Interviews

Today we went into the Old City for a few hours. Because it is Friday we could only go out from three to sundown. My goal was to buy my souvinirs for people and get that out of the way. But....I didn't even come close to reaching this goal.

This is because as we were going into the city I was the last person in the group and a guy said "Do you need help finding anything?" and I said no, thank you (because people always say that to make you stop and look in their shop). He called back to me as I passed him "I really do want to help, I'm not trying to get you to come to my shop" and then I stopped because I'm actually trying to figure out where to find a prayer rug (he might have overheard me say this). He told me where I can find one and we actually stayed and talked to him for a good 45 minutes.

His name is Omar and he is 29 years old. He spoke very good English because he went to high school in Philidelphia and went to college at George Mason. He graduated in Accounting and is now working in Jerusalem for a company as a finance consultant.

I learned a lot of things from Omar. He grew up in the Old City and his childhood was during the time of the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising. This started when he was about eight years old. He said that at that time the streets of the Old City were completely empty. No one came to Jerusalem to tour. To him as an eight year old it was great; he said that he and his friends ruled the streets and the whole city was their playground.

He explained some of the effects that the intifada had on him and his peers. He said that education slipped and a lot of people his age now can't get good jobs because they don't have the skills they need. He escaped that fate because his parents put him in a private catholic school and he was able to continue on to get skills that he needed to be successful. He learned what he needed to and came back home to his country to improve it. Very cool story.

So Omar is going to hook me up and find me a prayer rug. And he also invited us to come to where he works because there is an amazing view from the top of the building. When we get back from Galilee we're going to get a group together to go and see him once again.

So it was a good day, even though I didn't complete what I wanted to, it was still good. I've said this before but this is my favorite part of being in Jerusalem is knowing the people. To get a glimpse of their life and how it is so different from mine and yet so much the same. To talk about fast food in America and talk about Vegas! So fun and one of the greatest things that I will remember about my stay in Jerusalem.