I’m in Jerusalem!
I haven’t really seen anything undeniably inappropriate, but there is definitely a distinction between areas for Palestinians and areas for Israelis, and definitely some weird stuff going on.
For the past two days, I’ve been staying in Faisal Hostel, basically across the street from Damascus Gate, a portal between the Old City of Jerusalem, and the rest of Jerusalem. The Old City is where a lot of biblical stories took place, including where Jesus was tortured and paraded through town, if I understand correctly.
Twice I’ve wandered around the Old City, which seems a lot like the world’s original shopping mall, but with churches and people with machine guns keeping us in line.
Once I wandered around a market in an Israeli area of town, where I was surprised to see a significant number of civilians with guns tucked into their belts. What type of bizarro world have I reached??
This month the muslims are celebrating Ramadan, and last night the Israeli soldiers were 2500 strong around the Old City, controlling entrance where people were trying to go pray. At one point the soldiers launched sound bombs to disperse the crowd that had collected near Damascus Gate. The Palestinians hadn’t been doing anything violent. I had just been out there getting some food.
Today my friend Niveen (from Peace Boat) came to visit, and gave me her old cell phone! She took me to get a simcard and then to the Palestinian Vision office where I met Ramy, the Middle East Coordinator for Peace Boat! He speaks 100 miles per hour and invited me to come by anytime I’d like to help with writing or editing. Fantastic numbers of doors are opening for me.
I’ll stick with my original plan for now; I’m going to be trained tomorrow and the next day by people from ISM before participating in the olive harvest. Ramy assured me that 1 month is far too long for me to pick olives every day, and said I’d be welcome back whenever I was done picking olives.
So so much to learn; so many people I’ll be meeting tomorrow!
Peace and Love
- Rob