[All pictures in this blog entry are taken in Al Aqabah in the northern West Bank.]
Al Aqabah is a really nice village in a lovely landscape. I took a wander around before the others woke up. It was misty and dampish – not very good for photography. I noticed the flocking birds in the area, and the blossoms on some of the nut trees – it’s different up here in the north. Yes, here, blossoms come in winter, which is wetter. In a way summer serves the same purpose that winter serves in many lands including Britain – a time in which nature rests and pulls back – except it’s the dryness and heat which kills everything off rather than the cold. But the two-month winter, which this year seems quite mild, serves the same purpose here as the European spring, and then spring, which is rather like the European summer, is the growing season. Then many things die off for summer, and the birds migrate, the cats stay indoors in the cool, and the land rests under the glaring sun.
I waved to an old gent with glinty eyes who was going about his farming tasks, and sat on a rock watching a family in a shack going about their morning routines – I found out later that their house had been demolished by the Israeli army, and they were awaiting an opportunity to rebuild in a place where demolition, inshallah, would not happen.
I returned to the village centre and encountered Haj Sami, the mayor, wheeling along in his electric wheelchair. He invited me into his office, where his assistant was busy doing admin. Tea was brought in by a midget of a man, and Haj Sami asked for my help with an e-mail. Two of the wheels on his wheelchair needed replacement, and he needed me to look underneath for a serial number, which I duly did and wrote down. Bless him, Haj Sami works dedicatedly for his village, and he’s up against quite big odds, what with his disability, the Israeli army, foreign funders and the realities of life in Palestine.
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| Al Aqabah community centre |
By the time I left and returned to the guesthouse, the others were up. We went down the road with Haj Sami to look around the village lands. A tractor passed. A flock of birds wheeled past, doing pre-mating rituals.
A little boy about two years old was called by his mother in the shack, and then he came out bearing a freshly-baked flatbread, which he took to Haj Sami. (A friend in Cornwall, to whom I had sent the photo of the child at the top of this blog entry, wrote back to say “Can you kidnap that child in the photo for me? Pleeeease!!”)
The bread was duly broken up and passed around. Regarding the kid’s parents in the shack, Haj Sami told us how they were concentrating new building close to the mosque, where demolition was less likely, inshallah, and about his long negotiations with the army to stop them using the village for military practice. We spoke of solar powered street lights and the greenness of the hills at this time, then wandered up the road, only to be intercepted by the old gentleman bearing a tray of tea in small Arabic tea glasses. We duly stood around in the middle of the road drinking tea, and his old wife, with leathery skin and equally glinty eyes, came out to join us.
We went to see the village clothes factory, a large room in the communal building where villagers run a clothing cooperative to earn an income for themselves and the village – another fruit of Haj Sami’s labours. Then we saw the council circle where meetings are held, and where Haj Sami takes visitors for discussions. Then, after tidying up the guesthouse, it was time to leave. Three of us were going to Nablus, two to Ramallah and I to Bethlehem. It turned out that a serrveese was coming to pick up the administrative assistant, so we all piled in, out of the village to the neighbouring village of Tayasir, then on to Tubas.
Here we transferred to another serrvesse to Nablus. When we arrived, three of our friends split off and Morgan, Marjorie from Switzerland and I walked down through the streets to the other service station in town, dropping into a sweets cafe on the way – Nablus is well known for its kanafe, a cheesy sweet cake. When we reached the station, funny stuff started. There was no serrveese for Ramallah – most strange.
Now at serrveese stations there are no timetables, bays or signs. You just stand there in roughly the right area and then wait for someone to come along recruiting passengers for his serrveese. Eventually a guy came promising a serrveese to Bethlehem, offering to swing by Ramallah on the way. This turned out to be inaccurate.
Actually, he went to Qalandia, a godawful place where the main checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem is located – worse, it’s a major intersection where traffic jams are common, since the Ramallah to Bethlehem main road passes the checkpoint without going through it. It is a ripped-up, unsightly area, overshadowed by Israeli watchtowers and littered with rubbish and traffic jams. The driver flagged down another serrveese to take Morgan and Morjorie into Ramallah, muttering something to me in Arabic that I didn’t understand and driving me to another intersection a few miles down the road, suddenly to stop there and get me out of the van. He tried flagging down serrveeses heading for Bethlehem but, no, they were all full.
It took a while, and it as getting dark. Cars were speeding around everywhichway. He eventually found me a car to travel with, saying it would cost nothing, but actually it cost me 50 shekels (£10) – usually the serrvesse charge from Ramallah to Bethlehem is 20 shekels (£4). I had the dubious fortune to travel with four young Palestinian soldiers, whose English was as bad as my Arabic. They showed me pictures of themselves on their mobile phones, bearing guns and looking tough – riding with them was like a teenage joyride, with the music volume going up and down, mobile phones ringing – at one point all four of them were yelling down their phones. I was glad we were in the Middle East, because if they had been drunk they would have been obnoxious and dangerous, but the only things people get out of their heads on here are coffee, religion and a kind of bipolar energised excitability.
Half way through our journey, when we approached an Israeli checkpoint, I could see them shrinking into their seats – Palestinian soldiers are not allowed to fight with Israeli soldiers. I think they were hoping that, if there was trouble, I as an older international might be able to save them. But the Israeli soldiers were in a bored, slightly jocular mood, and there was no difficulty.
The trip was entertaining. I landed up showing them the way to Bethlehem. On mixed Israeli-Palestinian roads, of which there are a lot in the West Bank, the road signs almost all point to Jewish places only, so there were no signs to Bethlehem until we reached Al Azariya, where the road becomes Palestinian-only.
I couldn’t figure out how these guys could be Palestinians in such a small country, and soldiers too, without knowing their way to Bethlehem. But it was true. They were fascinated to have an Englishman show them the way – for all these youngsters knew, I could have been a British remnant of the Mandate period before 1948, the old days that their grandfathers talk about.
We eventually reached Bethlehem and I bundled out of the car into sheer pandemonium. Bethlehem was filling up with people for New Year. Suddenly my phone rang. It was Maram. Ibrahim was experiencing his heart complaint again and had to rest, so please would I not come for the New Year celebration they had invited me to? Ah, that was what I had come back to Bethlehem for. Otherwise I would have stayed an extra night at Al Aqabah or I would have headed straight for Tel Aviv, my next destination.
Oh well. What next? Get something to eat. I wandered over to Manger Square and tumbled into a falafel restaurant, rather weary. I had falafel and hummus with freshly-squeezed orange juice to drink, followed by Arabic mint tea. The boy helping the man chop onions over on another table was suffering with smarting eyes. I went over and showed him not to bend over the onions but to sit down and slice them from the side. He was chuffed finding out about this solution, and slightly proud at the attention he was suddenly receiving from this rather avuncular Englishman, and we chattered together in English. His elders suddenly discovered that he had the best English in the family. The grandfather looked on with amusement.
Then I went to visit Adnan and his family members, who were all sitting around moaning about the lack of business from tourists. Who wants to buy souvenirs on New Year’s Eve? Being New Year’s Eve, I told Adnan with some force that he really ought to get out of the tourist business – he was complaining about how he had made a loss guiding a group of Chinese around Bethlehem, and how they hadn’t wanted to visit many of the places he wanted to take them. They just wanted to visit the Nativity Church and someone else’s souvenir shop. I told him many foreigners don’t have much money any more, and neither do they have much room in their luggage, or will to explain to officers at Ben Gurion airport why they are carrying Arabic souvenirs. He listened, but I could see he was reluctant – he kept wanting to believe that the tourist trade would suddenly, magically, change for the better and he would at last hit the jackpot. No, my friend, forget it.
Eventually I went home. Bethlehem was packed full with revellers, and I didn’t feel like being a part of it. I found a taxi-driver who knew me from a few years before and he took me home, dodging the traffic jams. Guess what, I spent New Year working, catching up on some website tasks. I noticed midnight by the banging of fireworks and celebrated with a lump of chocolate. None of my British friends or family were on Skype, so I wound down and went to bed. Tomorrow is another day, and I’m off to Tel Aviv, for a change of scene and a couple of days in the West.
Not only that, but I feel that 2012 is going to be a crucial year for the world, a turning-point year. It could be that times get harder before they get better. Things are going to loosen up, and an avalanche of overdue inconvenient truths is waiting to fall on humanity, methinks. But I’m good at dealing with times of change and hard truths: I’ve spent my whole life training for a big change, and it might perhaps now be coming, inshallah.
Besides, I’ve had a varied, eventful and experientially-rich life, so if I died tomorrow that would be alright with me. Not that I’m expecting to die right now, but it’s good to be flexible. This is not a morbid thought but a feeling that the universe will take me wherever I am most needed. I’ll go where I can serve best. Being a pawn in the great cosmic chessgame is where I seem to get my kicks. I wonder whether they serve good tea in heaven, and whether the trains run on time?
