THE STAR ON MY CONIFER

by Olakunbi Diya (Nigeria)

Making a local connection Israel

As a kid I find aircrafts fascinating, such masterpiece of metal soaring above cities and seas, personally that would be my favorite invention, another thing I find fascinating would be culture, I live in a metropolitan city and I have witnessed a few foreign culture in this little world of mine, from the Indians playing cricket at the park or Chinese singing and dancing to their local Christian music in church and the Lebanese exchanging sentences in their dialect at the supermarket, it’s all amazing and I find everything beautiful. Coming from a family that enjoys sightseeing, my dad, a medical doctor shuffled between India and London to work, when he was alive he loved the Indian culture even brought back sari and Sherwani. I as a student, mentioned earlier on how I find culture fascinating took a one year course on acculturation, as I got familiar with states in my country, I learnt to appreciate their art . While I enjoyed all these, one traveling experience stood out for me, the very first time I stepped out of my country, I had always believed my first time out would be to neighbouring countries, little did I know my mother had huge plans for us. On the 25th of November 2010, my mom picked me to accompany her on her pilgrimage exercise, she has always wanted to see the birth place of Jesus, I on the other hand was ecstatic and overwhelmed knowing I will be having a voyage of a lifetime . We got processed in 3 weeks, sponsored by the state government, we were given every appropriate apparel needed. The day I had sleepless nights came 18th of December 2010, went to church to pray for journey mercy and headed out with other groups for the airport, our first stop was Turkey before finally landing in Israel and it was stunning from the first time I saw the country below me, lodged in to Rimonim Nazareth, the city from my window was beautiful and the morning after brought fresh sea air, after breakfast we headed out for Yigal Allon Centre were we visited the Museum and took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus preached The scenery was beautifying with seagulls feeding and my mother was very scared her first boat ride. The next day we visited Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle, you would have to read your Bible to find that, the streets where beautiful the people were accommodating. The exercise saw us visiting mount Sinai in Egypt, hiking was energetic and I experienced my first camel ride, taking long swim at the Elaria Nuweiba Resort. The high point for me would be visiting the city of Bethlehem on Christmas, the city was a beauty to behold, Basilica of the Nativity, the traditional site of Christ birth, the day was long and joyful, music filling the air and the night was alluring and colourfull with fireworks. We stayed in Israel longer visiting the Eilat store where Diamonds and jewelry were made, we worshipped with the locals at the Mount of Beatitudes, picked roses from the Garden Tomb, visited the walls at Jericho, saw the caves where religious sect of essences, who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, resided some of which were discovered in 1947, The ancient site of Capernaum and I personally ate a lot of traditional food such as Shakshuka, Matzah Ball Soup. Throughout the pilgrimage it was filled with a connection of divinity and more wisdom into the ancient ways the Nazarene lived. To top it all I experienced a New year in a different continent and the merriment were excellent and peaceful when it needed to be. To anyone planning on visiting the Holy Land should be ready to be touched emotionally and spiritually because there is no where else I would have loved to spend my Christmas most especially with my loving mother. On the 2nd of January we departed for home and the experience I had, I would die to have it once more because it tops any other experience till this very moment.