Jericho

     I have probably already mentioned, and perhaps more than once, how generous Palestinian hospitality is.  It's also filling, because it usually involves a meal.  I am staying with Palestinian friends, so I am usually full.  Fortunately, the food is very fresh.  We just had a tomato dish with tomatoes Khitam and Ahmad bought in Jericho a month ago, and the tomatoes, which have been sitting on enclosed porch, are ripe and delicious and will be for several more days if not for a couple of weeks.  Khitam hasn't cooked meat since I've been here; we've had chicken four or five times, fish once, and eaten in Jerusalem a couple of times.  The rest of the meals are fresh vegetables, rice, lentils, eggs and no one is leaving the table hungry.  I'm a guest and not allowed to cook or maybe they don't trust me!

Nasser, Hazzem & Nadya

     Jericho is not a bread basket; it's a vegetable basket.  The vegetables there are freshly delivered by farmers in the Jordan Valley, plentiful and inexpensive.  And Jericho is where the parents of one of the boys I've worked with in Nasser's group at Husni al Ashab Middle School wanted to take Nasser and me.  Nasser had told me that Hazzem and Nadia Showaki wanted to take us for an outing.  I had a lot to do that evening, or I thought I did, so I told Nasser I had to be back around 6:00.  When Hazzem and Nadia picked us up at the school, the first question for Nasser was: "When does Al have to be back?"  Nasser told them and Hazzem said: "6:00?!  We won't have time to go to Jericho!"  Nadia asked if I could stretch it to 7:00 and I agreed, figuring I had tied, if not won. 

Dome of Greek Orthodox Church

     So off we went to Jericho, a forty-five minute drive.  Hazzem, who has his own construction business, speaks Arabic and probably Hebrew.  Nadia, who lived for twenty or thirty years in Brazil, speaks Portuguese and Arabic.  Each knows as much English as I know Arabic, so Nasser did a lot of translating and I used a lot of gesture and mime, punctuated with the odd Arabic phrase, and some of them were odd!  We all managed.  They asked if I'd been to Jericho, and I told them I'd been a couple of years before with Khitam and that I'd been when I lived in Lebanon in the 1960s and early 70s, the first time by motor scooter.

     They asked me if I'd seen the mosque of Musa (Moses).  I hadn't so that was our first stop off the road into Jericho.  When we arrived at the mosque, Nasser greeted several people as old friends, some of whom seemed to be midway through a recovery of something.  Nasser then told me that he had worked as a substance abuse counselor there.  The ancient mosque had a space for counseling sessions and Nasser has been one of the counselors.  

Interior of the church

     Then we were off to a reconstructed temple and some lovely gardens, a reproduction of a theater Alexander may have commissioned and an ancient Greek Orthodox Church.  After all that, it was time for dinner and a return by 7:00 o'clock was less than unlikely.  Dinner was half a chicken - "Don't you want a whole one?!" - a mezza of hummus, baba ghanoush, cabbage salad, garden salad, a spicy garlic dip, pickles, olives, Arabic bread, radishes and…  After dinner, Arabic coffee, small and strong, some conversation with the waiter who seemed to be an old friend of Hazzem; in fact, most of the people we encountered seemed to be old friends of either Hazzem or Nasser.  "Something sweet?"  No room.  No room!

     After a few more exchanges, we got in the car and an 8:00 o'clock return looked possible; well, it did until we got to the fruit and vegetable open market.  We stopped and for about half an hour, Hazzem and Nasser and Nadia picked at and picked up fruits and vegetables.  We finally left with a trunkful.  While we were shopping, Hazzem had extended conversations with two or three people in the market.

Mosaic in church floor

     Then, we were on our way…up and down a series of neighborhood roads to a building site.  Hassem was near the end of the construction of a lovely house with a pool for someone from Oman; I'm guessing a Palestinian who made good money there.  He showed us around the site for half an hour, pointing out the lovely touches that the owner had required and got.  He invited me to jump in the pool, but there was no water in it yet!

     From there, we really were on the way home.  They dropped Nasser at a bus that would take him to Bethlehem where he lives in a camp with his wife and four boys.  Then delivered me to Khitam's around 9:15 after fun and friendly and filling evening with our Palestinian hosts.  The work I had planned to do could wait another day, as long as I didn't get another invitation for a little outing and something to eat!