The Old City of Nablus

Colorful fruits and vegetables. Pungent spices. The sticky sweetness of konafa. Shops whose wares of clothes and household goods spill into narrow alleyways. The aromas of falafel, shwarma, and occasionally donkey dung. Calls of “welcome!” This is the Old City of Nablus.

A Turkish bath awaits behind closed doors – for women only, because today is Sunday. Women lounge on cushions or chat at tables. Some sip cups of tea with mint or Turkish coffee, others puff away at flavored tobacco or shisha, the water-pipe known by a dozen names and common throughout the Middle East. Behind closed doors are hot stones under vaulted ceilings, mosaic walls, and steam rooms, the last of which is barely discernable through the clouds of water vapor billowing out of it. This is the Old City of Nablus.

Yet the doorway to the Turkish bath is not so grand as it once was. A closer look at the alleyways reveals countless posters commemorating martyrs and patches of crumbling stone. Above the smiling faces of shopkeepers and curious eyes of children, bullet holes riddle the sides of buildings which have yet to be restored. Some of the holes are decades old, others only a few years. This, also, is the Old City of Nablus.

Today is a normal day in the Palestinian city. The violent conflicts of the Second Intifada are no longer daily occurrences, but they are far from forgotten. The martyr posters commemorate the men, women, and children Nablus has lost at the hands of Israeli soldiers, whether directly or indirectly. Hundreds of citizens are still kept in Israeli prisons, and the military maintains checkpoints outside the city. Today, many of them are open and both Palestinian and Israeli vehicles pass through them easily. A few years ago the case was very different. Entry and exit into Nablus was strictly controlled, with students of An-Najah University prohibited from crossing the checkpoints into the city. Many resorted to passing by foot through olive groves in order to attend classes.

Reminders of the conflict are easy to see, and one doesn’t always have to look hard for them. In a handful of shops, ammunition belts and bullet-proof vests hang beside keffiyehs and baseball caps.

This, too, is the Old City of Nablus.

Watching the World Cup in Palestine

Millions of people around the world gathered around TV screens to watch the World Cup finals between Spain and the Netherlands last night. In the West Bank city of Nablus, around two thousand Palestinians crowded into an open-air hillside amphitheatre to watch the game projected on a massive screen. I and three other foreigners were among them, surrounded by cheering, joking, laughing Palestinians. Spanish flags waved everywhere, with the occasional red-white-blue of the Netherlands visible. Twenty or so Italians gathered on the floor of the amphitheatre, a French couple were somewhere in the crowd, and a handful of other foreigners were interspersed across the hillside.

Young boys wove their way through the crowd carrying drinks and sunflower seeds, older boys offering steaming tea and coffee. Bags of sweets moved through the crowd, and a couple found their way into our hands after being purchased by our new Palestinian friends, who were sitting in front of us. Bags of sunflower seeds were passed. "Espana? Espana?" eager voices asked us, with a few shaking their heads as my friends and I affirmed we were rooting for Spain.

As the game neared a close after 30 minues of overtime, the cheering became deafening. Everyone was on their feet, cheering as much for every goal saved as for the goal made by Spain. Masses of Palestinian youth poured onto the streets at the end of the match, Spanish flags flying out the windows of cars and horns blaring as we hailed a cab and headed back to our Nablus flat.

I have to say, watching the World Cup finals at an open-air amphitheatre in Nablus surrounded by thousands of Palestinians was definitely the experience of a lifetime - even for someone who isn't really a football fan.