Palestine

Wow, what can I write.   Can I really do today justice?!  It has been one of the most interesting days of my life.  Wonderful to talk to Palestinians.  Our guide picked us up just after 8am and said that today was about seeing Palastinians living their lives as normal humans. Not seeing them as victims, just getting a taster of what it is like to live under occupation and the day to day inconveinienes and problems this entails within normal life. 

Tomorrow I will try and find a computer where I can upload photos but tonight I am so tired I just want to write down as quickly as possible a summary of the day.

here goes...
We went through the check point in Bethlehem really easily.  No problems that way.  We headed straight to the partition wall.  We heard what it was like to suddenly have an 8 metre wall up around you.  We heard how it suddenly made visiting families really difficult.   We saw the Banksy art work on the Palestinian side and the other political graffitti.  We went to the banksy shop and we were shown a wooden carving of the Nativity scene with it's own lovely carved partition wall infront of it!

We went to the Church of the Nativity.  It was closed due to a visit by the Palastinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas and the Greek Orthodox Patriach.  the guide sat us in a cafe and gave us an in detail description of the church whilst we drank coffee. I might go back again now I have time or google pictures on the Internet.  This was still very interesting.  Our guide was extremely knowledgable.This church is the oldest one in the world to be in use constantly.

We went to where the shepherds saw the star.   It was a dump.

We went to the Jordan River where Jesus was baptised. you could have easily jumped across into Jordan. There were Egyptian Coptics on this  side and European Christians on the other in Jordan.  A few were getting baptised themselves. Water levels were low. but it was still beautiful.

We went to Jericho , the lowest and oldest city in the world.  We saw all the ancient ruins and the mountain Jesus climbed up for 40 days in the wilderness.  that was pretty impressive too! ( it makes giving up alcohol for lent at the beginning of the year a walk in the park!)

I bought some dates.

We saw settlements for Jewish people which also have their own roads, only for Jewish settlers. Roads along side the other ones with a barrier next to them.

We drove through the rift valley with the hills of the desert all around us.

We went to a brewery and learnt all about TAYBEH beer, check it out on google.  the girl showing us around was amazing!!

We went to Ramallah and saw Araffat's tomb.

We saw young teenagers marching.

We walked through the streets of Ramallah, people were OK but you could feel the tension.
I saw a "Stars and Bucks" Cafe! (No Starbucks or Macdonalds there!)

We went for an evening meal together and out guide told us so much about life in Palastine.  How it grinds you down and how you have to stay strong,How the Palastinian government are so corrupt and the Israelis just want them to leave the land for ever. The peace process has stopped now and he can't see how they will continue to move forward in their desire for a free Palestine.

The other 11 people on the tour were all really cool as well, a really interesting bunch.   We would have made a really good BIG BROTHER series together!!!

then about 7.30pm we headed back to Jerusalem and had to go through a check point as pedestrains.   this was sobering to the extreme.   We were herded up like sheep and put into pens.  I haven't seen anything as dehumanising, ever.   It took us over half an hour of queueing.  It was a wake up call to the fact that this is a war. But the security guards in Israel were actually quite friendly to us as we re entered, which I wasn't expecting at all.

Right, that's it.  Don't worry about me.  All is fine and I've found out that writing about/visiting Palestine will not give me problems when I leave the country.  I just have to show Tamar's(our guide's) business card at the border and just tell the truth about the day.

I must go and rest now, I'm knackered!