Fathya dresses me up in a "thob" of her mother's

Haja Sharifa, one of the oldest residence of Abu Dis, remembers when it was just a short walk to Jerusalem before the wall cut off the road and she used to go there to sell her cheese in the market. She has bitter memories of both the British and the Israeli occupation but still looks forward to a free Palestine.

This is a view from the balcony of the guest house over Jerusalem at sunset.

The weather the last couple of days has been glorious - beautifully sunny and warm. Unfortunately the guest house faces north so it is difficult to know what to put on in the morning as it always feels cold inside. So I layer up only to find that I'm stripping off as soon as I go outside.

Yesterday afternoon was the first birthday of Jamila's first grandson Fathi. So this was a reason for a big family party to which I was invited. A huge spread of delicious food, balloons and an enormous cake. Little Fathi was the centre of attention and he was so cool - being held aloft by all his uncles and grandfather while the birthday song was sung - so completely unphased by the fuss and the people. The palestine family is so important and quite often each family within the extended family have separate houses but close to each other. Jamila lives just next to her son's family and and across the road from her sister, whom we went to visit later after the party.

Her sister's son, Hamam, was home for the weekend from the rehabilitation centre where he is recovering from very serious brain injuries inflicted on him by "rubber" bullets fired by an Israeli soldier. He is just a young guy of 18 years and he was involved in a protest against the Israeli agression in Gaza when he was shot in the head, the bullet going straight through his skull, apparently taking a fragment of his brain out with it on its tragectory. It was uncertain whether he was going to live but the body is quite remarkable in its ability to heal and although he is having difficulties with his speech and muscular control he is improving week by week. A lovely guy with great spirit - due to take his final school exams this year.

Today, Saturday, we met as the women's group. We are planning an event for international women's day to run concurrently with the one at Calthorpe. Like Calthorpe we are basing it around growing and planting for the garden. We are thinking to ask women to bring seeds, plants and possibly a tree as we don't have funds to buy stuff. We talked about the infertile and dry soil in the garden and N'ama suggested we get some good sheep manure from her home. So we all trouped round to her house. She lives in the old part of Abu Dis in an old house made of clay with domed roofs. Najah took some photos and I will try to insert a picture later.

School starts at 8am so tomorrow I must be up and ready to leave by 7.30 am as I will spend the morning at the UN school. So I will sign off for today.

The Wall, the Prisoners' Museum, Al Quds University and the Arab Institute

Yesterday began with a tour of the wall and the Prisoners' Museum. I met up with Abed, our "tour Guide" and also Salah Ayaad, an elder of Abu Dis together with Christian group (I mentioned in an earlier blog) at 9am in Azeria. We saw how the main road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem has been cut by the wall, there no longer being a direct route but lengthy diversions around. Consequently what had been a thriving commercial centre has become blighted with abandoned shops. We viewed other parts of the wall where single houses as well as whole village communities had been divided off leaving some people on the west side (Jerusalem side) with green (palestinian) IDs who are not allowed to walk out from their own premises into the street, thus making them prisoners in their own homes. Some people on the east side who held blue IDs when the wall was built are in danger of losing them which would in effect make them stateless and having to take on Jordanian nationality. This is all very complicated but I guess you have got the idea of the difficulties the wall has caused. Before the wall(2002) it was possible to cross over the line on foot but now there is only one checkpoint to enter Jerusalem requiring a huge diversion from Abu Dis.

We then went to the Prisoners Museum - very interesting architecture designed to reflect prison life. Obviously this was quite grim viewing, both Abed and Salah had some horrific stories of their time spent as prisoners of the Israelis eg being shut in a "cupboard" only just big enough to hold a man sitting down and being left in it for 48 hours in the desert with temperatures rising to 50 degrees in the day and freezing temperatures at night!! However just as happened in S.Africa"s Robyn Island prison can also be an educational experience as professors, doctors etc are also inmates. There were examples of paintings and books that had been produced and published by ex-prisoners. I believe there are 80 people from Abu Dis presently being held in Isaraeli jails.

The museum is set within the campus of Al Quds University. This is very modern and newly built as the original university was sliced in two by the wall. It is very beautifully laid out with courtyards with fountains and landscaping between the different buildings. There are 10,000 students. The university accounts for the recent expansion of Abu Dis. There is a lot of new building. Old Abu Dis was a very quiet and clean village with solid houses built of stone many with the traditional domed roofs.

I enjoyed meeting the Christian monitoring group, two men, American and English, and 2 women from Norway and Sweden. They are here for 3 months as well so our paths are likely to cross again.

I then went to teach my first lesson at the Arab Institute - group of 14 year olds - very keen and polite. So I think we will get along fine together. I then went and had lunch at the house where the orpans live, meat stew and rice, quite a welcome change from my staple of humous, falefel and vegetables. Afterwards I taught this group of young scallywags, mostly 12 years old and we had a lot of fun even if it was a bit chaotic.