fruit on the ceiling and sacriligeous sweet shops

The village of Somara is five minute's taxi from nablus centre. There is a checkpoint which is normally manned, though when I went last week I managed to sneak through as everyone was apparently on a coffee break. together. I went ostensibly to play a few trad tunes with Danny and Stuart, though ended up for much of the evening being shown the random fruity decorative hangings inside people's houses which they put up for Succot. It was pretty cool, and we were also shown the Samaritan Holy book. The alphabet looks like something out of star trek, and this comes from someone who is used to funny languages. We were also introduced to one of the famed Ukrainian brides that are purchased over the internet and come to live here. Samaritans were. for many years, only permitted to marry inside the community, hence numbers were dwindling. Now however, they are expected to stabilise a little. This community is one of two Samaritan communities left, the other being just outside Tel Aviv. They congregate on these two Holy mountains and have lived here for thousands of years. I was told if I was still here at their equivalent of passover, to come and see the ritual slaughter of hundreds of livestock. I'll see how my stomach takes Eid al-Ahdha first in a couple of weeks before I resolve to go to see a larger scale version in five month's time.

The baroque concert was well received and the recital room was full and all in all, much joyous music was to be had. The Corelli at the end was my particular highlight and even the Bach double at the start was not too atrocious on my part, apart from the perennial issue of intonation as my violin teacher will hasten to confirm. We are going to repeat some of the programme in a couple of schools over the next couple of weeks to try and promote the spread (like a virus) of music learning. We are also going to have a student recital followed by Hallowe'en activities next saturday which should be full of mayhem and general joy. It is strange for me to realise that I have been here a full month. It feels as if I've been here years. The nights are getting chillier now, as I discovered on thursday night when we all went round to Sami's house to dine on the veritable banquet of food prepared over a series of hours in an underground barbecue. There were gasps of delight when Sami and Stuart pulled out from the steamy depths a multi-levelled rack of chicken, turkey and miscellaneous vegetables and the largest aubergines I have ever seen. These were taken inside and transformed into the BEST babagannoush in the world. The gastronomic delights were accompanied by a supply of the best Lebanese araq, though I preferred to stay on the mango juice for most of the night. i am afraid araq holds a special place in my heart which I'd rather not visit too often.

Thursday was also the day of the performance of 'Brova' in Balata. after all the rehearsals it was so satisfying to get out and perform it at last. The crowd, in true style, took 45 minutes to arrive and settle down, however after that they were treated to the travails of Salah and the other performers and seemed to really enjoy it all - the rhythmic stuff alla 'Stomp', the group monologue pieces, the poetry. It all worked, and it was wonderful to see it come together so well. On Saturday we performed it again in Qalqiliya in a place which turned out to be a seminar room in a centre controlled by Hamas. This was followed by a bizarre evening eating falafel sandwiches in a section of Qalqiliya zoo which is left open after dark. I tried to ignore the rather miserable animals that everyone else seemed to revel in running round to visit. Even the lemurs, which are one of my favourite animals besides fruit bats, seemed rather fatigued and pensive. Still, it was an experience I suppose.

We also had a barbecue birthday for Phoenix which included much fizzy drinks, chicken kebab and liver(!) and Josh our guitar volunteer leaving us this week, combined as with a random performance of a French gypsy swing band in the municipal park just down the road. I have also bid goodbye to my dwelling in Balata, which saddens me, but for convenience and volunteer bonding shari3a Jami3a al Jadida is my new home. Frequent visits back to my camp home are anticipated however, and yesterday two of the performers from Salah's project registered as new students at the centre for guitar and drums. We celebrated, a strange Palestinian-ajnabi group we were, in the top of the most irreverent sweet shop in town - Damascus sweets - which is open even through Friday prayers. I feel this should become a regular occurrence. Maybe they'll even start giving me a discount.