Attitude: There is more room for trust than you’ve been taught. A baker in Nablus chased me across the city to return thirty cents I overpaid him.
Language: Don't expect people to even understand your best Western pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic. It’s too formal, it’s fus-ha. Many young people in the Middle East do not fully read the Qu'ran because it's in this formal type of Arabic. Pickup some colloquial phrases. In addition to the hand-motions, know that teeth-sucking just means no, not annoyance. Two useful phrases: Shattra fi tabih. Skilled in cooking, a great compliment. Yateeq lafi: May God Give you Health, in response to someone saying they’re tired.
Food: Do not fast if you are going to Petra! Eat a lot and walk it off.
Volunteering: Contact places like Cross-Cultural Solutions if you need help securing a volunteer post. However, you can also organize your volunteering yourself. Contact charities in the place you want to visit and ask if they could use a volunteer and if they could help arrange a host for room and board. This will work surprisingly well.
Best of Bethlehem: The walk from Deheishe to Bethlehem city center is safe and about thirty-five minutes long. Must-sees are the The Nativity Church, and the Nativity square.
Bethlehem University has numerous cultural events like traditional dance (dabka) shows.
You can buy hand-made items at Shiraa in Deheishe or at the famous but more expensive Palestinian Heritage Center.
The West Bank is not a place where residents wear traditional clothes just for concerts or to appease tourists. It’s what they wear. When a woman dies, her husband or son may frame the cloth of the dress she made and memorialize her on the wall. The designs, however, are not just for clothes. You can get laptop covers and USB holders, too.
From Bethlehem, you will go through the checkpoint and inevitably confront the wall: the Security Wall in Israel, the Separation or Apartheid Wall in Palestine. See Banksy art hidden throughout Bethlehem and Deheishe, but especially on the wall.
Arrive early on Fridays, have your passport. Here, too, the locals are downtrodden yet accustomed to this process. Only Palestinians and tourists have to wait in these lines. Pregnant women have trouble fitting through the numerous turnstiles. Some have died in emergency childbirth here and at other checkpoints.
The conspicuous 21 bus brings you from the other side of the checkpoint to Damascus Gate.
Best of Jerusalem: The Old City is where it’s at. Inside these walls—built by Ottoman Suleiman the Magnificent—not only do Christians say Jesus held the last supper and was killed, but today, three religions converge here.
Eat Falafel and pickled veggies right inside the gate at the fork in the street. Enjoy an abundance of licorice. Find the bakery in the Arab Quarter nobody goes except Arab men. The pastries look like pizza, but they’re good.
Befriend Anas at the café decked out in blue and orange Nestea designs and he may let you cook falafel. Get coffee in East Jerusalem, right outside Damascus Gate.
Barter, barter, barter. Simply walking away will drop any price by a third.
Stay in the Petra Hostel for a 360 degree view of the Old City from the roof. Stay here if you want an easy to find location and Internet access as well as sharing accommodations with the spirits of Mark Twain and Herman Melville. The owner may give you a rare fair exchange rate if you need cash.
Visit the elusive Dome of the Rock at Temple Mount by waiting in the line adjacent to very accessible The Wailing Wall. It’s worth any wait. Bring water and a picnic, as you’ll find many Muslim families picnicking relaxingly inside the grounds.