...watch the sun set

We raced Apollo to Hebron, Tim and I traveling east over the Atlantic, and he, west over the Pacific. We made it in time to watch him set over the city. From the roof of the Excellent Center where we will be working, it was a magnificent victory. Here is how we got there:

Our metal chariot took us from Boston to London, where Tim and I sat together, excitedly. My phone went to ‘airplane mode’ as I gave a bittersweet farewell to the American soil. From Heathrow we flew to Tel Aviv, over Central Europe, the mythical Aegean and the mystical Mediterranean. I felt bad for the men who sat on either side of my two-by-four shoulders during the flight; there should be a maximum width barring me from middle seats. Once we landed and made it through suspicious  customs we finally breathed Israeli air. Warm, gentle, silky. Because Palestinian transport can only traverse Israeli roads near Jerusalem, we played quite the game of hopscotch across the Holy Land to Hebron. First, from the Ben Gurion Airport in northwest Israel, we caught a group taxi down (direction) and up (altitude) to Jerusalem. They drive here like the knitting needles of a novice: twitchy, aggressive weaving with short stops like stitch drops and, of course, some mild cursing. I was next to a petite Asian woman who sat quietly, buckled herself in immediately as if expecting trouble, and began nibbling on aromatic nuts whose scent I could not identify. She surprised us all when she blurted out Hebrew to the driver in translation for the confused Russian pilgrim. This is indeed the land of cultural blends. She, Tim and I all got off at the Damascus Gate, the main entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem, and she bounded away determinedly, crossing busy streets with the sonar of a bat.

Here at the Damascus Gate the Arab busses are located. Those Palestinians with the permission spend their days outside of the west bank and funnel back home from this point. We got on bus 21 to Bethlehem and waited for it to fill up a bit before departure. It cost 7.30 NIS (Shekels), which is about 2 USD (Dollars). At some point in the trip the bus stopped in a place we only recognized from the picture sent to us by our employer. Otherwise, this sandy lot on the side of an indistinct hill would have passed without cause to notice. But we hopped out, grabbed our luggage and made way to another taxi. So far there is nothing preventing us from standing out, with neon signs, as foreigners. Language, look and luggage, it all says “alien.”

Luckily, the people are kind and not out for a scam. We communicated with a couple of men to get a ride to a specific street in Hebron: Ain Sara. They knew of the place. Thank God. But how much? One charismatic man, with a smile that cratered his face, exposing smoker’s teeth unashamedly, wrote “62” in the dust on the back window of a taxi. “Give me money, my friend,” he nearly shouted. He does not know the word “please,” and it doesn’t bother me; I don’t know “please” in Arabic. Besides, Apollo threatened to leave us blinder than we already were, so we were eager to hop aboard.

In twenty minutes our driver, Mohammed, kicked us out on Ain Sara. With no cell phones, neither Mohammed, Tim nor I could call the Excellence Center for final directions to our exact location. So we collected ourselves as Mohammed sped away, looked around at many buildings and into many staring eyes and chose a direction to walk. Certainly someone would speak English or lend us their phone, we reasoned, but Fortune must’ve been angry with Apollo for she was on our side. Around one corner we walked before we looked up and saw the sign marking the Excellence Center. We made it.

After short introductions (many of the center’s employees are currently in Amman, Jordan), we were given a tour by a young man named Ayman (Like Simon without the ‘S’), which ended on the roof.

Halleluiah.

We stood up there and watched the street haze into darkness. The buildings were blocking a direct flaunt to the sun, but it was no matter. The beauty of the stone buildings rising around us, the fumes of street shops and the urban voices of vehicles and passersby were enough to steal our attention. We had no complaint when the center told us our apartment wasn’t ready to move into; we had already found home.