What do you get when you walk into a room filled with men chain smoking cigarettes and shisha, charcoal fires grilling meat, kebabs and flat bread, pans of oil deep frying falafel and chips, plates filled with hummus and olive oil, all topped off with sticky sweet fried knafeh and cardamon coffee?
At a busy tourist site in Jericho, I had finished doing the tourist bit and was looking for a drink when I was invited to join the 'sinners and the tax collectors', or that's what it felt like. Other tourists were ushered into the buffet restaurant upstairs where the peacocks preened and the food was kept warm in a bane-marie. Once or twice a tourist stepped across the threshold of the service entry only to turn and exit quickly. I'm really not sure why because here, among the real people, the food was good and the conversation animated.
Apart from a years worth of passive smoking and a headache - a great afternoon of food, (too much food) and passionate, loud conversation broaching some of the subjects that you are never supposed to raise: politics, religion, culture and death.
At a busy tourist site in Jericho, I had finished doing the tourist bit and was looking for a drink when I was invited to join the 'sinners and the tax collectors', or that's what it felt like. Other tourists were ushered into the buffet restaurant upstairs where the peacocks preened and the food was kept warm in a bane-marie. Once or twice a tourist stepped across the threshold of the service entry only to turn and exit quickly. I'm really not sure why because here, among the real people, the food was good and the conversation animated.
No one cared who I was, or wasn't, we just ate incinerated meat and solved the worlds problems together. We talked about the outside world's perceptions of Palestine and the way that the media can distort reality. We righted the wrongs of thousands of years of cultural animosity and mistrust. They announced that that there is much to celebrate and hope for.
But most importantly, all of us, from numerous different cultures and sub-cultures, religions and political persuasions sat, ate, drank, laughed, talked, (smoked) and learned together. It was a good afternoon. (Although I have to say, despite the number of people who proudly put plates of knafeh, "the best desert ever", in front of me - I really don't like it and feel quite ill now :))
