Tourists get Palestine history lesson on donkey-back tour
Originally started to help pay tuition, donkey tours have turned into a lucrative business
When a group of university students were trying to find a way to pay their tuition fees, the idea of organising donkey tours began as a joke but has become a lucrative enterprise.
Camel rides in Egypt and elephant rides in Thailand inspired five Palestinian friends to set up a donkey tour business in Palestine’s most popular tourist destination of Sebastia located in Nablus governorate in the northern part of the occupied West Bank. The venture is proving so successful that the young entrepreneurs are now having to juggle running the flourishing venture with their time-consuming studies at Al Najah National University.
“Our project is gaining momentum, with increasing numbers of tourists registering for the tour,” Mufeed Al Haj, a cofounder of the project, told Gulf News.
The students, all in their mid-20s, are engineering majors, with the exception of Mouenes Al Haj, who is a veterinary student.
The friends now have 15 donkeys, which cost them 7,500 shekels, and they aim to acquire more to meet the increasing demand for tours.
The tourists can roam the entire area of Sebastia and are provided with historic details of all the landmarks in the area.
The tours start from Al Shami Wadi in north Sebastia, moving towards Al Masodiyah, and then through all the area’s tourist spots. The visible remains at ancient Sebastia include Roman tombs, a Hellenistic tower, a Severan basilica, and the Herodion gate towers at the entrance of a colonnaded street with 6,000 columns on both sides.
Raouf Hawari, another cofounder of the business, says tourists are educated on a range of issues including the history, culture and traditions of Palestine as well as environment and animal rights.
Traditionally, most households in Palestinian rural areas used donkeys as a means of transportation. “The donkey is a symbol of Palestinian country life,” said Al Haj.
Sebastia is coming under increased Israeli incursions as they have begun to present false historical Jewish claims to the land. The incursions have emboldened the young entrepreneurs even more. ntra-Palestinian confrontations between Fatah and the hardline Islamist Badr group in Ain Al Hilweh this month have refocused media attention on the camp’s ongoing humanitarian crises.
Not only is Ain Al Hilweh the largest and most crowded of the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, estimated to house over 150,000 in 2017, it is also one of the poorest.
Haphazardly constructed just southeast of the city of Sidon (Saida) after 1948, when the first wave of Palestinians expelled from Israel arrived, Ain Al Hilweh swelled with the addition of at least 25,000 Palestinians that fled the Yarmouk camp near Damascus, Syria, after the 2011 uprising against the Syrian regime ripped it apart.
The largely dilapidated camp suffers from chronic water and electricity shortages.
Primitive facilities
Crowded buildings, two to three storeys high, practically keep out any sunlight and keep in humidity causing its elderly inhabitants to develop serious respiratory problems. Needless to say, its health care and education facilities are primitive.
Although the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), along with several private organisations like the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), which helps Palestinian refugees in the Occupied Territories, and the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC) provide basic necessities, resources are too stretched to provide further help. UNRWA provides basic relief amenities but is unable to ensure common services, such as solid waste disposal, as this falls under the responsibility of local authorities — Palestinians inside the camps and Lebanese outside.
Some 450,000 Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, although the real number is likely higher.
Initially, Palestinians were denied job opportunities in 70 categories, but in 2007 the number was reduced to only 20 categories, so that they would have more opportunities.
In a major breakthrough in 2010, Palestinians were granted the same rights as other foreigners in the country — they still, however, are not allowed to own land.