Jericho the Mighty. Who knew you were so lovely. From the highway, you are dust, a sprawling pancake of drabness 400 feet below sea-level.
And yet, from within: bustling beyond your small stature, ever lively around your pleasant fountained town square (well, circle). Tentacle-roads emanating miles towards the desert mountains of Jordan and of Israel. An epic ruinous palace lying in slumber at land's end, sanctified by the twilight and lonely in the flatness of the Jordan Valley. Obedient flocks of goats jaunting with their Bedouin masters.
From a deserted crossraods, a failed UN Development Programme agricultural effort on one corner, and a new, gated municipal Palestinian Authority compound on the other, framing a limitless view to the horizon.
In town, roasted chickens removed with oversized chemistry tongs from the oven, doused with garlic, drenched with lemon, eaten with just the hands on a wooden bench. Young men loitering by the fountain, joking, eyes curiously staring at the lone American. Old men sitting idly with their sludgy coffee and cigarettes, brimming with wisdom, resigned and bitter, and awaiting an audience for their outpouring of the Palestinian experience.
By 10 pm, the fountain abandoned, shops closed up in favor of cheap plastic stools on the sidewalk. A once-palatial hotel, reduced to crumbles and empty expanses. The halls echo with 'Lady In Red', the night manager's apparent choice. The light doesn't work in the bedroom, but there is a door to a private balcony. A piece of bittersweet chocolate, and its bedtime.
