Leaving Nablus

The month of April saw my time in Nablus come to an end, and a chance for one final trip around the West Bank and Israel before departing on the 29th April. Nablus had become a very comfortable place for me to live by April. I continued to teach at the university a couple of times a week, teach a bit of guitar to some enthusiastic students, forget all the Arabic I would learn within 24 hours, and instinctively play the oud like a guitar, despite the patient reminders from my teacher Ali to play the oud like an oud.

I also had the opportunity to run in a marathon in Bethlehem, well, 10km of the marathon. I was probably more unfit than I had been in ten years, but I managed to finish the race. It was a special event to be apart of; only in the West Bank would a marathon involve running through refugee camps alongside an enormous security wall, dodging cars driving through the runners and witnessing a bus block off all surrounding traffic after rear-ending itself reversing down a steep concrete hill. I think, too, only in the West Bank would a marathon need to be two laps of a half marathon due to organisers being incapable of finding 42 continuous kilometres of Palestinian land. You can read about the race here: http://palestinemarathon.com/

No marathon preparation is complete without a quick stop off at Taybeh brewery the day before the race. Taybeh is Palestine's only beer, and it is pretty good.

Andre at the start line the night before the race, visualising what is to come.

The West Bank side of the separation wall, in Bethlehem.

Palestinian street graffiti on the separation wall. 

Some young Palestinians who insisted on me taking a photo of them. 

A few of us also had the opportunity to celebrate passover in a Samaritan village. Nablus is home to the remaining Samaritans, being the location of their holy site - Mount Gerazim. On arriving to the village we were very quickly invited to the house of a local Samaritan leader, and it was interesting to hear his account of their people. Samaritans see themselves as Arab, and use Arabic as their first language. They follow the first five books of the Bible - the Torah, but do not follow the remaining 33 books of the Hebrew Bible. They see Mount Gerazim as a holy site rather than Jerusalem. They are a small community who intermarry, and recognising that this is thinning the blood a bit too much they have began 'importing' girls from countries such as the Ukraine. They have lived peacefully alongside the Muslims and Christians of Nablus for centuries, and there is no hint of zionism in their thinking. They also celebrate a fairly brutal passover, which involves the lighting of fire pits, the sharpening of knives, the dragging of sheep, the singing of songs, and, eventually, a considerable amount of blood. It is one of those festivals that sounds good to attend in theory, but is not particularly nice to witness when you are there. Witnessing it we did though, and while most visitors had to watch from afar behind iron fences, we were allowed into the inner sanctuary of the celebration, reserved for special guests and Samaritans. How, you ask? The owner of the nearby Samaritan pub, the only pub in Nablus, saw us and invited us in. I guess we did frequent the pub quite often...

Waiting for the festival to commence in the village - the anticipation...

This was a strange sight - a sheep being dragged to the slaughter. It was scarily human like. 

This kid started questioning the fate of his new friend. 

This lady is ready for action - notice the cleaver coming out of her pocket. The sheep looks on with great fear.

Singing is a big part of the event. This man is singing Culture Club's 'Do You Really Want to Hurt Me' over a Karaoke backing track. 

Some local Samaritans discuss the slaughter that is taking place in front of them.

Inappropriate selfie. 

Nablus is a beautiful city, and it was sad to say goodbye. But I had a flight to Istanbul on the 29th April, along with plans to head East to Iraqi Kurdistan for 2 months, and I wanted to spend a bit of time traveling before I departed, so on the 18th of April I packed my bags and headed to Jerusalem with a few friends. Over the course of my stay I developed some pretty strong political feelings, but there is more to Nablus than just politics, and I want to do it justice. One of the best things about Nablus is that it has avoided the aggressive and dishonest nature that tourism had created in locations such as Jerusalem and Bethlehem. People in Nablus did not see you as a walking wallet, or an opportunity to charge exorbitant prices. If people you didn't know invited you into their shop for tea, it was because they wanted to give you a cup of tea. If people charged you ten shekels for a taxi ride, it was because that was the cost of the ride for anybody (sure, there were exceptional stories I occasionally heard, but very rare). It is a safe and friendly city in which people enjoy being affectionate to each other. I had my fair share of hospitality over the course of my stay, which was often very humbling.

There are many people I will miss. It was sad to say goodbye to Ali, whom I visited often to teach guitar and learn the oud, and whose open door policy led to an interesting home environment of many comings and goings. I will miss the many intelligent and insightful students I taught at An Najah Academia, and I pray Palestine finds a way to use the talent it has within its walls, for unemployment and brain drain is rife. In particular I will miss Sala, the only person I could find as excited to see The new Noah film as I was (not that it will ever play at a theatre in Palestine). I will also miss my adult English class, who called me Mr Jon and took me out for Kanafa and defended me when one local decided we shouldn't be eating together. I will miss the senseless use of horns and the preference to scrape one's car alongside a wall in absurd passing maneuver down a narrow alleyway rather than to reverse to a more appropriate spot to allow a car to go past you. Well, maybe not that. I did develop some pretty strong feelings about the gender inequalities in Palestine, and I did, on occasions, find the surge of conservatism throughout Palestine disheartening. But the kindness and natural generosity of the people of Nablus is my lasting impression, and if I could sing the praises of any city throughout Israel or Palestine, it would be Nablus.