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Eating with the peeps
Adri never misses a chance to eat. These guys were cleaing up the remains of the burned down restaurant.Ok, so the rumour is true. Nablus DOES have the best Kanafeh in the world and it's totally worth the effort of getting into this fortified city. To get to our next interviews, we had to leave our car and the checkpoint and walk across. No cars are allowed to drive in. We found a great cab driver to take us to the meeting and pick up up after. On our way to the interview meeting place, he pointed out a local resuarant that , the previous day, had just been burned down by the IDF. We stopped to take pictures and and some video footage. (by the way, we have been shooting a behind the scenes documentary of this years program). A group of neighbors had come out to support the owner by cleaning and rebuilding the restaurant. they were taking a break to get a bite to eat, and with usual Palestinian hospitality, invited us to eat with them. Adri, being Adri, jumped at the chance and sat with them eating.
The interviews were again really amazing. This city is very well known for it's resistance to the occupation, and fighting breaks out on a very regular basis
Break time
Taking a break form the clean up to eat. here. (We were told by locals to be extremely careful as there are snipers all over the hills and one wrong turn...) In all the interviews, one of the questions we are asking of the Palestinians is "what do you think Palestinians should be doing more of to advance peace (when interviewing Israeli's we ask them what they think Israelis should be dong more of). When I asked this question, the look on some of their faces was incredulous. Have I said how hard it's going to be to select the youth this year????
After the interviews, we drove around the city and walked through the souk filming. The city is built on the side of 2 mountains. the area is breathtaking. The feeling is in the air was one of fear and skepticism. Fortunatly we had a local guide and Adri speaks Arabic. Once they knew we were not a threat, the hospitality was sometimes overwhelming. As we walked past shops, they all gave us free food - katief (a pancake-like dessert), halawa, falafel, bread, etc. Then we went for the piece de resistance - Konafeh!!!! Ok, so for those of you that have never tasted konafeh, or
don't know what it is, it looks and sounds gross. The bottom of it is cheese (mozarella like cheese) and on top is a pastry-type crust (maybe the consistency of cous cous). Poured over it is orange colored suger syrup. I know, sounds gross - but honestly it's really good. It's so well known, we had to bring a 5 kilo plate back for the family. As well, bread has become very expensive in the village, so we brought bags of bread home. Now, you have to picture the three of us crossing back over the checkpoint - back packs, 3 cameras, bags of bread, and a huge plate of konafeh. When we get to the solidier, he questions us as to why we had gone into Nablus and what we were carrying. Adri told him simply - we went for the best konafeh in the world! He had never heard of this, so he asked if he could see this 'best konafej in the world!", so we opened the packeage for him to see. We didn't offer any though 😊 I think he thought we were a little crazy?
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