Achrafieh, Beirut

In 10 minutes, you can walk from a scene in a war film to...a scene from Sex and the City. Welcome to Beirut.

Permissions not given by anyone in these photos.
Apologies to cupcake eaters and soldiers alike.

Ed Milliband he aint

I just had lunch with the leader of the opposition, Nawshirwan Mistefa. I'm a bit too overwhelmed to say anything else.

He is a bit scary. I thought he just didn't know enough English to understand my questions, but it turns out staring at people who have just spoken, and so allowing an uncomfortable silence to develop, is his specialty.

But it was incredibly kind of him to give his time to a random foreign researcher, and he answered my questions thoughtfully (albeit up to a point). He also gave us beautiful Iraqi-style fish - that is, grilled over a flame which is a metre away, with rice and tomatoes and onions; lovely.

With tea, I interviewed his son, Nma, who grew up in South London and has the accent to prove it but was wearing traditional Kurdish dress and says this is definitely his home. What does he miss? The services: the internet doesn't cut out regularly, and nor does the electricity...we're good at something in the UK. And that reminds me - people compare the Brits favourably to the US colonisers: apparently we left them with roads, schools, a justice system and hospitals, but what have the Americans left? Broken roads and fast food. I don't mention that, along with the infrastructure, we left them an artificial and unstable country which led to the present mess...

Suli

I'm in a lovely hotel with wifi and proper aircon, and today's been awesome so all is good. First thing this morning, a day and even possibly a night at the Makhmur camp in Erbil (Thursday/Friday) was set up by a "negotiator" (how Jack Bauer is that? I wasn't even allowed to know his name). After a 4 hour journey to get here (Sulaymania, Kurdistan's second city), I met and interviewed two members of the incredible Hardi family: sons of the strongly nationalistic poet Ahmad Hardi, Asos is the founder and general director of Awena newspaper (winning the Jibran Freedom of Press award in Beirut in 2009), and Rebin is a political activist who was recently kidnapped after his prominent role in the Arab Spring-inspired demonstrations in Suli. He's pretty famous (the Elvis Presley of Suli, according to Hoshang), as I can tell by the amount of people approaching him in cafes. (He's quit smoking, which means that everyone who recognises him and plenty who don't get asked for a cigarette.) They are both very jolly despite their hard-bitten realism about the present situation in Kurdistan, of which more later.

Tomorrow I'm meeting another member of the Hardi family - the director of a women's rights NGO; the leader of the opposition (I'm quite scared by that one), two female students and two male so Suli in general is half way to fixing my interview stats and Friday will make the whole thing a success - if the negotiator does his thing. And right now the room is cold enough to snuggle into a duvet which feels like the ultimate luxury.

Wot, no guns?

The mall I'm in doesn't allow guns. Air conditioning and weapon-free: coolio. I have seen guns while I've been here, one in a very strange incident yesterday, on the road from the mountain back to Erbil. The road is wide enough for 3 or 4 cars but there are no markings and thus nothing to guide the BMW in front, nothing to stop it wandering all over the place. Hoshang beeps. And again. Then goes to overtake at which point the BMW swings over and and clips us. We meet on the side of the road; all three of the passengers in front getting out to meet a very angry Hoshang. I stay in the car, and stay very firmly when I see the driver wearing a weapon belt: I see guns, knives, and a hand grenade. He is belligerent but nothing against Hoshang, and another steps in, conciliatory, smiling, an arm on Hoshang's. It turns out that all three are very drunk. Drunk in charge of a BMW and a hand grenade. The soldier at the next checkpoint doesn't even seem to know whether drink-driving is legal or not...I know I know I promised Kurdistan was safe, but I didn't think to ask about driving habits...

Trying to go camping

The main worry now is that we still haven't got into Makhmur camp despite many inroads and even more assurances: contacts are stalling day after day after day. The PKK have refused every journalist for months: why did anyone make out that it would be easy for us? The military structure of the PKK is such that no current member wants to speak to us without permission, and they live in a camp where they cannot even leave without permission. There are many ex-members in Erbil whom I originally thought were sad second bests but right now they seem like gold so I'll set up interviews with them, and we'll start trying to get into the camp near Diyana, where Hoshang's sister (mother of the beautiful Vina) lives.

This is where the trip succeeds or fails, and given there is little over a week left I'm getting very worried...tomorrow I have been promised a meeting outside the camp with an official very high up who seems impressed with my ARTIS credentials so fingers crossed he'll give permissions and hopefully an interview.

I carried so many presents for the kids in the camps! Hoshang's family will have to eat all the sweets and use all the colouring pens - I am not carrying a rucksack full of presents home.

From Costa, Erbil, Iraq

I won't freakin well go to Costa on Mill Road but here I am in Erbil, drinking pretty gross coffee (UHT milk does not a latte make) and eating a mediocre muffin and being charged $17 for the privilege...all in the name of anthropology (and Western toilets).

At first I thought it was all fat businessmen and spoilt boys (and a few tourists inside with the air conditioning), but now families are coming out, and groups of girls too, tight jeans, high heels, make-up; studiously ignoring everyone, including me.

News has just come in that there's been a PKK attack in Diyarbakir, Turkey, where this project began: 13 Turkish soldiers dead and 5 injured, and perhaps 5 PKK members dead too. So perhaps we can't get into the camp tomorrow...maybe we should just stay here and interview spoilt rich kids and sod the terrorists.

So I'm going to approach the cool chicks now; more intimidating than any PKK member I've ever met in any country.

The worst trip I've ever been on? Security into Iraq...

Kurdistan might be the safe part of Iraq, but security is still dreadful. Turkish Airlines change the gate 20 minutes before departure so we all troop, like a school trip, to an unspecified gate in a different part of Istanbul airport and have to go through security again - I lose yet another bottle of water. Then they list the name and passport number of every passenger by hand, one at a time, and we each sign the paper. Then, one at a time, come questions: "Do you have a visa?" No. They flick through my passport, looking at each page with Arabic stamps on. "None of these are for Iraq?" No, duh, or I would have said yes last time. I don't need a visa for the north, I explain, just Baghdad. "Have you been to Iraq before?" No. A mutter of Turkish to a colleague (my heart sinking) while pointing to a Syrian visa. "OK, you can go." Why, I think, because I went to Syria a few years ago? "Stop stop!" as I walk towards the plane: "Your boarding pass please." Compares to my passport, again. 3 metres on exactly the same check, boarding pass to passport. "Have you been to Iraq before?" NO! IS THAT A PROBLEM? "No, no, I just wondered. Welcome to Turkish Airlines."

I wait in passport control in Erbil for over an hour (having been in transit for 16 hours) all the time worrying about my visa-less state. Masa' al-khayr, I say to the official, eventually. "Oh, you speak Arabic. Very nice. Very nice." I give fingerprints, have my irises scanned, my photo taken and finally my passport stamped. Al-hamdu li-llah. "One thing - why do you sound like you are from Syria?" I studied in Damascus. "Oh, very nice, very nice. Now you learn Kurdish? You must sound now like you from Kurdistan!" I don't give a FUCK just LET ME IN so I can GO TO BED. I smile and head into the 30 degree heat...at 3am...

Mournful Music

Thanks to Seth and Henrietta for all the music, and also well done for spot on advice which I shouldn't have ignored. You said that the Beach Boys might be too mournful for an Iraqi playlist and sure enough, coming in over Istanbul I woke up to: "I wanna go home / why don't they let me go home? / This is the worst trip / I've ever been on."

Ha! Actually it did make me happy because it made me laugh, a lot, and starting with low expectations can be a good thing, the Stoics said. Let's see how it pans out...

The Prince of Siam's dog

I've gone blindly past this extraordinary monument on Mitcham's Corner (also known as Staples corner) probably 50 times: it's a forlorn patch of Cambridge, squashed up between 3 main roads with no obvious reason to visit (except Staples). But there is a hidden gem - a reason for anyone to visit. The Prince of Siam built a dog-trough there.

1934
In memory of Tony a dog who
gave him friendship and happiness
during his Cambridge years.
This trough is erected by his Royal
Highness Prince Chula of Siam

Wittgenstein's cat

Cambridge seems to be good at graveyards, but even so, this has to be one of the best: the Ascension Parish Burial Ground, up Huntingdon Road.


Not only does it have graves of famous people (James Frazer of the Golden Bough, a clutch of Darwins, and, of course, Wittgenstein), and inscriptions by Eric Gill...

...and a stone-masonry inside the (non-functioning) church:

It also has a beautiful Bengal cat...


...who's very fond of Wittgenstein:



And it's a perfect place for Wittgenstinian contemplation:

Palestine, Hampshire, UK

I've always wanted to go to Palestine, and then two come along at once. I'm on my way...

It's where Palestine and Zion meet, apparently:


An inspiration for coexistence, or has the conflict been playing itself out in this hood too? Now I'm looking for China Avenue intersecting Tibet Street, Devon, UK.

Back home

After a week of sleep and writing, I'm getting some distance, as they say, on the whole trip. I wish that I'd behaved differently in some ways; I wish I hadn't got so angry in Syria, as it coloured what I thought and said and wrote for the following ten days. I really wish that Detta hadn't taken things personally. Criticism sounds personal, simply because Follow the Women is Detta: it was her idea, and she runs the show - all speeches on behalf of Follow the Women are from Detta. So pointing out what went wrong is pointing out how she went wrong, which is an unfortunate situation when people just want the possibility of change.

It's horrible putting down people who mean well. The sentiment of Follow the Women is good, and it stems - I think, though others have disagreed - from genuine care for people Detta has met. But the naivety of the whole set-up leads to scenarios that I cannot possibly be positive about, and more - this is where insidious guilt asserts itself - I feel the need to be negative: the region means too much for me to allow such scenarios to go uncriticised.

Much of what there is to say about the trip itself can be easily incorporated into FtW. More communication before and during the ride; clearer aims from the beginning; workshops for everyone's questions and input - all this would instantly improve the atmosphere. People would be united, instead of feeling unrepresented. Of course, there are much deeper structural problems. Clarifying the aims sounds easy, given that the aims are there on the website, but there was so much disagreement, including fundamentally contradictory reasons for being there, that in practice this is difficult. For example, Detta stands firm with Sahar when the latter declares Israeli women are not welcome. But Detta has worked hard to bring Israelis on board; she is proud of this and in my opinion rightly so. Some people are there for the women, others say that this is irrelevant. And so on. It is not impossible to sort this out: Detta has to make some decisions and stick to them. But there are another level of problems for me.

No-one seems to know exactly what we are trying to do. Peace for Palestine, Detta said on the last night I was with FtW, in a workshop in Palestine; that's what it started with, that's what it's all about. Many people didn't know that, but even if that is stated as the only aim, there is still the problem that no-one can agree on what peace for Palestine would look like. And no-one seems to be thinking about what we are doing for this mysterious peace.

Taking the message home, is a common theme. What message? That Palestinians have tough lives and wait at checkpoints? This has been just a few days of the two weeks. What is the truth of life in the other three countries that we have seen? We have seen little of the real life of the countries - this is impossible with 250 women in tow, so where will the truth be found?

A view expressed by many was that it felt like a tour group; we were touring four countries in a novel way, cheaply. We were staying in nice hotels, doing tourist things, and on top of that cycling. Few people raised sponsorship so we were not taking money into Palestine.

"Everyone should pledge to do three things" said Detta. "Whether that's trying to get Israeli's on board, or writing an article, or writing letters to your MP, or giving a talk at your work, college, local club: if everyone did just a few things the aims of Follow the Women would be realised." But what would people say? Steph's point that no-one else takes any responsibility was born out by a completely silent response to Detta's request for help. But as I heard later, people didn't feel able to volunteer for something so undefined, something unknown. What I really don't understand is how people have worked so hard for results so unexamined. I want to know what we've achieved.

I have an inkling of some negative achievements, as I've already written about. We have given free publicity to politically dubious regimes and parties and also tourist boards. We have given support in word if not in deed to anyone we have passed along the way, often giving a false sense of what the rest of the world thinks: this takes cross-cultural understanding the wrong way.

Perhaps all of this is irrelevant compared to the feeling of support we give to the Palestinians; also, the message that the Palestinians have a hard life is certainly worth taking home: as Detta put it, "The Palestinians are the ones without a voice". But I wish I'd known that it was all about Palestine before I went, and I can't help thinking that if it was only about Palestine, we should have spent more time in Palestine and less enjoying the hospitality of the region.

5 Star Hotels

"The best thing about Follow the Women was the hotels."

Spoken by Mette, agreed with by many.

What are the ethics of staying in 5 star hotels when on a peace ride? I realise that some luxury abodes have been sponsorship in kind (and the problems with that is an entirely separate issue), so it's not as if we're depriving the needy - even if we slept on the street the Palestinians wouldn't get any more money. But sometimes they have been chosen by the organisers, despite being paid for out of the FtW pot. Some people think that putting money into the non-existent tourist industry in Jericho is a good thing (who does stay in that resort when we're not there, anyway?). This is an old economic argument, used to justify servants and other luxuries, but is it really true that the money gets to locals in Jericho? Does a Palestinian own the hotel? How much are the service staff paid? If we stayed in a hostel would the poor locals get more than the waiters at the hotel?

What's really strange are the juxtapositions. We go home from visiting refugee camps to hot baths and room service. A day spent in passing borders and checkpoints is finished with sheesha on a terrace overlooking the pool complete with palms and a multitude of waiters. Many are bridling with the money and time wasted on luxury, which doesn't add much to an understanding of the country.

"And don't even get me started on the carbon footprint of 250 women in 5-star hotels" says American journalist in Jordan. An environmentally disastrous bike-ride...how very original...

Follow the Bush (Mrs)

Mette and I blag our way into the "Western Wall Tunnels" (488 metres of tunnel running alongside the buried Wailing Wall): apparently, you’re supposed to book a place by email two days in advance so be warned. It's an incredible museum; the result of over a hundred years of archaeological work containing many thousands of years of rich Holy Land history.

One of the miracles of the wall is a huge stone which has cracked to produce a perfect map of Israel. “Oh, including the occupied territories” said Mette when she saw. A giggle from a Brit, silence from the rest.

We watch a short film about how to excavate a site, and when we are leaving our Stepford wife of a tour guide points to a chair and said “that’s where Mrs Bush sat this morning”. We left one group obsessed by a first lady to follow another.

Safe bathing - with an armed guard

Mette, Jutta and I have lunch together in Nablus after a morning with the Women, and go into town by ourselves. It's lucky I didn't get my only tourist impression from Bethlehem...Nablus was aggressive, explicitly.

"Is your grandfather Jewish?" I was asked (in Arabic, nobody here spoke English), after asking the way to the Tomb of Joseph (in the Danish guidebook). Erm, no. Admitting to Danish nationality didn't go down at all well, and Mette and Jutta retired to play volleyball with the children (all boys) around. "I'm Hamas" said another man (no women to be seen; men appearing from nowhere). "What do you think about that?". I explain we're tourists. "Jewish?" Erm, no, again. "Why do you want to see Joseph?" We've just been to Jacob's Well, and the guidebook says we're near to the tomb.

Eventually they point the way, and the posse of boys accompanies us, jostling and generally harassing us. We try to go into the bombed out shell of a tomb, but shouts from police and soldiers stop us. We are met by the same suspicion though reined in: "Why do you want to go in?". They radio for permission ("Just say British" says the superior after hearing "British and Danish") and then lead the way. "Israel did all this damage" they tell us, fairly needlessly. I ask how old the tomb is. "Old, old, 200 years at least". I look very baffled indeed. "Surely not", I say, wondering how bad my Arabic is. "Thousands, right?" They look baffled. "The son of Jacob died min zaman [ages ago]." "But this isn't the son of Jacob".

Light dawns.
- There are two Josephs?
- Of course.
- This isn't the Prophet Joseph?
- No no no!
- Where's the Prophet Joseph?
- In Egypt.

We laugh.

They laugh a lot, and explain that this is a very famous Muslim Sheikh from the 18th century, targeted by the Israelis on account of his importance to the locals. No wonder they were suspicious.



Soon after we bump into an official from the tourist board who is horrified that we are by ourselves, and gives us an armed guard, who then waits for an hour while we bathe - in a lovely Turkish bath with all trimmings - steam, scrub, massage, soak, shower and lying/dozing on a huge heated marble table. A waste of Palestinian police time? Almost certainly, but almost certainly nicer for him too: sitting drinking tea waiting for bathing Western beauties to appear.

We return to the Women restored, though of course everyone is jealous again, and we are being majorly disapproved of - not without cause. Looking back, I should have left days ago.

Finally: It's all about Palestine

We're in the Best Eastern Hotel in Ramallah and have had an impromptu workshop, courtesy of Stine. A few hours on, I feel terrible that I suggested Stine for the role, given the grief she got - people reacted so badly when all she was asking for was feedback about the aims of FtW in order to start organising a conference in December.

Stine is so clear, she is so positive, she is so committed, but just asking for a discussion she had to field so much criticism from tired, emotional and in many cases angry women. It wasn't clear quite what the reason for all the aggression was. Later, Elaine told me that asking for Israeli involvement was an attack on the Palestinians, despite the fact that FtW have tried to get them onboard.

When the discussion was supposed to be opened up, someone stands up and says "What I want to know is where's Detta?". Poor Detta. In asking Stine to do this for her, she opened up the whole organisation and I was pleased about it. But she came forward, and told us how it is.

"For me, this is all about Palestine. That's how it started, and that's what it's about. And if the aims change" - she starts getting choked up - "then, well...then I won't be part of it anymore". There are cheers from some, while others look on disillusioned.

This is the truth of it: not the FtW website, not the media stories. It's not about the region, it's not about women, it's not about dialogue: it's about showing solidarity with Palestinians.

But what is this website I've run across? "Detta's Dream" c. 2004: A Youth Counselling Service. What DOES she want? What have we done towards her dream of this service? For that matter, what solidarity have we shown the Palestinians? I guess we have given many hope, and that really is fantastic. But where does it lead? What will have changed by next year's trip?

Oh Little Town...

Ea and I decide to go to Bethlehem, and before we know it we have a taxi full - Mette and Camilla are keen to come too. There are others; Marie in her principled way sticks to cycling to show support to the Palestinians who have prepared for us. Others just cannot fit in our taxi and it's too late to find their own. Later, people are eaten up with jealousy when they hear, and I start to feel even worse about nominally still being a part of the group.

But it was awesome.

We are dropped at the Church of the Nativity, but head straight to the Peace Centre on the other side of the square. It's huge and new, and very welcoming: Mette is directed to toilets and I stay to hear about activities in Bethlehem, which are many. We pick up a map and sundries: the programme for the Palestine Literary Festival (which has unfortunately just finished - organised by Ahdaf Soueif; other delights included Seamus Heaney, William Dalrymple, Esther Freud, Andrew O'Hagan...I'm researching into how many went straight onto the Israeli Literary Festival.)

(And "Palestine Now" - substantially bigger than Time Out Jerusalem (or was it Israel - I remember events for Tel Aviv; Mette or Jutta, will you let me know?).)

We head up the hill, looking for coffee, and revelling in the bustling life, pretty buildings, souqs stacked with fruit and veg...we stop and look at George making pancakes; they're a food for Ramadan, but he, as a Christian, cooks them all year round and is therefore very popular with Muslims. We want to buy some, but he explains that they're for taking home and stuffing with nuts and honey and baking. At our crestfallen faces he takes some fresh ones and sprinkles them with sugar for us, refusing to take money.

We continue up, eventually stopping for water and coffee. We then walk down the hill, stopping to take photos of churches (there seem to be hundreds and hundreds), buy raq chickpeas (which we eat like peas in the pod), browse in the souq...we then try and find a restaurant to meet my friend Ben in. This involves lots of walking (despite the endless "just 10 minutes from here") and getting lost, and so we see a lot of the city: streets which remind us of Italy, streets which remind me of a richer Damascus, churches with posters for Christian martyrs...and all the time we do not see a single other westerner. We are given free bread when we ask the way, and then a lift when it happens again: "We want you to know that this is a good place to visit" says the man taking us. We have a coke at the restaurant while waiting for Ben, but a text comes to say he's down the street: the waiter refuses to take money just for drinks. We have so far been given pancakes, bread, a lift, and drinks, for free.

We track Ben down and have lunch, and pick his brains about the region: finally we have a chance to ask anything we like, and we take it. (Sorry Ben. Come back to England soon and I'll buy you a pint.) So we finally understand about the different dates for the "celebrations" of the founding of Israel (different calendars, and the "birthday" happening in the evening whereas Nakba, the "catastrophe" starting the next day); we learn about Christianity in Palestine (a not as great a proportion as in Syria, but it's up to 30% in Bethlehem): we even learn to hope for the area. Ben's lived and worked in Palestine, and is still optimistic...it was so wonderful to see him...

But he is busy, so we wend our way back to the Church of the Nativity. We have a brief stop to commiserate with the poor dying tree of peace (I tried to give it the kiss of life), and then have our only negative impression of Bethlehem. A man shows us the way to the Milk Grotto telling us that "it shuts in 10 minutes, we must go now, now" - we had an hour or more, but he took us via shops of his friends. "Very good prices for you, you know our children are starving, we have to feed our children" he tells us manically, again and again, and it gets horrible claustrophobic. I know that their tourist industry has died down somewhat, but that hassling that happens all over the world never goes down well with me. I gave money in the church, but I'm afraid we didn't give him anything to help feed his children.

The Milk Grotto, where Mary stopped to feed Jesus to keep him quiet on their flight, was naff: the Church of the Nativity was glorious. We get an equally hyperactive guide, but he was entertaining and fun and nice. He whipped us around the three churches (Catholic, Armenian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox), and took us down into St Jerome's little cave (WHY did he work in the dark anyway?) and then to the sight of pilgrimage itself: the stable. Or rather, cave. We tried to fix our childhood nativity scenes into the place but it really was tough, and our guide objected to my notion of an inn: "It's a church!" It made me laugh too much to explain: the idea that Mary and Joseph and the donkey stopped at a church and asked to stay in their stable. But anyway...we couldn't see the real manger, we were told, as the crusaders stole it and took it back to Italy, but we did see the exact spot Jesus was born, marked by a star, and we felt the circle in the centre of the star and made our wishes known to Jesus...

The Catholic part was newer and plainer (and there was a big tour group singing Away in a Manger! Brilliant): the small Armenian and the large Greek parts were fantastically bling. We asked if there were ever fights "Oh yes" the answer came breezily, "sometimes a lot". He claimed his pitiful fee and a tip and ran off.

We got a public service back to Ramallah in time for the dinner on the schedule, but of course the group were behind, and were at Yasir Arafat's tomb. (I managed to say in front of Palestinians, "oh, I don't care about Yasir Arafat." Oops. One told Camilla "Your friend really should be careful." Oh dear.) We sat in the hotel lobby with tea and computers. Dorothy and Carolynne (Irish) joined us and listened with jealousy to our stories...

The Wall

On the way to Bethlehem we see the security wall, which wasn't so fun. It's a deeply disturbing, sinister presence in the landscape, despite some great graffiti. Our driver told us the story of his friend's uncle's house: the wall has gone straight through it, meaning it's a 1.5 km. walk from the bedroom to the bathroom.

Give us this day...

...our daily burger!


(Jericho, Palestine. N.B. The Lord Burger.)

Jericho

Another country, another 5-Star hotel. It's getting to me. I defect to the Danish team on arrival and this is the way it stays until the bitter end - to the relief of both sides I should think.

The programme is changed leaving us with an unexpected couple of hours. Tina (red-head not blond), Camilla and I jump on bikes and head into Jericho itself, realising too late that three women on bikes are not the same proposition as 170, and I suddenly feel vulnerable. But we push on until we find a tourist attraction, and impulsively (thank you Tina! Please send me photos!) hop on a cable car and get ourselves up the Mount of Temptation, where Jesus spent 40 days and nights, meeting and resisting the devil. We just stuck to mint tea and the amazing views of picture-book Holy Land and the Dead Sea until the sun went down. Magical.