Alastair Mitchell

Bethlehem.

Today we put on a concert at the Peace Centre in Bethlehem. After several weeks of preparation, the students all played solos either with piano, a duet with their teacher or in the case of the last two, played the Bach double violin concerto with the teachers forming a quartet to accompany them.
When the students were told that we would accompany them in the concert their excitement was very apparent – You will play for us? – as they imagined standing up in front of an audience of friends and family, with us behind in the supporting role. And they enjoyed the occasion too, looking around in the tuttis and catching my eye as we played in unison. Their beaming smiles at the end were a give away as to what they were feeling.
It was particularly good to see this from these two students, as unlike many who attend the conservatory they are from one of the refugee camps in Bethlehem. In their short lives they have seen a lot. They joke about when during the Israeli siege of Bethlehem in 2001 they had two Americans come to live in their flat as human shields, to protect them from the tanks surrounding the camp. Whenever there was an explosion, or some gunfire, these two Americans would shake with fear, and the two girls spend most of the time on the phone to the families back in America – Yes, they’re fine, don’t worry!
They also have a brother. Whilst studying at a university that he had to cross an Israeli checkpoint to get to, he began being asked by the Israelis to become an informer. Of course, each time he refused – even when they showed him pictures they had of his two sisters, and parents. Then, a few days after he refused for the last time the Israeli army entered the camp and arrested him. He was held in prison for a year and a half before he was even charged, then was sentenced to two and half years for organising a meeting at his university in support of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
You might think that experiences like this would darken the soul, but these people have responded by appreciating everything they have – and I am sure the memories they have of today’s concert will be one of those things for a long time to come.

Bethlehem.

One word that I haven’t used since coming to Palestine until now is ‘overcast’. But today is verging on overcast, and that is because in the last few days there has been the feeling of the approaching winter here in the hills high above the Mediterranean.
Accordingly, people are becoming British about it. Taxi drivers talk of how cold the nights are getting, my local shop owner has begun making the weather a regular part of her small-talk – it’s all very familiar.
It is at nights that the change is first noticeable – I’ve started closing the sliding doors to my balcony at night and am using two sheets on my bed now, though still no duvet. It is in many ways the perfect temperature at the moment, warm but no so hot that you sweat each time you move. But the change from now on will be fast - soon it will be cold during the days as well, and I fear for the day that the rain comes. The grease of the last 7 months’ traffic (it last rained in March) has been thoroughly slow-cooked onto the roads, and at the first sign of water this will make for a dangerous mixture. The driving style I have witnessed so far is certainly not well suited to slippery roads, and it will be interesting to either see that change or witness the resulting carnage.