Ciarán O Carrollfinds a warm welcome - and plenty of cups of tea - on a visit to Palestine
CLIMBING IN 33 degree heat up a mountain in Jericho to reach the Monastery of Temptation feels like the perfect time to reflect on a week of travelling in Palestine, especially when you're trying to ignore the souvenir salesman who dances up the mountain for fun while you can only pray that the devil will tempt you with a glass of ice cold water once you get to the top.
During my week-long bus tour I visited East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron and Jericho. Each city has its own unique attractions, mosques and biblical heritage with a uniquely endearing Palestinian atmosphere. The villages, schools, refugee camps and universities welcome guests with open arms and their world famous hospitality. The locals are extremely friendly and it is common to be served flavoured tea or espresso upon entering homes and shops. A local haunt of mine was a souvenir shop just a few doors down from my hotel where myself and the owner would drink sage tea and talk about peace and life in Palestine while he proudly showed me the medals the UN had awarded him for helping peacekeepers.
On my first night in Bethlehem, Manger Square is soaked in blood red light, rumbling bass echoes around the Old City and all eyes are fixed on the Arabic poetry projected onto five large screens in front of the Church of the Nativity. This surreal spectacle is a tribute to Mahmoud Darwish, recently deceased Palestinian poet and national hero. The Church of the Nativity has the appearance of a fortress from the outside but the inside reveals golden Roman mosaics, a beautiful array of lamps, icons painted by the Crusaders and the grotto of the nativity where a star marks the birthplace of Jesus.
My bus tour begins the next day, travelling around the West Bank is a roller coaster ride through cliff roads, desert villages and Israeli army checkpoints. At one such checkpoint we are stopped and a soldier boards the bus, he puts his rifle down on the dashboard, loads a magazine and points his weapon at the driver and demands to know where we are going. The soldier, who is barely old enough to shave, orders us off the bus and tells us he must call headquarters to see if we can pass. We are finally allowed to continue to Nablus but we are warned not to return on this road as we will not be granted passage on the way back.
Once past the roadblocks the old cities of the West Bank are playgrounds for intrepid tourists; in Hebron, a 2000-year-old Herodian stone walls skirt the entrance of the Tomb of the Patriarchs which contains the burial places of Isaac and Abraham. Inside the Mosque itself, vaulting piers and capitals built by the Crusaders decorate the upper level along with 12th century clerestory windows. In Jericho you can climb over the 4,000-year-old city walls of biblical fame and in the Old City in Nablus narrow streets draw you into a labyrinth of alleyways and paths that lead you to the meat, vegetable and spice market.
When visiting Palestine recent history is as important as biblical history. Palestinians make up the largest refugee population in the world and their refugee camps are scattered throughout the Middle East. In Nablus I visited Balata refugee camp, the largest West Bank camp with a registered population of 21,445. Because the camp can't expand outwards new houses are built on top of old crumbling ones, many of the streets are no more than a metre wide and clean water and disease are a problem.
The children growing up here are the victims, the cycle of violence and poverty has yet to be broken. Their parents, hoping to give their children a better life, make education a priority and schools are provided by the UN, but the funding has been in decline since the 1980s and schoolyard playground has been replaced by craters and debris.
On my last night in the West Bank the Irish hit the local pub in Bethlehem; a small tavern decorated by flags, red neon lights and cigarette boxes. The bar sells spirits and the local Taybeh Beer, which in Arabic means "delicious". The local two-piece pub band is slowly drowned out by the Irish banter and before anyone can stop him, an Irishman is standing on a box announcing the imminent recital of The Rattling Bog. At first he is a solo artist but as the chorus mounts up, the Irish are in full swing and by the end the bar is shaking, the local band are breaking their guitar strings to keep up and the Palestinians are in full voice, "Hey ho, the rattling bog, The bog down in the valley-o!"