11/27/12 – Victors ride, pilgrims walk

Hear no corn, see no corn, speak no corn

Just before getting on the bus I saw a group of young boys sitting on the trunk of a car beside another young boy selling boiled corn on the cob.  I took a spot on a staircase across the street to take photos of them.  When they realized they were my subjects, they put their hands over their eyes to dissuade me.  I only wish they’d followed with their ears and their eyes.  In any case, I already had the shots that I wanted and gave them a couple of dollars in return for their unwilling participation.  One crafty young man offered to take a photo of me with the other boys…with my camera.  Yeah, right.  I could only assume that they do that with everyone since I don’t have the word “idiot” written across my forehead in Arabic (that tattoo was removed years ago).

Now that we were outside the walls of Bethlehem Amnon was free to rejoin us.  He asked us how we wanted to enter Jerusalem: like victors on horseback? Or like pilgrims on foot?  Since we didn’t have any horses, the group defaulted to the only other option and the bus dropped us off.  We walked a short distance until we were technically within city limits.  There, Sr. Jocelyn asked me to read Psalm 122: the Pilgrim’s greeting to Jerusalem.

I gave it my theatrical best and drew the attention of a couple of Canadian tourists who were standing nearby.  They were invited to join in when Amnon presented each of us with bread and salt before offering us a ceremonial Hebrew welcome.  As a tour guide he had probably done this hundreds of times, but it still felt like he meant it.

Our view of the city