkways, Struggling to squeeze through in places past jumbles of people, pots and pans, crates of oranges, grapefruits, and clothes hanging from the canopies, I wasn't sure what my guest house looked like, I only knew from the directions that I was supposed to go uphill. Eventually I saw a sign hanging from an archway saying Sim Sim guest house and I went through a doorway into a dark passage. I saw a steel gate with an intercom. I pressed a button and the the gate clicked open. Up more stone steps and I was in a courtyard where I found an open door into a room full of colour and tea. Sami owns the guest house which he runs with the help of volunteers. I pay not much to stay here, it's a beautiful place. We share breakfast together on a balcony which is like an open air dining room above the market. There is a lot to eat and it's very good, and there's no need for bacon : )
People are not visiting like they used to. We chatted today over Arab tea and American coffee before I left. Sami is a Palestinian Roman Catholic who was born here in Nazareth, he was brought up here, he tells me that all the primary schools in Nazareth are run by the Church. Nazareth is not a small city. This is where Sami's extended family still live, he offered me some pastries made by his mother. Sami's girlfriend helps out in the hostel. We talk about a shared love of Taize and how I ended up where I am and how he ended up where he is. I fear for his business and hope more people will come. Sami is a wonderful host, he works very hard and nothing is too much trouble for him. A good man : ) |
AuthorCommunity Priest at St Barnabas Church on the Moss Rose Estate, in Macclesfield Archives
September 2015
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