How can we learn to hang loose like lemurs?

In Jerusalem, Friday is a Muslim holiday, Saturday the Jewish Sabbath and Sunday a Christian one, so you have to be deft about the kind of shopping or activity you need to do on any given day at a weekend.

Back at the house on the Friday afternoon after our visit to Al Aqsa mosque I heard some loud explosions nearby and thought to myself that it was a bit early for fireworks. On flicking through the local papers on Saturday, we realised that there had been some quite heated demonstrations around the mosque, almost immediately after our departure (nothing to do with the dwarves this time), which had resulted in tear gas and rubber bullets being liberally distributed amongst the crowds of Palestinian demonstrators by Israeli soldiers.

On Saturday afternoon, far from the heated muddle of human resentments, we ventured to Jerusalem zoo which was as distant from it as you could imagine. Sculpted beautifully and greenly in the far west of the city, it offers a haven of tranquility pierced with monkey cackles; and encyclopaedias worth of information and tit bits on animals you may never otherwise get to see in a lifetime. We wandered happily around, hardly able to believe that the black and white furry pile up of lemurs on a branch was present in the same city as the daily tumult and agony. Perhaps a clever person is experimenting by injecting a lot of wild creatures into the place, to try and make the humans less so.

Need we have ventured to the zoo to see monkeys?

The peace process has begun again after a kick re-starter by John Kerry and there has been a tit for tat process of release of Palestinian prisoners by Israel and a promise from the Palestinians that they'll refrain from upgrading their membership of UN agencies - although I'm not sure what that really means. As ever the real disagreement is over something much more physical - in this case, the continued Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and 'unilateral Israeli actions in Jerusalem that create a negative environment' both of which we saw with our own eyes over the short weekend there. According to the BBC website, there are now over half a million settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which is considered illegal under international law. But Israel disputes this. 

On Sunday we awoke to the nearby chime of a solitary church bell; and the dwarves, the Glammy and I packed our bags for the trip back to Amman, leaving J alone to do 2 weeks Arabic language immersion in Nablus, north of Jerusalem on the West Bank. We had an interesting ride with Rami, our Palestinian driver who explained the problems in Al Aqsa mosque over the weekend - saying that he fears another uprising as happened in the year 2000 after Ariel Sharon visited the mosque. It is thought he may have sparked the 2nd Intifada by his visit. Since he's now lying in a coma somewhere, it won't be Sharon himself that sparks the next one, although the ghosts of leaders past seem to live on in this region. And Rami has lost many friends and relatives in fighting over the years to testify.

Our journey back was a little easier than the way there, though the rudeness makes you feel like spitting. But we saved our spit for singing in the car as we wended our way back up to our little temporary home with Abu Mohammed at the wheel, who was there to meet us at the other side of the Allenby Bridge. We were pleased to see him. And as we approached the Glammy's home town of Amman, she exclaimed how much she had to be thankful for, living in a country like Jordan. 

Courtesy of my mother in law (thank you, Mads), I have a seemingly ongoing subscription to Prospect magazine which I fell upon on our return, mostly because it's a lot lighter than holding up my hard back book in bed after a curious weekend. What I love about Prospect is that each month I open it, there are at least 2 articles that correspond exactly to my life; and 2 that open my eyes to something I have never heard about or considered before. In this issue, Simon Shama in his 'If I ruled the world' column, writes that the 'poetry of history' is that it's about people who in many ways are just like us, but also couldn't be more different. But I think that living right here in this region, right now, has the same poetry. Every way you look in Jerusalem and beyond, there is someone who couldn't seem more different, and yet must be just like us, at least somewhere inside. 

Then my eyes fell upon an article by the philosopher AC Grayling, sub-headed: When does a country's right to claim territory expire?' In his argument he writes that if the Jewish peoples have a 2,000 year old title to Jerusalem, then Calais is definitely English. And he admits that getting over history and accepting present realities is the obvious necessity for a peaceful two-state solution. He reckons that if there were to emerge, 'a Mandela-like figure on each side of the divide, each big enough of heart and mind to envisage a good future instead of being enslaved to a bad past, things might change.' 

He writes: 'If there were just one place where a solution would help the world as a whole, it is in that vexed fragment of unpropitious earth between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea.'

It is no wonder, that sadly, the Glammy does not want to come and live with us there, and will head to the bright lights of Amreeeeekaaaaa to find her fortunes. We cannot blame her for it, since the freedom she needs as an Arab 30 year old, will probably not be found in these parts for the moment, and the adventure would only be ours. And as she rightly said: 'I couldn't cope seeing what's happening daily to my people. I just don't think I could live in that place.'

So this evening, I am rather melancholically reliving the happy times we've had with her here in Amman, and mentally preparing myself for a future without a loyal and trusted fellow-lover of our children in a region that is just so full of hatred, and yet so jam-packed full of love as well.