Interesting People I met in Jerusalem

Upon arriving in Jerusalem, I was still pissed off from customs. That, added to the frustrating process of renting a car and having shared a hotel room with two other people all week (note: Tracy loves privacy and alone time), I recognized that my Pitta dosha (for those of you familiar with Ayurvedic medicine) was EXTREMELY out of whack, and I needed to cool down before I started taking out my irritation on my travel-mates.

So, I took only a few dollars with me as well as some pleasure reading (Elizabeth Gilbert's newest book Committed if you must know), and made my way down the street of the hotel. I quickly learned that walking around Jerusalem by myself as a woman is not a smart thing to do, so I turned around, bought a Coke Zero and a strawberry popsicle (or as the storeowner calls it, "strawberry ice") and walked to a small park next to the hotel to read.

The sun was just setting when a kind-looking man sitting in the park bench across from me called out to me and told me I needed to go see the sunset. "There is a beautiful view just down the street. You must go watch it from there," he said. "I don't know where there is," I replied. "Okay, I walk you down there. My cousins work at the hotel you are staying in. I know where to go."

Ibrahim is a Muslim who is a direct descendant of Lazarus (as in the one Jesus raised from the dead). He has worked as a tour guide for the past 40 years and actually lived in both North Carolina and Florida to learn English before coming back to Jerusalem in 1990. Because he is Muslim, he is not allowed to have physical contact with women after a certain time of day (or is it at all? I don't remember...either way he explained this to me when he refused to shake my hand). Still, he was gracious enough to carry my book and soda as he walked me down Palm Sunday Road (yes, the significance of the road is what it sounds like) while smoking a cigarette with his free hand. We walked past the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, and he gave me a brief history of post-Christ Jerusalem until we reached a gorgeous view of the sunset overlooking the Holy Lands.

As the view really does overlook Jerusalem, he then gave me a quick rundown on all the famous Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sites. You can see Bethlehem in the picture below:

I started to explain to him that I will be going on an 8 day tour of the Holy Lands soon, but that led him into a long rant about how he doesn't bring politics into his tours, but he refuses to call David and Solomon and Jesus "king" because they were not kings, merely prophets. I couldn't get a word in edgewise, and even if I could I was starting to get a little concerned about getting back to the hotel before dark. Luckily, he finally noticed my agitation and walked me back to my hotel. Before dropping me off, Ibrahim took it upon himself to give me a lecture about interacting with people in Jerusalem.

"Do not talk to anyone or look at the boys. You seem to be a nice girl, and you are here to find God, not to play with the boys. Do not smile or look at the boys and make sure that you use the word "no" instead of "yes." If you even look at the boys, they will come and bother you. Understand?"

I found it to be a little ironic since I was having this conversation with him because I responded to his greeting in the first place, but I nodded my assent. He was right, after all. That's when the front desk man at my hotel, Loay, looked over at me and said "I'd be wary of him." But Loay is another story, one that I will leave for tomorrow...