Many cool things have happened in the last few days. A ninety-year-old Holocaust survivor came for one of the classical music concerts in the center, but before hand he talked to us and gave us his life story. He only speaks Polish, Hebrew, and Spanish, so he spoke in Spanish and a couple of our boys translated. He was actually late to the concert because he wanted to answer all of our questions and take a picture with us and dance to "La Cucaracha."
Yesterday we went to Jericho. We walked around a bunch of ruins, and saw the oldest building in the world, which was sorta green and rocky. It was also the one day in hundreds when it rains in the Judean Wilderness, and the valley was cold and drizzly. However, we hiked up the Mount of Temptation to see a monastery, and up in the mountain the air was hot and muggy. The monastery clings to the side of a cliff near the caves where hermits used to live. Inside, the monastery is a narrow hallway along the side of the mountain and a few caves made into rooms. Girls wore our head-scarves, so we stood out slightly less from the Greek Orthodox pilgrims swarming around us. They discovered we were not one of them when they asked us questions in Greek.
On the way back, we stopped at a rise overlooking the Wilderness. It was huge and barren and beautiful. There's a picture in the back of the Bible which I've seen before, but in real life it left me awestruck. We sang "Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd" and did not buy anything from the Bedouins who hung around, much to their consternation. We did take a picture with a couple of the adorable little Bedouin boys, though, and gave them a couple of our sack lunches for their trouble. I wish we could have done something for the littlest boy who dropped his ball down the ravine. It was quite tragic.
In other news, we leave for Egypt in two days. Egypt! Yay!
-Stella
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