Days 11, 12 & 13 - After a busy weekend behind us and an even busier weekend ahead of us, my mother and I rested in Ramallah for a couple of days. A had rescheduled another tour at the City of David so I left work early on the third day to ensure that mom and I had plenty of time to get to Jerusalem without getting caught at the checkpoint. Although we did have to get off the bus again (which turns out is a new rule at Qalandiya - the Israelis have a tendency to make them up as they go), the line was nowhere as long as it was the previous Friday. We made it to the Old City with ample time to spare so we hung out in the Western Wall plaza for awhile - which acutally ended up being the closest I had ever come to it - watching people coming and going and Jews praying and reading. We then walked outside the walls to find the entrance to the City of David. One thing that struck me about this place was the copious amounts of settlers with guns. I'm talking regular citizens walking around with huge AK-47s strapped to their backs. It was a bit unnerving to say the least.
The City of David is located just south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque outside the walls of the Old City. It is basically a large ongoing archaelogical dig and is claimed to be where King David first established Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A huge controversy lies around the excavations as the space was once occupied by Palestinians but has been slowly taken over by Jewish settlers. In addition, the Palestinian village of Silwan which is on the hills surrounding the City of David is under threat of being torn down for the sake of excavations.
The tour was led by a young, enthusiastic Jewish man who really loved his job. He did his best to stay neutral while explaining the significance of the place and answered questions carefully when confronted with a touchy subject. An example is when a middle-aged Canadian woman told him about how her and her husband accidentally got lost and drove through an Arab area of Silwan. She made it sound like it was the worst possible thing to happen to her. The tour guide asked again what road she was on and upon hearing the answer he said that "he loves driving that road and finds it very beautiful." Earlier she had asked if the City of David was safe since it was surrounded by an Arab village. He told her "yes of course."

All in all the tour was time well spent as it was interesting and well conducted, not to mention some of the excavations were amazing to see. Afterwards we made our way back to the windy, narrow, market-filled streets of the Old City, drank some over-priced sahlab, and went to the Notre Dame Centre for a very disappointing dinner before heading back to Ramallah for the night.

Day 14 - Mom came into work with me and brought along her beaded bracelets that she has been making. She sat at S's desk as he was away in Nablus for a meeting. Amira, who is our cleaner/cook at the office, like many other poor Palestinian women makes traditional embroidery to earn money. She always sits in the room next door and works on her craft projects without a sound. However, this day she was extremely curious in what my mom was doing; curious enough to grab a chair, bring her embroidery in, and sit right next to my mother. Now Amira doesn't speak any English, but somehow it was not needed because mom and her just sat there and worked on their crafts together the rest of the day.It was such a beautiful moment!!

On our way home I took my mom to Zeit ou Za'atar; one of my favorite restaurants in Ramallah. They make amazing manakeesh, which is freshly baked dough (kind of like pizza) with all sorts of fillings. Look at that spread!! So good!!