The Journey Home

A quick visit to the Nativity Church, where I spend an hour trying to figure out how I got so much dust on the sensor of my camera and attempt a futile clean-up using the equipment I have on me. Then a small wander through the narrow market streets of Bethlehem. I figure it's a pretty small town and that's confirmed when I spot someone I recognise.

Susana is at a cake stall with a couple of foreigners, I assume they're part of some Palestine-supporting campaign. She's pleased to see me, but waves a 'wait a second' finger at me as she is engaged in an intense conversation with the shop owner which lasts for a couple of minutes. She's doing all the talking. Suddenly she's done and nods her head and we move on to meet her husband Farid. "I am very angry, these cakes cost one shekel each and they try to sell them to those foreigners for five shekels, it's not right. I had to tell them off. I was very angry". I smiled. Typical Susana, I thought. I barely know her, but I get the gist that she's always campaigning or scheming for a just cause at any given minute of any day. For that she has my deepest respect.

"Did you hear the news? It's terrible." At least 60 more have been killed in the Gaza Strip in more airstrike attacks. The Circus have not made it to Ramallah as planned due to heavy protests and a curfew emplacement. The Palestinian Authority have declared tommorow as a day for national mourning over the events that have taken place in the past 48 hours. It all just seems to be escalating. Back at the hostel, the residents are transfixed to the Al Jazeera news channel - overtones of the 2005 London bombings as a population is drawn to the slowly disseminating information from a constant channel broadcast. It would certainly an odd time to be a clown in Palestine right now.

The snoring man seems to have discovered new frequencies that penetrate my earplugs and just as I think I'm about to drop off into a nice slumber, my phone's ringing at full volume and I'm scrabbling around for it in the dark. Stuey is ringing me and I've no idea why. Then it dawns on me in a pretty sickening way that he's at Heathrow and the flight I was supposed to be on touched down a couple of hours ago. Fuck it. The Circus way of life has definitely got to me out here.

I promptly book a ticket for the next day, although the temptation to stay for another couple of weeks does cross my mind.

Susana warned us well in advance that the Israeli airport security doesn't take kindly to people with footage from inside Palestine. "They don't want the world to see our side of the story." With this in mind, Mauro and me have decided to do a little bit of camera swapping to deflect unwanted suspicion. It would be gutting to lose all the footage and photos we've collected. I've burned DVDs with every photo I've taken, and have two sets of encrypted files in hidden folders on my laptop hard drive. Mauro has only one copy of his tapes, and Ruth's ingenious plan of separating the big-ass professional video cam from the tapes is in action. We venture into the airport and split up so that the pieces of the puzzle would be harder for them to put together, but I guess anyone travelling alone in this region registers more interest. They pull everything out of my luggage and swab everything down for testing. As they do so, I think of Jen's slightly bent fire-staff of doom, and hope that I never got near enough to it for explosive chemicals to leave their mark on me. As they go through my entire inventory, I get an uneasy feeling of worry that I may well have left my pen-knife in the hand luggage I gave to Mauro to take through. Fuck it. Hanging out with the Circus has definitely had an effect.

On the other side of security, I spot Mauro with his dark sunglasses on, reclined right back into a chair with one leg jiggling up and down wildly. I fear he's either had one coca cola too many or he's been anal probed by an overzealous security guard. I approach to ask him the time. "GET AWAY! I think they're following me". I leave him be and conclude that I definitely left my knife in that bag. Oops.

12 hours later, one plane, two trains and a bus trip further, I meet up with him outside Bank tube station. He forgives me quite quickly about the whole knife thing. I can't remember whether he said it was the worst moment of his life or the most exciting one when he was bumrushed by six guards at the security checkpoint. The halfway point between being apologetically responsible and proudly responsible is to feel quietly content.

I joined the Circus just over two weeks ago wanting to know more about these crazy people who would pull this kind of stunt off. Somewhere along the way, I decided I felt the need to support the people of Palestine but aside from boycotting avocados (and other Israeli products), I figured there's not much I can really do. I'm certainly not as driven like Susana or any of the Circus girls, I'm just a musician riding on the perpetual crest of the almost-made-it-wave.

My 12:30pm student shows up slightly late and drops his guitar on the floor in a way that means I'll get to watch him spend 5 minutes tuning it up again. This one always makes polite conversation to make up for the fact that he hasn't practised.

"Hey, how was your holiday? Where was it again?"
"Great thanks. Palestine."
"What? With the rockets?"

Before I knew it, I was dishing out a proper rant (like one of Laura's, but mine definitely lacked her decibels), mixing up clown stories with tales of economic sanction and checkpoint nightmares with tear gas adventures. He really didn't look like he was expecting this, but for me, that was all the more reason to keep going. I finally paused to recompose and change today's topic of education to legends of rock: Whitesnake. He doesn't reach for his pick straight away. "That wall really sounds like it sucks."

My work here is done.


In hope they may one day update their website:
http://www.circus2iraq.org/