Alastair Mitchell

East Jerusalem.

Today took me to Bethlehem again, where I taught in the morning.  Once I was finished, instead of making my usual journey back to Jerusalem I went north to Ramallah.  The journey from Bethlehem to Ramallah is beautiful.  It’s a scenic drive through desert-like landscapes on winding roads, passing through some villages that really seem to be ‘from another age’.
I have volunteered to take a one-hour class per week in Bethlehem called An Introduction to Music History, and I met with the other teachers who will be teaching the same course in the other two branches.  I say the same course - we’re each making up our own lessons, so we just have to make sure that we all cover what will be in the exams throughout the year.
After my meeting, I met up with some of the teachers who are based in Ramallah and we went out for a pizza together.  It was very nice to have a meal with friends, as it is something I love doing, and will hopefully make the effort to do it more often.
Yet again, I’m considering moving out of Jerusalem to Bethlehem.  It is so much cheaper that I could run a car, and the freedom to move between towns late at night would be a luxury.
I have my second Arabic lesson with my new teacher tomorrow, so must do some study as she’s quite tough.  Maybe, I’ll also learn about violin teaching from her.

East Jerusalem.

At some point soon, as we settle down into a routine now that the full-time programme has begun at the conservatory I expect the chaos to reduce, but today showed no signs of change in this direction.  Of the schedule that I was given at the start of the day, about 50 per cent of it was wrong, with gaps   that shouldn’t have been and with times where two people showed up together.  Apparently the cause of the problem is known and is being dealt with.
I’ve just heard on the World Service that the Israeli Defence Force have been in Gaza again today, killing eight Palestinians, at least three of whom are civilians – yet further moves towards an overt conflict, I believe.  While I’m on the subject of news, I found a great bookshop in East Jerusalem today that sells lots of current affairs books in English, many of which are on the subject of the Israel/Palestine issue.  I got a book that I’ve been looking out for called Drinking the Sea at Gaza by Amira Hass, the Israeli journalist who writes for Haartetz, and is unusual in that she lives in the Occupied Territories, currently in Ramallah I think.  It’s a well known book, and inspired a great film by John Pilger called Palestine is Still the Issue, which I first saw on youtube a year or two ago – although I now have my own copy, I hope it’s still on there as it’s really worth watching, if you are interested in the subject.