Middle East - Anthony Ham [12]
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For a great beach read, pick up Israeli author David Grossman’s novel, The Zigzag Kid, which tells the story of a 12-year-old boy’s trials and adventures on the eve of his Bar Mitzvah. Grossman is one of Israel’s most successful authors in translation and has also published several children’s books.
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We reach the shoreline and I sink my toes into the sand. The ladies resume their squawking, I stretch out in my sarong and the children head for the open sea. A bronzed waiter appears. ‘Chips for six, please,’ I smile. He raises an eyebrow. ‘And a margarita for their hard-working mother.’
Amelia Thomas
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PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
A Light in the Darkness
On the road as a Lonely Planet author and journalist in the West Bank and Gaza, it often seems that the scales are balanced precariously between the good and the bad. There was the Christmas tree–lighting ceremony in Bethlehem’s Manger Sq, beneath a magical snow flurry. The time, during Israel’s Gaza disengagement of 2005, when I found myself holed up with a group of armed Jewish militant settlers inside an abandoned old hotel. An afternoon spent with the head of the militant Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in restive Jenin refugee camp. The cold beers sipped at Taybeh Brewery’s happy hilltop Oktoberfest. The hours I queued pregnant at the Erez checkpoint after researching the Gaza Strip, hoping I wouldn’t go into labour before complacent soldiers allowed me back into Israel.
Sometimes, when the scales seem to be tilting in favour of the bad, I remember a trip I took into the scruffy Aida Refugee Camp, on the outskirts of Bethlehem, where one determined man has made a difference to a generation of children’s lives.
‘Welcome!’ Abdelfattah Abu Srour greeted me with a grin. ‘Come on in!’
In Aida camp it’s hard to imagine that anyone spends much time smiling. Immured behind Israel’s ‘security wall’ and subjected to frequent military incursions, it’s a place of concrete, curfews and barbed wire. But Abdelfattah has pledged to make life better for the kids of the camp, creating the Al Rowwad theatre centre as a stage on which to set free their everyday frustrations.
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Get hold of a copy of Growing Up Palestinian: Israeli Occupation and the Intifada Generation by Laetitia Bucaille, for a glimpse into the lives of young Palestinians who have never experienced the world outside their refugee-camp homes.
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That afternoon I wandered its small rooms watching children rehearsing a new play, with Abdelfattah their diligent director. Other kids were taking music lessons, working on computers and surfing the internet. The centre is a blazing light in an otherwise dark world, providing hope and happiness for dozens of Palestinian children. We drank a cup of coffee. I listened to Abdelfattah’s dreams for the centre’s future and I knew that while people like him are hard at work ensuring children can continue to dream, the scales haven’t tipped too far in the wrong direction.
Amelia Thomas
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LEBANON
Breakfast on mt Lebanon
It’s early morning in the Mt Lebanon Ranges and I’m standing in a forgotten field that’s full of ancient Greek ruins, en route to the ancient Lebanese port town of Byblos. Gunshots ring out in the clear morning air, echoing through ancient temple archways as I pick my way across the desolate, rock-studded site. Not another soul is in sight. Bang. Bang, bang. The volley is getting louder. Lebanon is a relatively peaceful place just now; I’ve picked a lull between political assassinations, Palestinian gun battles and Hezbollah upheavals. But still, I’m five months pregnant and in Lebanon you never know what’s lurking around the