After visiting the Church of Nativity and markets, the group decided to go and see the Aydah refugee camp. When we got there we met one of the workers from the camp who was telling us about the clashes and events that happen there. The camp is situated near to a huge gate in the wall where the army basically cause problems from. There are quite a few watch towers around the place as well and one closer to the camps was black and burnt by refugees. We did not get enough time to actually chat and interact with the refugees as it was late in the day and coming up to iftar time. One thing that didn't seem right though was that the refugee camp is located only meters behind the international hotel of Bethlehem.
What I was amazed at was the art work the Palestinians had done on the wall. The wall itself is very ugly, no two ways about it. We learned from the refugee workers that one of the Popes came to visit and they moved the place in which they'd host him because having the wall in the background would be controversial according to the Israelis. The artwork was amazing, it was brilliantly done, some spoke volumes of despair, others of standing up and fighting and some of support from outsiders. The extracts on the wall from individual people were very interesting and some touching. I took photos of some and put them on Facebook for more people to read.
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