“You can’t go there by foot, Bethlehem is 2 hours away from here!”
As soon as we passed the wall, taxi drivers surrounded us and gave us ‘good offers’. When we declined the offers, it became sarcasm. Anyways we ignored what they said and followed GPS to reach Manger Square in Bethlehem.
But today’s atmosphere is strange. Usually, there are long queues at checkpoints, but there was no one here today. No vendors, no passers-by, no fruit sellers… where was everyone?
After a few minutes following Google Maps, I found myself in a dead lane. Did Google Maps expect me to jump over this wall? Or was I missing some secret passage? Suddenly a passerby wearing a blue suit approached us.
“Where do you want to go?”, he said.
I said “manger square”. And then he pointed the direction we came,
“You have to go from there.”
I was a little angry why GPS brought us to this wall.
“There’s no way from here?”
But he gently said,
“There is no road here. The wall has blocked all the roads. You need to go back to the checkpoint. You can catch a taxi or mini-van from there.”
And I protested:
“But there is no mini-van at the checkpoint! Only taxi!”
And then as if he remembered something, he agreed that there was no mini-van today. So finally I brought up my confusion on this unexpected “ghost town” Bethlehem. And he said with a smile,
“It’s Easter Saturday today. There will be activities in the afternoon. Everyone is preparing, so that’s why you don’t see people on the road and shops are not open.” Then he pointed to the building behind him: “I saw you from my house, so I came down to see if you need any help. “
I had never heard about such thing as “Easter Saturday”. Plus Easter was a month ago….. Did I hear him wrong? Though I knew that 2016 was a strange year because Easter was in March and Passover was in April! Then he said,
“Today is the Easter for Eastern Christians. It is different from the Easter of Gregorian calendar. I’m going to the event in the afternoon too.”
“Oh! Are you….an Orthodox Christian?”
I studied this man. Greenish-blue eyes. I don’t know if it is polite to ask about someone’s faith. But he frankly shared with us,
“I am a Greek Orthodox Christian because my mother is a Greek, but my wife is a Catholic.”
“Oh! Orthodox Christian and Catholic! So which Easter does your wife celebrate?”
“Actually, we celebrate both. There is Coptic Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, and Greek Orthodox here and we are all called Christians. We are only 1% and we cannot be divided.”
I keep thinking about his words from his heart. As an outsider, we see a division of so many sects in Israel, but the locals actually tell us this “we cannot be divided”. That’s powerful! Then he shared his family story, but in short, the wall had been here since 2003. I had no idea why Google Maps took me to a dead end if this wall had been here for more than 10 years…..
Then, Johnny, the man told us that he had never been to Jerusalem since. He just couldn’t get a permit from the Israeli government. But his tone, there was no hatred in his tone. I was surprised by this because here I was, in front of a real “Palestinian” whose freedom was completely restricted, but as a Christian, he had no complaints against Israel. Only a tad of sadness with a ton of understanding. His previous wealthy life is tremendously affected and tourism business isn’t easy, and he could have many reasons to turn cynical, but he didn’t.
And he was the person who told me “We are only 1% and we cannot be divided.”
That is a priceless lesson learned.
