The other night was our first time going out to the Old City by ourselves. It had been a pretty long day so the plan was to just take a cab down there, have dinner, and maybe take a stroll. We ended up at this pretty good falafal and shwarma place.
After that, we wandered around a good bit and found ourselves at a photoshop near the center of downtown Nablus. We at first arrived there to look (skeptically) for a special cord we needed for a video project, but not only did they have the cord, but the man who owned the shop started a conversation with us that somehow led to us going upstairs and getting group portraits done. He was so excited to talk to us--I honestly don't believe it was about getting us to buy the photos (which we didn't end up doing). The atmosphere of the place was really really cool (this little kid was really really cute!!) and we met a recent grad of An Naja University (we had actually crashed the graduation ceremony the day before, lol). He was there to pick up his graduation photos with a friend and asked us a ton of things about the US.
The photoshop even had a picture of Zafer al-Masri (the founder of Tomorrow's Youth Organization) under the glass in the front counter.
From the photoshop, we hopped into a cab to get home. We told the cabbie we wanted to go to the Zafer al-Masri building. The cabbie nodded that he knew exactly where we were talking about and we were off. Five minutes later, we pulled up next to a skinny half-finished concrete 3-story building that was definitely not the 6-story monstrosity we live in. We were really confused until we remembered that the al-Masri family practically owns this city and many buildings are named after our good friend Zafer. Another five minutes of arguing with the cab driver didn't make our true destination any clearer and there was some confusion with how to activate our phone, and then who to call back at the center to get directions. We eventually got our EP Emma on the phone to talk to the cab driver. We all saw the cabbie's moment of realization and were immediately relieved and frustrated at the same time; "School!" he exclaimed (we'd said "school" at least 15 times before that). On the way to the Zafer al-Masri Foundation Building, the cab driver insisted on telling us what we needed to know to say for the next time we got in the car: "Duad Al-Talamood Zafer Masri!" He had us chanting it for a full fifteen minutes.
The next night we decided to avoid cabs and potentially confusion and hoof it around the local neighborhood. It was really cool. We shot a lot of footage of people on the streets, especially kids playing at night, but at one point, Jon got really close to a family getting into their car after buying smoothies at the juice shop (juice shops are all the rage in Nablus, fyi) and the father started walking toward Jon and I was sure he was going to have a go at him. Two minutes later, the man, who spoke very little English to our very little Arabic, was buying each of us smoothies. I am again and again caught off guard by the generosity of the Palestinian people. They are so filled with a kindness and genuineness that I have never before encountered as cultural cornerstone for a society. After all that's happened to these people, everyone we've met so far, instead of being suspicious of outsiders, they are reaching out and welcoming us into their community. I can't tell you how amazing that is, I hope that I can at least do them the favor of not taking it for granted for a second.
Somewhere in there this weekend, we also took a day trip out to a small town called "Taybeh" (which comes from the Arabic word "taybeen" which means kind) where we met up with a crazy/awesome priest-turned-tour-guide who gave us a tour of his church and his House of the Parables.
We had lunch there in the city, got a tour of a soap shop, and visited the only brewery in Palestine (Taybeh Beer: www.taybehbeer.com). We, of course, "supported" them by making some purchases and smuggling them back in our backpacks to the dry city of Nablus--got to help out the local businesses, right?
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