There isn't a mission. There isn't a goal. It's just words on fake paper, sliding and tripping and flowing all over the place, because we're all full up on words in here and there is no way we can keep them inside. Like Tony says, "Nothing in here is true."

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Thoughts on My First Visit to Jerusalem

I came to Jerusalem to train some NGO people on using the media for something or other. The trainings are going well. Jerusalem is a strange place.

On the Nature of Time: The people here obviously live in a parallel universe, where every assumption has a caveat designed to make life more complicated and difficult to manage. I'm here during the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah (started last night) and the Muslim month of Ramadan (starts tonight). These two holidays represent the beginning of new years on each religion's calendar. They also represent the end of daylight savings time, roughly. Except the Arab's I'm meeting with in the West Bank are falling back tomorrow, while Jerusalem and the rest of Israel is falling back Saturday. I can go back in time as long as I can get through the Israeli checkpoints into Ramallah.

On Explosions: The odds were very slim that I would encounter anything like a real explosion of any kind while I was here. Jerusalem probably hasn't had a bombing in a few years. But because I am naturally paranoid, I must remind myself relentlessly of this fact, and walk around the city freely repeating like a prayer under my breath "nothing will explode." Therefore, when I diesel truck starts just as I'm walking by, and I jump half out of my shoes, it is from preparation that I am jumping, not fear.

On Explosions II: My second night here, traffic was very bad crossing Jerusalem. The roads, which normally function at capacity, were suddenly buckling under more cars than they could bear. The reason was that two mysterious packages were found and destroyed in controlled explosions by Israeli police. As I listened to this story at dinner, I remembered sitting in my room after my training and hearing what sounded like an explosion through the opened window. I dismissed it as more of my paranoia. Who's paranoid now?

On a Backpack: Today I went to explore Jerusalem's Old City. I've been to other open-air markets in the Arab World -- most notably Khan el-Khalili in Cairo -- and the Old City isn't much different from it. It's like Khan el-Khalili with the most important sites of three major religions sprinkled here and there, seemingly at random. There are tons and tons of useless cheap Chinese-manufactured junk, acres of fresh fruits and vegetables, complete with incredibly loud hawkers who wail the price and quantity of their wares at startling volume. My favorite piece of Chinese crap was a backpack with a picture of Snoopy and the word "Spoony," like he was America's favorite beagle, and he loved to cuddle.

On the Old City: The most compelling characteristic of the Old City is its mystery. There is no signage to speak of, no way for ordinary people to maneuver without whipping out a map and inviting aggressive targeting by beggars, shop-keepers and rolling limes from the fruit market. I decided on a system where I would walk aimlessly until I found a store with something cheap enough I wouldn't mind buying it. Better still would be if I wanted said item. Anyhow, I would go in, and buy whatever, and then use this exchange as an excuse to ask directions. This was a good plan except for two problems: 1) I am bad at following directions; 2) these directions make exactly no sense whatsoever. To find the Holy Sepulcher, an Armenian man told me to take a left and another left, presumably at "streets." I bought a photograph from him. I bought fabric from a man who told me to make two rights, "go something of five meters" and make a left to find the Dome of the Rock. Hours passed and by the time I bought a very expensive bottle of water to get fresh directions, I was told it had closed for the night. The two lefts in fact took me directly to the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher.

On the Whimsical Nature of the Location of Things: I found the Holy Sepulcher and went inside. Truthfully, I wasn't really thinking as I headed over there what exactly old Sepulcher really was. Of course, this is the church built on the ruins of the very place where Jesus crucified, and where he was interred after said crucifiction. This is a very serious place. It is two lefts from an Armenian photo shop. Following these directions, you approach this church from the left, or, as I'll randomly assign it, from the East. There is a large courtyard where exhausted pilgrims breath. heavily and lounge on two thousand year old rocks. On leaving the Sepulchre, I notice a small passageway on the right, or, as I've randomly decided, the West side of the courtyard. I pass through this passage, and arrive in a spot I stood an hour before, COMPLETELY UNAWARE THAT THE FINAL RESTING PLACE OF CHRIST WAS TEN FEET AWAY.

On Approaching the Final Resting Place of the Human Form of Jesus Christ: I approached it completely unawares, and found before me a stone tablet not roped off and protected from people and the elements, but rather touched, kissed, fondled and kissed again by all manner of people. Pasty Europeans toting plastic bags loaded with who-knows-what from market stalls right outside were besotted at the site of the stone tablet on which Jesus was laid in the tomb alleged to hold him for a mere three days. There are no signs inside the Holy Sepulchre not in Greek. I only knew this was, in fact, a resting-place stone because a gigantic mosaic directly behind the slab portrayed a dead Jesus laying on a stone slab. I was not prepared for any of this, and I leaned casually against the wall accidentally checking out the underpants of prostrate Christians and wondered what the fuss was about the slab. Then I noticed the mosaic.

On Touring the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: From the Jesus slab, a visitor can walk around the church if one wishes to increase one's own befuddlement. There are alcoves in which beautifully detailed mosaics of Mary, Jesus and other biblical luminaries are installed, often over a jumble of Greek letters and perhaps a display case carefully illuminating a piece of rock, or a different piece of rock. There are several of these as you encircle what is clearly the centerpiece of the whole shebang, the tomb of Christ. Here, more tourists, with unattractive t-shirts, matching badges advertising their tour company (presumably so they aren't inadvertently subsumed onto another tour and sent back to a different country by accident), and noisy collections of shopping bags again congeal. A priest is singing to his followers and the rest of us while an enormously loud but completely concealed pipe organ blaringly joins him for the chorus. Then he stops, and a soft-spoken British priest tells the people that their introduction is complete (in Latin?) and now, four at a time, they may enter the tomb of Christ. An African Franciscan monk steps in to handle crowd control. Immediately, there is nearly a fight between a disorderly Russian tour group clearly attempting to cut in line (they didn't even listen to the singing/organ combo!) and an extremely orderly German group waiting in a line with fanny packs and some walking sticks.

On the Streets in the Old City: Like the other ancient city/open air bazaars I have visited, Jerusalem's Old City has an extremely loose definition of the word "streets." Streets are essentially any passageway navigable by something as large as a housecat, or larger. And there are cats here, slinking down impossibly narrow shafts and looking at you as if to say, "too fat for this "street" idiot?"

On the Very Nature of Oldness: This is one of the world's oldest places. There is so much oldness here, the age of things seems to be taken for granted. Oldness is worn by buildings in America in grand style. The floors creek reverentially and most everything is protected from humans by velvet ropes, plexiglass or signs that explain we're not to use flash photography. Nothing gets to be old in this way in Jerusalem. Probably such restrictions would put half the city off limits. Pilgrims slobber freely on Jesus's own cold stone. God knows what they do in side the tomb. I stumbled upon some Coptic church (seemed important), and was directed to go look at the cistern where holy water is drawn. It's a good echo chamber. Trash floats in the water, and what looks like a campfire, or arson, is evident across the open space above the water. Ancient churches across Jerusalem sport television antenna like midwestern homes in the fifties.

Two cell phones. Cheap/easy
Garbage
Semantics Wall, Palestine, Jerusalem

No comments: