sampicksolives (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} sampicksolives) wrote,@ 2006-11-01 12:00:00 |
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Olive Presses, John the Baptist, Old Racecourse and "Disneyland Palestine"
After meeting up with the tour group of British olive oil distributors, which included individual distributors, folk from Equal Exchange and a woman recreating an amazing journey made by the 'Musilm Marco Polo' Ibn Battuta in the 14th Century, we left Jerusalem and headed north to Jenin.
On the way there we made a stop at Sebastia, a village where some of the farmer co-ops are based. We were taken to visit their two olive presses, one an old press which uses huge stones to squidge the olives into a kind of pulp after which the pulp is put on plates and squeezed again making the oil drip out into troughs underneath. The oil is cleaned out and seperated and you can (and we did) just eat it straight from the pipe. The harvest is such a large one this year that the place was heaving with men of all ages and the smell of recently squeezed olives pretty intense. We then went to their 'new' press (21 years old), which is mechanical and apparently more efficient in getting the oil out of the olives and provides better quality olive oil. Still this one was a lot less busy than the first - apparently the farmers haven't yet been convinced of the advantages of the mechanical press and most still prefer to use the stone one.
On the way back from the presses we were asked if we would like to see the old church in the village. So we all got out to have look to discover that not only was it an 'old church' it was the burial place of John the Baptist, who had been born and lived most of his live in Sebastia. The church was built after his death as a memorial and had been restorded by the crusaders. Inside were loads of different very old statues, along with a big pile of old boxes and a table tennis table.
Despite its apparent historical importance this village is now firmly off the tourist and pilgrim routes and since 2000 few vistors have been, leaving those who based their livelihoods on the tourism with no income at all. This fact became even more surprising once we finished our coffee and were asked if we would like to look at the ruins in the centre of the village. From where we were sitting the ruins looked close and fairly small so we happily agreed to spend 15 minutes looking at them. 1hr and 15 mins later we had seen a roman ampitheatre, the remains of the first racecourse in the middle east, a colesseum, a crusdaer church (again) and the palace of the ruler of Samira (this village was the centre of the samirian Kingdom in whatever period this was a kingdom). So this village was a site of major importance for Christian, Jewish, Roman and Greek history. Yet no one visits and since 1932, when the last archeologists from Harvard who unearthed the site left, no one has done any more studies and the building are falling into disrepair.
The tour was led by a really knowledgeable but usually unemployed guide, Saleem who is also a teacher. Palestinian teachers have only been paid 1 and 1/2 months wages since the ending of tax payments and international aid to the Palestinian government, and for three months have only received one payment of $200 from the European union. Right now there is a national strike in Palestine so for weeks children have been without school, although some villages are organising informal lessons this means kids are out on the street all day, not good in areas where the army regularly arrests or harasses young boys.
By the time we got back to the main village news had got down to the olive groves that tourists had arrived and we were met with the souvenier shop man hurridly opening the shutters of his long closed shop. Please come in he said - everything is 40% off. We also had children arrive with bags of old coins, ranging from the Roman to the British mandate period that they had collected from around the ruins. So after buying some postcards, guide books and ancient coins we left this amazing village. If this place was in Europe, the US or anywhere else it would bustling with pilgrims, and world heritage money but it seems the outside world doesn't consider Palestinian history worth preserving or visiting.
By the time we had gone round Sebastia we were really late and really hungry so it was quickly off to Jenin to meet with the fair trade people. After just a few years they have got over 100 cooperatives as members, not just farmers but also an export company and a women's handicraft group and seem to be doing really well. They are hoping to get the FT mark, but before they can the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation have to develop standards. Apparently the Fairtrade Foundation are supposed to be pushing this forward, but so far have been unwilling to send their representatives out to the West Bank for security reasons. So..no Fairtrade mark yet, but they are getting another kind of label (I think IFAT but this could be wrong!).
As were so late we had a pretty short meeting and then went off to Nasser's (the head of the Palestinian Fair Trade Association) house for a huge and fabulous dinner.
We were then taken to the place we were staying for the next two days. We had been told it was a 'resort' a 'villa' and a hotel at different times, so no one was sure what to expect, but when we got there we realised that how ever it as described we would never have believed it anyway! The place was a huge park with fairground rides, handmade by the owner, a swimming pool, manicured gardens, dates trees and lives trees heavy with fruit and huge villas, one with a sculpture of St George slaying the dragon. There were water fountains, flower gardens, video arcades and individual cabins as well a huge function room. Even one the Palestinians with us was suprised - "is this really Palestine" he said. On the one hand really tacky but on the other a genuine haven away.
I wasn't up for another fair trade meeting so instead stayed drinking coffee in the resturant with Cathi. There we met a Palestinan group of families from jenin refugee camp who had come for a night out. one of the women, Wiam, spoke amazing English and we chatted to he for a while before they invited us to come with them to the fairground. Two rides, one on a witches hat thing and one on a big wheel were enough for us, but it was really great fun hanging out with families, with everyone screaming and laughing. I must admit I had a ' are these rides really safe - one was made out of what looked like old school benches - but in fact they beuatifully made and unlike in Engalnd would be turned on and off by demand. After returning to our luxuary villa we took advantage of the satelitte tele to catch up on the latest news - allowing the other Palestine back into our lives as we heard about the killings in Gaza - the worst since June.
We went to bed wondering what other suprises we had in store tomorrow - it certainly looked like another day of contrasts, with a plan to visit a bottling plant, an organic olive press, a harvest festival and the Jenin refugee camp before attending the olive harvest festival party planned for the evening.
After meeting up with the tour group of British olive oil distributors, which included individual distributors, folk from Equal Exchange and a woman recreating an amazing journey made by the 'Musilm Marco Polo' Ibn Battuta in the 14th Century, we left Jerusalem and headed north to Jenin.
On the way there we made a stop at Sebastia, a village where some of the farmer co-ops are based. We were taken to visit their two olive presses, one an old press which uses huge stones to squidge the olives into a kind of pulp after which the pulp is put on plates and squeezed again making the oil drip out into troughs underneath. The oil is cleaned out and seperated and you can (and we did) just eat it straight from the pipe. The harvest is such a large one this year that the place was heaving with men of all ages and the smell of recently squeezed olives pretty intense. We then went to their 'new' press (21 years old), which is mechanical and apparently more efficient in getting the oil out of the olives and provides better quality olive oil. Still this one was a lot less busy than the first - apparently the farmers haven't yet been convinced of the advantages of the mechanical press and most still prefer to use the stone one.
On the way back from the presses we were asked if we would like to see the old church in the village. So we all got out to have look to discover that not only was it an 'old church' it was the burial place of John the Baptist, who had been born and lived most of his live in Sebastia. The church was built after his death as a memorial and had been restorded by the crusaders. Inside were loads of different very old statues, along with a big pile of old boxes and a table tennis table.
Despite its apparent historical importance this village is now firmly off the tourist and pilgrim routes and since 2000 few vistors have been, leaving those who based their livelihoods on the tourism with no income at all. This fact became even more surprising once we finished our coffee and were asked if we would like to look at the ruins in the centre of the village. From where we were sitting the ruins looked close and fairly small so we happily agreed to spend 15 minutes looking at them. 1hr and 15 mins later we had seen a roman ampitheatre, the remains of the first racecourse in the middle east, a colesseum, a crusdaer church (again) and the palace of the ruler of Samira (this village was the centre of the samirian Kingdom in whatever period this was a kingdom). So this village was a site of major importance for Christian, Jewish, Roman and Greek history. Yet no one visits and since 1932, when the last archeologists from Harvard who unearthed the site left, no one has done any more studies and the building are falling into disrepair.
The tour was led by a really knowledgeable but usually unemployed guide, Saleem who is also a teacher. Palestinian teachers have only been paid 1 and 1/2 months wages since the ending of tax payments and international aid to the Palestinian government, and for three months have only received one payment of $200 from the European union. Right now there is a national strike in Palestine so for weeks children have been without school, although some villages are organising informal lessons this means kids are out on the street all day, not good in areas where the army regularly arrests or harasses young boys.
By the time we got back to the main village news had got down to the olive groves that tourists had arrived and we were met with the souvenier shop man hurridly opening the shutters of his long closed shop. Please come in he said - everything is 40% off. We also had children arrive with bags of old coins, ranging from the Roman to the British mandate period that they had collected from around the ruins. So after buying some postcards, guide books and ancient coins we left this amazing village. If this place was in Europe, the US or anywhere else it would bustling with pilgrims, and world heritage money but it seems the outside world doesn't consider Palestinian history worth preserving or visiting.
By the time we had gone round Sebastia we were really late and really hungry so it was quickly off to Jenin to meet with the fair trade people. After just a few years they have got over 100 cooperatives as members, not just farmers but also an export company and a women's handicraft group and seem to be doing really well. They are hoping to get the FT mark, but before they can the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation have to develop standards. Apparently the Fairtrade Foundation are supposed to be pushing this forward, but so far have been unwilling to send their representatives out to the West Bank for security reasons. So..no Fairtrade mark yet, but they are getting another kind of label (I think IFAT but this could be wrong!).
As were so late we had a pretty short meeting and then went off to Nasser's (the head of the Palestinian Fair Trade Association) house for a huge and fabulous dinner.
We were then taken to the place we were staying for the next two days. We had been told it was a 'resort' a 'villa' and a hotel at different times, so no one was sure what to expect, but when we got there we realised that how ever it as described we would never have believed it anyway! The place was a huge park with fairground rides, handmade by the owner, a swimming pool, manicured gardens, dates trees and lives trees heavy with fruit and huge villas, one with a sculpture of St George slaying the dragon. There were water fountains, flower gardens, video arcades and individual cabins as well a huge function room. Even one the Palestinians with us was suprised - "is this really Palestine" he said. On the one hand really tacky but on the other a genuine haven away.
I wasn't up for another fair trade meeting so instead stayed drinking coffee in the resturant with Cathi. There we met a Palestinan group of families from jenin refugee camp who had come for a night out. one of the women, Wiam, spoke amazing English and we chatted to he for a while before they invited us to come with them to the fairground. Two rides, one on a witches hat thing and one on a big wheel were enough for us, but it was really great fun hanging out with families, with everyone screaming and laughing. I must admit I had a ' are these rides really safe - one was made out of what looked like old school benches - but in fact they beuatifully made and unlike in Engalnd would be turned on and off by demand. After returning to our luxuary villa we took advantage of the satelitte tele to catch up on the latest news - allowing the other Palestine back into our lives as we heard about the killings in Gaza - the worst since June.
We went to bed wondering what other suprises we had in store tomorrow - it certainly looked like another day of contrasts, with a plan to visit a bottling plant, an organic olive press, a harvest festival and the Jenin refugee camp before attending the olive harvest festival party planned for the evening.
