The Nativity Church: A church built at the place where Jesus is said to have been born. The church houses several christian denominations, for example Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic.
Bethlehem is a fairly small, but lively town in the West Bank. The atmosphere is good, people are kind and welcoming (as they are, one will discover, pretty much everywhere in Palestine). Bethlehem is an important Christian town, as it is said to be the birthplace of Jesus. Thus, a fair number of - often Christian - tourists make their way to Bethlehem, and the trade from the many small souvenir shops keep the town a busy place, buzzing with energy. And, when you are done exploring the many shops offering you clothes, jewels, local craftswork, and wooden figures of Baby Jesus being born in the stable, the local suuq will be a good place to go. Suuq is Arabic for 'market' and here you can buy anything from fresh fruits and vegetables to meat in all sorts (except pig, of course).
The first time I went to the suuq, I was overwhelmed by the hectic atmosphere - and rather disturbed by the flies having a thrill nurturing themselves on the racks of raw meat out in the open (no, it was not kept cool, and no, I will most certainly never buy my meat at a suuq like this). All of the sudden, the whole market place seemed to be in an uproar. Arabic words were flying through the air, and after a short while of confusement I came to realise that I was causing this disturbance. A boy behind me was carrying most of a dead sheep on his back and he was quite keen on me stepping aside so he could get by and drop the beast as soon as possible. Even though I had cost him enough delay - and extra sore muscles later - I did not step to the side. The dead beast on his back was too dramatic a look for me and instinctly I kept running in front of the boy, trying to escape this dreadful scenery. If a had looked any more like a headless chicken, I am afraid I would have been sold at the market myself. It took me another few minutes before I was calm enough to let the poor boy pass and by this time, every person in the market was looking at me, amused and laughing. Or a least, so it seemed.
Having made a complete fool of myself in front of most of the local community, I do not think anybody could have blamed me if I did not go back. But I did. One afternoon, I decided to go buy some plums together with one of the girls from the group. We found are way around in the suuq (this time without scary sheep-incidents but still with the horror of the meat-feasting flies) and with every available gesticulation in the vocabulary of body language we managed to let one of sellers know that we wanted plums. So he kindly handed us one each so we could have a taste of what he had to offer. We had hardly swallowed our first bite before another seller was rushing towards us, uttering an endless stream of loud, Arabic words. He handed us a plum each as well and watched us with excitement as we tasted the difference. His plums were indeed better. Now, you are not much of a seller if you let possible customers go off to another seller, so the first one - of course - gave us a sample of yet another kind of plums. At that time, we did not care much for plums anymore, but with the whole suuq watching us we had to politely accept it and give it a try. In order to escape any more free fruit samples, we made a quick decision and bought half a kilo from each seller. This is the advantage of travelling with a big group of people: you do not have to eat all the plums yourself.
Me inside Nativity Church - this should be the exact spot where Jesus was born.
If the suuq is too much for your nerves, you can your fruit and vegetables in the street. This old woman was sitting in the street every day, and for some reason, she went straight to my heart.
View over Bethlehems streets.
Nuns in the yard of The Nativity Church.
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