Jerusalem

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 Pb) 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 Pb!  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