Indiana Jones and the Last Blog Post

Sunday, October 30, 2011

I’m walking through a narrow twisting passage cut well over 100 feet deep through a wall of solid rock. The pinks and blues and beiges of the limestone walls make fantastic patterns that swirl in the few shafts of light that reach the floor of the defile. After more than a kilometre, I come around a final twist in the passage, and there it is: the Lost City of Petra. And I think to myself, “What would Indiana Jones do next?”

Well he’d probably do something stupid, like snake the end of his bullwhip over a wooden beam and swing into the stone building that is catching the morning light. Me, all I had to do was to take out my camera and enjoy the experience.

The building I am staring at is The Treasury, the first structure you see when entering this archeological wonder, and certainly one of its major highlights. Like almost all of the buildings in Petra it is carved right into the face of a limestone mountain.  The façade is almost 40 metres high, with columns and a rounded centre roof, flanked by two half pediments with a large opening to a room in the centre.

 As Indiana could tell you, Petra was built some 2,000 years ago by the Nabataeans, a people who disappeared after the area was taken over by the Romans. Most of the buildings and caves seem to be tombs, ranging from simple holes in the wall for the lesser lights, to opulent affairs like The Treasury, which was built for a king. The reason Indy would know something about it is that The Treasury featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But you don’t need a movie fantasy as an excuse to come here. Petra has more than enough to make the trip worthwhile.

After The Treasury, the path takes you through an extension of the Siq, that long twisting passage through the rock that started my adventure. It soon opens up into a dry dusty valley between two rocky ranges of hills. Everywhere you look there seems to be something carved into the flanks of the hills. The centuries have worn away some of the definition here and there, but the carved fronts of the tombs and houses are still stunning. The main path roughly follows the wadi through the valley – a dry river bed that will likely have water in it in a few weeks as the rainy season gets underway.

I eventually come to what would have been the city for the living in this valley of tombs. There’s an 8,000-seat amphitheatre that was built by the Nabataeans, despite its Roman look. Nearby is the remains of a main street. At one time it was lined with columns, but only bits and pieces remain.

Then it’s time for some more strenuous hiking. A path rises up over the top of the hill on the right. It’s about 900 stone steps up and over, but 45 minutes later I’m rewarded with a spectacular view: The Monastery.  This is another royal tomb carved into a wall of solid rock. It’s is similar in style and detail to The Treasury, but even bigger at almost 49 metres tall. The moment I saw it I said “wow” out loud. It is amazing. While it is a tomb, it gets its name from the time the Byzantines used it as a Christian chapel.

There was more, including the remains of a Byzantine church with well-preserved mosaics covering the length of both side aisles. I looked at my watch and realized that I had been wandering around Petra for seven hours.

I’m going back for another brief look tomorrow. Then it’s onto a bus for the trip back to Amman, and on to a plane Tuesday morning for the trip home to Canada. It has been a fabulous journey and this will be my last blog post until the next adventure. Let’s see… where else would Indiana Jones go?

Olives and Crib Notes

If I wanted something a little out of the ordinary, a little off the tourist track, I found it today in the West Bank. It's almost the end of olive harvest season here, and farmers can always use a helping hand. So I volunteered to be an olive picker.

The outing started off with everyone being on Palestine time. They said they'd meet me in Lion Square near here at 8:30, "9 at the very latest." At 9:20, they finally showed up. There was the young man whose family owns the trees and his girlfriend from France. Then we went around to another house and pick up Omar and  a young English guy, and finally a woman from Denmark climbed into the truck.

There were more stops for gas and cigarettes, and finally we hit the road. We drove through the rolling rocky hills, down into a valley and finally onto a faster two-lane highway. The trees are beside this highway, so after parking we had to scramble down and embankment and then across the terraces formed from a hard volcanic rock, unlike the limestone you see everywhere here.


The family's trees are just young things compared to many of the groves in the West Bank: only a few hundred years old. There are trees around here that they say are two or even three thousand years old. There is one tree in Bethlehem area that is reputed to be 5,000 years old, although I have my doubts.

The trees are not overly tall, and they prune them to keep them that way, so you can reach most of the olives from the ground and by standing up on the lower branches. They also have a couple of rickety ladders.

The technique is to pull the olives off either individually or by running your hand down the branch and letting them fall on tarps spread on the ground. A few of the people were using children’s plastic rakes to scrape the olives off. The olives are purple-black and surprisingly small. Olive trees are like apples; they have lots of fruit one year and very little the next. Last year was the bumper crop and the family is surprised how good the crop is this year. The size of the olives is a result of last year’s good crop and a lack of rain this year. There’s no easy way to water them, although they used to bring big buckets of water by mule.

Picking the olives was a lot of fun. We stopped frequently for tea or water and at lunchtime had bread with hummus and other dips, all liberally laced with olive oil.

Like just about everything else around here, olive picking is wrapped up in politics and loss. The family has about 120 trees on the other side of Green Line, in other words, behind the wall. They say farmers didn’t have any say when the Israelis came along to build the wall and cut them off from their crop. Construction crews just showed up and started digging. In some other areas, they used big digging machines to pull up centuries-old trees by the roots. I’ve seen pictures of it.

The Israelis say they give Palestinian farmers a chance to cross into the Israeli side to harvest their olives, but Palestinians call that a sham. They say typically they get only two days to pick their trees, not nearly enough time. Farmers get family, friends and sometimes Internationals to help them harvest as much as they can. Others have told me stories of getting permission to harvest and then being harassed by troops and threatened or even shot at by settlers. You hear lots of tales of settlers yelling insults at olive pickers, beating them up and stealing their crop. There was no way for me to confirm this.

But olives are an important product here. They pack them in woven plastic sacks, about the size of a green plastic garbage bag. If the crop is good, one bag will produce about 18 litres of oil. Despite the huge amount they produce, they say Palestinians consume the majority of what they make. Olive oil shows up in just about every dish. Some is sent to relatives in Jordan and the rest is exported. There seems to be little organized exporting, although lately some cooperatives are forming. There are also some activist groups, such as Stop The Wall, that import Palestinian olive oil as a political act.

Olive picking is a family affair. Lots of kids were running around, playing Palestinian versions of tag, determining who was “it” by using something that sounded suspiciously like “eenie meenie, minie moe.” It really was pleasant just mindlessly picking olives and looking out across the rocky landscape. There are big prickly pear cactus growing amid the rocks. They say that’s where the snakes like to live.

Half way through the afternoon I have to say goodbye. This is my last day in the West Bank and I want to fit in one more thing; a visit to Bethlehem. Because time is so tight, I hire a taxi for the afternoon to drive me there, wait and drive me back. This requires crossing through part of Israel, so we pass a checkpoint, with yet another hot female soldier checking things out. There’s a good highway that seems to roughly follow the dividing line between the West Bank and Israel. After a bit of city traffic we arrive in Bethlehem. In some ways it’s a typical West Bank town, but as we get closer to Manger Square, it looks older and more interesting.

The highlight, of course, is the Church of the Nativity. It looks ancient and while there are parts that date back to the original construction in 326, most of it is from a major rebuilding in the 6^th century. The first striking feature is the entrance. It’s a narrow door about five feet high that forces most people to bend over the enter, earning it the name the Door of Humility. It used to be much grander. The Crusaders made the original large opening smaller but still serviceable, installing a pointed arch that you can still see in the stone wall. Later rulers made it what it is today.

Once you’re inside, it becomes more impressive. Two rows of pink stone columns, which are part of the original building, run down both sides. A row of ornate ceiling fixtures hang in the middle. Oddly, each one has a shiny glass Christmas ornament dangling from the bottom.

The main attraction is in a grotto under the altar. This is the place where they claim Jesus was born. I’m not quite sure how they know. Hundreds of people seemed to be lined up waiting for their chance to reverently place their hand on the star. 

The rest of the Manger Square area is worth a walk around. Right on the opposite side is the Mosque of Omar, built in 1860. Behind that are a number of twisting cobbled streets lined with shops, many of which are selling religious statues and crosses carved from olive wood.

Tomorrow I leave the Palestinian territories and head straight to Wadi Mussa, a town just outside Petra. The day after that I’ll get an early start and see Petra itself.

John

Last evening in Gaza

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Gaza continues to throw up surprises. It is true that there is a lot of poverty, garbage and desperation here. But there are some delights too.

The Conflict Sensitive Journalism course ended today so I decided to celebrate with dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town. I took a short taxi ride south to the Roots Restaurant (no relation to the Canadian clothing chain!) Just off the street are a couple of neat one-storey buildings used for special occasions, and the sound of music and a D-J was blaring from a wedding celebration. But the real focus is the dinning area behind. It’s a vast tiled patio bordered by trees and plants. A flat metal roof provides protection from the rain, if it ever comes, and fairy lights twinkle overhead.

I arrived at 7, far too early for most people here to eat. A few sat around smoking the narghile, the local name for the large, ornate waterpipe that burns flavoured tobacco. I took a pass on the pipe, but the meal was excellent, a beef stew with potatoes and onions, spiced in the Gazan style.

I decided to walk back to the hotel, following the ocean road when I came across a very swish convention centre, currently hosting the Palestine Book Fair. It was closed, but right next door was something I didn’t know existed here: a seaside resort.  It is aimed at local people. Kids were running  around the grounds while the adults sat at tables sipping coffee and smoking. There’s a row of cute little single-storey beach houses for rent closest to the road, then a broad grass lawn with tables and chairs scattered about. A small bar serves (non-alcoholic) drinks and snacks near the edge of the beach, and behind it, the large stretch of sand, studded with umbrellas and play structures for the children. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s nice to know there is a fun place families here can escape to.

A friendly waiter who spoke no English invited me to sit down, so I ordered a small dark coffee, as thick as mud and scented with cardamom, and looked out at the surf pounding the shore in the night. But even here you can’t escape the Occupation. There’s a long straight line of lights twinkling three kilometers offshore. It looks pretty, until you realize it’s the Israeli-imposed barrier that keeps even fisherman from venturing very far from shore.

 It was a nice end to the day, and today was a good end to the course. Trainees presented their final assignment, a short story about the conflict of their choosing. While some writers were clearly better than others, they were all remarkably successful in apply the principles I’ve been talking about for the last five days. They’re still not completely persuaded to adopt everything I’ve said in their daily work. But they’re clearly giving it some serious consideration. When the class ended, I expected they would all disappear immediately, but it seemed no one wanted to leave. They just kept asking questions, debating ideas and taking pictures. I hope that’s a sign that they enjoyed the course.

That’s it for my teaching. The courses  went better than I could have hoped and I think I’ve left Palestinian journalists with something to think about.  I hope it makes a difference.

Tomorrow, it’s back to Ramallah, then on to new adventures in Bethlehem and in Petra in Jordan!

John

The Foreign Expert

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Travelling to a developing country can be good for your ego and here’s why:  just being a foreigner makes you an expert. You might not have a clue what you’re doing, but that’s OK; being foreign is good enough to get you chat with a senior politician, a star turn as a guest lecturer or a good party invitation.

I had that experience yesterday. One of my trainees works for a daily newspaper in Gaza. They have attractive headquarters a couple of blocks away from where I’m teaching. He asked if I might come over one day and talk to a few editors about how we do things at Canadian newspapers.

So after class we strolled over and I was ushered into a large boardroom. People started filing in. Before long, the entire senior management of the paper was there, along with most of the reporters, editors and administrative staff, waiting to hear my wisdom.  Now, I haven’t worked in a daily newspaper for many years, and I do very little print writing these days. But, hey, I’m a foreigner, so it’s all good.

The session was actually a lot of fun. The questions ranged from how a Canadian paper might handle a big story like the prisoner exchange, to what hours Canadian reporters usually work and how can you get Canadians interested in what’s happening in Gaza.

The answer to the last one is the same answer I’ve been giving my trainees. The outside world responds to good human interest stories, stories that make readers see that there are real people living here, people who have families, who struggle to get by, who have hopes for their children. What doesn’t work is angry attacks, bitter or one-sided stories masquerading as journalism.

It’s about the best argument I can make to my skeptical students. They believe in the pillars of journalism, but they aren’t so sure that sticking to them will get them anywhere. But I think that it may be the best way to serve their home. A well-told story wins more respect than a poorly told one.

The course is going very well, mostly because of the trainees. I’ve spent a lot of time engaging them in conversation and weaving in the lessons as the opportunities present themselves. They are an intelligent and curious lot and while they’re not yet persuaded by everything I have to say, they’re clearly thinking about it. Today we talked about how the same story can have a very different impact, depending on the angle you take. As I told them, it’s a good way to make the point you want to make and still have a balanced and fair story and avoid giving your opinion. If you see an injustice, write about it by showing how that injustice is hurting one person or one family. All the other elements of the story would be there, but angle you choose sets the tone.

It’s a welcoming group, and I see that friendliness outside the classroom. People always seem ready to talk or to help me out if they can. Today after class, I was looking for a place to buy local crafts and got lost. I stopped at a small pharmacy where the woman behind the counter immediately started asking me about myself and trying to figure out how to get me back on track. At that point a drug company rep who spoke good English walked in. He knew of a shop shop. “I’ll drive you there,” he said. A few minutes later he dropped me at the shop door with a friendly wave goodbye.

I walked back to the hotel as the sun was setting, watching people rush about at the end of their day. I bought some delicious little cookies from a bakery, and some dates fresh from the tree from a roadside peddler.  It’s hard to believe I’ll be leaving this place in just a couple of days.

For more on the course, see the Birzeit University Media Development Center blog at

http://mdc.birzeit.edu/en/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=entry&id=5&Itemid=1

Gaza notes

I thought there was something a bit odd about the water coming out of my shower when I first arrived. It felt slippery. It took a day or two to realize why. It’s salty. This is a problem at many places around Gaza. Heavy use of water has apparently lowered the water table and let salty sea water seep in. Some areas are worse than others. You get used to it for showers or washing. For drinking, people get by with bottled water and filters fixed under the faucet.

A Spanish soccer fan would feel right at home here. Gazans – most Palestinians for that matter – are mad about soccer. And the two favourite teams are both Spanish: Real Madrid and Barcelona. You can see their pennants and flags for sale in the shops and when either team is playing, it’s a good excuse to drop everything and watch TV for a while.

It didn’t take me long to learn the Gaza handshake. People don’t just shake your hand, at least not the men. There’s a wind-up to it. You start with your arm out to the side, elbow bent, hand open. Then you swing it in front of you, meeting the other person’s hand with a bit of a slap. It’s so common, even little boys I’ve met do it.

Visiting a Palestinian home

Sunday, October 23, 2011

One of the great things about travelling as a trainer (aside from somebody else paying the airfare) is that you get to see countries in a way that tourists usually don’t. You get to know people well enough that they go out of their way to help you see the real place. That’s what happened today.

It started as a tourist outing. One of the trainees had told me about an archeological site a little south of Gaza City and offered to go there with me. So my translator, my trainee and I hopped in an ancient Mercedes taxi and took the coastal highway. I should explain about the taxis here. Most of them are ancient, some so battered that the wheels barely stay on. Blame it on the blockade. Cars come through the tunnels at Rafa, but they’re too expensive for any taxi driver to make a living.

It’s a shared taxi system. You indicate what direction you’re headed and if that’s where he’s going too, you jump in and pay your share (usually 1 shekel). Along the way, other people headed that general direction will flag him down and get in the car too. As I said, the taxi we were sharing was an old Mercedes with an extra-deep back seat. They took advantage of that by cramming in makeshift row of seating  between the front and back.

The archeological site turned out to be the remains of the St. Helarion Monastery, built in 329. It’s rare; almost all of Gaza’s ancient sites have been destroyed, mostly through war. The monastery is just foundations and a few recovered stone columns, but there are several mosaic floors still largely intact.

I figured that was the end of the tour, but instead we found ourselves driving into the heart of one of the larger refugee camps a couple of kilometers south of Gaza City. I didn’t really know where we were headed, but I was happy to wait and see what would happen. The camp is old enough that the main street has been largely rebuilt. Some buildings have been upgraded and there are trees growing out of the sidewalk. But there’s no doubt that this is a low-rent neighbourhood.

We turned down a very narrow alley and stopped at a solid metal door. It turned out to be the house of my trainee’s cousin on his mother’s side, and I was there as a guest of honour. The house reminded me of places I’d seen in Afghanistan. The concrete walls had been painted but faded long ago. The furniture consisted of long cushions placed on the floor along the walls. We went into the cousin’s room. There was a bed in one corner, a cheap desk with a computer on it and clothes and other things stacked in plastic bags in another corner. A tangle of wires ran along one wall.

It turns out the cousin is a currency trader. But like many jobs here, it doesn’t pay enough to cover much more than the basics. The prospect of moving out of the camp is pretty remote at the moment because of lack of money. He isn’t married either, and as they say here, you have to decide which you can afford: getting married or buying a house.

As we chatted, other people drifted into the house. One was another cousin, this time on the trainee’s father’s side. Then another cousin, this one an indeterminate number of times removed, showed up, followed by the brother of the currency trader, followed by a friend from the neighbourhood. Several children joined the mob. Nobody seemed to knock, they just wandered in, sat down and started drinking tea and talking.

That’s what it’s like in Gaza. Family is everything. Everyone knows at least the first few layers of cousins and in-laws well. They’re at least occasionally in touch with still more distant relations. I asked my trainee how big he considered his family to be. He thought for a moment. “About 300,” he said. When you ask where someone is from, they don't mean what part of Gaza they're living in now. They mean what village did your family originally come from.

But all of the people in that room have also known fear and deprivation. Some of them  told me about what the living quarters were like when they were children. When the rains came every winter, the roof leaked and people had to scrounge plastic to try to keep things dry. As plain and worn as the building looked to me, it had actually been renovated and was better than it used to be.

But the real horror was under Israeli bombardments. The family all gathered together in the house, just hoping theirs would not be one of the houses hit. One missile took out a house only 100 metres away. The worst was for the children. Parents could only hold them and try to keep them calm. Some told them the noise was just fireworks. Some parents said they slept with their children in their arms. At least that way, they knew where they were if something bad happened.

Things got even worse with the blockade of Gaza. Nothing got in or out, and supplies soon disappeared. Some of the few cars that still got around resorted to burning old vegetable oil instead of diesel fuel. Cooking was a problem without any cooking gas. The economy ground to a halt. Even moving about was hard because Gaza was split into three zones, separated by military checkpoints. Families were split and couldn’t get to each other.

It’s still a desperate place with high unemployment and no freedom to leave. But with supplies coming through the Rafa tunnels, there’s building going on everywhere. There’s a determination here to make things work in the face of long odds.

And as my translator said, if he were given the chance to live in another Arab country or live here, he would choose Gaza. “It’s my home,” he said. There were nods of agreement all around the room.

A few Gaza notes: Palestinians like a little tea in their sugar. You fill a small cup with a half-inch or more of sugar then add a teabag and water. Most places they’ll serve it to you with a sprig of fresh mint.

When it comes to competing for space on the roads, pedestrians seem to have the upper hand. No one seems to use the sidewalks here, even when they aren’t cluttered with hawkers and construction material. And they don’t just hug the edge of the road. People think nothing of strolling unconcerned well into the lane. If cars want to get through, they just have to pull around. Crossing the street is done with a studied nonchalance. You walk at your own pace amid the racing cars, confident they will avoid hitting you. If they seem to be getting to close, you hold your arm down and slightly out from your side and stretch out a couple of fingers as a kind of friendly warning. I haven’t seen anyone hit yet.

Greetings from Gaza

Friday, October 20, 2011

I went swimming in the Mediterranean today.  The water was a beautiful green-blue, just warm enough to be refreshing. Then I sat in a chair in the warm sun, my feet stuck in the soft brown sand, as I sipped a Coke.

Doesn’t sound like Gaza, does it? But that’s just one side of this crowded, frantic place. But let me start with the journey.

I got a taxi from Ramallah, heading west toward Israel, but this time to a different crossing further north from the Qalandia Crossing, one that is available only to non-Palestinians.  It was surprising how quickly we passed from the city to the countryside. The scenery was familiar; rolling hills of dry crumbly limestone. But in many places, farmers had carved terraces right into the rock to create beds that could support some plant life. More often than not, it was olive trees. I’ve been told that some of the West Bank olives have been growing since Roman times.

We wove up down and between hills, at one point passing a cluster of buildings surrounded by a tall fence topped with razor wire – an Israeli settlement. Before long we came to the crossing. There were fences, but no giant walls here. A rather hot blonde female soldier cast a bored glance into the car, took a listless look in the trunk and waved us through. We were in Israel.

The scenery began to change. The hills disappeared and we were driving across flat farmland. Tractors were harvesting cotton plants, and apple trees drooped under a heavy load of fruit almost ready for picking.  It continued this way until we pulled up at the Erez Crossing, pretty much the only way in or out of Gaza. It looks like an airport terminal, a big glass-fronted building, but with high concrete barriers either side. Not many people get into Gaza and I was prepared for problems. In the end it was much easier than getting into the West Bank. First stop was a passport check at a gate outside of the building. That took just a couple of minutes. Then I went inside. There were at least a dozen glass booths for officials to check documents, but there were only two officers; more than enough to look after the  three people going across. After a short wait, I went into one of the booths. The only questions:  Why are you going and how long will you stay? Then the officer wished me a nice day and I was through.

When you get out the other side, there’s a surprise waiting. No cars are allowed anywhere near the processing centre. So I had to walk the better part of a kilometer along a concrete walkway, totally enclosed with a roof and wire walls. In fact, the Israelis have cleared everything for two kilometers from the border, including a bunch of buildings where many people used to work.

My UNESCO driver took me to the Commodore Hotel, one of a string of nice hotels right on the seaside. It is owned by Hamas and many of the guests are former prisoners who were just released in the prisoner swap and have nowhere to go. I’m going to see if I can interview any of them.

Gaza is a bit a shock after the comforts of Ramallah. Most of the roads are in good shape, but many of the buildings are squalid. One of the first things we passed as we headed south was the Jabalia refugee camp, the target of past Israeli offensives. Like all the camps here, it’s actually permanent concrete buildings, poorly built and badly planned. At one point I could see pockmarks in the concrete and on the metal doors, signs of gunfire in some past battle.

We quickly got to Gaza City. You can quickly get anywhere in Gaza. It's only about 10 km wide and 45 km long. Virtually no one can get in or out. As my translator said, it's the world's biggest prison. A great deal of Gaza looks like the Third World cities I’ve seen in so many countries. Piles of garbage are dumped everywhere. Many  of the buildings are just bare, stained concrete. Everything is dusty. But there are some nice parts too. The downtown area where I'm teaching is quite clean and attractive, with a number of shops and restaurants. The area near the beach hotels has some very fine looking housing, as nice as anything in Amman.

After my swim, I met up with a local contact from the university and my translator and we took a tour of Gaza. We drove south on the beach highway. If you can overlook the garbage on the streets and on the beach, and ignore the decrepit looking buildings here and there, it really is a lovely drive. The beach is wonderful and runs the whole length of Gaza. And there is no shortage of very upscale beachside restaurants.  After a while we’re passing through large farm fields. This whole are was once known for its farms, orchards and forests, but that was a long time ago.

We turned inland and found a real surprise: One of two British cemeteries holding the remains of Britons who died in Palestine during the First World War. The fields all around are brown and parched. But the cemetery is an oasis; neatly clipped green grass, well-trimmed palm trees and flowers, among the hundreds of carefully aligned grave stones. I met the gardener, who is paid by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and I signed the visitor's book.

Gaza doesn’t have much to show for its long history as a major gateway to the Middle East and a key port for the spice trade. We visited the remains of a caravan stop in Khan Yunis, now a busy little town in the south. It’s also the site of the Khan Yunis camp. The older part of the camp has been absorbed by the town and many of the original buildings have been replaced of upgraded. But parts are very depressing, with the smell of burning garbage of raw sewage and piles of trash everywhere. Nonetheless, there was a carnival atmosphere. People were just headed home after a Hamas rally to celebrate the release of the prisoners

Then it was off to Rafa, the town on the border with Egypt. This is the place where they dig the smuggling tunnels. You probably think of the tunnels as tiny things dug furtively in the night, just big enough for a man to wriggle through. But tunnels here are a big business. Many of them are large enough to drive a car through, which is how most vehicles  end up on the market here. The tunnels carry gravel, cements, steel, food, clothing, shoes and just just about anything else you can name.

I got a quick lesson in tunnel economics. One of the larger car-smuggling tunnels can earn a million dollars in a short time. A used car that might cost $5,000 in Canada costs $23,000 here, with most of the extra cost going to the tunnel operators. Many people have become very wealthy from the tunnels. They’re the ones buying those fine houses near the beach hotels. The money they spend is a major part of the Gaza economy.  Hamas takes its share by taxing gasoline and cigarettes that come through.

We went within a few hundred metres of some of the tunnels. You can spot them by the large tarpaulin-walled Quonset huts that cover the entrance, and the big piles of dirt out front.  Of course everyone knows about the tunnels, including the Egyptians, but everyone pretends they don’t exist. The Egyptians don’t want to spoil a good thing. They take half of the smuggling fees and have a market to unload their goods. But they officially pretend not to allow trade with Gaza, because they don’t want to find themselves in a position of being responsible for The Strip.

Finally we drove back north to the hotel district and stopped at the best seafood restaurant in the place. It was just delicious. Palestinians love to eat and the food is fabulous.

The next course starts tomorrow. It should be a good one.

John

One Course Down

Well the first course is over already. It went by in a flash. Today was a good day. It was still an uphill battle trying to persuade my trainees that it's worth being more balanced and professional in their coverage when it comes to stories involving Israeli or anything political. It was a really good discussion. They asked if Israel invaded Canada and built a wall would I still feel the same way. A fair question. I said I really didn't know, but I hoped I would still be able to do a professional job.

Then I tried to explain how unbalanced journalism doesn't win any respect from outside Palestine. If they want to be taken seriously and start to win the battle for sympathy, they have to at least appear reliable. Of course it's hard to separate your personal feelings from your professional responsibilities. And it's a valid debate to ask how far you should take that idea.

But I see it as a continuum. At one end is the perfect journalist who is always fair and balanced and dispassionate. At the other end is the writer who is nothing more that a public relations tool for political or nationalistic interests. Journalists have to try to move toward the good journalism end of the scale. The reality of their situation means they'll never get there and it might not even be a good idea to get there. But if they don't think about what they're doing and why, they'll find themselves at the other end, no longer journalists at all.

On a less serious note, I spent the evening just enjoying Ramallah. It's the first evening of a long weekend here, and families are out, just walking around, looking in shop windows and enjoying their time off. It's a family friendly place and the cobbled streets and ornate lamp posts give it an almost European feel.

There are a lot of toy stores here and they all seem to just love Spongebob Squarepants. Various incarnations of him are prominently displayed in shop windows and sidewalk displays.

I leave for Gaza at 8 tomorrow morning. Everyone here is keen to hear my impression of what it's like when I come back, because they can't get into Gaza. It should be an interesting experience.

John 

PS: You can read more about the course on the Birzeit University blog at:

http://mdc.birzeit.edu/en/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=entry&id=5&Itemid=1

Visiting the Wall

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Day Two of the course is over. It was a pretty good day. We did a couple of fun exercises involving food, designed to explain some of the psychology behind conflict and the different ways it can end. They seemed to enjoy both exercises. We also got into some good discussions

It’s interesting, but they have a real problem with being journalists first and Palestinians second. I’ve been trying to persuade them that they should be professional and neutral despite how they may feel personally. For example, I was talking about how good communications, especially through the media, is vital if you’re ever going to solve a conflict. When I asked if that applied in Palestine, they said there was no point in communicating because the Israelis will just do what they want anyway. And when we talked about use of language, I suggested they had to be careful the way they described things like the barrier between the West Bank and Israel, because many word choices reflect a political point of view. They weren’t entirely convinced. And when they found out I hadn’t seen the barrier yet (give me a break, I’ve only been here two days) they told me I should go look and see if I changed my mind.

So I took them up on the challenge. After class, I took a taxi to the Qalandia Checkpoint in East Jerusalem. When you see it, you can understand their point of view. It looks like something from a movie involving Checkpoint Charlie in the Berlin Wall. Except this wall is taller.

It’s in a grubby-looking section of Jerusalem full of auto repair shops, light industrial buildings, toy stores and cheap restaurants. Giant concrete slabs roll back over a hill and behind the buildings on one side of the street, converging on a brightly lit cage of steel bars and fences where the cars  funnel through. Someone has painted big pictures of Yasser Arafat and jailed leader Marwan Barghouti amid the graffiti that covers the wall. Pro-Palestinian slogans are spray painted on the concrete barriers that herd cars into the crossing point. I watched Israeli soldiers rooting though car trunks and questioning drivers until they shooed me away with an unfriendly gesture.

It’s hard not feel angry on the Palestinian’s behalf. The wall is an evil thing that they don’t deserve. It’s built on the myth that all Palestinians are terrorists. But it hasn’t changed my mind about being careful of the language I would use in a news story. Careless reporting perpetuates the kinds of myths that led to the wall.

On the way back, I took a mini bus (they call it a “service” here, pronounced sir-VEES) and despite my lack of a sense of direction, managed to find my way from the bus to the hotel. Jerusalem stretches out to the point that it’s hard to see where it ends and Ramallah begins. The outskirts are full of residential towers that they seem to be throwing up as fast as they can. But the part of Jerusalem that I saw is not as attractive as Ramallah. It gives more of a feeling of the sprawling city without a lot of charm. Of course, the historic area of the city, which I haven’t seen, is certain to be another thing altogether.

On the way back, I also passed one of the refugee camps. It’s a bit of misnomer. It looks like a low-rise subsidized housing complex; a bit down at the heels, but still pretty ordinary concrete residential units. I guess after all these years, it would be a surprise to see anything that looked like a conventional refugee camp.

 John

PS: You can read more about the course on the Birzeit University blog at:

http://mdc.birzeit.edu/en/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=entry&id=5&Itemid=1

 

Teaching in Ramallah

Ramallah, Tuesday, October 18, 2011

After years of hearing about Ramallah in the news, I was left with a vague impression of what the city might look like: a poor, downtrodden place marked by buildings bombed out by Israeli attacks. I was in for a surprise. The political centre of the West Bank turns out to be a lively, clean and prosperous city, a cultural hot spot with tree-lined streets that retains the charm of a place where people have lived for more than 500 years.

Getting here, however, was a less charming experience. It took an entire day to work my way through Israeli bureaucracy, pass through countless document checks and questions and hours more in taxis, buses and mini-buses to finally arrive.

The problem was that Canadians don’t normally need a visa to get into the West Bank. You just show up, get you passport stamped and go on your way. In my case, I’m also going to Gaza. That means I need a special multiple entry visa. Without it, I might get into Gaza. But I wouldn’t get out again. Israeli authorities in Amman and at the border didn’t really seem to know what to do with me. So I waited and answered questions. And waited some more and answered the same questions asked by different people.

But the only way to deal with this kind of thing is to relax and let things happen at their own pace. Once I got the visa, my faithful taxi driver Aeman, who was making a killing from my travels, drove me the hour or so to the border. Again we drove toward the Dead Sea, this time heading a little further north to the Allenby Bridge and across the Jordan River. They really should call it the Jordan Creek. At this point, so much water has been sucked from the river for irrigation and drinking that there’s barely enough to reach the Dead Sea. The flow is so small that if Jesus wanted to be baptized there today, he’d be out of luck.

From there, it was a big bus to Jericho (no city walls in evidence, standing or otherwise) and then a long wait until we got seven people to fill the minibus to Ramallah.

Today was a big day in the city. Everywhere they’re celebrating the release of the first prisoners in the exchange with Israel. I missed the action because this was also the first day of my course. It’s at Birzeit University, an attractive collection of new buildings high on a hilltop about 10 kilometres north of Ramallah. There are about 15 trainees, all recent journalism graduates or students of the university. They’re a good group, not afraid to ask questions or discuss issues.

It’s interesting to hear things from a Palestinian point of view. They are fiercely nationalistic, and I think see themselves as Palestinians first and journalists second. Journalists here face all the problems I’ve seen in many other countries: corrupt bosses, poor pay, pressure from political parties. They also have the added problems that come with the Israeli occupation: physical danger covering protests, lack of access to information from the Israeli side, and travel restrictions. Still, they are very keen to do their jobs and are interested in hearing a perspective from the outside.

While I haven’t had much time to look around Ramallah, where I’m staying, I like what I see so far. It’s built on a series of barren limestone hills and the buildings have a similar look to those in Jordan; no coincidence, since this was part of Jordan until the 1967 war. The Palestinians have put a lot of money into sprucing the place up. The streets are cluttered with traffic, but attractive and jammed with shops, restaurants and cool cappuccino bars.  It isn’t cheap here either. Housing is apparently pricey and a cappuccino and a piece of cake runs almost $10. According to Lena, a Danish employee at the university who helped organize the training, they seem to be making it into the capital city of an independent country that they hope it will one day be. There are cultural events and parties all the time. This evening I went to the Danish House In Palestine to listen to a discussion about Christian Palestinians. (Yes, there is a lively but shrinking Palestinian Christian population here. Ramallah was for many years a mostly Christian city. And yes, apparently there are a fair number of Danes as well.)

 

After the talk, I walked back to my hotel. Despite its reputation as a conflict zone, Ramallah feels very friendly and safe. The people are great too. When I was trying to figure out how to get from the Allenby Bridge to Ramallah, a helpful young Civil Engineer aimed me to the right buses and even lent me his cell phone so I could let the organizers know I was on my way. I’m told that kind of thing is common. 

Next on the agenda: Day 2 of the course and maybe some more exploration of the city.

John

Afloat on the Dead Sea

Amman, Jordon, October 16, 2011

I have never considered myself much of a swimmer. I failed “Tadpoles” -- the beginner level -- twice and I'm much more accomplished at sinking than I am at floating. But a trip to the Dead Sea today changed all that.

I got away at 9 in the morning, with the day already shaping up to be hot, clear and dry. The taxi driver, Aeman, put his cheerful disregard for the rules of the road to good use, forcing his way through the clogged streets until we finally hit an open highway heading west. My initial impression of how dry and barren this country appears was reinforced by the view from the road. Rolling brown hills cut deep by erosion stretch off in the distance, occasionally spotted by the grey-green of olive groves. Here and there small determined trees are planted along the roadside and gather in the valleys, but it’s a dry, rocky land.

After a while, the road starts a steady drop down toward the Dead Sea. It’s a long way down. At 411 metres below sea level, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on the surface of the Earth.

Eventually, things flatten out a bit and we start to see signs of farming. We’re coming to the sea from the north end, where the Jordan River runs in. This is held to be the place where Jesus was baptized, and sure enough, a blue sign points the way to the site. But we head the other way, south, on a road running parallel to the water. We pass a few fancy seaside hotels (prices are apparently in the $300-a-night range) then turn in at Amman Beach. This is a lovely public beach complex. There’s a fresh water pool and patio and changing area on the upper level. Then you head down several steps to the beach. It’s free for Jordanians, but set me back 15 jay-dees (Jordanian Dinars, for the uninitiated).

It’s not at all crowded and it’s easy to find a chair to put my towel on. The beach is rough brown sand, mixed with what I first thought was white rock, but quickly realized was solid slabs of salt. The water is crystal clear with a sandy bottom, but near the shore the sand is covered with patches of loose salt, as if it was dumped there from some giant shaker.

I wade out to about waist deep and then comes the moment I was waiting for. I lay back in the water and float like a cork. So this is what's it's like to be a swimmer! It’s so buoyant that it’s practically impossible to keep your legs down, once you’re off your feet. That’s because about a third of the water is actually salts, including bromine, magnesium and iodine. You wouldn’t want to put your face in it, but they say all those salts are good for the skin and make you relax. I certainly felt pretty mellowby the time I left.

The Dead Sea is fed by the Jordan River and various springs. Once the water gets there, it has nowhere to go, except through evaporation, leaving behind the minerals. These days, though, the Dead Sea is in trouble because so much water is diverted from the Jordan for drinking and irrigation. As a result, the surface area has shrunk by 30% in the last three decades.

For a few jay-dees more, you can slather yourself with black mud from the region, which is supposed to clear up your skin, but it didn’t seem worth it. I tried floating a few more times, then went for a fresh water swim before climbing back in the taxi for the ride home.

I’m off to the Israeli Embassy first thing tomorrow to get a visa, and hoping they can issue it the same day so the first course can start on time.

John

Arrived in Amman

Amman, Jordan, October 15, 2011

I’m in a hotel in Amman with the rather grandiose name of the Golden Tulip Palace. It’s a comfortable enough place, set just off a busy road in the north end of the city, but not as stately as the name might imply.

There was some doubt I’d even be able to get here as planned. I was booked to fly out on Thursday on Air Canada, the very day flight attendants were due to go on strike. Government intervention prevented the strike (I suspect they didn’t do it for my benefit; I didn’t vote for them), but I left extra early for the airport, expecting some kind of delay. Instead it turned out to be the fastest and smoothest trip from home to the boarding gate that I can remember. The flight was only half full, so I was able to sleep through most of the first leg to London stretched across three seats.

I arrived around 9 in the morning in London and with a few hours to kill until the final leg of the flight, I took the express train to Paddington. It’s a fantastic service that once again reminds me how backward and colonial we are in Toronto when it comes to building a decent transit system. I went wandering around the streets near Paddington and soon came across Kensington Gardens, built in 1738. It was a perfect day; sunny, warm and with a slight breeze rippling the surface of the Serpentine, a long narrow lake built as part of the park project. I walked through to Hyde Park and saw the Diana, Princess of Wales Fountain. It’s not a fountain in the usual sense, but rather a large circle of carved stone set in the grass, with water running in two directions and meeting at a little waterfall chiseled into the rock.

Getting through the trip from London to Amman was a bit more challenging, as I was determined to stay awake and adapt to the different time zone. There was a last-minute change of planes and a few other delays, but I arrived at the hotel around 11 p.m. Staying awake during the long taxi ride in from the airport was no problem considering the way people drive here. The highways are good, but the local driving customs bring home the meaning of “inshallah.” As far as drivers are concerned, lane markings are a suggestion only, turn signals are for sissies and leaving a couple of feet between your car and the one in front of you is a waste of good space.

There is some evidence that things are not quite as peaceful in the city as they appear. My hotel has a barrier across the driveway. A security guard does a check for explosive residue on the car, using a swipe pad and an electronic analyzer. Then there’s an X-ray machine at the door to check suitcases, and a metal detector to check patrons. But they seem fairly nonchalant about the whole thing, usually waving me through without a second look. I guess I have an honest face.

This morning I took a taxi to the Israeli Embassy. As it turns out, the embassy is closed until Monday. Since it can take a day to get a visa, we might not be able to start the first course in West Bank on Tuesday as planned. I called one of the sponsors. After some conferring, they suggest that I hold tight and go to the embassy first thing Monday and hope they’ll be able to process the visa immediately. We shall see.

With no particular plans and a need to stay awake, I went wandering around the area on foot.  It is a beautiful day with temperatures in the 30s, low humidity and not a cloud in the sky. Amman appears to be booming. There are many large lots that have recently been bulldozed clean, waiting for new buildings to sprout. Several towers are under construction.

I’m in what appears to be an upper-middle class neighbourhood, made of condos or apartments a few stories high, mixed in with the odd single family place. The popular style is to face the buildings with pale sandstone, often worked to have a pebbled surface. It’s not surprising, since the city appears to be built on the same kind of rock. Buildings are closely packed with little evidence of gardens or back yards and there are relatively few trees. Altogether, it gives the impression of a dry, sun baked city.

At lunch, I walked down to a nearby shopping area. It’s crammed with little stores selling clothes, shoes, purses and jewelry. They all seem to have exactly the same things. Then in front of the stores are rows of street hawkers, selling cheaper Chinese versions of clothes, shoes, purses and jewelry, along with a few gaudy plastic toys.

I had lunch at a little shawarma place, eating at a plastic table by the sidewalk. It was delicious and cheap at just a little more than 1 Jordanian Dinar (or jay-dee, as we locals say).

The rest of the day I read over my notes for the first day of class, read a book and struggled to stay awake, with mixed success. It’s now dinner time (restaurants seem to start serving at about 7 p.m. here).  I’ve got no other plans for tonight, but I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Aeman, the taxi driver who took me to the Israeli embassy this morning, offered a decent price for driving to the Dead Sea, waiting a couple of hours and driving me back. So I’m off tomorrow at 9 to see if you really can float as effortlessly as it looks in the pictures.

John