Reham Alhelsi

 

One most memorable recollection I have of Jerusalem is when I accompanied my best friend at school to her home in the old city. I often walked through the streets of the old city, just wandering and looking at the various shops, taking in the strong smell of spices, roasted chicken, falafel and the peculiar smell of incense and recording the sea of colourful scarves and Palestinian traditional dresses that presented themselves where ever ones eyes chose to wander. Although I dreaded the over-crowded streets, it was always fun entering the old city through Bab El Amoud, secretly saluting the gate that withstood all and stands strong and powerful as ever, walking down the steps at the entrance to the souq and trying to take two steps at a time, watching out for the carts pushing their way through the hurrying crowds, humming with the songs and melodies coming from almost every shop and checking the fresh fruits, vegetables, honey and whatever the Falahat were selling. I followed my friend, not sure where we were going, till she stopped exactly opposite the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The area there is well known to me, but it was on that day that I for the first time noticed that the tourist shops of the old city formed an invisible wall behind which the original houses of Jerusalem hid. I was about to ask her about the reason behind this unexpected excursion when she took a few steps in a narrow ally, opened a door and invited me in. She wasn’t interested in showing me her house, she brought me here to show me something special, as she’d put it. I followed her up a long staircase till we were on the roof of some building. “Look!” she said and pointed forward. I looked and what a sight! The whole old city stood before me. It was something I had never seen before and a sight more powerful and beautiful than anything I had ever experienced. At the time I didn’t have the words to describe my feeling and today it is still the same, it was a sight beyond words, beyond poetry, beyond any human imagination, it was divine. The old city was a sea of light gold, with clotheslines hanging over the roofs and playing in the wind, the beautifully coloured windows reflecting the sun and the churches and mosques hugging each other in the distant. In the background I could hear children shouting playfully, people laughing and shop seller advertising their commodities. I don’t know how long we stayed there, but I know that I tried to take in as much of the view in front of me as possible, to take in the colours, the sounds and the smells, to breath them in, and make them part of me forever. Now away from Jerusalem, that memory is one of my best preserved and most revered and beloved memory I have of the golden city, my city and the city of every Palestinian; Jerusalem.

 

 

13/11/2007