Whilst I was walking close to the Damascus gate the Jerusalem, three guys were trying to earn a bit of money by allowing people to take a photograph with their snakes. They advertised their reptilian wares by shouting in Arabic:
“Beautiful snakes for beautiful ladies!”
Clearly their charming marketing techniques worked with me.
There was something so beautiful about the way the faces of these boys were illuminated by the candles burning in front of them.
Zahwa was walking around the Al Aqsa compound when I saw her.
She really looked so beautiful in her dress with its traditional Palestinian thread work.
Her friends walking behind laughed and teased her as she struck a pose with her walking stick.
We young folks have much to learn from our classy elders, both when it comes to passing on wisdom and fashion advice.
“God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when He catches us, as it were, off our guard. Our preparations to receive Him sometimes have the opposite effect.”
― C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
“Water is a blessing.”
I hear that said a lot by fellow Brits complaining when the heat creeps up a few degrees in this sun-forsaken land during our so-called “summer”.
But standing in the heat of Jerusalem, with over 250,000 people swarming around me for Friday prayers, believe me when I say it didn’t sound cliché. I wanted to kiss every person that showered me with droplets as I trudged past them, dehydrated and virtually cooking under the middle-eastern sun.
Usually, I would probably clobber someone with a chappal if they were to throw water on me as I passed them. But in Jerusalem, with 32 degrees of heat, it was more than welcome. Instead of dodging streams of water as it was sprayed in every direction by men, women and children alike, I found myself almost swan-diving towards the water wherever I could find it. Like a moth to the flame, or like a fish to the sea and all that.
You can see this kid is ecstatic as he’s blasted with the spray of a water cannon. After taking this photograph, I soon joined in as well.
*These photos were taken during the holy month of Ramadan.*
The musical instrument known as the oud (aka moorish guitar) is a big part of Palestinian culture. It’s an instrument which has a history extending as far back as five thousand years, and it’s considered the father of all Arabic string instruments.
I hunted high and low to find someone in Jerusalem who could play it, but I had no luck. There were plenty of stalls in the market which had ornamental ouds for display, but not the actual instrument itself.
Towards the end of my stay, I finally found my oud player whilst walking in the maze-like concrete jungle of the market. I spotted the oud straight away because it was larger than all the other props I had seen before.
I approached the shopkeeper and exploded with glee at having finally discovered an authentic oud. After reciting some random snippets from a Mahmoud Darwish poem which is accompanied by an oud instrumental, the shopkeeper, Waheeb who tells me he learned to play at university for 6 months, smiled quietly, sat down, and gave me a private performance then and there.
I came across Sam whilst walking in the souk (market) on the 27th night of Ramadan:
“Today is Layla-tul Qadr. My neighbours who are Muslim invited me to their house for breakfast. I am the only one in the neighbourhood who they invited.
It’s not because I’m Christian. It’s because I’m good to them, and they’re good to me.
In English, they say a friend in need, is a friend indeed. And if you go by that, that’s all you need to live by.
Religion is very strong in this place. Maybe it’s because Palestinians don’t have a country. But religion should stay in mosque and in the church.
Before anything else, we are Arabs and Palestinians.
Oh, you want to take my picture? Ok, but let me look to the side. I like to look natural in my photographs.”
These ladies, who all came from occupied territories in the west bank, couldn’t speak a word of English. Sadly my Arabic is pretty much non-existent so I had to mesh dramatic hand movements and some broken Arabic in order to communicate. There was only one word of understanding that passed between us after I snapped their photo:
“Facebook?”
The universality of social media eh?
Chai Wallay 