So I don't really like to post about touristy things, because touring is not really a component of my year, but I am going to write about this "touristy" experience because it has some really neat components. Last Friday 4 of us volunteers embarked on an adventure to the Dead Sea. We left from the Beit Sahour bus station at 7:00 AM and arrived in Jericho at 8:30. The bus ride was amazing...we drove on a windy road through mountains and mounds of dirt. We were in the desert, so the scenery around us was entirely brown and sand-washed, but it was gorgeous (everything except for the Wall, that is). After bartering with the cab drivers who wanted to charge us ridiculous amounts of money, we found ourselves at the Dead Sea, located at the lowest elevation in the world. We did all of the typcial things you do at the Dead Sea, including floating and covering ourselves in the Dead Sea mud, which is supposed to be very good for your skin. In fact, the water is so full of minterals that it is 26% solid. Floating in the Dead Sea was such a surreal experience. It was so weird to be so bouyant that it was actually difficult to stand vertically in the water. It was also very relaxing to just lay there and leave behind all the stresses of living here. (The only stressful part of the experience was worrying about the possiblity of the extremely salty water coming into contact with my eyes. It happened to one of the other girls....very painful).
Being at the Dead Sea was also interesting in the sense that there was such a diversity of people there. We ended up getting in free on accident because there was a large tour of Italians coming through, but in addition to the Europeans in their bikinis, there were Indian women swimming in their saris and Muslim women in their full burkas who came down to collect the Dead Sea mud.
By around 12, we were ready to go back into Jericho. The heat there was almost unbearable, and we were told later that this was actually a "cold" day according to Jericho standards. When we asked the woman at the admissions counter how we could get a taxi, she told us to just go to the main road and grab one from there. Well, this was not very helpful, considering it was a long walk to the "main road" which was actually quite deserted. So we started walking in the heat and were discouraged to find that there was literally nothing in sight in either direction. No buildings, no gas stations, no shade. Finally, after about 20 minutes of walking, a taxi pulled up out of nowehere and offered us a reasonly priced ride to the checkpoint. He was an Israeli taxi and therefore couldn't go into Jericho, which is off-limits to Israelis. So we gratefully accepted the ride and were dropped off at what appeared to be a bus station. Relieved, we sat in the shade, optimistic that we would easily find a ride into Jericho. We waited and waved down every taxi we could see. Unfortuntely, most were full to capacity already, and those that weren't completely full would slow down just enough to stare at us (4 American girls), laugh or make comments at us, and keep on driving. So we were pretty hopeless and frustrated (not to mention thirsty, hot, and hungry) by this point and wondered if we would even make it back in time to catch the only bus back home to Bethlehem. It was at this point that a guardian angel named Firas stopped to help us. He was driving with his 4-year-old son and pulled over to offer us a ride. We all crowded into his car and found out that he lives in Ramallah but was visiting family in Jericho that day. When he found out we were Americans, he warmly welcomed us to Palestine and said he had spent some time in the US. He also said that it had been about 10 years since he had picked up tourists or stopped to help foreigners but that there was something about us that made him stop. I guess we looked pretty helpless and in need of a good samaritan. I can't help but think of the song we always sang in Vacation Bible School called "The Good Samaritan". It starts out...."on the way to Jericho" and goes on to talk about the man in the Bible who was robbed and left for dead on the road to Jericho. Many people passed him by but one person, a Samaritan, stopped to help him. Now, we were obviously not in the same situation as this man, and Firas is not a Samaritan in the religious sense, but he is definitely a good samaritan in all other senses. He even went out of his way to take us on a mini-tour of Jericho, including Zacchias's tree, dropped us off at a restuarant and made a point to find the manager to tell him to take good care of us. It's these kind of people in the world that allow me to continue to have hope in the goodness of human nature.
Being at the Dead Sea was also interesting in the sense that there was such a diversity of people there. We ended up getting in free on accident because there was a large tour of Italians coming through, but in addition to the Europeans in their bikinis, there were Indian women swimming in their saris and Muslim women in their full burkas who came down to collect the Dead Sea mud.
By around 12, we were ready to go back into Jericho. The heat there was almost unbearable, and we were told later that this was actually a "cold" day according to Jericho standards. When we asked the woman at the admissions counter how we could get a taxi, she told us to just go to the main road and grab one from there. Well, this was not very helpful, considering it was a long walk to the "main road" which was actually quite deserted. So we started walking in the heat and were discouraged to find that there was literally nothing in sight in either direction. No buildings, no gas stations, no shade. Finally, after about 20 minutes of walking, a taxi pulled up out of nowehere and offered us a reasonly priced ride to the checkpoint. He was an Israeli taxi and therefore couldn't go into Jericho, which is off-limits to Israelis. So we gratefully accepted the ride and were dropped off at what appeared to be a bus station. Relieved, we sat in the shade, optimistic that we would easily find a ride into Jericho. We waited and waved down every taxi we could see. Unfortuntely, most were full to capacity already, and those that weren't completely full would slow down just enough to stare at us (4 American girls), laugh or make comments at us, and keep on driving. So we were pretty hopeless and frustrated (not to mention thirsty, hot, and hungry) by this point and wondered if we would even make it back in time to catch the only bus back home to Bethlehem. It was at this point that a guardian angel named Firas stopped to help us. He was driving with his 4-year-old son and pulled over to offer us a ride. We all crowded into his car and found out that he lives in Ramallah but was visiting family in Jericho that day. When he found out we were Americans, he warmly welcomed us to Palestine and said he had spent some time in the US. He also said that it had been about 10 years since he had picked up tourists or stopped to help foreigners but that there was something about us that made him stop. I guess we looked pretty helpless and in need of a good samaritan. I can't help but think of the song we always sang in Vacation Bible School called "The Good Samaritan". It starts out...."on the way to Jericho" and goes on to talk about the man in the Bible who was robbed and left for dead on the road to Jericho. Many people passed him by but one person, a Samaritan, stopped to help him. Now, we were obviously not in the same situation as this man, and Firas is not a Samaritan in the religious sense, but he is definitely a good samaritan in all other senses. He even went out of his way to take us on a mini-tour of Jericho, including Zacchias's tree, dropped us off at a restuarant and made a point to find the manager to tell him to take good care of us. It's these kind of people in the world that allow me to continue to have hope in the goodness of human nature.
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