Ghana changed my mind about a lot of things... I knew I was ready to go somewhere very different from Italy, and not just for a vacation, I wanted to find a job and live in a country outside of Europe and North America. But where? And more importantly: how? While I was thinking about all the possibilities I decided to take my "Esame Di Stato" (Professional Industrial Engineer State Qualification ), an exam that we have to take after graduation to become 100% Industrial Engineers and then.... it was summer! In Italy nothing works for 2 months during summer, we all have to go to the beach getting a tan, so I just decided to embrace the Italian culture and I travelled for the rest of the summer. :-)
First stop was Turkey. Oh Turkey... I don't know why but I know that I will eventually end up living there. It is such a wonderful country and I keep finding myself making friends with Turkish people everywhere I go! Some of my best friends in the world are Turkish and I got to see them during this trip. It was great to see them and I left with the feeling that we are all still close like we were when we all lived in Berkeley 3 years ago. (Bak Şarap!)
Then I went to a place that would deserve a blog entry just for itself....
the so-called Holy Land (?)
So that place is nuts! It's like nothing I have seen before. It's the middle east but it's also not, it's rich but it's also not, it's small but it's also not, it's developed but it's also not, it's beautiful but it's also not.... What a mess!! Maybe 9 days are not enough to figure it out, actually I'm not even sure it's possible to figure it out at all! I guess I can try to sum up my impressions in a few bullet points, not necessarily related to each other and not in any order:
- It's a f**king interesting "country" (countries? State? Nation/s? Region?).. Even just walking on the streets made my mind wonder about so many things! 3 of the main religions in the world, at least 10 different ethnic groups, 2000 years of such a complicated history, 2 almost opposite cultures .... ALL living together (not so happily..) in this tiny (look at the map! It's so small) piece of land! I couldn't go a day without falling in deep conversations about religion, politics, history and culture.. And I keep wondering: who is wrong? Who are the evil ones? Is there such a thing? .. And another thought I had was: how is it possible that such a small country could resist the pressure from all these Arabic countries surrounding it for so long? How can it stay so completely isolated from the bordering countries but so connected with Europe and Russia (they participate in all the Eastern European music/sport contests!), how can it be such a rich country with almost zero natural resources and no trade with his own region of the world?
- Food is sooo good. It's not just the amazing hummus with every meal.. Everything is delicious! So many vegetables, both raw and cooked, and beautiful desserts... I still dream of some of a meal I had in Bethlehem.
- There are so many tourists! No, worse! There are so many Italian tourists! No, worse! There are so many Italian Catholic pilgrims, making noise, complaining about the heat and only interested in seeing where Jesus pooped, not caring about what Israel is today. ..but maybe that's just me being racist with Italians once again.. :-) It was actually really interesting to see a different kind of tourists... Not the usual Americans, Germans and Japanese that are now the majority in Florence and Venice, but people from all over the world: from Korea to Côte d'Ivoire, from France to Ethiopia, from Korea to Papua New Guinea (!!!) (I was so excited when they told me they were from Papua New Guinea! It doesn't happen every day.. :-) )
- Jerusalem is a place I will never forget... especially the intense feeling I had for the whole time I was there... Maybe because I kept seeing pilgrims from every country and religion coming to pray in that city, maybe because of all the sacred places around the old city that are so important for the history of the world, maybe because of some symptoms of the "Jerusalem Syndrome"... whatever it might have been, I felt strange and kept having crazy dreams every night I was in Jerusalem, and during the days I felt so enlightened and strangely enthusiastic about every single religious idea that I saw or learned there. Going to the Western Wall was absolutely the most intense experience... Seeing all those people praying in front of that sacred wall really moved me and I couldn't stop thinking about it for a few days after I saw it.
- You can feel there's so much hatred and racism all over the place. Jews, Christians and Muslims all passionately hate each other. And you can feel it in what they say, what they do to each other and how there's no integration at all. (there's walls between regions, walls between towns, walls between neighborhoods, walls everywhere!). Crossing the borders between Israel and Palestine always made me wonder why... why do they have to live like that? I know this is a stupid question.. there are plenty of strong political, religious and cultural reasons.. and after talking to people from each side of the wall I left the Holy Land with the fear that ..there might never be peace there....
That trip to Israel and Palestine was something that had a huge impact on the way I see the world. I learned so much (and definitely not enough) about that place and its never-ending internal conflict, and also a lot about how the rest of the world is dealing with it. How important Jerusalem is, not only for Israelis and Palestinians, but for Jews, Christians, Muslims, and people from all over the world that are indirectly affected by these tensions. There are so many mysteries and things we don't know about that place... it's scary, and fascinating, and definitely a reason why I need to go back to Jerusalem and understand more about that magical, difficult, very intense city.
