Friday, 28 February 2014
Monday, 24 February 2014
Tripping around holy places
Ever since I took part in a retreat in an Abbey prior to my confirmation, where we - a gaggle of 14 year old girls - spent time giggling in the cloisters and spending our pocket money on Virgin Mary key rings, I've noticed that holy places can take on an almost cartoon-like cariacature making it hard to take them seriously.
Jerusalem is not short of these places. You have to tear away the centuries of pilgrimage, man-made constructions and tatt shops surrounding a particular shrine, to imagine what it might have been like in its true simplistic glory.
Throw in a couple of dwarves, and you find yourself even further from the spiritual. The first instance was last Sunday when we ventured to a service within the walls of the old city and spent nearly two hours in a church with heating to rival an old folk's care home, and evangelical singing accompanied with guitar and piano. The 'sunday school' room stood starkly empty and the harmonies of 'give us peace in our hearts' were interlaced with Rashimi's decibels as rivals in the rafters. 'I WANT POMAPARROT JOOOS MUMMMYY!' The tastes of the orient are not lost on our boys and pomegranate juice has become a favourite subsitute for Ribena.
You'd like to imagine that a god loving congregation would welcome a 2 and a 4 year old in their ranks - but by the looks of the faces (all occidental and in Jerusalem for a Reason) which turned from beatific to begrudging on our entrance, it makes you wonder whether a lot of holiness isn't simply stuck on top of a wholelotofcracks. We left about 40 minutes into the sermon and gasped mouthfuls of cool air as we scuttled down the cobbles back to Jaffa gate.
Later in the week, I took the dwarves to the Mount of Olives, not far from our house which looks West over the city with one of the best views of the 'Haram as Sharif' and the golden Dome of the Rock. It is almost entirely covered with churches and graveyards dating back 3,000 years. It's a sought after burial site for all of the monotheistic faiths, and contains the remains of many well known figures including Robert Maxwell and Menachem Begin, who when head of the Irgun (the militant right-wing Zionist underground organisation), was responsible for the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, killing 96 people and injuring many more.
I'm not sure I'll put my name on the list to be buried up there.
We had a good run about Pater Noster with the Lozenge shouting: 'But Mummy, where are the oliveth?' having perhaps imagined we were about to slither up a black and glistening mount of his favourite food. The original church was built on the orders of St Helena during the 4th Century, but the building which stands there now is from 19th century and boasts tiled panels of the Lord's prayer in nearly 200 languages.
As we tumbled out of our car we became snarled up with a group of Japanese tourists disembarking from a coach who we found later reciting the Lord's prayer in Japanese in an underground recess when Rashimi kicked the football into the midst of them. And we interrupted an American TV crew broadcasting a holy programme from the neighbouring olive grove.
Leaving the more devout to their worship we tripped downhill, following a runaway scooter and football to the viewpoint, where the Lozenge decided he wanted to sit on a camel,
and Rashimi watched bemused as a group of teenage Israeli soldiers posed for a photograph with the Dome of the Rock in the background. As I saw his beady blue eyes gazing at the black metal of their guns, I realised there were fewer years dividing Rashimi and the soldiers, than between the soldiers and myself. In 15.5 years, Rashimi could be legally in the uniform himself, guarding a holy site - with an automatic weapon and point and shoot camera.
Jerusalem is not short of these places. You have to tear away the centuries of pilgrimage, man-made constructions and tatt shops surrounding a particular shrine, to imagine what it might have been like in its true simplistic glory.
Throw in a couple of dwarves, and you find yourself even further from the spiritual. The first instance was last Sunday when we ventured to a service within the walls of the old city and spent nearly two hours in a church with heating to rival an old folk's care home, and evangelical singing accompanied with guitar and piano. The 'sunday school' room stood starkly empty and the harmonies of 'give us peace in our hearts' were interlaced with Rashimi's decibels as rivals in the rafters. 'I WANT POMAPARROT JOOOS MUMMMYY!' The tastes of the orient are not lost on our boys and pomegranate juice has become a favourite subsitute for Ribena.
You'd like to imagine that a god loving congregation would welcome a 2 and a 4 year old in their ranks - but by the looks of the faces (all occidental and in Jerusalem for a Reason) which turned from beatific to begrudging on our entrance, it makes you wonder whether a lot of holiness isn't simply stuck on top of a wholelotofcracks. We left about 40 minutes into the sermon and gasped mouthfuls of cool air as we scuttled down the cobbles back to Jaffa gate.
Later in the week, I took the dwarves to the Mount of Olives, not far from our house which looks West over the city with one of the best views of the 'Haram as Sharif' and the golden Dome of the Rock. It is almost entirely covered with churches and graveyards dating back 3,000 years. It's a sought after burial site for all of the monotheistic faiths, and contains the remains of many well known figures including Robert Maxwell and Menachem Begin, who when head of the Irgun (the militant right-wing Zionist underground organisation), was responsible for the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, killing 96 people and injuring many more.
I'm not sure I'll put my name on the list to be buried up there.
We had a good run about Pater Noster with the Lozenge shouting: 'But Mummy, where are the oliveth?' having perhaps imagined we were about to slither up a black and glistening mount of his favourite food. The original church was built on the orders of St Helena during the 4th Century, but the building which stands there now is from 19th century and boasts tiled panels of the Lord's prayer in nearly 200 languages.
 |
| The dwarves bolting down a cloister in Pater Noster towards a panel of the Lord's prayer written in Czech |
Leaving the more devout to their worship we tripped downhill, following a runaway scooter and football to the viewpoint, where the Lozenge decided he wanted to sit on a camel,
and Rashimi watched bemused as a group of teenage Israeli soldiers posed for a photograph with the Dome of the Rock in the background. As I saw his beady blue eyes gazing at the black metal of their guns, I realised there were fewer years dividing Rashimi and the soldiers, than between the soldiers and myself. In 15.5 years, Rashimi could be legally in the uniform himself, guarding a holy site - with an automatic weapon and point and shoot camera.
Jaffa
The Lozenge seems to be fairly practical about the need to feel at home, and spent most of the morning rearranging the sofas in the sitting room so 'they are like in Jordan'. He's made the layout of sofa, coffee table and arm chairs an almost exact pattern of our last flat in Amman, and doesn't seem to mind that now we can't see the telly from the sofa, or get out the back door because of the chair.
Rashimi on the other hand is content as long as he has a beaker of 'pomaparrot joos' and either St Grace or myself, somewhere at hand.
We have been eating a lot of 'calamantina' oranges since now is the season, and we have a tree in the garden which bears dwarf sized ones which has been a great source of fascination and vitamin C since we arrived. The larger ones you find in the shop are emblazoned with a familiar sticker from childhood: 'JAFFA', which doesn't seem to have changed in size, colour or logo since I was a little girl.
We ventured to Jaffa this weekend. It's confusing as it now features on the same blob of the map as the modern southern mediterranean city of Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv was founded on this patch of coast line on the outskirts of Jaffa in 1909 by Jewish immigrants, but this modern urbanisation grew much quicker than Jaffa which had a majority Arab population at the time.
We spent the day with a wonderful and warm American couple and their children who moved to Jaffa from Jerusalem for a more care-free lifestyle overlooking the sea and have found exactly that. The city feels like another country from Jerusalem. The church spires, synagogues and minarets are dwarfed by the tower blocks of Tel Aviv, and we saw not one covered head. Dreds and bandanas take the place of capels and hijabs and the little port side was like a combination of a Cornish fishing village, Shoreditch in London and the Meatpacking district in New York. The wooden boarded sea front was filled with seemingly secular families eating ice creams and walking their dogs.
We took a small boat out to sea and looked back at the coast line. There were a group of Bedouin women on board from the Negev - the only headscarves we saw all day - who spent the ride dancing around to Arab pop and 'C'est la vie' all smiles of gold teeth and pungent perfume. Rashimi was entranced.
Tel Aviv is famed for its Bauhaus, but from our little boat bobbing just off the coast, looked more like Benidorm - the stone Ottoman and Arab buildings of Jaffa overshadowed by the white metropolis to the North. It seemed to me to be a visual picture of the general state of this country - with Israel overshadowing what was once known as Palestine - with its more advanced technology and stronger and highly honed politics, steadily pushing the poorer relation out of the frame.
Last week, Haaretz newspaper published an article by Amira Hass, 'Water Torture for the Palestinians' where she described the systematic discrimination in water allocations to the Palestinians, particularly in the West Bank where thousands of families: 'expend huge amounts of time, money and emotional and physical energy just to ensure basic things like showers, laundry and washing floors and dishes.' Below her article is a letter from a Palestinian farmer near Hebron who explains his living situation.
'Access to 70 per cent of our water wells is currently blocked. Demolition orders hang over our heads. To reach the wells, we need a special permit from the Israeli army….I would like to believe that you, too, understand that no one should live that way. No child should have to be afraid to drink a glass of water lest there be none tomorrow. These are my difficulties. These are my children's fears.'
As I looked at the looming physical presence sitting beside the ancient Arab port, I remembered his words.
We returned home to find St Grace who had been a bit bored without us and wondered which sea we'd been to as she hadn't heard of the Mediterranean. I showed her on the dwarves' world map in the playroom. I thought she would have needed a rest after all her work, but I suppose her reason for being here is us, and without us in the house, she must also wonder why she is here. Though she has already made a clutch of Sri Lankan friends and this weekend went to a service at the Holy Sepulchre in the old city. She explained with tears in her eyes: 'And we thought as we lit candles, that these are the stones that Jesus walked, and this is the rock that was by his grave. And we can't believe we are here and we can see it.'
Rashimi on the other hand is content as long as he has a beaker of 'pomaparrot joos' and either St Grace or myself, somewhere at hand.
We have been eating a lot of 'calamantina' oranges since now is the season, and we have a tree in the garden which bears dwarf sized ones which has been a great source of fascination and vitamin C since we arrived. The larger ones you find in the shop are emblazoned with a familiar sticker from childhood: 'JAFFA', which doesn't seem to have changed in size, colour or logo since I was a little girl.
We ventured to Jaffa this weekend. It's confusing as it now features on the same blob of the map as the modern southern mediterranean city of Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv was founded on this patch of coast line on the outskirts of Jaffa in 1909 by Jewish immigrants, but this modern urbanisation grew much quicker than Jaffa which had a majority Arab population at the time.
We spent the day with a wonderful and warm American couple and their children who moved to Jaffa from Jerusalem for a more care-free lifestyle overlooking the sea and have found exactly that. The city feels like another country from Jerusalem. The church spires, synagogues and minarets are dwarfed by the tower blocks of Tel Aviv, and we saw not one covered head. Dreds and bandanas take the place of capels and hijabs and the little port side was like a combination of a Cornish fishing village, Shoreditch in London and the Meatpacking district in New York. The wooden boarded sea front was filled with seemingly secular families eating ice creams and walking their dogs.
We took a small boat out to sea and looked back at the coast line. There were a group of Bedouin women on board from the Negev - the only headscarves we saw all day - who spent the ride dancing around to Arab pop and 'C'est la vie' all smiles of gold teeth and pungent perfume. Rashimi was entranced.
Tel Aviv is famed for its Bauhaus, but from our little boat bobbing just off the coast, looked more like Benidorm - the stone Ottoman and Arab buildings of Jaffa overshadowed by the white metropolis to the North. It seemed to me to be a visual picture of the general state of this country - with Israel overshadowing what was once known as Palestine - with its more advanced technology and stronger and highly honed politics, steadily pushing the poorer relation out of the frame.
Last week, Haaretz newspaper published an article by Amira Hass, 'Water Torture for the Palestinians' where she described the systematic discrimination in water allocations to the Palestinians, particularly in the West Bank where thousands of families: 'expend huge amounts of time, money and emotional and physical energy just to ensure basic things like showers, laundry and washing floors and dishes.' Below her article is a letter from a Palestinian farmer near Hebron who explains his living situation.
'Access to 70 per cent of our water wells is currently blocked. Demolition orders hang over our heads. To reach the wells, we need a special permit from the Israeli army….I would like to believe that you, too, understand that no one should live that way. No child should have to be afraid to drink a glass of water lest there be none tomorrow. These are my difficulties. These are my children's fears.'
As I looked at the looming physical presence sitting beside the ancient Arab port, I remembered his words.
We returned home to find St Grace who had been a bit bored without us and wondered which sea we'd been to as she hadn't heard of the Mediterranean. I showed her on the dwarves' world map in the playroom. I thought she would have needed a rest after all her work, but I suppose her reason for being here is us, and without us in the house, she must also wonder why she is here. Though she has already made a clutch of Sri Lankan friends and this weekend went to a service at the Holy Sepulchre in the old city. She explained with tears in her eyes: 'And we thought as we lit candles, that these are the stones that Jesus walked, and this is the rock that was by his grave. And we can't believe we are here and we can see it.'
An Armenian fringe and a remote heart
Getting to know a city is all about the people you meet. But you don't always meet these people when you need them. One of the guides I'm finding most useful at the moment is an account of an American family in the Holy City between 1881 and 1949. My godmother Janie gave it to me, and through it I'm understanding the premise with which so many people have come to settle in Jerusalem over the centuries, creating little 'colonies' of culture, building and good works - which is one of the reasons the food, architecture and all other cultural imprints, are so rich and varied.
The author, Bertha Spafford Vester arrived in Jerusalem in 1881 after her parents had suffered setbacks and tragedies in their home city of Chicago - notably the fire there which destroyed most of the city in 1871, and having lost all four of their little daughters at sea in a ship wreck. Bertha's mother, Anne, was saved as her unconscious body was lifted to the surface by a floating plank. This freak miracle would make anyone wonder if they had been saved for a reason. And she, already a staunch Christian like most people of her time, decided she must have a greater purpose in life. She and her husband Horatio moved to Jerusalem and had two more daughters - one of whom is the author of the book. Through this enlightening and detailed account of their lives in this city nearly 150 years ago - I feel like I have a ghost of a guide, helping me look at buildings, quarters and people in a new way. It's hard to know at which point to enter this city historically - and I would say the 1880's is a fairly good point, the era when so many Russian jews were escaping the pogroms. Two million jews fled Russia between 1880 and 1920, and many of these began a new life in Palestine. And families like the Spaffords arrived and created the American Colony - now a beautiful hotel very close to our house; and the Spafford Children's Center which cares for some of the most disadvantaged children in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and is still running today.
The other way of discovering a city of course, is just by living in it, and finding things when needs arise - such as the Armenian hairdresser who did a good butchery job on Rashimi's fringe. Here he is just after next to a prize marrow in the market which was longer than him. He refused to lie down beside it for the perspective shot.
The Armenian hairdresser's grandfather was also a barber, and has a certificate from the British Consul General at the time (1948) explaining he was never disappointed by a haircut in the 3 years he spent in the city. His grandson is known to have cut Cherie Blair's barnet from time to time, when in the Holy City with Tony for his work with the Quartet, and her own projects besides.
Our area is full of gems like these, but as you walk down the street you wonder about the state of the place. Almost all women are entirely covered up, unlike in Jordan where you can veer between spray on jeans and highlighted locks, to a crown to floor hijab on the same pavement. But here Muslim ladies' fashion seems to favour the 'manteau' long dark coat with long sleeves and buttons with a tight headscarf, and when we smile - expressions are fixed and grim, even from fellow mothers with children. There is one tiny park within walking distance where I occasionally take the dwarves for a scamper. But I have to hold my breath as they climb the trees and swing from the peeling painted bars in the playground, as the ground is a swathe of broken glass, twinkling in the sunlight. As we ran home one day past a wall of graffiti - the dwarves' little heads bobbing up and down past Arabic scrawls of 'Hamas' and 'Fatah' I wondered what I would do if I were one of these women, trying to brave out family life in this quarter which is so much in need of some care. And who does care? Do the residents care that it looks like this? And why does the West side look so much smarter when it's supposedly the Israeli authorities who govern both East and West of the city? For all the graffiti of Hamas and Fatah - neither are in charge here as Hamas governs Gaza, and Fatah the West Bank. Where are the recycling bins on this side? And where are the big green parks?
On a trip to the supermarket the dwarves ran riot down the aisles and I lost them temporarily, to find them a minute later sitting on a low metal bar by the freezer section chomping on a twix which they'd ripped into. They are accomplices now, and I the outsider. One young man, just one check out assistant at the row of three machines, watched as I struggled to fill the bags of shopping and stop the dwarves from running onto the road of boy racers pumping past too fast. He reluctantly helped me to the car with the shopping.
To burn off steam back home we've been raking, bouncing and digging. And in my head I've been wondering what we can make of this little patch of outside space which looks like no one has given some love to for a while. A lot is the answer, and I'm hoping a green fingered gene might have found its way somehow into my pool. Everything grows here it seems and the Lozenge is ready to plant.
Though my body is here, my thoughts are also very much at home. I found a little scrabble piece under the sofa in the playroom. It was the letter 'R'. And it sits on my dressing table which is still bare while our belongings make their way on a ship from Aqaba and arrive near the end of March. But this little letter is all I need to keep auntie Rosie in mind as she prepares for the arrival of her first child. As I trip around the cobbles of the old city with the dwarves, or wonder whether I want to get involved in ex-pat Facebook facades, or sit in my office fiddling about making this documentary a little bit better, my eyes are drawn to the little olive tree in the garden with the sunshine peeping through it, and my heart feels quite far from here if the truth be known. Our roots are always where they started when it comes down to it, and I know that the olive tree understands that.
The author, Bertha Spafford Vester arrived in Jerusalem in 1881 after her parents had suffered setbacks and tragedies in their home city of Chicago - notably the fire there which destroyed most of the city in 1871, and having lost all four of their little daughters at sea in a ship wreck. Bertha's mother, Anne, was saved as her unconscious body was lifted to the surface by a floating plank. This freak miracle would make anyone wonder if they had been saved for a reason. And she, already a staunch Christian like most people of her time, decided she must have a greater purpose in life. She and her husband Horatio moved to Jerusalem and had two more daughters - one of whom is the author of the book. Through this enlightening and detailed account of their lives in this city nearly 150 years ago - I feel like I have a ghost of a guide, helping me look at buildings, quarters and people in a new way. It's hard to know at which point to enter this city historically - and I would say the 1880's is a fairly good point, the era when so many Russian jews were escaping the pogroms. Two million jews fled Russia between 1880 and 1920, and many of these began a new life in Palestine. And families like the Spaffords arrived and created the American Colony - now a beautiful hotel very close to our house; and the Spafford Children's Center which cares for some of the most disadvantaged children in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and is still running today.
The other way of discovering a city of course, is just by living in it, and finding things when needs arise - such as the Armenian hairdresser who did a good butchery job on Rashimi's fringe. Here he is just after next to a prize marrow in the market which was longer than him. He refused to lie down beside it for the perspective shot.
The Armenian hairdresser's grandfather was also a barber, and has a certificate from the British Consul General at the time (1948) explaining he was never disappointed by a haircut in the 3 years he spent in the city. His grandson is known to have cut Cherie Blair's barnet from time to time, when in the Holy City with Tony for his work with the Quartet, and her own projects besides.
Our area is full of gems like these, but as you walk down the street you wonder about the state of the place. Almost all women are entirely covered up, unlike in Jordan where you can veer between spray on jeans and highlighted locks, to a crown to floor hijab on the same pavement. But here Muslim ladies' fashion seems to favour the 'manteau' long dark coat with long sleeves and buttons with a tight headscarf, and when we smile - expressions are fixed and grim, even from fellow mothers with children. There is one tiny park within walking distance where I occasionally take the dwarves for a scamper. But I have to hold my breath as they climb the trees and swing from the peeling painted bars in the playground, as the ground is a swathe of broken glass, twinkling in the sunlight. As we ran home one day past a wall of graffiti - the dwarves' little heads bobbing up and down past Arabic scrawls of 'Hamas' and 'Fatah' I wondered what I would do if I were one of these women, trying to brave out family life in this quarter which is so much in need of some care. And who does care? Do the residents care that it looks like this? And why does the West side look so much smarter when it's supposedly the Israeli authorities who govern both East and West of the city? For all the graffiti of Hamas and Fatah - neither are in charge here as Hamas governs Gaza, and Fatah the West Bank. Where are the recycling bins on this side? And where are the big green parks?
On a trip to the supermarket the dwarves ran riot down the aisles and I lost them temporarily, to find them a minute later sitting on a low metal bar by the freezer section chomping on a twix which they'd ripped into. They are accomplices now, and I the outsider. One young man, just one check out assistant at the row of three machines, watched as I struggled to fill the bags of shopping and stop the dwarves from running onto the road of boy racers pumping past too fast. He reluctantly helped me to the car with the shopping.
To burn off steam back home we've been raking, bouncing and digging. And in my head I've been wondering what we can make of this little patch of outside space which looks like no one has given some love to for a while. A lot is the answer, and I'm hoping a green fingered gene might have found its way somehow into my pool. Everything grows here it seems and the Lozenge is ready to plant.
Though my body is here, my thoughts are also very much at home. I found a little scrabble piece under the sofa in the playroom. It was the letter 'R'. And it sits on my dressing table which is still bare while our belongings make their way on a ship from Aqaba and arrive near the end of March. But this little letter is all I need to keep auntie Rosie in mind as she prepares for the arrival of her first child. As I trip around the cobbles of the old city with the dwarves, or wonder whether I want to get involved in ex-pat Facebook facades, or sit in my office fiddling about making this documentary a little bit better, my eyes are drawn to the little olive tree in the garden with the sunshine peeping through it, and my heart feels quite far from here if the truth be known. Our roots are always where they started when it comes down to it, and I know that the olive tree understands that.
Friday, 14 February 2014
A trip back to Jordan, and worms for the chicks
I set out for Jordan early on Wednesday morning. As I headed towards the border the mountains on the other side were a haze of different hues of blue, the Dead Sea a sliver of orange at their feet.
The welcome from the Jordan side was as ever a comfort. 'Always, you are welcome.' In some ways it was like going home, and within 2.5 hours I'd reached the Darat gallery and was sitting with its founder watching the documentary again. We spent the whole day working and deciding which changes to make and by 7pm I was at the Duke's house, bearing 2 mammoth cartons of Marlboro reds and a bottle of whisky, which he and his lovely wife pounced upon like the dwarves to a bag of sweets. It's getting harder to find affordable alcohol and cigarettes, they told me, so at least I hadn't bothered with soap and chocolates. The Duke went out on an official engagment, and I sat for the evening with his wife, having dinner which her cook had prepared. Stuffed zucchini in tomato sauce with grilled aubergine, followed by cheesecake.
The following morning I had a few minutes with the Duke who was off to the German University for a lecture at 9am. His schedule is quite something for a 75 year old. 'I get myself into these situations by opening doors all the time,' he said. 'I have myself to blame but what am I to do?' He went on to explain how worried he is about the ever increasing rift between rich and poor in the city, with food prices and unemployment rocketing. 'We live here in this poor area, and I read the graffiti the young people write, and I know what's in here,' he said, thumping his guts. 'The rich Jordanians construct these huge buildings which they can't even rent out, and they have no idea what is going on in the East side. And do they care?'
Part of his ploy is to get the younger wealthier Jordanians to come over the other side and understand what's happening.
He asked me how was Jerusalem and admitted to having goosebumps when I explained where we lived, as before 1967 he spent a lot of time in this city, particularly in our neighbourhood. Out of solidarity, he hasn't returned since.
'Nothing is ever good or bad but thinking makes it so,' he quoted from Shakespeare, grabbed his bag, and left.
His wife emerged in her dressing gown to have breakfast with me. We ate eggs from their farm, labaneh and olive oil, and preserved khoshkhaash (like a bitter orange) skin which tasted like marmalade. She's worried as they've still had no rain in Jordan, and their cows have nothing to eat. The opposite extreme from what the UK is experiencing right now. She packed a bag of grapefruits, olive oil and a little bottle of nail polish for me. I'd told her I liked the colour the evening before.
I met St Grace's husband in the city centre who wanted to give me a bag to take back for her. He'd carefully packed her favourite things including coffee mate and some dried fish. He's missing her so much, I could barely look him in the eye. But she seems happy and is perhaps more resilient than he.
Then I spent the day filling up the car with whisky, wine, 'yellow cheese' (gouda and cheddar being the Lozenge's favourites), and the equivalent in ham slices of a whole pig from the Christian supermarket. Having thought Jordan prices were high, they are half those of Jerusalem. The friendly man at the deli counter questioned my Arabic. '100 slices of ham, madam? Are you sure?' I drove past the crossroads to our old house, and the little memories of journeys through it with the dwarves pinged into my head like carbonated bubbles. The nostalgia already keen after only 10 days. Like making a new friend, you have to allow the chapters of time and experience stack up in a new place, which one day you hope may become of the same value as the old one.
I crossed the border in record time again, feeling uncomfortable about our car load of luxuries which no border official has the right to look through - while the Palestinians entering have their bags pulled open and inspected morsel by morsel and vest by pair of socks. I watched an unhappy looking man struggle to put the piles of items back into his case as neatly as they were before, and strain the zip shut again, before slowly moving towards the next kiosk for more questions, and re-inspection of documents. We are free to roam as we please, dancing around the protocol, thanks simply, to our place of birth and ethnicity.
I handed over the final essential ticket in the strategic process, and drove through the darkness towards the orange sequin dusting of lights on the hill which is Jerusalem, where J and the dwarves awaited.
Pyjama clad, Rashimi's nappy rustling busily, the dwarves screeched barefoot down the garden path to greet me when I arrived and tried to help by dragging the shopping bags towards the house and searching for sweets and chocolate. Remembering the guards inspecting the Palesintian suitcases I felt grateful for these bags, feeling a little like a bird coming back to a nest with a mouthful of worms. Though we are still assembling the twigs, the chicks inside make the feeling of home more immediate, and felt grateful also for that.
The welcome from the Jordan side was as ever a comfort. 'Always, you are welcome.' In some ways it was like going home, and within 2.5 hours I'd reached the Darat gallery and was sitting with its founder watching the documentary again. We spent the whole day working and deciding which changes to make and by 7pm I was at the Duke's house, bearing 2 mammoth cartons of Marlboro reds and a bottle of whisky, which he and his lovely wife pounced upon like the dwarves to a bag of sweets. It's getting harder to find affordable alcohol and cigarettes, they told me, so at least I hadn't bothered with soap and chocolates. The Duke went out on an official engagment, and I sat for the evening with his wife, having dinner which her cook had prepared. Stuffed zucchini in tomato sauce with grilled aubergine, followed by cheesecake.
The following morning I had a few minutes with the Duke who was off to the German University for a lecture at 9am. His schedule is quite something for a 75 year old. 'I get myself into these situations by opening doors all the time,' he said. 'I have myself to blame but what am I to do?' He went on to explain how worried he is about the ever increasing rift between rich and poor in the city, with food prices and unemployment rocketing. 'We live here in this poor area, and I read the graffiti the young people write, and I know what's in here,' he said, thumping his guts. 'The rich Jordanians construct these huge buildings which they can't even rent out, and they have no idea what is going on in the East side. And do they care?'
Part of his ploy is to get the younger wealthier Jordanians to come over the other side and understand what's happening.
He asked me how was Jerusalem and admitted to having goosebumps when I explained where we lived, as before 1967 he spent a lot of time in this city, particularly in our neighbourhood. Out of solidarity, he hasn't returned since.
'Nothing is ever good or bad but thinking makes it so,' he quoted from Shakespeare, grabbed his bag, and left.
His wife emerged in her dressing gown to have breakfast with me. We ate eggs from their farm, labaneh and olive oil, and preserved khoshkhaash (like a bitter orange) skin which tasted like marmalade. She's worried as they've still had no rain in Jordan, and their cows have nothing to eat. The opposite extreme from what the UK is experiencing right now. She packed a bag of grapefruits, olive oil and a little bottle of nail polish for me. I'd told her I liked the colour the evening before.
I met St Grace's husband in the city centre who wanted to give me a bag to take back for her. He'd carefully packed her favourite things including coffee mate and some dried fish. He's missing her so much, I could barely look him in the eye. But she seems happy and is perhaps more resilient than he.
Then I spent the day filling up the car with whisky, wine, 'yellow cheese' (gouda and cheddar being the Lozenge's favourites), and the equivalent in ham slices of a whole pig from the Christian supermarket. Having thought Jordan prices were high, they are half those of Jerusalem. The friendly man at the deli counter questioned my Arabic. '100 slices of ham, madam? Are you sure?' I drove past the crossroads to our old house, and the little memories of journeys through it with the dwarves pinged into my head like carbonated bubbles. The nostalgia already keen after only 10 days. Like making a new friend, you have to allow the chapters of time and experience stack up in a new place, which one day you hope may become of the same value as the old one.
I crossed the border in record time again, feeling uncomfortable about our car load of luxuries which no border official has the right to look through - while the Palestinians entering have their bags pulled open and inspected morsel by morsel and vest by pair of socks. I watched an unhappy looking man struggle to put the piles of items back into his case as neatly as they were before, and strain the zip shut again, before slowly moving towards the next kiosk for more questions, and re-inspection of documents. We are free to roam as we please, dancing around the protocol, thanks simply, to our place of birth and ethnicity.
I handed over the final essential ticket in the strategic process, and drove through the darkness towards the orange sequin dusting of lights on the hill which is Jerusalem, where J and the dwarves awaited.
Pyjama clad, Rashimi's nappy rustling busily, the dwarves screeched barefoot down the garden path to greet me when I arrived and tried to help by dragging the shopping bags towards the house and searching for sweets and chocolate. Remembering the guards inspecting the Palesintian suitcases I felt grateful for these bags, feeling a little like a bird coming back to a nest with a mouthful of worms. Though we are still assembling the twigs, the chicks inside make the feeling of home more immediate, and felt grateful also for that.
Tapestries of grey
J and I went for dinner with some Palestinian friends in Ramallah last weekend. The small city is only10 km from Jerusalem but takes half an hour to drive because of the check points. We left our house at dusk and wound our way upwards towards the hill town which has become the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It was initially a Christian town, but now has a muslim majority.
As we approached the check point at the edge of the city, we passed a camp of fixed caravans, the white oblong shapes like a negative image against the darkness. An Israeli Defence Forces vehicle was parked alongside the caravans, like a reinforced steel guard dog. The camp houses a group of Israeli settlers. I read in the newspaper that over 25 per cent of illegal settler posts are guarded by IDF soldiers. Passing the caravans you wonder at the techniques of this land grab. Placing a caravan somewhere becomes more about bums on seats, reserving land as someone might plop their towel on a sunbed in a holiday resort. The caravan a temporary sign, like the towel, of someone's 'ownership' of this patch, until this might be questioned. Or with luck, until the ownership can become permanent. I heard that once the caravans are there, the Israeli government are required to install electricity and plumbing etc. until the 'ownership' becomes more permanent and harder to undo.
The soldier at the checkpoint peered through inch thick glass, partially shattered by a rock or a bullet. 'Oh, you're British. I support Liverpool. Stay safe in Ramallah. Sababa (take it easy)'. He said. We drove on through the darkness. The road on the Palestinian side of the check point was full of huge pot holes and there was no road lighting. As we entered Ramallah I had the impression we were driving back into Amman. The architecture and street signs in Arabic make the atmosphere entirely different from Jerusalem. You get the feeling there's a lot of money in the place - there are 5 star hotels, fancy restaurants and the streets are buzzing with Arab customers in Arab shops.
We arrived at our friends' house, who'd prepared a table full of food including the Jordanian speciality, 'Mansaf' which is definitely man's food - hunks of lamb resting on a pile of rice with a spiced yoghurt sauce. We chatted in Arabic and English and drank fizzy apple drinks. They are an impressive pair and he not only speaks fluent Hebrew but has completed a masters in Israeli studies. He explained that many Palestinians have left East Jerusalem to set up businesses in Ramallah as there you pay less tax and find more customers. The streets here have more of a buzz than those in East Jerusalem. And I was reminded of Palestinians' reactions in Jordan when we explained we were moving to Jerusalem. 'You'll find that you have much more fun in Ramallah,' they said.
Back in Jerusalem this week I had more opportunity to walk around as I found a computer specialist who fixed my hard drive problem. As I walked down King George Street I gazed through shop windows crammed with extraordinary fashions. Almost like going back in time the colours and cuts are as anachronistic as clothes from the 40s - yet people are walking around in them here, today. A dark pumpkin coloured low brim ladies hat with black flowers on it perched on a manequin, with a purple fitted jacket and brown boots. Many of the shops sold rolls of fabric, and I wondered at how hard it is to find material in the shops in the UK right now - home economics the casualty of our consumer culture. But here people must sew their own clothes a lot more.
On the tram I noticed many Jewish men wear a little hair clip to fix their capel to their head, and I wondered what Dad would do in this situation. No sooner had a mused about this than I spotted the wind whisk a capel from the head of a bald man, who fumbled around trying to catch it, then settled it back on his pate again. At the road crossing, an orthodox family waited alongside a muslim woman with a black head covering without any eye holes (our Syrian friend told me they call them 'kamikazes' in Damascus); a group of Arab shabaab (lads), hung about with droopy trousers, joking with Israeli soldiers their own age sporting the ubiquitous enormous machine gun and crew cut.
And as I looked at this pavement cocktail I remembered conversations this week with our muslim friend in Ramallah, who's trying to understand the Israeli psyche with his university studies; and with the editor who's secular yet wants to bring his children up in this highly religious place, so they have a chance to see many different ways of living from a young age. The Jewish family who funded a little park we went to with the dwarves, 'for all the people of Jerusalem with love and hope and humility.'
Before coming here, and from Jordan it was easy to polarise - to make decisions about black and about white. But on these very pavements, and in these homes and work places we're invited into, the multiple shades of grey in these societies begin to weave a complex tapestry which forces you to lay aside your preconceptions and challenge yourself with every sight and sound.
Although it's important to know what you believe in, and what you'd like to work towards, nothing is how you'd imagined before coming, and perhaps nothing on the outside will ever look the same again.
As we approached the check point at the edge of the city, we passed a camp of fixed caravans, the white oblong shapes like a negative image against the darkness. An Israeli Defence Forces vehicle was parked alongside the caravans, like a reinforced steel guard dog. The camp houses a group of Israeli settlers. I read in the newspaper that over 25 per cent of illegal settler posts are guarded by IDF soldiers. Passing the caravans you wonder at the techniques of this land grab. Placing a caravan somewhere becomes more about bums on seats, reserving land as someone might plop their towel on a sunbed in a holiday resort. The caravan a temporary sign, like the towel, of someone's 'ownership' of this patch, until this might be questioned. Or with luck, until the ownership can become permanent. I heard that once the caravans are there, the Israeli government are required to install electricity and plumbing etc. until the 'ownership' becomes more permanent and harder to undo.
The soldier at the checkpoint peered through inch thick glass, partially shattered by a rock or a bullet. 'Oh, you're British. I support Liverpool. Stay safe in Ramallah. Sababa (take it easy)'. He said. We drove on through the darkness. The road on the Palestinian side of the check point was full of huge pot holes and there was no road lighting. As we entered Ramallah I had the impression we were driving back into Amman. The architecture and street signs in Arabic make the atmosphere entirely different from Jerusalem. You get the feeling there's a lot of money in the place - there are 5 star hotels, fancy restaurants and the streets are buzzing with Arab customers in Arab shops.
We arrived at our friends' house, who'd prepared a table full of food including the Jordanian speciality, 'Mansaf' which is definitely man's food - hunks of lamb resting on a pile of rice with a spiced yoghurt sauce. We chatted in Arabic and English and drank fizzy apple drinks. They are an impressive pair and he not only speaks fluent Hebrew but has completed a masters in Israeli studies. He explained that many Palestinians have left East Jerusalem to set up businesses in Ramallah as there you pay less tax and find more customers. The streets here have more of a buzz than those in East Jerusalem. And I was reminded of Palestinians' reactions in Jordan when we explained we were moving to Jerusalem. 'You'll find that you have much more fun in Ramallah,' they said.
Back in Jerusalem this week I had more opportunity to walk around as I found a computer specialist who fixed my hard drive problem. As I walked down King George Street I gazed through shop windows crammed with extraordinary fashions. Almost like going back in time the colours and cuts are as anachronistic as clothes from the 40s - yet people are walking around in them here, today. A dark pumpkin coloured low brim ladies hat with black flowers on it perched on a manequin, with a purple fitted jacket and brown boots. Many of the shops sold rolls of fabric, and I wondered at how hard it is to find material in the shops in the UK right now - home economics the casualty of our consumer culture. But here people must sew their own clothes a lot more.
On the tram I noticed many Jewish men wear a little hair clip to fix their capel to their head, and I wondered what Dad would do in this situation. No sooner had a mused about this than I spotted the wind whisk a capel from the head of a bald man, who fumbled around trying to catch it, then settled it back on his pate again. At the road crossing, an orthodox family waited alongside a muslim woman with a black head covering without any eye holes (our Syrian friend told me they call them 'kamikazes' in Damascus); a group of Arab shabaab (lads), hung about with droopy trousers, joking with Israeli soldiers their own age sporting the ubiquitous enormous machine gun and crew cut.
And as I looked at this pavement cocktail I remembered conversations this week with our muslim friend in Ramallah, who's trying to understand the Israeli psyche with his university studies; and with the editor who's secular yet wants to bring his children up in this highly religious place, so they have a chance to see many different ways of living from a young age. The Jewish family who funded a little park we went to with the dwarves, 'for all the people of Jerusalem with love and hope and humility.'
Before coming here, and from Jordan it was easy to polarise - to make decisions about black and about white. But on these very pavements, and in these homes and work places we're invited into, the multiple shades of grey in these societies begin to weave a complex tapestry which forces you to lay aside your preconceptions and challenge yourself with every sight and sound.
Although it's important to know what you believe in, and what you'd like to work towards, nothing is how you'd imagined before coming, and perhaps nothing on the outside will ever look the same again.
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