Sunday, October 16, 2005

al-Quds, al-Quds.

Alright, its late, and tomorrow morning I head early to Ramallah, where I will be for one quiet, curfewed night. But I promised I would write a little about one day in Jerusalem, and I feel as though if I don't say something now it will all just slip away.

This is one amazing, beautiful, incrediblecity, perhaps my favourite I have ever visited, and it feels so wonderful to be back here again. But it going to be impossible for me to let you know how it's been even for the last 24 hours and how it makes me feel, and all of that, especially in the short time I plan to spend sitting here in this internet cafe.

I'm in the old city, in the Muslim quarter near the Damascus Gate. Its half past midnight and the little narrow laneways are almost completely empty of people, my footsteps echoing against the darkened stone walls as i ran here. And now, here in this netcafe there is the babble of arabic and a whole choir of giggles as Palestinian men play against each other in shooting games.

So, the city. I walk from the Damascus gate, thick with Arabs selling shoes, selling vegetables, selling cotton candy, selling everything, and i walk down through the old city. The sun leaks through the narrow archways, scatters across the cobblestones. I follow thickets of pilgrims, themselves following guides with raised umbrellas, through the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I watch them pose for photos with their hands touching the site of the cross, I watch them cry before Jesus' tomb. I hike up the Mount of Olives, overlooking everything, the panorama vast and awesome. I visit the grotto of the virgin Mary, silent and personless and crowded with lanterns. I light a candle above her tomb, look in at the letters people have slipped through the plexiglass onto the rock. I watch as a gang of police make a Arab kid move his entire shoe stall one metre across so they can bring their car that way, then once he does it, they drive away, in the direction they came, anyway. I am breathless again, at the glittering gold of the Dome on the Rock and the spires of the Russian Orthodox church. I eat hummus and felafel outside of the Chapel and Mosque of the Accension, where Christians and Muslims both celebrate Jesus' journey to Heaven. I walk and walk and sit and watch and then walk some more.

This city is all that which is the most amazing and most beautiful in human beings, while at the same time it is that which is most terrible, most sad. And being here, I never know whether to sing loud, with total joy, or just sit somewhere dark and cry, cry for the city and its people and for people, generally.

Either way, it makes you feel completely alive.

After Ramallah tomorrow I will be in either Nablus or Hebron.

My friends, goodnight.

From Africa, to Asia, Again

It took me 7 hours to get from Tel Aviv to Cairo two months ago; my trip back to Jerusalem took 32 hours.

Brief notes for the interested:
The border was indeed closed for Yom Kippur and I sat on my bag with a whole bunch of others at the Taba bus station for five hours as we waited for it to open again. the border crossing itself was less stressful and difficult than I was expecting, although the trinity of beautiful Israeli girls who searched though my bags, examined my books and read my journal were quite interested by all the old stuff i have managed to accumulate... 1950s identity cards, discontinued Iraqi banknotes with Saddam's face, a 1970s postcard depicting an Israeli military parade. We had many laughs together, oh they were some good times, just me and the babes, sifting through my dirty underwear, etc, etc.

But they let me through, and a Hungarian guy and I head into Eilat, where we took a hostel room, went out to get fruit juice, and walked along the beachfront, where young people strut and get slingshotted from a massive flashing tower and where, after the Hungarian went to bed, I alone went hiphop dancing along with a large contingent of Ethiopian Israelis in tiny clothes who shake their booty good but who didn't really want to dance with me, alas.

And then, the bus to Jerusalem, past the Dead Sea, past Masada, through the West Bank and past Jericho. And it's Shabbat, it's starting now, so we are quickly ejected outside the bus station, and I take a taxi to the Damascus Gate, and shit, I've left my wallet in the bus. It has not much money in it, but both my bankcards. But, it's Shabbat, so the bus sits quiet and disused in the locked station, and hopefully, tonight, it will be retrieved.

So, Jerusalem, al-Quds. I start training tomorrow, in Ramallah. Everything is fresh and exciting and good, and I am almost panting with anticipation. You will all know more soon.