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Published: June 25th 2007
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After a week’s worth of doctor’s visits and more than $1,000 worth of supplies, I’ve finally managed to book my flight to Nairobi. It’s an emotional moment, less for the unparalleled possibilities of six months in Africa than the irrefutable fact that my bank account has dwindled down to just a couple of hundred bucks. How I’ve reached this point is worth no small degree of speculation; how I can high-tail it in the other direction is, of course, of somewhat more pressing import. I’ve shared the good news of my impending departure with friends in Jerusalem, though I’ve kept to myself the less-savory truth that I’ll be learning what it means to live in Africa on an African budget.
I meet an American one night at a café in Nachalat Shiv'a, a tall, ruddy Southerner who’s spent the past decade living on the Costa del Sol. He has the vigorous color of someone who’s passed more than a few afternoons on the beaches of Marbella, and sure enough, as we plow through a couple of Carlsbergs, he admits that he’s already - at the ripe young age of 45 - found his way to an early retirement.
He alludes cryptically to a few fortunate business transactions in the ‘90s, his tone so understated you’d think he was describing the in-flight menu on El Al.
It takes a while for him to warm up to the exuberance you’d expect from a guy who hasn’t worked a day since he turned 34. When he sees I’m reading a book on Africa his eyes light up: he’s spent much of his retirement jetting around the continent, most recently during a jaunt to Rwanda in February. He goes off on long, rapturous tangents about the wildlife in Kenya, and his dreams to one day make the perilous overland trip to the Congolese capital of Kinshasa. I mention that I’d be happy to make it all the way to Cape Town in one piece, while he offers assurances that I’ll be fine, so long as I make fast tracks out of Nairobi before dusk on day one.
And there are still these last days in Jerusalem to take care of. I spend a morning walking through the Old City and then trudging to the top of the Mount of Olives. There are Christians milling outside the Garden of Gethsemane; they’re
closed for lunch till half-past two. Tour buses are idling in front of the Tomb of the Virgin Mary, where a few women in straw hats are fanning themselves in the shade. A couple of taxi drivers offer to take me to Bethlehem for an exorbitant price. One wants to show me around Ramallah for fifty bucks: he’ll take me to the place where they buried Arafat, and make sure I don’t get harassed by the Fatah guards who are busily locking down the West Bank.
I walk along a hill-side road winding above East Jerusalem. There are women hanging their laundry and gathering grape leaves, and a young boy kicking a bright pink ball against a set of steps. Another rushes up and grabs me by the wrist; he wants to sell me a sprig of thyme, then offers it as a gift when I refuse his price. After twenty minutes I reach the “separation fence” - a long, bleak barrier separating the city from the West Bank. It’s 30-feet high with angry snarls of barbed wire coiled along the top. People have scrawled graffiti along its length: “This wall is a shame on the Jewish people, on
my people.” “Seattle supports Palestine.” “Scotland supports Palestine.” And perhaps most eloquently of all: “Balls to walls.”
I meet a young Palestinian, a twenty-something with scruff on his chin and soft brown eyes. “
Ahlan,” he says, offering a hand. “Welcome.” He asks why I’ve come, while a few others gather around with frank, inquisitive eyes. Two young boys are kicking a soccer ball back and forth on the gravelly street. Now and then one revs up and gives a mighty punt, so that the ball sends a long, arcing shadow across the barbed wire. I tell them I’ve come to see the wall and they nod judiciously. The young guy asks, “What do you think?” in a tone that’s ringing with pathos. I suspect we both know what my answer will be, but there’s a sense that he needs to hear me say it with my own voice: to hear an American recognize this injustice, to affirm that the whole world hasn’t gone mad.
He tells me he lives in the West Bank, just a five-minute drive from where we’re standing, but each day he has to pass through the checkpoint on his way to university in Jerusalem.
He shakes his head sadly while a few others point accusing fingers at the soldier up the road. Then a horn honks and he presses my hand: his ride’s here, and he has to go. He wishes me luck and says “Thank you” as he gets into the car. Then the two boys run off, chasing their ball down the street.
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