5 Pillars

I was very interested in visiting a mostly Islamic county for the first time.
The call to prayer echoes around the city, calling the faithful to their daily prayers. It is a sound immediately evocative of the Middle East and, like the chiming of church bells, brings rhythm and religion into each day. Daily prayer is an important part of Muslim life, and the many mosques around the city were seldom empty. We could see 19 different mosques from the balcony of our apartment, glowing green in the evening.

We were lucky to be visiting Nablus during the festival of Eid Al Adha or the Feast of the Sacrifice, which is one of the most important holidays for Muslims. It honours the prophet Abraham who was called by God to sacrifice his son, however before he did so God intervened and he was told to sacrifice a ram instead. The festival is also the most important time to make the pilgrimage to Hajj in Mecca, so many Muslims travel to Saudi Arabia at this time of year.
Most people use the time to visit family and share food with them, special cakes called mamool are made which are AMAZING! Some families slaughter a ram - we could hear a bleating sound coming from next door which came to an abrupt stop on the first day of Eid. Our neighbour's young boys then delighted in showing us the poor beast's head over the garden wall!
It was an honour to share this time with our Muslim friends and learn more about the festival. I bought some special Eid lights to take home which are pretty cool.

Some of our friends were granted a special pass to visit family in "48" - Israel. Most of the time it is pretty much impossible for people to visit family on the other side of the green line, however during Eid the Israelis allow a few lucky people to travel across the border, worship at the Al Asqa mosque in Jerusalem, and visit loved ones in cities like Jaffa, Haifa, Tel Aviv or Nazareth. This luck does not extend to refugees however, and there are three refugee camps in Nablus. Balata, Askar and "1" are densely populated camps, consisting of people who fled what is now Israel in 1948 and their descendants. It is so sad to see that people have been refugees for generations, living in tightly packed housing in some of the poorest parts of the city. The people who live there are not allowed to vote in local elections, have very restricted travel and work opportunities and attend schools run by the UN. The camps are also the most targeted when it comes to attacks or arrests and the tiny narrow streets are lined with posters depicting men and boys who have died. 

The children and young people we met from the camps were amazing! They all had great English, even the 5 year olds, and were very positive, inquisitive and community minded. They showed us some Dabke - a lively arabic dance to macho, pulsing music that I've become totally addicted to.

A Dabke CD I bought in Ramallah

The city is also home to a small but thriving Christian population, as well as being close to one of the two Samaritan villages in the world. I will write a wee bit more about them later!!