Meet the Grandmothers of Bethlehem

In Bethlehem's Old Town there are old ladies who sell herbs and vegetables. They come in from the outlying villages. Sometimes they're dropped in an old pickup truck, and sometimes they come into town with their husbands leading a donkey, carrying the produce, which is grown in their villages.

Then they wend their weary ways back home again as darkness falls, bless them.

I find these ladies a study in human nature. They are all old enough to have been young people in the time of the Nakba, the Catastrophe of 1948, when Palestinians lost 78% of their land, with many massacred or turned into refugees.

Then they were at the butt end of the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel invaded the West Bank and Gaza (and Sinai). Then they've been through two four-year intifadas in the late 1980s and early 2000s. 

In other words, they've seen and faced some mighty stuff, in the way of human experience. It's reflected in their faces.

But they have an active role in society, which is more than can be said for many old people in the West. Back home, they are at the centre of their families - which might be 10-12 people in one house and four other house-loads nearby.

That's called social security, in the real meaning of the term.

The problem I get with these ladies is that they don't understand anything about living alone - they've always been in big families and communities, mucking in together. But I only want one bundle of mint, one of thyme and one of salad greens please! They throw in more, so that my family doesn't starve!

But this is excusable. I came away from them this morning with a big bag of herbs and greens which cost me just ten shekels - £2 or nearly $3. I'll give the surplus to some of the staff at Hope Flowers School.

I thought you might like to meet the herb and salad-greens ladies of Beit Lahem!