Alastair Mitchell

East Jerusalem.

I spent all day at the conservatory today, because I went in early to practise. I also took the chance to fax some piano parts back home to the pianist for my recital. Modern technology is an incredible thing. Coming to live in a foreign country a generation ago was a brave thing, as keeping in touch with people was so hard, but nowadays it feels like I’m pretty much as connected as ever. In the last couple of weeks, without any real effort I’ve managed to arrange an entire concert, get a pianist, design the publicity and email it to get printed, email photos, write articles for a couple of local publications and give a mobile-phone radio interview all at virtually no cost. Twenty years ago, that would have been a big challenge, but today with my trusty Mac and the odd wireless cafe, it’s all easily accessible to even an amateur such as myself.
As the call to prayer rings out across East Jerusalem this evening, I thought I’d mention that so far it’s not been too much of an annoyance. During the day it seems to fade into the background noise, along with kids outside playing on the street and car horns. But at night it becomes more prominent, sharing the silence only with the odd bang from the Ramadan firecrackers or fighting cats. I’m not sure if it’s because everything else is quieter, whether it’s because I’m doing less or whether it might be simply because it’s coming out of the dark, but there is no doubt it commands a bit more attention after sunset. Nevertheless, it’s not a problem - the only one that gets to me is the 4:30am call. On occasion, that one has brought forth utterances that could, in some quarters I suspect, be classed as blasphemous.

East Jerusalem.

The conservatory has offered to reduce the cost of living in Jerusalem, so that financially it now makes more sense to continue living here, but there are no places ready to view.  There are a couple of apartments in the Old City that will be ready in a couple of months, so I am going to move to Bethlehem and wait until then to see what I think.   After two months, I might be bored of Bethlehem, but at present I’m quite taken by it and am looking forward to the move.
My trip back to the UK is now fast approaching; the time has flown by in the last few weeks.  It’s going to be very exciting to come home, possibly even more so than it was coming here in the first instance, but I’m not sure why that is.  After that week at home, I’ll probably not come back until next summer, so it’ll be interesting to see how I feel about getting back on the plane to return here.  At the moment, I think I’ll be raring to go.