Settlement

Ramallah

The Valley of Fire

This is the road to Bethlehem and Hebron for Palestinians without yellow plates on their cars. It takes at least twice as long on a good day (though we lost 15 minutes in each direction at the container checkpoint, shown. Not to mention the several hour wait at the checkpoint outside Ramallah later that night) over a road that was more of an unpaved rural path until the second Intifada. In some places it still looks like an untraveled country road, barely two lanes wide with tight bends in the road. There are also incredibly steep inclines that trapped more than one giant truck full of chickens on the day we passed.

The landscape is beautiful though...at times like you'd imagine the moon, and at others lush clean farmland dotted with olive trees, stone walls, and grape vines. And everywhere men in traditional Palestinian head dress herding sheep like in year one.

Jerusalem/Al Quds/yerushalayim

Jerusalem
Dome of the Rock
Church of the Sepulchre
Garden of Gesthemane
A cross in the Ethiopian camp on the roof of the Church of the Sepulchre


This past Friday I took a walking tour of Jerusalem's old city and surrounding sites, the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gesthemane. It is incredible how close everything is--the Dome of the Rock is immediately next to the Wailing Wall, is next to the Al-Aqsa mosque, and most churches are accompanied by mosques. And all of these religions and cultures--Jewish, Muslim, Armenian, etc.--are nestled together in a square mile. As one of my co-workers said, "who says we can't all live together?" The location of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount remains an unresolvable issue of contention. However, as one story goes, in ancient times two Christian sects could not decide who should hold the key to the church door so it was given to the mosque next door to keep the peace.

Mansaf

Today half the men in the office disappeared to go pick up giant plates of Mansaf, the Jordanian national dish (also loved in Palestine). It is typically served for festivals and I thought it might be one after all the music and firecrackers I heard last night, but it just felt like one with the entire office gathered together joyfully talking and eating. I didn't know what I was eating until it was explained to me later--the Jameed was somewhat disorienting--but it was delicious!

Mansaf
Mansaf has three basic ingredients; rice, lamb meat and goat milk.

Ingredients

- 1 kilo cooked rice "washed, boiled in water and with butter added at the end”
- 1 kilo lamb meat “cut in big chunks”
- 1 big whole onion
- ½ kilo liquid salted goat milk “you can buy it from the super store or a “Jordanian house” store, the product is called Jameed El-Kasih”
- Pine nuts “fried”

Wash the meat and drain it until it has gotten rid of all its excess water, put it in a big pot and pour the Jameed or goat’s milk over it, add 4X as much water to the milk, cook it on a high fire and drop the onion in the pot. Let it boil for one hour, then lower the heat and leave the pot uncovered, stirring occasionally.
To cook properly, it needs three hours on the fire.

When done and the meat is soft and properly cooked, put the rice in a big round tray, and put the meat over it, pour some Jameed over them all and sprinkle the pine nuts all over the tray.

Pour the rest of the Jameed in a bowl and keep it on the table in case you would like to pour some more over the rice to make it soggier.

Picture from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansaf; Recipe from http://www.waleg.com/kitchen/archives/000912.html