Jericho – Art Knows No Borders Blog 7/11

9.01.16

I wander lost through the fields outside of Jericho. I have unwisely decided to stay at a much decayed “Eco-village.” 17 Kilometers outside of the city of Jericho, there is a small meandering track through fields and lush, verdant, yards that leads from the crumbling and windswept compound to a small roadside restaurant, surrounded by several small supermarkets, and at least 5 stores that seem to specialize in the same multicolored plastic chairs. The scenery pleasantly conjurers memories of remote villages in Lao and Thailand. I considering the common cultural elements of both the decomposing, trash strew, brightness of the poor east, and the remote sterile cities of affluent European descent. Cheap building techniques, decay, and the vibrancy of chaos.

On the way back I stop to talk with the owner of one of the supermarkets, who seems anxious to aggressively complain in a manner that is recognizable in the chronically angry the world over. In a surprising change of pace he declares “America bad”, mirroring the otherwise ubiquitous “America good.” Despite frequent denunciations of the occupation, he is surprisingly open and welcoming to his Israeli customers, seemingly no less comfortable with them than their Palestinian counterparts.

The delay costs me the last light, and walking back from the turn off I am quickly disoriented by the winding paths and terminuses. Beneath an ancient sky where I do not recognize the foreign stars, and in this, the most ancient of cities, at the bottom of the world, where the pressurized air is heavy and hot, I find myself at last aware of how far I have wandered…

The “cooperative” eco-village seems like all things peace related, a decayed-relic of a more optimistic time. A result of the ambitious Friends of The Earth Middle East; in its mud building techniques and bright children’s play area, and incomplete geodesic dome, I recognize a common guiding-hand shared with other, more active, eco-villages. Despite bold claims about its cross-border team, it is as devoid of Israelis as it is a reminder of the prospect of peace in this war torn land.

As is the crack strewn tower I have run my fingers across today, which dates from an age so far distant as to be forever unrecognizable. The depth of the passage of time is barely comprehensible, and the walls I have walked were an ancient legend already when their story was first retold in the Book of Joshua. And yet, their is a familiarity, and each epoch of its 10 millennia journey is punctuated in marks of suffering and conquest.

-Alex