Having taken care of "Business" - in the form of immediate work commitments - and essentially hung around the Tel Aviv zone for several days, I have been feeling a growing need to change gears and follow the possibility of visiting the West Bank. I have received an invitation to go to Ramallah. The most obvious jumping off point for this, if it's going to happen, is Jerusalem

and so, with Yoram and Gil - the producers of the Didj Festival - we head in that general direction. But first we make a pitstop for a dip and some relaxation in the hills outside of Jerusalem. It is hot and dry. The hammock is welcome after the pool.

    When I have raised the idea of going to the West Bank with my new israeli friends I find there is a palpably negative response. For israelis it is a federal offence to cross the checkpoint into Palestine, which is not to say that people don't do it. Just that there is significant risk involved. However, the tenor of the reactions I have got when I put my desire to go to Ramallah to play in a school into a conversation goes beyond concern for the law. It is a conditioned response that speaks to a much deeper fear and, I believe to one of the saddest aspects of the troubles in this most troubled region of the world - "We can't go there. They hate us! It's not safe. If they catch us they'll kill us" Hmm, food for thought even if it wasn't before. However, word from the palestinian side where I have connections made through my daughter's school in the East Bay and cross referenced with further contacts at KPFA is far more encouraging. These are the voices of reason that I trust in this instance. I have to. The other voices speak with the kind of fear that seem to me to be the result of a deeply institutionalized conditioning process and I cannot let them infect my resolve, or my time in the Middle East will have had a hollow heart.

    There have been exceptions to the negative sensibility on this issue and I was encouraged when one of my most positive contacts within the israeli Didjeridu community voiced his intention to come with me. But as the day approached he sadly let me know that after much talking with his friends, he had revised his opinion and wouldn't make it after all. "It's too dangerous". However, Steev Kindwald had moved in the other direction and, after initially vetoing the idea of accompanying me, had changed his mind and wanted to come. Of course there are israelis who regularly run the gauntlet of the checkpoints and the heavy duty security and it so happened that we connected with an activist, Layla Shelimar, after the Festival and she was planning to go to Ramallah on the same day accompanying an american university professor who was traveling to Ramallah for the sole purpose of interviewing a very bright palestinian student who had ambitions to further his studies in the USA, and to succeed in that aim would need heavyweight assistance to get through the blockade (this is the kind of story that illustrates what the world has come to).  Meeting Layla was a blessing and we determined to take a taxi together the next day and Steev and I would visit 2 schools in Ramallah and perform there.

  But first we zoned in on Jerusalem, ancient and modern, the energy of which immediately sets the pulse racing. What a buzz! This city, the focus of 3 of the world's major religions, is alive with history and culture and I arrived there at a peculiarly significant time - the convergence of Ramadan and the Jewish High Holidays, a couple of days before Yom Kippur.

   After checking into a hostel on Jaffa St. Steev, Layla and I head off through the twilight towards the Old City where we join forces with another strand of the Tel Aviv bunch who have also hit the metropolis for a change of air and some culture. I am highly amused by a group of young orthodox Jews busking "Kosher Hip Hop" on the street. They are not very good, the rhyming is stilted and the music lacks rhythm but the concept and the bonhomie with which they strut their stuff is contagious. The 3 rappers slip between Hebrew and English and I hand over a few shekels after taking a photo (which isn't very good either). Then we enter the Old City, a convivial sextet wading into the Arabic Quarter against the tide of thousands leaving evening prayers to break their Ramadan fast. Wow, I'm in a whole different world now. Down into the markets, a mass of seething humanity on a mission in search of food. Most of these people haven't eaten since 4am. They move as one, with intent, but quietly through the labyrinthian market corridors lit now by glaring bulbs, all colors hung in strands above the throng. I welcome this new sense of immersion into a different culture. It's a joyful sight. But, here there is a strong military presence too. IDF soldiers are blocking some of the tunnels, channeling the crowds in one direction. Their presence is not appreciated and some of the hungry moslems start arguing with them in the gloomy shadows. We 6 move on, Leah telling how even here in the heart of the Arab Quarter there are jewish settlers who occupy houses and who require military escorts to take them to and fro. Never leaving 'home' without them.

  Down into the tunneling rabbit warren and round a corner we are suddenly met by a scene as if from an airport - Security barriers, metal detectors, more  guards. And here we are. At the top of the stairs overlooking the Wailing Wall and the Temple of the Mount, the 2nd most sacred site in the moslem world. Both of them occupying the same small piece of land either side of a wall that is built dozens of meters down into the ground. There is such magic, such energy in the air here, and deep into the ground, thousands of years of intensity focused on this one place and the spectacle of it all is overwhelming. I am used to being a foreigner in the world, it is my story since my own beginnings in East Africa. So I am used to missing parts of the jigsaw through not understanding the language that has maybe explained the intent of the moment, having flown over my head like music in another tongue. This was one of those occasions. Honestly, I had no idea where we were going on this journey deep into the heart of Jerusalem. I was just going with the flow. This moment then was even more intense than it would have been if I had been a simple tourist with my guide book, intent on making my way through the sacred sites of the Holy City in the Holy Land. Checking them off one by one. Also, on the eve of Yom Kippur I believe that the presence of those at the Wailing Wall may have also had a higher level of intensity than most other days on the calendar year. In any case, putting on the cardboard Yammake provided I waded with my heart in my mouth into the milling throngs of Hacids in their black hatted uniforms of black, black jackets, black trousers,  white shirts and shawls, glasses, beards and curled ringlets. Some gathering in groups, writing prayers at tables, some sitting alone at small desks, the Torah open in front of them, rocking back and forth back and forth in an ecstasy of prayer, ranting and raving, bowing and beseeching, each in his own moment entirely with God, all energy focused towards the wall. This side of the wall - the other side being the site of the Dome of the Rock with the entrance, a raised ramp of the western entrance for the moslem faithful, a temporary structure at this time, now closed for the day, rising above the crowds into the wall above - is divided into two unequal halves, one for men and the other, smaller, for women. So I am among the men, of course. There is an indescribable sound, like the humming, buzzing and scratching of thousands of insects on a summer evening, carrying a distinct but indefinable musical note into the atmosphere. It is wonderful, eerie and uplifting all at once. It is one of the most emotionally charged places I have ever been in my life and I am swept up in it all, completely awestruck with wonder. At first it is all I can do just to be there, a witness to this magic. But then I am imbued with the need to contribute my own prayers to the wall, encouraged and infused with the spirit of this place. Afterwards I cannot leave. Long after our friends, more familiar with this place, have concluded their own obeisance Steev and I remain rooted to the spot, before we drag ourselves away from the buzz to return to the now gradually closing market place in the arabic quarter once more to search for Ramadan desserts from arabic bakeries. What a blast of another reality all around!