Palestine: The West Bank

It's been a long time since my last post on here, but the past few weeks have been some of the busiest days of my life (even more so than spring sing week, it's crazy!) The past five nights in particular traveling every day to a new city have been insane. We spent the first two of those nights at a home stay in the West Bank near Bethlehem. 

We arrived in Bethlehem on Friday, toured the Church of the Nativity (but didn't get to go down to the cave, still bitter), then we were picked up by our host families. Most of us stayed in groups of two or four. Three other guys and I was picked up by this 26 year old Palestinian named Awad, and he was so much fun! In the beginning I felt like a preview day student or something being shown around the city and his house. Awad lives with his mother and 18 year old sister. We had breakfasts and dinner with them, and spend our daylight hours with the team going around the West Bank with our Palestinian guide Ayman. We visited Herodium and Bethlehem on Friday, then on saturday we spent the morning in Hebron.

Hebron

Hebron isn't the safest place, in fact it's one of the cities with the greatest tention in the entire West Bank. While most Israeli settlements in the West Bank are located just outside of Arab cities, this settlement is right smack in the middle. There are 400 settlers with 1,500 soldiers protecting them. Needless to say, there is a lot of fighting in Hebron. We visited a mosque that was the location of a massacre in 1994 when a crazy ideological Israeli settler walked into the mosque and opened fired during Islamic prayer: killing 29, injuring 125. The building is actually half mosque and half synagog and sits on top of the Cave of the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are all believed to be buried there. This was actually the first mosque I have ever been in and it was really fascinating. The girls on our trip had to put on these cloaks that made them look like witches! After Hebron we went back to Bethlehem and visited the Shepherds Field, believed to be where the angles appeared to the Shepherds.  

Cave of the Patriarchs. 

We also spent some time walking around Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem. This was a very moving experience seeing the camp and the displacement of so many people. We walked along the West Bank fence, or in the case of where we were walking, the wall. It was giant. Most of the border is a fence, but where there is a history of violence or shootings through the fence, the Israeli government built a wall. 

View of Bethlehem from my home stay room

We ended our stay in Bethlehem at a hookah bar restaurant called the Shepherds Valley restaurant, Awad's uncle owns the place. It was the best hookah I have ever had! The bowl was made out of a hollowed out apple and it lasted over two and a half hours! We were eventually joined by four more guys from our team under sad circumstances, but we had such a fun last night with Awad drinking local beers and smoking hookah! I really wish we could have stayed longer with him and his family. We had so many great conversations with them about what it's like to live as a Palestinian in the West Bank and about their political views. I learned a lot in only a few hours of conversation from both Awad and his mom. I already miss them! We had our frist home cooked meals in months there and I hope to one day see them again.