Jerusalem (Monday 27 July)

I've cheated a bit and jumped a few days ahead. I haven't written for about 4 days so I have some catching up to do but there's so much, and we've done so much so I haven't had the emotional energy to write until tonight, so I'm giving you today and I'll catch up with the last few days in a while and re-post everything in order. Today is important so.....

Oh man! What a day. We were feeling a bit like we weren’t in Palestine last night after we checked into the hotel in Bet Jala and found ourselves in the hotel bar with about 100 teenage Catholics from France dancing to Euro Techno. We came back to Palestine and the issues with a bump on our trip to Jerusalem.

The morning was lovely. A spot of shopping in the Christian quarter of the city. A wander around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. A walk around the old city, through the Arab Quarter and the Jewish Quarter with the views of the wailing wall. It’s a bit mad that the Jews are apologising to the Temple of Solomon for destroying it yet they feel no remorse about the destruction and misery they are currently causing. I wonder what they will be crying and wailing to as a monument when as a population they finally open their eyes and realise what zionism has done, and when that moment will finally arrive.

One of the striking things is that as you walk around the city the Jews actually don’t make eye contact with you, which goes back to one of the themes I wrote about earlier in the trip. Now instead of hearing it third hand, I can actually tell you that it’s true. I walked past a side street in the centre of Jerusalem today and realised that a young man, probably in his twenties, had purposely held back from walking past me and rather than walking out of the side street with his head held high he looked down and towards the wall on his right as he made a move to round the corner. Where does this come from? I can only speculate. I’d like to think it’s shame, but I didn’t get that feeling. Once realising what had happened I started to look around me a but harder and realised that it wasn’t just him. It was all Jews. It had happened slightly earlier when, as we walked through the gate that seperates the Arab Quarter from the Jewish Quarter (and it’s actually an ugly iron gate with a camera and a padlock which they close at night to keep people out and them in) a couple stood discussing (I imagine) when this group of tourists might pass. It wasn’t until we had cleared the path that they passed, charging ahead like they couldn’t wait to get past. The avoidance and lack of eye contact continued throughout the time we were there. I’m not sure why, but I can speculate. It could be shame and knowing what they do, but having seen it for myself I don’t think it is. I get the feeling that they see non-Jews, and contact with them on any level, as something that might dirty their soul. Perhaps they are encouraged not to have contact with non-Jews. I have heard today that young children, without knowing why, are taught to hit out and shout insults at Palestinians. By the way, the Zionists don’t call Palestinians by their rightful name but call them all Arabs. By doing so it neutralises the problem for them. They claim that there is no such thing as a Palestinian and that they have no history or culture despite families being able to trace their family history back by a thousand years, and each one of those years they have been in the city where they are now in some cases. By calling Palestinians Arabs they make the Palestinian problem the issue of the Arab world and not their own problem. It’s clever semantics used to distract from the problems.

We headed over to Dar El Tiffel Al Arabi for lunch. In 1948, despite an agreement with local Jews that the Arabs of the village of Dar Yasin would not fire on them if the other party didn’t fire first, the Irgun, Stern Gang and Hagana of the zionist organisation raided the village at 2am. They threw grenades through the windows and put bags of explosives at the front doors of houses, killing and injuring families in their homes and without warning. It was the start of the occupation and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Of the 750 villagers of Dar Yasin 1/3 were killed, 1/3 were injured and 1/3 ran away. The Israeli’s gathered up the children they could find and dumped them at Jaffa Gate where the late Hind Al Husseini found a large group of them. A nine year old boy explained what had happened and Hind immediately took them all in. She found two rooms, rented them, installed the children and stayed with them for nearly 2 weeks. After 10 days the Israeli’s bombed Jerusalem and bombed the two rooms. The children survived not one, but two attempts on their lives within 10 days. Hind took them to her home, and Dar El Tiffel was born. Today, what was her house is now one of several buildings on the grounds of the orphanage. There are 40 orphans that board with them permanently and another 40 that come from other orphanages for their schooling each day of the school year. There used to be just under 150 but the Israeli’s have made it impossible from the children that used to come from the West Bank to come any more.

We walked of the school grounds and down to one of the areas that Israeli settlers have recently taken over. A woman, we didn’t meet her because she is in Jordan talking about her experiences, had been forcibly removed from her house just up the road. She was forcibly evicted from her house in East Jerusalem by settlers several years about, and in November of last year, she was evicted again. She has built herself a tent to live in where her friends are sitting every day and staying in over night to ensure that her “home” isn’t destroyed and she is evicted for the third time. The confounding thing is that when the Israeli’s come in, they don’t provide anywhere for these people to go. They are literally and figuratively kicked out onto the streets. They get told that there is an eviction or demolition order on their homes but not when it will happen. They dont’ get time to pack when the eviction or demolition finally comes. They ask for the Israeli government to rehome them before the eviction and the Israeli’s offer to send them to Ramallah, for example, but there are people already in Ramallah and Jerusalem is their home and often the seat of their family for generations. It’s all very well to offer somewhere else, but they are offering the somewhere else when it doesn’t belong to them to offer it and the Palestinians want to stay where they are. It’s their right.

The Israeli’s are not just committing genocide, they are committing spaciacide. They take land in the name of the Israeli state, in the name of Judaism, whatever the cost to human life. The problem is that they don’t see Palestinians has human beings. They see them as less than animals. In the name of our Jewsish neighbours and friends around the world, those that are happy to coexist alongside Muslims and Christians in New York, London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Toronto, Montreal and all over the world they are committing heinous and unforgivable crimes against a defenceless people. All the media report are the kids with belts made of bombs that go into town and blow themselves up beside a restaurant because they are not allowed to be armed and all they have is rocks to throw. So the world is left with a one-sided view of the situation and blaming the Palestinians for being violent. It’s not violence, it’s despair, anger, frustration and stupidity. It helps no one for a young Palestinian to do that and I certainly don’t condone it, but I understand why they do.

Whilst at the tent we met a woman, a neighbour of the lady that lives in the tent, who settlers had attempted to remove from her home. In the process this woman of 45 or so had her hands tied behind her back and was dragged from her home. Her husband had a heart attack that night and after a long wait for an ambulance, delayed on purpose she thinks, her husband was taken to an Israeli hospital. She wasn’t allowed to see her husband until the next day and one week later he died of a second heart attack. Her five year old daughter witnessed the entire event. Her neighbour is now an Israeli settler who is utterly convinced that the house is rightfully hers. We saw her and had an exchange with her as she pulled her children away from the door. She really believes that she has a right to be there and that she owns the property. Over the footpath from the house is a playground about 5m2 that is locked and with an iron fence around it. It’s only for Israeli children. My question are, if they really are in the right why does she feel the need to shout people down when questioned over her right to be there?; Why do Israeli’s feel the need to fence their children into a playground?; Why are there security guards with uzi’s patrolling the area and whispering into their walkie talkies?; If they are right, what do they have to fear?; If they are right why do they need to be protected?

The last stop for the day was at a village in the valley, overlooked by the walls of the old city of Jerusalem. In 2002 the Israeli’s issued demolition orders for 88 houses. They issued them in Hebrew so that the Palestinians can’t read them. The demolition is to build a park for the memorial of King David. The irony is that in Islam the Muslims revere David as a Prophet (there are lots of parallels with the Jewish and Islamic faiths – a good read to discover more is Fighting for God by Karen Armstrong if you are interested). They are fighting the demolition through the courts, but the problem is that when the Israeli’s decide to do it, they will do it so really there is no court. The children of the village are afraid to go to school every day because they fear that they will have no home and parents to return to. The reality is that when the demolition comes it will start overnight when the children are also in their home. The reality is that when it happens the media across the globe will not report it. We asked the man presenting to us what he will do, and they plan to stay and resist. The only defence they have, he said, is their bodies. The reality is that when the demolition comes, it is likely that he and the other 1300 people or so in the village will die under the rubble of their houses and the Catterpillar trucks.

It was a sober and somber trip back to the hotel this afternoon. I’ve had to come out tonight to write. I haven’t written for several days (I’ll be catching up soon and still posting in order) because I’m tired but I need to get this off my chest today. It’s been my trigger for overwhelming emotions and an afternoon of grief – for what has happened to these people, and for what unfortunately seems inevitable. How can you be hopeful when there seems to be no hope? They take great strength from visitors like us as it helps to spread the word. We are their media since the media don’t do their own jobs. So here I am, spreading the word to my friends and family and hopefully others too that find this, in the hope that they have the stamina to read this far. I know I’ve been a bit long and boring at times, but there really is so much to say. I apologise for my length, but I don’t apologise for the message I’m trying to get out.

Our guide today is a Palestinian and I asked her how she keeps the strength to go on. She says that she has dark days where she doesn’t know how she is going to get out of bed, but her inspiration is the people she works with – she’s a social worker. She also cries a lot. I can relate to that today.

In to the Promised Land (Wednesday)

We started early this morning, off to Nazareth and Haifa for the day and the first check point experience for this group. It was far from pleasant. Apart from the Israeli’s deciding to take our passports for a long time and make us wait, Nadin took a photo of the terminal on her mobile phone and was noticed doing so. I can understand why she did it. It’s such a weird experience and like nothing you will ever have experienced. The Israeli’s have put in a wall that mostly, but sometimes not (and when not, always in their favour and grabbing more land), adheres to the green line drawn in ’68. After the first and second Intifada the Israeli’s started to build the wall and restrict movement. Now, farmers that live in Jenin and work farmland on the other side of the crossing (which is also Jenin) spend at least 20 minutes crossing. The terminal itself is an eye sore – concrete and metal, cameras, gates and cattle pens (that’s what it feels like). So Nadin took a photo to memorialise the experience and be able to show it to friends. First her phone was confiscated, and then she was taken from the group. She was body searched, twice, and interrogated for 45 minutes as well as being made to wait in what can only be called a gaol cell for the remainder of the experience. She was repeatedly asked the same questions: why did you take a photo? Who asked you to take a photo? What was the photograph for? Where are you staying, who are you with, what are you doing here? They deleted all her photos and copied the numbers in her phone book.She was released after a while, clearly traumatised and stating that it was probably the most terrifying experience of her life.

We headed off to Nazareth where we had a walking tour of the city, saw the bath house where that famous geezer, what’s his name, oh yeah, Jesus, bathed. We went to one of the two churches that claim to be the Church of the Annunciation. Poor Nadin got barked at by a rude old man for not having her shoulders covered and so we left and decided that the other church had the true claim just because the old man was horrible to Nadin....like she needed more of that today. The old market was fascinating with lots of old faces in it. The faces of old Palestinians are so different to the old faces of the west. Where as our faces are full of fine feather lines and crows feet, Palestinian faces are creased with thick lines. Their skin remains smooth and supple, just furrowed with a thousand stories.

[Not complete, but it's on the way]

They hug with their eyes (Tuesday)

The railings of Chez Jenin have been given a new lease of life with a coat of black paint. All the windows of have been cleaned. The kitchen sink has plumbing so the water now drains away rather than falls on the floor. The front stoop of the building is now nearly level. The back yard is nearly clear and much of the building materials have moved inside the house. We’ve achieved such a lot today with the building work and I think Fakhry is quite happy with us. He let us finish early and go and see the Cinema, about four doors down from the guest house. It’s a bit of a wreck. They’ve gutted the building and ripped out all the old, decayed seats. At the moment it’s just a shell with a lot of pigeons, but the plans they have for it are superb. The old projectors from 1958 are still there and working, all they need is the renovation and they are good to go. The plan is to have the cinema operational by November this year and the official opening in April 2010.

Our being here has created such a buzz in the local community that we permanently have a band of young boys with us. I think they are on rotation or something as we seem to lose them throughout the day and gain others. One of the neighbours has been looking in on us throughout the last few days with her baby son and teenage son and waving at us. It was so nice to see the teenage boy join us today and join in the work. I think it’s better than doing nothing for them, and I guess that seeing a bunch of foreigners working to provide them with something has produced some sort of inspiration, whether that be interest, guilt or wanting to join in the fun. Last year we were told that our doing what we did reminded them of a lost culture. I don’t think it’s us doing the reminding this time, but there is certainly something we are doing which is making them want to feel involved.

The important thing is to not feel pity. They don’t want us to. This is their life and to pity it makes a mockery of the rich culture and sense of community they have, their victories, celebrations and day to day life. It doesn’t mean they are not grateful for what people do for them; you can see it in their eyes. Their eyes hug you so that it’s really very difficult to articulate what I think they feel, but it’s somewhere around gratefulness without being grateful. Perhaps it’s appreciation, respect almost. It’s nice to be on the receiving end for sure.

The curiosity has sometimes also been confusion. Women here don’t do hard labour let along walk around in shorts and t-shirts. Jenin is one of the most conservatively Muslim towns in Palestine, so much so that even if a man wears a vest top he gets raised eye-brows from the community. Despite the conservatism there is a very lovely level of affection. Talking to one of the local guys who has spent a lot of time with us, he pulled a hair out of my eye as we were speaking. It was such an intimate gesture that it shocked me a little at first. If a man did that to me when I was in Dubai I’d be a little freaked out by it, but here it was brotherly and with no sexual undertones whatsoever. Here I am, a western woman with liberal values whose culture readily accepts the baring of skin who is surprised by intimacy in a city with people who have a genuine warmth and affection for their brothers and sisters across the world but choose to be conservative about expressing their sexuality. It’s quite a refreshing realisation.

Surprise and treat of the day was a visit from Ismael of the film Heart of Jenin. He looks just as he did on the film, which should be no surprise. It was like having a rock star in the house. When you saw him you knew you knew him but couldn’t think quite where from, and then the double take as you realise where you know that face from.

Dinner turned into an evening of local song and dance followed by more international song and dance back at Chez Jenin. We got a sound system, which was so needed for the bar. Shimsham, Charleston and Swing all ensued to the quaffing of warm Taybeh beer and the laughter went long into the night.

We’ve decided to change our story. Instead of telling the truth and telling the Israeli’s we are going to Jenin to work on a charitable project – which is a great story and one that should be shared to raise awareness, right? – we have concocted a web of intricate lies and drilled all seventeen of the group travelling until we can lie through our teeth without batting an eyelid. Admittedly it’s not the biggest of porkie pies, but I think it raises a lot of questions.

Why should we lie? We got a call from Sahar yesterday to say that the people on the Palestine side had advised we say we are a group of tourists travelling on the Holy Land tour as this would make it easier for us to cross (because Jenin is where one of the biggest refugee camps is, and therefore a lot of resistance and troubles) and possible for the tour company to get a bus to us at the exit of the crossing. Last year I decided to tell the Israeli security the truth. I think it caused me about a 3hr wait but I don’t see why I should lie when I’m travelling to Palestine to try to contribute to fixing things that they are the cause of, and I often complain I don’t get enough time to read. I don’t have an issue with lying to Israeli’s per se, but I don’t think I should have to plus it’s a lot of pressure to lie!! Have you ever tried lying to a figure of authority when we are all told from an early age not to lie and the idea of lying to an official, whether you believe in their right to call themselves an official or not, is really working against what our societies teach us? It’s quite hard work in a stress sort of way, and so when you know you shouldn’t have to, because we would never lie to get to Spain or New Zealand, it does start to ping around all these stress chemicals in your brain.

And then the paranoia sets in. Not only do I have stress but I have paranoid stress. Great. We started substituting Jerusalem for Jenin with a wink and a smile because what if “they” are listening and watching? I wanted to tell Anna in Dubai about the ridiculousness of it all, knowing she would appreciate the dark humour in it given it was her main motivation for not coming – she wasn’t sure she would be able to hold her tongue with an Israeli if she was questioned. The problem was I couldn’t tell her. What if “they” were listening to the call or checking the sms’s as they were sent? Whilst we were waiting the 4.5hrs they delayed us at the crossing it suddenly occurred to me that I could get some writing done, but once I’d fired up my PC I realised that perhaps I shouldn’t document anything in case I got searched later on in the process and they found the truth of all our lies from the writing I had done. All ridiculous, but all feasible. Perhaps at this stage we are living our lives as if through a Hollywood camera lense – The Bourne Palestinian perhaps – but they do say that the truth can be stranger than fiction.

Do the Israeli’s really believe us? Here’s where I get a bit tied up in knots....We are aware that with a story of truth about where we are going and what we plan to do we may cause ourselves significant delays because it feels like your telling them about anything where you are trying to help the Palestinian people makes them delay you. We are made to feel like we are forced to lie to make it easier for our group of 17 people, some of whom have never been to Palestine and are nervous, others who have travelled all night and are very tired and perhaps less fit and able for this sort of stress. If they didn’t punish us for doing what we’re doing then we wouldn’t lie, so you lie and they don’t believe you and so you end up delayed. I wonder how they would feel if they knew that we had lied. When I discover I’ve been lied to I feel cheated, a bit stupid, a dose of humiliation and a pinch of anger. Would they feel the same way? Do they examine and debate why we lie? Sana and I talked about this at length yesterday afternoon and we came to the conclusion, based on words from an Israeli friend of hers, that they don’t. It’s actually much easier for them to not know the truth. The belief of the Israeli’s that they are the true owners of the promised land is so intrinsic that trying to explain to them otherwise is like me trying to tell you that black is white – you know that you know the truth and that black is black and there is nothing I can do to convince you otherwise. But the evidence of the truth of what they are doing in order to obtain what they believe has been promised to them is all around them in the refugee camps, in Gaza, in what is known as the Arab part of Jerusalem and in the wall that is built to separate the Israeli’s from the Arabs. They can quite easily ignore and bury their heads in the sand, hide from all the truths that surround them but is it so easy for them to ignore it when a group of tourists from the UK, Canada and Germany rock up at what you consider your border and tell you that they are going to try to improve the lives of the people whose country you occupy because you’ve been busy destroying them over the last 60 years? In the words of Sana’s friend, if they aren’t told the truth they don’t have to look you in the eye and know it. So perhaps it’s not us lying to the Israeli’s. Perhaps it is them lying to themselves.

To move onto a considerably lighter note – within an hour of being in Palestine we managed to find a roadside falafel seller and gorge ourselves on a falafel sandwich only to arrive at the guest house to find that a local family had cooked us a feast. Nicola’s complaint of “I’m so full” I fear will be a daily occurrence, although she’s promised herself not. We set up Chez Jenin, our very own bar, last night on the balcony of the guest house. It’ll be reincarnated as Chez Ramallah and Chez Bethlehem as we move through the country. Sami and Nic have decided that we won’t be working on the Cinema at all, but ploughing our efforts into making Chez Jenin the happening hotspot we think it should be. Foam and fancy dress parties are already in the planning. Nic and I had promised ourselves a detox since it took us both three days to recover from a hangover from Thursday night, but two bottles of vodka down over the period of last night proves that ambition to be scotched already. We didn’t drink it all ourselves, I should point out, since we were about 20 people on our balcony last night.

It’s great to be our (almost) full group after two days of travel. We met the artists from Scotland who will be working on the garden at the school for the blind, and reunited with Sahar and Ruwan (who worked with us last year). It took me all day to get bored enough to listen to music, so having rediscovered Oasis on my iPod by chance as we were driving through Palestine to Jenin what was the first song I listened to? Hello, Hello, It’s good to be back, good to be back. Serendipity.

In the heart of Jenin (Monday)

It feels great to be here! After effectively two days of travel we are in Palestine. It feels like we are a million miles away from home, and in some ways we are. As the crow flies we are about 3 hours drive from Amman, but it took us 10 hours to get door to door, Amman to Jenin yesterday. It was a good test of patience and our abilities to amuse ourselves as we waited at the crossing.

We’re straight in to work today. As I guiltily try to get this writing down so that I don’t forget anything (I had to write yesterday’s today) my travel family are already working on the guest house and later we will get to work on the Cinema. Our Council of War (CoW) starts shortly to divvy up the work and get cracking. I hope we do them justice – they spent the last three days working their socks off to get the guest house (barely) habitable. We have a crudely rigged, barely effective shower curtain which if it fell would the poor person showering in their birthday suit to the other 12 inhabitants of the guest house. This should be fun!

I’m not sure that the words dusty and sweaty really do justice to the feelings of ick and grime we’re all feeling this afternoon. Despite the water shortages (Israel channels off most of the water for itself to irrigate it’s lush gardens and fill it’s swimming pools), we’re all on two showers a day just to feel close to normal. Luckily (or not) the water is cold so showers are very short. By this afternoon we also have an additional door so no risk of exposure any more.

We walked through the Jenin refugee camp this afternoon to get to the Freedom Theatre. The camp was surrounded and placed under siege in 2002 at the same time as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Because it was surrounded the media wasn’t able to get in and report on what was going on, but what became clear after was that the Israeli army flattened about one third of the buildings in the camp. It marked the start of the second intifada (resistance). At the Freedom Theatre we saw a play devised and performed by the students of the theatre school entitled Fragments of Palestine in which they used language, drama, physical theatre and dance to present several scenarios which they had been a part of or were aware of. Almost all of the scenes depicted death or violence, often violent death. It was a stark reminder of the privilege of growing up in the UK where the closest to witnessing such extreme violence I ever had was a movie or an episode of The Bill, and certainly not death of the keening, cut your heart out of your chest, hair tearing variety. The age of the performers today was the age at which I was at University with the difficult decision of whether to have a double or single vodka lime & soda as my tenth drink of the night at the student union. Walking to the camp we were joined by a boy who told us how the Israeli’s had arrived at his house one night and burnt it down. A while later two of the soldiers involved were discovered dead in a nearby garden. He told the story like recounting a day excursion to Chessington World of Adventures. This level of death and violence is quite normal to them. They want to share it in the hope that it will get out to the world but the shame is that the world so often misunderstands because of the Israeli’s admirable ability to spin a story in their favour. It’s normal to these boys, kids, teenagers, young adults, middle aged and the elderly, but they still want it to stop.

We watched a documentary movie entitled Heart of Jenin this evening. The story is of a family whose middle son, Ahmed Khatib, was shot by an Israeli soldier in the head and chest at the age of 12 and follows the father’s, Ismael Khatib, journey and his decisions. The Israeli army claimed that he was carrying a toy gun which looked like a real one. The toy gun was never found. His family and friends said he was on his way to buy a tie to go with the new suit that he had very proudly bought for Ramadan. After consultation with the camp dignitaries the family took the decision to donate Ahmed’s organs. Ahmed was in Rambam Hospital in Israel and it was considered such an unusual decision that the media immediately got very excited about it and a young Israeli film maker decided to document the story. The film follows three of the six recipients of Ahmed’s donated organs and demonstrates the dignity and peacefulness of people who the Israeli’s like to label as terrorists. A Bedouin boy received one of the kidneys, an Israeli Druze girl the heart and an Orthodox Jewish girl the other kidney. It was the latter that provided the most food for thought as the family are very religious and were clearly not entirely comfortable with the knowledge that the donor was an Arab boy (by the way, the Israeli’s don’t call Palestinians Palestinians as to do so would, in their eyes, legitimise the cause. Instead they refer to Palestinians as Arabs as it makes Palestinians the Arab world’s problem). Ismael went to meet each of the families and the meeting between him and the Jewish family was very strained, but very polite. He also seemed very confused. Here is this Arab man who has done something so generous, confronting him with his worst nightmare. He is receiving into his living room a man who in his mind would kill him given the chance. The reaction the Israeli’s expect is for Ismael to become a suicide bomber or at least have some sort of revenge but instead he decided to save the lives of 5 people, 4 of whom are children and none of whom were Palestinians. His act of kindness was dignified, and a real poke in the eye for the Israeli’s because now they are confronted with the truth....and there it is again, the truth. Ismael and his family, through one (admittedly weighty) decision and their humanist, pragmatic approach to the situation they found themselves in adjusted the Jewish family’s knowledge of the truth so that for the first time they are considering that maybe black isn’t black after all. Perhaps the situation as they know it is a little greyer than they had been lead to believe.

None of us were really expecting the emotions of today. It’s been a tough day. There we were, busy painting and working, singing and dancing and enjoying our time and then BANG, Fragments of Palestine and a very real presentation of the experiences of being a refugee and living in Palestine. OK, back to work, slightly more contemplative and less singing and then WALLOP, Heart of Jenin and a demonstration of the lack of information the Israeli’s receive and the dignity and generosity of a Palestinian family at a time of complete devastation. Chez Jenin didn’t rock like last night. There was nothing to celebrate and lots to think about. We did get our first Taybeh Beer of the trip though – thanks to Eyad, the trooper, who did a beer run to Ramallah. The beer felt well earned.

Online at last

Heeeeyyy!! I'm online so you're going to get several days of writing in one hit. My apologies for the delay, and the volume. There's just so much to say because we're seeing so much. The ride is excellent, life changing actually. Thanks for following, sorry for boring and please do keep reading. If you have any questions please feel free to post.

Phase 1 complete

We're in Amman, fortified with tea (a must at the end of a journey) and falafel (a must at the start of a journey into a place where they make decent falafel). The pilot was a lady driver, Charlotte with the obligatory pilot perma-tan, which means that we didn't crash in the turbulence and the insurance is lower. Slightly concerned when she came out of the cockpit and into the cabin - who was behind the wheel?

Sana's Mama's flat is perfect for eleven people. Beds will be fought over tonight, but I'm happy - I brought a decent pillow and Nic already has pillow envy. Nadin is already sampling the bed fare as she rocked up at the airport with one hour of sleep and the aura of a heavy night of partying.

We're off to play tourist in Amman to the Citadel this afternoon and then out for dinner tonight. Early doors tomorrow as the next five members of our group arrive at 6am tomorrow morning and then we're off to tbe bridge with a 9am start. We join Sahar tomorrow who has been leading the charge, checking out the arrangements in Palestine and visiting friends and family. The last of the group join us via Tel Aviv. We're all quite hopeful that delays will be minimal since everyone else we know has managed to get through in 3 minutes. We're aiming for 2.

Left, right? No, right...right? Yes, right, right? No, right....That’s how the directions went to get to the Roman Amphitheatre. We were so tired that it had got to the point where we were mis-hearing each other. “Yes, Obama is an all rounder”. “Yes, I do like rounders”.

Dinner was fantastic and only mildly tainted by taxi drivers....one who took us to the airport were properly stung earlier in the day. Tip for when travelling to Amman, the taxi metres have 3 decimal places not two. We paid 25.50 for a trip that should have been 2.550. Stupid tourists!

Palestine closer

10 days to go until we leave for Amman, which makes it 11 days until we leave for, and hopefully arrive in, Palestine. Palestine is getting closer! I say hopefully, for we are in the hands of the Israeli Defence Force and their whims on that particular day as to whether we get in, and how long it takes us to do so. I've discovered games on my iPod, I have a good book and I'm on the look out for a pocket sized soduko book since the name of the game of this trip is to travel light.

Now that we are almost in single digit figures on the count down I am actually getting excited. It's been a six month process to plan this trip. We've gathered joinees along the way and we are now a merry band of 26 people from 5 countries (if you count England and Scotland seperately). My role is largely advisory since I speak about 10 words of Arabic, only about 50% of which I understand myself. Even if I could understand and speak the language my accent is so appalling that whoever I am speaking to gets a pained look as they try to decifer the grunts and whistles issuing from my mouth. Sahar and Sana have been responsible for the bulk of the grunt work of organising this trip, coming up with ideas and leaning on their contacts for assistance and advice to set thing up. They really are quite wonderful!

For the first time in my life I will be travebloguing (yes, I made that up). I shall write my way through the epic adventure that we have dubbed Zyara2009 (zyara means visit in Arabic - OK, so we're up to 11). Please sign up or check in along the way. I officially start on 18 July, but if I get the urge you may hear from me before. Untill then....

Good to be back

I've just had a really fun night out with a girl friend, and with four perfect strangers. It's been a while, in my sad and sorry existence, that I have met a bunch of people that I have so instantly engaged with but their warmth and lack of pretence lead to a very natural evening full of laughter and girly natter. What was most heart warming was that two thirds of us from the group of girls are single and definitely not adverse to finding Mr. Right. It's refreshing! In my somewhat closed off life of late I had come to the conclusion that most gorgeous girls already have a man in their life. Oh how wrong am I.

In this age of email and phones, much dating and flirting seems to be happening through texts. I'm a little bit of a traditionalist in this sense. I like to talk to people, even if it's not face to face, but it's clear that text-dating is safe. You don't have to expose yourself (and I mean in the emotional rather than biblical sense) so much, and if you mess up you can always put it down to a mis-understanding, for who hasn't misunderstood the tone of an email before?

The result is that I now have some very sound advice on how to pursue the next possible man in La Blighter's life, and two of the six of us have dates set for tomorrow evening. Rather sadly, given the mean age of the group (30), the most consistently solid advice came from a statuesque (and I'm talking 6ft 2in) 24 year old NZ lass with wisdom way above and beyond her years. By the time she is my age (32) she'll be an amazing woman! I've missed girly advice and talking the ins and outs and embarassments of dates and spa treatments. A trip to Lebanon for Eid is now punched into the diary, and long may this gaggle of girls continue to motivate and boost one another! Thanks to the Universe.

One week in Palestine

Bonjour, kefak, sabaho, hello and gezundheit. The post about to follow I wrote post-Palestine in the summer of 2008. It was my first trip to Palestine and, I knew from early on in the journey, not my last. As you can gather it was an incredibly emotional and emotive trip, not least coloured by my grandmother's death immediately before and the final, final break-up of a relationship that should have long before finished immediately after. I made my Mum cry. I was crying as I wrote it. The hope was to inspire people to ask questions, particularly why, and to come the next summer (although in hind-sight perhaps the mention of a gun was not the best of tactics).

How does one describe a week in Palestine? "Interesting" and "an experience" might be the usual platitudes you could apply to a week where the badness and the goodness of humanity live shoulder to shoulder. As for me, I'm still trying to sort all the emotions and feelings – maybe this is something I shouldn't try to do as I'm sure it would tie me up in knots for a long time. Perhaps I just have to go with my gut feeling, or maybe you can help me to decide….

Our goal of renovating some disused land around the old girls dormitory in Birzeit, near to Ramallah, was achieved. We raised around $8,000 before we left Dubai and with it we created a beautiful Hakura (Garden). We did everything we said we would do and more – we bought plants, furniture, tools and materials. We spent days clearing the land, sanding wood, painting and planting. We created a seated area close to the main entrance that didn't exist before. The day the furniture arrived it was in use – we'd go down for our morning coffee, or try to find somewhere to sit at lunch time and we'd find that there was no room because it was in use. We planted fruit trees in the Bayara (orchard) – a pomelier, a cherry, lemon, pear and apple trees; we created a safe haven for tortoises – many have cracked shells where children use them for target practice for stone throwing, so we created a mini hospital; we enlisted locals who have promised to keep watering the plants so that they grow in properly; the local electricity company donated 6 old cable reels that we turned into tables and planters; Sahar painstakingly created a lovely rockery; the engineer we worked with, Mahmood, donated much of the labour that without we could not have done what we did – paths were laid, walls built, holes in rocky ground dug for planting.

All this was done in and amongst the children at the music camp rehearsing and practicing. The day I arrived Sana showed me around the land and we walked past the jazz band practicing – you can't help but stop and dance. The Jazz band performed in two concerts outside the music camp – they were that good! During the day, everywhere you went you could hear music. You come down for breakfast and the blind kid that plays the violin for the Oriental music group is warming up his fingers on the piano. At lunch time the clarinetists from the wind instrument group are busking the theme tunes from the Godfather or Mission Impossible. And in the evening, after the kids have given their daily concert, they are still jamming together until the early hours of the morning. From the morning trumpet fanfare from 8 year old Sari at 6am until 2am the following morning when they are still strumming guitars, there is music.

On the last day of the first camp we had the pleasure of watching the children perform at the Ramallah Cultural Palace. The culmination of a week's hard work and blistered fingers was a wonderful celebration of how much they had achieved for themselves in this intensive music camp. Several children graduated with their music certificates during the week. It left a lump in our throats as we watched them all play beautifully in a professional concert setting. After the kids left, we shared stories with the teachers and jammed our way through the evening. There is something amazing about being the company of musicians. They can make music out of anything – all you need is your voice and something to hit. "Will you play us your music tonight" and "Yalla, yalla…..Habibi" was stuck in my head for days to come and I think they will be tunes that always bring back happy thoughts.

Once our work was largely completed we took the opportunity to explore where we were and we visited Birzeit University where we heard about the Right 2 Education Campaign (http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/). Palestinian students are regularly targeted by the Israeli military – University campuses being the traditional hot bed of political activity that they are. The newly elected leader of the University Student Council is arrested every year. When a student takes this role he knows that it is likely to result in at least 6 months in gaol, possibly without access to legal counsel, visits from family, deprived of contact, with the possibility of having his stay extended by another 6 months. There was a road block outside Birzeit University for several years earlier this decade, stopping students from getting to the campus. A 15 minute journey from Ramallah, where most students live, could take several hours. Some teachers resorted to giving lectures next to the road block. People would desert their cars by the road block and walk the 10 – 15 minutes up the road to the campus, that is if they were allowed past by the soldiers. Palestine used to be a nation with 95% literacy. In the current climate an education is considered a privilege rather than the rite of passage we take for granted. Palestine is being de-skilled by the Occupation: The young cut off from an education.

Because we were careful how we spent the money we raised, and because of donations like the cost of labour and the cable reels, we found that we were under budget by around $1,300 at the end of the time in the garden. On our return from a day trip to Bethlehem and Hebron we were trying to decide what to do with the remaining money – we were very conscious that we had a responsibility to everyone that contributed to the $8,000, whether it was 5 or 5,000 dirhams donated, and we wanted to ensure that the money would go somewhere that we thought everyone would agree with. It was voiced by some before and during our trip that what we did in Palestine during this project was a luxury, that there are very needy people in Palestine who do not have ready access to healthcare, education and other basic needs – food, clean water etc. I'll come back to this. Those people are right in a way but there is more to it than that. In the end, the cause we were looking for found us.

On our last day of gardening, as we were busy painting the remaining few tables and stools, a local lady walked through the gates of the camp. Sana spotted her and approached her to see where she needed to go. She started quite normally, explaining how she's from Nablus; her husband has diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney failure and is laying in the house and traveling to hospital three times a week for dialysis. She stayed together whilst explaining that her and her young daughters had not eaten for three days. She fell apart and broke down when she explained that her 15 year old son has rheumatic fever which has resulted in a widened heart valve and has been receiving regular injections of penicillin to treat the illness. He needed another injection, which cost around 2,500 Shekels (approximately 2,750 dirhams, $750 or £375) to help him recover. He was turning black on a daily basis and having seizures and she had become so desperate that she had decided to get in a taxi and get to wherever she could to approach people for money. She didn't know where she was. She was on her way to Ramallah when she'd just asked the taxi to stop and got out. She'd left her kids with the neighbour and her dignity at home and come begging for money. We gave her the money for the injection, a promise that we would be in touch with the Red Crescent, and some change for her to return home by taxi. She came in the gate desperate and left with relief and a smile on her face.

Sana's husband Ali has stayed in Palestine for a project of his own (he's an eye surgeon specialising in the treatment of eye complications resulting from diabetes and is setting up a mobile eye clinic to provide outreach care to places that fall through the gaps of aid agencies already working in Palestine). We've given the left over money to him and asked him to give money to other cases like the local lady and her family – in great enough amounts that the money is helpful and not diluted, directly to the people that need it rather than through an organisation.

But I don't want people to think the rest of the money has not gone to a good cause – it has! It's not until you go there that you see the daily grind that the Occupation is on the people of Palestine. You have to apply to the Israeli authorities to repair a broken window, or fix a damaged sewage pipe (and you can smell where the broken sewage pipes are!). As families grow bigger you have to apply to extend your home. Often permission is denied and if you go ahead without approval the work done is taken down – bulldozed, blown up, smashed. We traveled to Bethlehem and were stopped by an ad-hoc Israeli army road block. There were three soldiers with guns who looked over the mini-van, and one in the field behind. You even question the language you use – I have never used words like "exciting" in such a negative context, but it was exciting for us….and then you realise that people live through this exercise of intimidation on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day.

We spent an afternoon in Hebron and visited the mosque over the Cave of the Patriarchs (where Abraham buried his wife Sarah). We had to go through three security checks to walk the kilometre from the car park to the mosque. The guide asked me to go through first as I clearly look European – everyone else has foreign passports but look Arabic. On our way back, when I had gone through the security points first, people came through saying "did you see that?". A boy was thrown up against the wall and punched, out of my sight, for doing nothing more than crossing through a security point. He crosses this check point regularly. He is beaten regularly. His friend was shot in the foot that morning for nothing. The Palestinian citizens of the old part of Hebron are gradually being forced out of their homes through intimidation and violence. 600 settlers live in the old part of town above shops. The Palestinians have assembled wire mesh above the streets to stop the rubbish, spit and waste water thrown out of windows by settlers falling directly on their heads. They are taunted. Some people don't know how much longer they can put up with staying there. Many have already moved their families out. Most of the shops have closed and it's like a ghost town. There are 25,000 Israeli soldiers protecting 600 Jewish Settlers from 160,000 unarmed Palestinians. We saw five of the Israeli soldiers patrolling the streets of Hebron. It is a strange feeling to look up from a conversation with a friend to realise that the man in green with a terrified look on his face is in fact a young soldier pointing a gun at your face. It's hard to know how to react the first time it ever happens to you – it actually takes longer than you would think to realise what is happening, because it's so alien. It's not something I ever need to go through again, but then I don't live there.

So the money and support donated by friends and colleagues has gone to a good cause, and I refer to the words of Abou Yacoub, our generous host at the music camp, to explain why. Abou Yacoub said that what we did in the garden at that camp was "reinvigorate a culture that has been lost". Adults and children would wander around the garden and realise that it's quite easy to do in their own homes. The team would go scavenging for other people's rubbish, our treasure, and create something artistic out of it. People in Palestine need something to escape from the daily grind of Occupation, a release from the tension. That might be music, dance, painting, gardening or any other creative activity. What the money raised and the team of volunteers did was give a little glimmer of hope, a little release, that enables them to carry on in a time of difficulty. It's a morale boost, an invigoration of the psyche or a good old-fashioned kick up the backside. Whatever it is, it helps, they told us it does. It came from their mouths. So thank you to everyone, from them.

My personal goal of seeing something of the situation for myself was achieved in Palestine, in addition to those for the garden. I’ve been aware since moving to Dubai and seeing the media reporting here that western media can often be skewed. I don’t know if it’s for political advantage, because of heavy influence from people who have something to incentivise with, or whether it’s just poor journalism. The outcome is that the language we hear and the pictures we see are often without context of the situation as written in the history books. I’ve learnt infinitely more about the world since leaving the UK than I think I would had I stayed and learning more fuels the desire to learn more – the cycle is perpetual. So I'll be going back to see more, talk to people more, learn more. I do hope you'll come and join me next time.

Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters

It's great to see that people still bicker. I saw two grown men at it today (and if you ever read this, you'll probably know who you are). I thought it was something only I and my sister do after we've been together more than 24hrs. Today's bickering was quite harmless, I hope. I really hope as I think I'm going to be spending circa three hours with the two of them in a car tomorrow.

I had come to the decision that I should be too mature to bicker. Thankfully I see today that this is not the case and service can resume as normal.

I suppose it's a mix of familiarity and alpha-type claim staking. What my sister doesn't understand is that since I am the older, I am, of course, the wiser and my opinion should be listened to and nodded at before being gently poked and picked apart if required. What she also doesn't understand is that as the older of the two of us, I get to tell her what to do AND how to do it AND how she should/could do things better. It's my job! I take it very seriously!

Joking aside, I do long for a sisterly relationship where the other is not so darned sensitive to every word I utter after the aforementioned 24hr warm up period, but what can I do (that's a genuine question - what can I do)? I don't get any indications from any other "sisters" that I conduct myself in any way that creates the same level of offense, so I guess I just keep on being myself whether it annoys my real sister or not. If anyone knows the answer, please let me in on the secret!

New development, apartments going cheap.

Anna and I were mulling over the Arab, or perhaps Emirati, predeliction for naming things, and particularly buildings, after themselves. In an effort to help Dubai's city townplanners and give a sense of ownership to one and all, Anna and I have come up with a name for a new development:

"Welcome to Pronoun City - Dubai's biggest development all about meeee! Within it's lush gardens and meandering walkways, find MY PLACE complete with floor to ceiling mirrors in and every apartment. Next door, YOUR RESIDENCE provides complimentary maid service allowing you to spend more time with you. Completed in the 2nd phase of the development, HER BUILDING (complete with undergrdound parking), HIS TOWER and THEIR APARTMENTS, none of which are as nice as the 1st phase since you don't want the Jones's keeping up with you."

I can see the confusion now explaining to your friends how to get there, and the frustration with taxis and deliveries. I'll let you enjoy going down that road by yourself.

Wake up and smell the irony!

Last night was an evening of irony. Even though this is the week that Paris Hilton arrived in Dubai to search for her new "Best Friend Forever" (within which lies yet another irony - for someone who the magazine media claim is a smart and savvy business woman, she apparently genuinely believes she can find a BFF through an audition process, and was suprised after her last series when her latest BFF revealed herself as a Money-Grabbing Beyatch with only her own best interests at stake. Yuh-huh, do you think?), I and my dinner companions were the ones that were Papparazi'd.

Amber (name changed to protect her identity - she's not after the free publicity), my new BFF, has been on a search for "new things" to do this week. She could give Time Out a run for it's money, and the result has been quite possibly one of the most random schedules I have ever witnessed. Day 1: Colonic irrigation with a friend (I ask you - why would you go, and why with a friend? How does that work?). Day 2: Perfecting the Art of Doing Nothing - I believe she nailed it that day. Day 3: Deep sea fishing followed by a spot of 46celsius art gallery hopping. Day 4: Dinner and a Movie at the Ritz. AMber had fallen across a night of French food and Casablanca at La Baie at the Ritz-Carlton in Dubai. It sounded a great idea for a weekend evening and so I and two others duly signed up, got dolled up and went along.

On arrival there was a camera man taking snaps at the entrance to the restaurant. My immediate reaction to these intrusive snappers is always an emphatic "no, thanks". I like my privacy. I go to certain lengths to protect it. I don't reveal too much about myself except to those that I know and trust and so the thought of my photo showing up in a Dubai Slag Mag really is not appealing. Photo dodged, we made it to the bar without further assualt and settled into a scrummy bottle of wine. And then it really started....

Throughout our pre-dinner drinks and well into the movie itself we were approached by photographers and camera men. Because the place was dark to show the movie the camera men used bright flood lights to film people. Despite saying no we were repeatedly approached and so we spoke to someone who seemed to be in charge. Nabil from Memac Ogilvy foolishly gave me his business card (real identity - because he doesn't seem to give a shit about anyone else's privacy so why should I care about his?) and the tried to absolve himself of any blame by putting it on the shoulders of the media present. So we arrive at the next series of ironies. This young man is an Associate Account Director of PR at Memac Ogilvy. That's quite some position of responsibility when you have international clients such as Turner Classic Movies (the host of the evening). As an account director he counsels his clients and makes recommendations. He also manages the relationship of the agency he works for and his client with the media. Did he really not see the impending disaster of having the media at a public event? And if he was stupid enough to do so and still invite the media, did he not manage the expectations of the media in terms of access to the venue and the appropriate times to shoot? Clearly not. Are you registering the volume of my sarcasm? I think you might be.

You'd think that he'd have the grace not to implicate the media he relies on for positive publicity as the cause of our distress and put the blame squarely on his own inadequate handling of his client and the media. You'd also think that he'd have the nouse in the first place not to invite the media to a public event - one that cost us a reasonable amount of our hard-earned cash. Far be it from me to tell him his job, but even I can tell you that media have very different needs to the public. They need to be able to get their cameras in prime locations even if it involves blocking the view of those around them trying to watch the film. They also need to film through-shots of attendees, even those that don't want to be filmed, with their bright lights on. For some reason they need to be able to film each course of food as it arrives on the table. They need to have prime position in front of the screen even though they are not paying to attend the event. And, for some reason unbeknownst to me or my friends, they need to talk loudly all the way through the movie because they have seen it before and completely and selfishly disregard the needs of people that have paid to attend.

We did complain. Not only have we been in Dubai long enough to see through the blah that surrounds Slag Mags taking your photo at an event, but we've been here long enough to buff off our too-polite British corners and not be afraid to speak up when we feel we've been wronged. We complained eloquently (and politely) that we went to the event to enjoy a nice dinner and a movie that we hadn't seen before with friends. For our troubles Nabil furnished us with another bottle of previously stated scrummy wine. To be fair to him we should not have accepted his offer but now that all is said and done, he can't buy us off. Our ire is too great.

The final irony is that the evening, in concept, is an excellent one. The food was delicious (and we discovered rather late, themed nicely around Moroccan cuisine); Casablanca was excellent (there is a reason it's a classic); and the company was sublime. The ambience would have been perfect had Nabil, Turner Classic Movies and the media they were courting not been there.

I'm really quite fed up with Dubai at the moment. It's not the place or the people running it as such. I have a nice life here that I am very grateful for. I pride myself on my integrity, I speak honestly and openly about what I see, I'm tactful when I need to be, I give money and time to good causes and I say thank you to the Universe, but the people within Dubai are really starting to grate on my nerves. The selfishness for material gain I see is astonishing and the lack of thought for the customer bizarre. Marketing (and PR) 101: if you want your product or service to do well in this city, all you have to do is think of the customer's needs and wants, make it easy for them to consume your product or service (that's called customer service by the way) and you'll stand out head and shoulders above the sea of mediocrity that operates here. Why don't people wake up to that? Wake up and smell the irony!