Jericho nights
July 11th
A comedy of serendipitous errors.
Sometimes things can go wrong so well. After a great day hiking in Ein Gedi nature reserve, Clara and I caught a bus back to Jerusalem. I wanted to crash for the night, but she wanted to go to Jericho because it had “mild weather” according to our guide book.
It was a last minute idea on Clara’s part, and as I’ve been taking the lead thus far, I decided to go with the flow. We grabbed a bus from Jerusalem to some unknown city (Al-Rab) where we were supposed to catch a service taxi, these 12 person buses that take groups of people to cities. We finally negotiated a taxi for a ride to Jericho for 60 sheckels, about $14, which is cheap for the US but expensive for here. The worst, though, was that our taxi didn’t have proper identification and couldn’t get through the Israeli checkpoint in Jericho. So, with our camping backpack buckled and sandles strapped, we set off on foot through the empty streets of Jericho.
After just a few minutes, we were stopped by a random restaurant owner who wanted to show us a site where Israeli’s had blown up his old building. He tried to explain it the context, but his English was very limited. As I understand, the building was a chicken ranch and business of some sort, but when I tried to gather more info, I was met with the traditional Palestinian mantra of “welcome, welcome” and the offer of tea. We couldn’t really understand what he was saying, and after a few minutes we got sketched out and left. Oh well, another blown up building, nothing new here.
Down the road, we got a ride from a doctor who worked at a clinic near town providing free gynecological services to the women of Jericho. Like most medical professionals, he was educated outside Palestine… in this case, Ukraine. He was incredibly kind and took us directly to our hostel. This was the beginning.
Quickly after entering, we were invited to sit in the lobby and were offered tea. This is how things work. Tea first, then business. While sitting, I overheard a group next to us introducing themselves.
One guy my age said that he did “political organizing”. My ears perk up
“In Washington DC”. No way!
“To make money I am a server at a cool political book store/restaurant called bus boys and poets”. For those who don’t know, this is where my roommate Fred works, and where I spend hours with Code Pink at their peace events.
Long story short, Michael (the server) is good friends with my roommate and apparently partied at my house last week before coming to Palestine for the summer. He is with a group called ISM, the International Solidarity Movement, which is strongly connected with Birthright Unplugged. We shoot the shit with the group, then agree to meet up for dinner.
At this point, I am feeling “in the zone”. Everything on this trip seems to consistently work out. I think my cosmic energy is just on the right wavelength or something. After Clara and I unpacked, we head downstairs to meet the ISMers for dinner. They aren’t down yet, so we talk with the hostel manager. He told us a very interesting story which I’d like share. This is his story, I leave the interpretation to you.
About one year ago, at 2:00, dozens of Israeli soldiers broke into the hostel. They captured several guests, evacuated the hostel, and later that night blew up one wing of the hostel. Claiming that he now “harbored terrorists” there have been several attacks on his hostel, his car was essentially destroyed, and one on occasion a bullet was shot through a window and just missed his wife’s head. He claims (I believe him, you can decide) that he is very anti-terrorism, and he spoke aggressively against Hamas. Here’s the question. Is someone responsible for ensuring that everyone staying at his hostel is not a terrorist. Is that possible? And where do we draw the line?
This, my friends, is a typical discussion no a typical night in the West Bank. These people are political; they are up on international current events (BBC world is always on); they are educated (thank you United Nations); and they LOVE to talk about the conflict. Regardless of how you stand on the issue, I will say this with full confidence. The Palestinians and the Palestinian cause isn’t going anywhere, and if anything, is getting stronger. Not in terrorism, not in religious radicalism, but in the hearts of the people living in the West Bank.
The next day, we got a free tour from our hosts of an orphanage in Jericho that was raided by IDF the previous week. There was a strong language barrier, but I gathered that IDF had taken all the computers and files, as well as pictures of every student, most of whom were orphaned by parents taken by IDF. Connection to Hamas? Possibly. Still, it's just fucking sad.
Here is a picture of the kids alphabet. They learn english and arabic in parallel.
After the tour, we hooked up with some other people to take a tour of a "fair trade" date and fig farm. This was just lucky. We met this dutchman and his son the previous day. They were visiting to set up this business venture to sell fair trade dates in Holland and they were in town to monitor the farm. We asked if we could come along.
The afternoon was great. We were shown all around several farms, ate figs right off the vine (bush?) and learned all about growing in the eheat. More on this later, for now, pics.
Lastly, here are some pics of our hostel and hosts. And their car, which got shot up by IDF a few weeks ago. Hamas works close by. Connections again? Maybe.
A comedy of serendipitous errors.
Sometimes things can go wrong so well. After a great day hiking in Ein Gedi nature reserve, Clara and I caught a bus back to Jerusalem. I wanted to crash for the night, but she wanted to go to Jericho because it had “mild weather” according to our guide book.
It was a last minute idea on Clara’s part, and as I’ve been taking the lead thus far, I decided to go with the flow. We grabbed a bus from Jerusalem to some unknown city (Al-Rab) where we were supposed to catch a service taxi, these 12 person buses that take groups of people to cities. We finally negotiated a taxi for a ride to Jericho for 60 sheckels, about $14, which is cheap for the US but expensive for here. The worst, though, was that our taxi didn’t have proper identification and couldn’t get through the Israeli checkpoint in Jericho. So, with our camping backpack buckled and sandles strapped, we set off on foot through the empty streets of Jericho.
After just a few minutes, we were stopped by a random restaurant owner who wanted to show us a site where Israeli’s had blown up his old building. He tried to explain it the context, but his English was very limited. As I understand, the building was a chicken ranch and business of some sort, but when I tried to gather more info, I was met with the traditional Palestinian mantra of “welcome, welcome” and the offer of tea. We couldn’t really understand what he was saying, and after a few minutes we got sketched out and left. Oh well, another blown up building, nothing new here.
Down the road, we got a ride from a doctor who worked at a clinic near town providing free gynecological services to the women of Jericho. Like most medical professionals, he was educated outside Palestine… in this case, Ukraine. He was incredibly kind and took us directly to our hostel. This was the beginning.
Quickly after entering, we were invited to sit in the lobby and were offered tea. This is how things work. Tea first, then business. While sitting, I overheard a group next to us introducing themselves.
One guy my age said that he did “political organizing”. My ears perk up
“In Washington DC”. No way!
“To make money I am a server at a cool political book store/restaurant called bus boys and poets”. For those who don’t know, this is where my roommate Fred works, and where I spend hours with Code Pink at their peace events.
Long story short, Michael (the server) is good friends with my roommate and apparently partied at my house last week before coming to Palestine for the summer. He is with a group called ISM, the International Solidarity Movement, which is strongly connected with Birthright Unplugged. We shoot the shit with the group, then agree to meet up for dinner.
At this point, I am feeling “in the zone”. Everything on this trip seems to consistently work out. I think my cosmic energy is just on the right wavelength or something. After Clara and I unpacked, we head downstairs to meet the ISMers for dinner. They aren’t down yet, so we talk with the hostel manager. He told us a very interesting story which I’d like share. This is his story, I leave the interpretation to you.
About one year ago, at 2:00, dozens of Israeli soldiers broke into the hostel. They captured several guests, evacuated the hostel, and later that night blew up one wing of the hostel. Claiming that he now “harbored terrorists” there have been several attacks on his hostel, his car was essentially destroyed, and one on occasion a bullet was shot through a window and just missed his wife’s head. He claims (I believe him, you can decide) that he is very anti-terrorism, and he spoke aggressively against Hamas. Here’s the question. Is someone responsible for ensuring that everyone staying at his hostel is not a terrorist. Is that possible? And where do we draw the line?
This, my friends, is a typical discussion no a typical night in the West Bank. These people are political; they are up on international current events (BBC world is always on); they are educated (thank you United Nations); and they LOVE to talk about the conflict. Regardless of how you stand on the issue, I will say this with full confidence. The Palestinians and the Palestinian cause isn’t going anywhere, and if anything, is getting stronger. Not in terrorism, not in religious radicalism, but in the hearts of the people living in the West Bank.
The next day, we got a free tour from our hosts of an orphanage in Jericho that was raided by IDF the previous week. There was a strong language barrier, but I gathered that IDF had taken all the computers and files, as well as pictures of every student, most of whom were orphaned by parents taken by IDF. Connection to Hamas? Possibly. Still, it's just fucking sad.
Here is a picture of the kids alphabet. They learn english and arabic in parallel.
After the tour, we hooked up with some other people to take a tour of a "fair trade" date and fig farm. This was just lucky. We met this dutchman and his son the previous day. They were visiting to set up this business venture to sell fair trade dates in Holland and they were in town to monitor the farm. We asked if we could come along.
The afternoon was great. We were shown all around several farms, ate figs right off the vine (bush?) and learned all about growing in the eheat. More on this later, for now, pics.
Lastly, here are some pics of our hostel and hosts. And their car, which got shot up by IDF a few weeks ago. Hamas works close by. Connections again? Maybe.