A Description

Jerusalem building codes have one main rule—that any structure in the city be constructed of Jerusalem limestone. Even the gas stations are made of stone. Bro. Ludlow tells me that many times the stone for the building is taken from the earth beneath the building site when they excavate the foundation. They take stone from directly underneath where the building sits. When I first arrived and saw the sun setting on the city it reminded me of the way Boromir spoke so passionately of his home, “the white city,” in Fellowship of the Rings. “Have you ever seen it? The white city?” he asks Aragorn. “We will return to the sounding of trumpets calling us home. The Lords of Gondor return!” He finishes with pride. He loved his white city. Jerusalem is like that. The light reflects off the stone and transforms the whole of it into a reflection of light or a net of dark shadows. It conjures many thoughts of metaphors… light and darkness, good and evil, conflict and peace, corruption and incorruption.
The light here is different too. I have heard the climate described as intense, and that the sunlight hits you and wipes you out with it’s heat. It is hot… but I’ve been “baked” by sunlight FAR more intensely. The light in my hometown (Provo, UT) has a golden hue. Everything it touches becomes more vibrant. Here the light is white. (a sister here getting her masters at HebrewU said in her Shabbath (Shaw-baht) talk today that Jerusalem light makes everything more vibrant… and I’m going to have to disagree with her on that one. The light is different, but it isn’t all that scorching, and it isn’t all that hot. It tends to bleach everything out--white light and all that.
I have also heard it said that it is dry. Psh! It’s humid! Not much, but my friend Greg who is from Salt Lake and I agree… the air is sticky. Brandon, my friend from east TX complains that his lips are cracking and that his skin is peeling from the “dry dry dry dry dry atmosphere.” Ha! That’s what I say to that! I won’t ever need the lotion that I brought. The air here is humid. That’s right. Believe it or not. Brandon says that Greg and I are just too used to negative 40% humidity and that we’re nuts for thinking Israel is humid. I gave him that. And Jerusalem might not be Florida, but there is more moisture in the air here than there is in Provo.
I’m trying to identify the local botany and animal life. There is a sort of evergreen cedar-ish like tree that produces the most peculiar pods. Green and brown spotted with pentagon wedges… like a walnut sized soccer ball with raised pods for patches. There are strange birds here. Well, no. I should rather say that they are variations of the ones I am used to. I have only seen three types of birds. There are doves—but instead of gray they are brown with a spot of red on its beak. The finches look similar enough, though their brown feathers are more mottled in color; much less defined than the distinctly spotted ones from Utah. A skinny sort of crow is here too—in droves, just like crows travel. Too small for ravens and too big for magpies and not quite burly enough for crows, but definitely in the crow family, I reckon they are rooks. (There are two other types that I can’t recall…) In any case, like magpies they are not solid black. Imagine a crow with a faded, dingy kercheif around its neck. That’s what these birds are like. They walk like crows—that awkward pigeon neck bobbing waddle. But again, like magpies, they use their wings intermittently and soar! One neatly hovered outside the auditorium during sacrament meeting. It rode updrafts in patterns quite efficiently. Such graceful birds—but not clean and neat or pretty, as magpies seem. These birds are filthy. Not majestic in the least, they seem to be the beggars of the crow family. Fascinating things. I miss birds. I hope there are seagulls at the seas I’ll get to see. I miss my jays, sparrows, finches, robins, and gulls. I miss the hawks circling over the park as I made my way home from school. I have seen two dogs (one looked more like a miniature wolf than a dog. The size of a terrier with the mane and muzzle of a fierce beast… incongruous.) The city has dozens of cats of all ages, but all are trim in size. I watched one nearly make off with a dove in the garden of Gethsemene, but the bird got away. I’ve watched an eight year old palestinian boy ride a donkey; he swiped at it with a leafy switch, smiling at us as he said in perfect English, “hello Mormon.”
The children here are really something. Many adults have closed, fierce expressions. The children are often wary, but still stare at us—some kindly, some as if they are trying to understand what we’re doing and thinking, and others with bright smiles and mischieviousness. They are nearly always unaccompanied. They wander the streets in groups. The size of my nieces and nephews Emma, Sam, and Patience. Very young children on their own—or I should say very young BOYS on their own. I’ve only seen one girl on her own and she was standing in front of her home. Palestinian chilren in particular seem un-chaperoned and un-supervised. Brazen as brass they’ll walk straight past you, or right up to you. Sure, some hold wind chimes in your face and say, “five shekel,” but most just say “hi!” enthusiastically.
A few of us were walking back up the Kidron valley to the center this afternoon, passing through the Palestinian quarter of the city. A young boy of about eight or nine walking in the opposite direction stopped us and said, “Welcome.” I looked more closely at him. No one else had said it, and certainly not like that. He looked straight in my eyes, and I looked in his—and knew he was very intelligent. Very aware. And it was apparent. As if he had knew about us secretly. I hesitate to call him a child. He seemed so adult. In the instant our eyes met, his face was impassive but his eyes warm, as he said again, “Welcome. Welcome to Jerusalem.” It moved me. I speedily replied, “thank you,” as emphatically as I could, but he had already turned and moved on his way. I was moved. And then I walked home, thinking about what I had seen and what I had learned.