** UPDATE: And there's cats ***

First, a personal update.

All over the West Bank, and certainly here in the Bethlehem governorate, it is not only the peak of wedding season but also election season. All day both toasts and ballot results pipe through bullhorns, and applause ripple through different ends of town, converging somewhere around my flat. And I’m assuming the thumping bass and snaking horns I hear at this moment are coming from a wedding reception down the road rather than the Ministry of Commerce.

Both events clog up the roads and set off strings of car horns. The aftermath of weddings in particular result in convoys of cars beeping in near-harmony, which creates a sonic affect not unlike “De Natura Sonoris No. 2.” Things get slightly more melodic when the call to prayer creeps into the soundscape.

Finally, each night one is jolted by the cracks of crude fireworks. Every night so far. As an American abroad I might have felt privileged to see such displays on July 4, in the Middle East, of all places. But I’ve always shared the view of Aimee Mann—they’re “a waste of gunpowder and sky.”

From the roof, a view of some electoral commotion.

I hear all of these things without the muzzle of a window’s glass, since my only source of cool air is the open air on the roof or whatever the wind sends through my open shutters down below. The noise is one thing; globs of sweat are another (which I’d like to avoid). I’m really quite alright with all of it, so long as the bugs continue to keep their distance.

In the past few days we've seen Israel reneg on its body transfer of 84 Palestinian fighters, one hundreed of the "flytilla" folks herded into the holding pen, and slowdowns in talks between Fatah and Hamas.

It seems I'll actually have to run at the moment—not much of a post so far. There are apparently some clashes happening between protestors and Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem. So perhaps tomorrow I can get a bit further in measuring up the scene here.

Labels: aimee mann, Bethlehem, fireworks, Palestine, penderecki, summer, West Bank

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