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Palestine Trip 4: Painted Eggs
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Morgan Davie
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May 17, 2004 14:11 PDT
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Sunday, April 11, 2004
New photos up at
http://www.apocalypse.gen.nz/palestine/
EASTER SUNDAY, BEIT SAHOUR
We were in Palestine as part of an organised tour, and this day was
scheduled as our own to do with as we pleased. Given it was Easter Sunday,
we started off going to church. We were made very welcome - the priest came
over and shook our hands at the start - and it was easy to feel at home, as
the atmosphere and congregation were just like those I grew up with. They
were dressed the same, had the same friendly warmth, the service was the
same, even some of the hymns were familiar. All of it in Arabic, of course,
but I knew exactly what was going on the whole time. After the service we
crossed the garden to the church hall where painted eggs were thrust into
our hands by insistent smiling teenagers, many people shook our hands and
asked us where we were from, and we drank sweet tea. It was great. At the
end of the day I still had paint on my hands from the egg.
We also found a tree that was either New Zealand's native Christmas tree,
the pohutukawa, or something that gave a very good impression of it. I
reckon it was a pohutukawa - I remember from a documentary some years ago
that the trees were growing in odd places here and there throughout Europe.
SLOUCHING AROUND BETHLEHEM
Cal and I then wandered up to Bethlehem and checked out the Church of the
Nativity in daylight, then set off to wander some more, chatting to a few
policemen on the way. We ran into Jean-Guy and Sabine, and joined them and
Olive Co-op's Jo and the newly-arrived Mark for a great lunch in Nativity
Square. We wandered further, led - somewhat haphazardly - by Jo. It was a
great walk, actually, up and down the sloping built-up roads and
occasionally breaking out into an open space with another panoramic view of
the surrounding hills. We passed the hotel where stand-up comedian Jeremy
Hardy and the ISM stayed in April '02, as chronicled in the documentary
'Jeremy Hardy vs. the Israeli Army' (http://www.geocities.com/hardyfilm/).
It was good to be able to
connect those images of tanks on streets to this place, since it was at a
screening of that film that Cal and I first began to think about coming
here.
SHEPHERD'S FIELD
We finished up the day with a trip down the hill to Shepherd's Field, where
the angel of the lord came near and gave the shepherds a heads-up about what
was going on up in Bethlehem. There was a lovely garden, a nice church, and
a fascinating archaeological dig revealing the monasteries that had been
built here over the centuries.
Naturally, we couldn't get far away from the political angle of our trip,
even on Easter Sunday. The sad tales of the taxi drivers, bereft of tourist
trade even at Easter, were one thing; seeing the newly expanding settlement
and bypass road a few hundred metres from Shepherd's Field was another. The
garden and chapel had been designed to create a sanctuary for pilgrims, but
there was nowhere to hide from the ongoing incursion.
That night we all talked for some hours, going over everything that we were
seeing and hearing. The truth about the situation in Palestine is that it
is overwhelming. It is too much to see at once.
Mark's blog is at http://www.rafahkid.net/blog.html
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