Jerusalem

One of the rewards of traveling is the people you meet. Over the past year I have been incredibly lucky, the people I've met have opened my world just as much as the things I've seen and the stories I tell.

Every child is taught 'Don't talk to strangers' and 'If someone offers you a ride, don't get in their car.'

We know life out there can be dangerous, but when you're a lone nomad in an ancient city, in a tension-filled country, you become a little more willing to take risks on people. Two weeks ago I went to Jerusalem alone, within 4 hours of getting off the sherut (service taxi) the ink had already worn away on my photocopied pages of the guidebook and I was trying to map a route to the Wailing Wall.

Out of nowhere, I was tapped on the shoulder by a 30ish guy, who asked me if I knew where the Mount of Olives was. I kindly explained to him that I was an idiot and he'd be better off asking the signpost if it had seen any dancing clowns lately than try and get directions out of me. Turned out he was Israeli, he and his two friends were playing tourist for the day. They had gotten bored with the old city and wanted to see if they could walk to Mount of Olives.

They invited me along. There's a backpacker culture when you travel; team up with other hostelers/hikers and make a day of it. But these people weren't backpackers, they were locals, locals inviting me to get in their car. I hesitated for a few seconds, but decided if I was ever going to make friends, I had to start somewhere.

It was a good choice. Biblically, Mount of Olives is famous as the mountain Jesus entered Jerusalem from, but now a days it offers a spectacular view over the old city as well as a more sobering view of the Israeli/West Bank partition wall on the other side of the mountain. The partition wall is called different things, based on whose team you're on. On the Israeli side they refer to it was the separation wall, while in Palestine it is the apartheid wall, the annexation wall, the racial segregation wall. One thing I've realized in this country is that the words you use to describe something or someone have a lot of meaning. (The importance of names in this country will, for the flow of the entry, be postponed for another day)

The section of the wall that I was looking at from the mountain cut a neighborhood in half. Adds a whole new degree of difficulty to borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbor when you first have to cross a police check-point. The wall runs inside the West Bank, not on the border, "encircling Palestinian towns and villages and cutting off communities and families from each other, separating farmers from their land and Palestinians from their places of work, education and health care facilities and other essential services." (Amnesty International)

If the wall was built between the border of Israeli and the West Bank, along the Green Line, then the Israeli claim that it is a matter of security would seem more valid, and the wall would look less like an attempt at land-grabbing and oppression. One of the documentaries our sister company is working on is about a refugee camp in the West Bank, Aidia. In the documentary, the 'star,' an old man and ex-PLO member, travels two hours every other day to till a plot of land he has purchased for his sons, hoping it would ensure them a good future. The wall's construction has since cut him off from his land, and the documentary is looking for funding to be able to address the affects of this on the star and his family's lives. A report from Amnesty International gives more information on how the wall violates Palestinian rights.

It was one of the Israeli's who pointed the wall out to me as we stood on top of the mountain. She had disdain in her voice when she talked about it, but explained that three years ago Jerusalem was a ghost town, and while the wall was troublesome, it had stifled the bombing attempts, an unfortunate side effect was that it also stifled the Palestinian people.

But back to the fluffy stuff:

Afterward I was treated to an amazing picnic, with a ridiculous amount of food, brought home to play with a newly rescued and retardedly cute street cat, and taken out at night to some great bars. I slept in one girl's house, and ate leftovers from the picnic while I wandered around the city again the next day, and was sent home with a bottle of wine.

Amazing people. Sometimes I have all the luck.


(Karim, I expect more educational information in the comments on this one too. Get on it.)