December 24 - Best of the West Bank, by Aimee

On Christmas Eve, we went on a tour around the West Bank, a Palestinian territory that is part of Israel.  This was definitely one of my favorite tours.  We started out in Ramallah, a big financial city in Palestine, and we had tea and some bread with goat cheese and Zatar (an Arab spice).  It is like a bagel but with Arab pizza toppings.  We then walked through an Arab market, had some large Mandarin oranges, then visited the tomb of Arafat, a highly-esteemed Palestinian leader who was killed, some people say he was poisoned, but he was most likely assasinated (it remains a mystery how he died).  After that we took the long ride to Jericho, the oldest known city in history.  We visited the ruins but there was not much to see as they were really old ruins and broken down.   We did get to see the palaces and places where people lived.  It was not from the Bible time, although.  We did not get to see the walls of Jericho either because there were no ruins left of them.  The tour of Jericho was quite secular (from an Arab perspective) so they did not mention the story of Joshua, and they talked about how the ruins had disproved that Jericho was around at the Canaanite time.  After that we went back on the bus and tried some Jericho dates which were really good.  We also visited a baptism site where Jesus may have been baptized.  However, we visited the other spot where he was most likely baptised on our past trip to Jerusalem. After this, we went to our last stop which was Bethlehem.  It was super crowded because it was Christmas Eve and there was a huge Christmas parade.  The patriarchs of Israel (leaders of the different branches of the churches) were also going to come so the area and it was crowded with people.  We stayed there a bit and got a glimpse of the patriarchs and then we went to lunch.  Lunch was really good; it was chicken with sauteed onions and purple cabbage on this pita bread.  After lunch we briefly visited the Church of the Nativity.  After that we headed out of Manger Square on our bus.  We stopped really quickly at an Arab dessert shop where we had a dessert called kanafeh (picture down below).  It is a lot like cheesecake with a layer of sweet crust on the top and bottom with some pistachios and in between is a layer of pure sweet cheese.  The cheese had a lot of oil in it.  It was super sweet and rich.  After that our last stop was the wall which separates the West Bank from the rest of Israel.  There was a lot of graffiti artwork which was pretty cool.  My sisters also got to graffiti their names on the wall.  I did not want to because I did not want to get in trouble with the Israeli police, if the found out that we had gratified.  We headed back to Israel past the checkpoint and that was the end of our tour.

Monument in Ramallah for some Palestinian people who tried to raise their flag but got shot and killed

Us eating the bread and tea

We saw this on the way to Arafat's memorial.  We thought this was funny because it means holy war corn

Plagiarism?

Dad with a guard at Arafat's tomb

Kate with a guard at Arafat's tomb

Arafat's tomb

This fountain is the spring of Elisha

Entrance to the ruins of old Jericho.  Elisha changed the salty water to fresh water (2 Kings 2) and there are taps to the side of the fountain where you can get this formerly salty water.  We tried it

Mosiac in Jericho (lowest place on Earth)

Ruins in Jericho.  Some of the layers of these ruins are 10,000 years old.  This was part of a guard house on one of the city walls

One of two baptism sites where people think Jesus was baptized (no one is completely sure).  The stairs were covered by water.  On the other side of this river (you can see the wooden structure in this picture) is the country of Jordan.  If Jesus was baptized at this site on the Jordan River (rather than the other proposed site just south of the Sea of Galilee), there is disagreement whether Jesus approached this location from the side that is currently Israel or the Jordan side.  Other people came to this location from the Jordan side and we could see them across this narrow river

A better picture:  This was the Jordan River, so on the other side was Jordan

Our family at the Jordan River

Really nice graffti art in Bethlehem

A famous graffiti picture in Bethlehem (throwing flowers, not bombs)

Manger Square looking toward shops and businesses, including a favourite place where we ate falafel a few times

Us looking at the parade and crowds, waiting for the patriarchs to come

A yummy lunch!  Pita with chicken and purple cabbage and coke

Life-sized nativity scene in the courtyard of the Church of the Nativity.  We couldn't figure out who the woman on the right was supposed to represent

Our tour guide bought us Santa hats in Bethlehem

Kanafeh - a special traditional dessert we had in Bethlehem

The wall between Israel and and the West Bank covered with graffiti art

Elizabeth is "vandalizing"

Elizabeth with her graffitied name

Kate writing 'Merry Christmas'

Stories of people's experiences of this wall and its impact on their lives

Here is an example of one of the stories