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Very happy that everyone has arrived safe and well

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The picture is of another group, another time. Their memories of their visit were dramatic and good and bad... Look forward to hearing yours... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is to wish the Spring 2019 group a good, strong, useful and momorable trip. Well, the first big hurdle has passed ... or rather, the first two. The first one was getting the group built, settled and ready and that was done  some time ago. It has been a pleasure to meet a very varied group of people.  I am sure everyone has areas of skill and knowledge different from each other and I hope this will become a good group! And I think so. The second hurdle was getting there! I know that a number of you were worried about this though I had no doubt - It is always made difficult at the airport, but really you were all going to be fine .... And so you are all there after your long journeys, and the adventure begin...
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3. Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem.

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3).  Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem. On the second day, we went to Aida refugee camp, just north of the centre of Bethlehem, the home of some 6,000 refugees, the ancestors of some of the 800,000 Palestinians - 70% of the whole Arab Palestine population - whose homes and villages, some 534 of them, were destroyed in 1948.  About 80% of these villages  remain empty, which adds to the bitterness of the refugees’ inter-generational campaign for their right to return to them.  The camp is entered under an arch on which is laid a huge replica key, symbolising this aspiration of its inhabitants to return to their ancestral homes.  Alongside the camp is a winding and particularly obtrusive section of the Separation wall, made of huge concrete slabs and watchtowers, one of which near the camp entrance, seemed to have been blackened by fire.  Nearby is a large poster depicting Aboud Shadi, an unarmed thirteen year old shot a few years ago from on...
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Spring tour basics

Spring tour basics The structure of the week was that every night we stayed in Abu Dis, & every day the minibus took us to places of interest. One way to describe Abu Dis is to say that it’s a suburb of Jerusalem; another is to say   it’s a village. Before the wall, one could drive from Abu Dis to a central part of Jerusalem in 4 mins; after, it took 30 mins. When our tour guide Abed was young, he went to college in a central part of Jerusalem & used to walk there. There were 11 in the group; four females; 7 males. The two main groups were 3 young women & 5 retired/semi -retired male trade unionists. One woman was about my age: 67; one man was black & London Caribbean; one woman was French Algerian & came from Paris; another was English Pakistani or mixed race. This last was from a small Muslim group that I’d never heard of before, not Sunni, not Shia. I’ve forgot the name of this group. Most were secularists; one was a Jew & probably s...
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