Only in Israel

After living in this country for almost ten months, I really couldn't help but notice how things are made way more complicated than they need to be. Especially with trash removal. It's so ridiculous, the first time I saw it, I laughed. The dumpsters are these huge round containers and when the garbage men come to empty them, they use this huge claw machine type thing to lift the enormous garbage bag lining the dumpster. They attach hooks to the huge bag and lift it out before lowering it into the truck. I guess Israelis really like claw machine.

There are claw machines everywhere, most of which contain only a few toys scattered amongst fake Rolex watches, and packs of cigarettes. I always thought those machines were supposed to be for kids.

But I guess there are a lot of blurry lines in this country, like liquor stores that also sell candy and toys. Fun for the whole family, I suppose.

The public transportation system runs pretty well, except when everything stops for Shabbat. My most humorous bus rides are when I go to Be'er Sheva. As we leave Ashkelon, passing by Palm trees and Date trees that are so tropical looking, we pass a highway sign that says, "Gaza 10 km." I wonder why no one has removed those signs yet. Is anyone actually driving to Gaza? It just makes me laugh. Almost immediately we are in brown farm land and empty fields that remind me of Nebraska. It's just ugly, brown, and boring. There's nothing to look at. Soon after that we are in the desert passing roaming donkeys and camels in the middle of nowhere. And then someone rings the "stop" button. The bus stops in the middle of the desert, and I look out the window looking for something, some sign of civilization, but there's none. And then I see someone get off the bus and just walk off into the desert. Where are they going? There is nothing around for miles, from what I can tell, and how does this person even know that this is their stop? I guess it's the one right by that rock over there.

The teenagers walk the streets with the music from their cell phones blaring. No one uses headphones. I don't know if it's because they can't afford them, or if they just think their music is so good they need to share it with the world. It's usually techno, or that obnoxious song that is everyone's ring tone here, that always gets stuck in my head, no fail. "Stereo Love," I think is the name of it. Look it up, you won't get it out of your head for days, and I fully intend on making that my new ring tone when I get back in the states.

As rude and pushy as Israelis are, parodied to a T on "The Simpsons," people have a strong sense of community. Several times I've been on a bus or on the sidewalk, and a lady has come up to me and asked me to watch her baby for a minute. It seems so contradictory, rude pushy people asking complete strangers to watch their kids. But no one is as rude as the old ladies at the grocery store. So many times while I'm waiting in line at the store, a little old lady comes up with one item in her hand gesturing that she wants to go ahead of me, and being the nice, well mannered American that I am, I let them. Then out of nowhere bags and bags of groceries appear, like these old ladies hide them under their skirts so that they can cut people in line.

There have been so many things to get used to in this country, seeing people walk around with pistols in their belts, adult claw machines, and liquor stores that also sell candy. But I've enjoyed my experience, and have a lot of items to add to my "Only in Israel" list.

If You Want Me, I'll Be In the Bar

My mom's visit over Passover break was just what I needed. My mom, my aunt, and I spent five nights in Jerusalem where we took a four hour walking tour of the Old City which included a tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was absolutely gorgeous. The mosaics were so detailed, and all the gold plating on the ceilings were amazing. It's incredible to think about how old these places are, that I'm walking on the original stone. You just can't find places like this in the States. We took a day trip to the Dead Sea, which I don't care for. It is beautiful there, but I don't like swimming in the Dead Sea, it feels like I'm swimming in soup, it grosses me out. Mom came to Ashkelon with me for a few hours to see the depressing one bedroom dorm room I share with two other girls, and to help me pack up all my winter clothes that I no longer needed.

We spent two nights in Tel Aviv right on the beach. Of course, there was not much for us to do besides sit on the beach, because of Passover, everything was closed.

Istanbul was amazing. Our hotel, the Seven Hills, was right between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. A lot of the restaurants and cafes had patios on the roofs, providing great views of the bay and all the mosques. Five times a day every mosque had a "call to prayer," a loud voice chanting, or singing, if you can really call it that. Most men would drop what they were doing to go pray. The Grand Bazaar shuts down for an hour to pray, and while we were there some men started rolling out a really long rug. I thought they were showing it to someone, trying to sell it, but then all the men shut down their kiosks and knelt on it. Traffic stops during the call to prayer. People get out of their cars in the middle of streets to pray. But only the men can pray in public, I'm not sure what women do.

The Blue Mosque was pretty. People still pray there so when you enter you have to take off your shoes and women have to cover their heads. It smelled like feet inside, and someone told us that in the summer, people have to wear masks because it smells so bad. At least it was still cool outside while we were there.

The Hagia Sophia was gorgeous, there was Islamic art all over, as well as Christian mosaics that had been worn and eroded with time, but they were still pretty.

We also went into the underground cisterns, where Medusa supposedly lived, and there were sculptures of her head carved into the bases of a few pillars.

Everything we did was really interesting, but there were so many tourists there we couldn't walk on the sidewalks. We had to weave in and out of the crowds, walking in the street a lot of the time. I even saw a guy steal something from someone and run away, only to try and sell me what I had just seen him steal. He told me he got it on the Black Market. Well, of course it was the black market, he had stolen it, isn't that what the black market is?

It's funny to think how all these Turkish people make money, when every store you pass is the same as the last one. Ceramics store, rug store, ceramics store, rug store, cafe. Everyone has an uncle who has a shop right down the street. When we asked for directions to a restaurant we were led numerous times into a rug store. This doesn't look like a restaurant. The sights were amazing, but I could have done without people yelling at me to come into their shops. If you even glance in the window of a store, a man starts yelling prices at you, and saying, "Please, come in!" I don't need anyone to tell me where to shop. If I want to go into a store, I will, but yelling at me is not going to help.

Returning from break I felt like I needed a break from my break.

I went with a few friends to a "Rainbow Gathering." It's just a bunch of hippies in the middle of the woods. The directions to this place were, "follow the rock piles." On the bus to get there, we met some other people who were going there as well. When we got off the bus at around ten at night, we started looking for the rock piles, which were few and far between. On our hike, with all of our gear strapped to our backs, a car pulls up asking if we were heading to the Rainbow Gathering. The girl in the car told us it was a three hour hike from where we were, and she gave us a ride. We got to the Welcome Center, which was a tent that had a big "Welcome Home" banner on it, we got all our stuff out of the car. Our driver lead us to the main campsite, taking us on a "short-cut" which involved walking through thorns and other prickly bushes, straight up the side of a mountain. This guy was barefoot the whole time and told us that he had forgotten his shoes at home and had been barefoot for the past two weeks, since he got to the rainbow gathering. Rainbow Gatherings are based around the cycle of the moon and can sometimes last up to a month. This particular gathering was three weeks long, but we only went for the weekend. When we got to the main campsite there was a huge fire with hippies standing around singing "Kumbaya" type songs, jamming on whatever instruments they had brought with them. We met a lot of really interesting people there, people were constantly coming over to our cam site with their guitars, or with tea to share. Everyone was really nice and I felt totally comfortable leaving my belongings outside of my tent all night long. You couldn't do that in the states. Alcohol is frowned upon, and I could see why. In the states I think a lot of people would get wasted and cause a lot of trouble, fighting and stealing, it happens all the time at festivals. These people we like to call "wookies." They are only there for the drugs or to get messed up, they completely take away from the message these gatherings are supposed to represent, which is unity, love, and family. I love camping, so I thought it was a great weekend, although the Rainbow people seemed a little cult-like, with the prayer circles, standing holding hands and chanting, "om," and talking about the "great spirit" visiting them. It was a little extreme for me. But that was one more experience to add to my "Only in Israel" list. On our last day after careful consideration and planning, we concluded that we couldn't get back to the Jerusalem bus station in time for me to make the last bus back to Ashkelon, and in order for me to do so, we would have to hitchhike. We caught a guy driving out of the camp grounds and asked him for a ride, which he kindly gave us, dropping us off at a junction right outside of Jerusalem. I'm counting this as hitchhiking because this is probably the closest I will ever come to the real deal. We stuck our fingers out(not our thumbs, cause that's how they do it here) attempting to hitch a ride into Jerusalem, but before anyone pulled over a cab stopped.

Now, school is almost over and I couldn't be more excited to go home. I have had a great experience in Israel overall. There have been many times where I've broken down crying wanting to go home, but I toughed it out, and I can say that I have had some experiences that cannot ever be duplicated. I swam with dolphins in the Red Sea, I met the Egyptian ambassador in my underwear on the Tel Aviv beach, I've been egged, I've had soccer balls kicked in my face, I've had some really messed up students with a lot of issues, I lived five miles away from Gaza. I went on beautiful hikes, attended my first rainbow gathering, I hitchhiked, sort of. I kayaked in the Mediterranean Sea. I did so many amazing things this year, and now that my time is coming down to the last month, I can honestly say that this was a great year.

Stay in School, 'cause it's the best

This is just a little something until I get around to writing about my trip to Turkey.

After falling asleep to the sound of bats squealing by my window and noisy Australians in the courtyard, I wake up in the morning to get ready for school.

When I leave, I walk across the street, up some steps and down a long sidewalk that takes me past a big open field of sand and garbage. There are random baby trees scattered throughout reminiscent of Mr. T's yard in Lake Forest when he tried to cut down all the trees claiming that he was allergic to them. Sometimes there's a dog sleeping in the trash, or at least I hope he's just sleeping. There is a pile of women's clothes strewn across the sidewalk. I must watch way too much "Law and Order" because when I noticed it, the first thing I did was look around for a body.

I walk past slum housing where they just throw their trash out their windows, and forget about recycling. Then I walk past a little old Russian lady who sits on the sidewalk all day long with her little dog, selling women's dresses that look like she took them from her 1982 closet. I wonder how she actually makes a living selling these things. I have never once seen anyone buy something.

I walk down a few steps through a parking lot where there is usually a guy roaming around yelling things in Hebrew with a robotic sounding voice. I like to think he's saying, "Bring out your dead!" Ala Monty Python. After discussing this with my roommate, Maytal, she informed me that he yells, "Bring out your furniture." But close enough to Monty Python.

I turn the corner and walk down the street past a series of benches where old men sit and play cards, all day long. Past the vegetable stand and a few corner stores, and turn the corner onto a side street that is somewhat peaceful. There's a strip of grass in the middle of the road with a meandering path that leads right up to the gate of my school.

Let There Be Songs to Fill the Air

We visited the Children's museum in Holon, outside of Tel Aviv. There were two exhibits we saw, or rather didn't see. The first exhibit simulated being blind. Our guide was blind, and when we walked into the dark room I kept expecting my eyes to adjust but they didn't. None of us could really get over the feeling of complete vulnerability, in which we had to rely on someone to lead us using only their voice. There were several rooms we walked through, the first was just an empty room so we could get used to walking with our hands out in front of us. The second room was a dock where we sat on a boat. The next room was a city street with a car parked. Then we went into a market full of vegetable bins and carts. All the sounds were amplified and we had to listen to the noises and try to picture what we heard. Then we went into a quiet music room with elevator music playing, and we got to relax and lay on the floor. I didn't notice just how noisy it was in the previous rooms until I got to the quiet music room, and it was a relief to be there, less stressful. The last room we visited was a cafeteria in which we could purchase a snack or drink and we had to figure out how much money to give them in the dark, and then sit and eat or drink in the dark. It was really incredible, and as we walked through all the rooms, I couldn't get over the irrational fear that I was going to hit my head on something, so I walked around ducking my head the whole time.

The second exhibit we visited was a simulation of being deaf. Our guide was deaf, and we had to wear huge ear phones so that we couldn't hear anything, even though we could a little bit. This wasn't as cool as the blind simulation, but it was fun. For most of the tour we had to learn to use exaggerated facial expressions and hand motions to convey what we wanted to say.

I always thought that if I had to choose between being blind or deaf, that I would rather be blind, because there would be no point in living if I couldn't listen to music. But after visiting the museum, I don't know if I could handle being blind. You would be more vulnerable, and have to rely on people more so than if you were deaf. I don't really like people having to do things for me. Unless it's my homework.

We had dinner in Jerusalem one night, and while we were there my roommate and I missed the last bus back to Ashkelon, so our federation paid for us to take a cab home. Our cab driver was really weird and listened to really loud techno music the whole way back. On the way out of Jerusalem, though, he took the tunnels that go through the West Bank. When we pulled through a check point the driver rolled down my window in back and said, "Say 'hello' to the soldiers, girls!" He was so weird we were thinking, "You mean say 'goodbye' because you're kidnapping us into Palestinian territory?" Then he stopped for gas. This "gas station" was in an alley by a shack. The "gas pump" was directly attached to a gas truck that we assumed had been hijacked. The "gas station attendant" smoked a cigarette the whole time he was pumping the gas, and we thought he was going to blow us all up.

The thought, "I am going to die," has never crossed my mind as often as it does since I've been living in Israel. We hear explosions from Gaza on a daily basis. There are bombs washing up on the beach. I never thought I would get used to the sound of an explosion.

We spent Purim in Tel Aviv. It's like the Jewish Halloween, everyone dresses up and gets really drunk. You're even supposed to get drunk on this holiday. There's a mitzvah to drink and drink until you can't tell the difference between good and evil. I tried, but at the end of the night I did know what a bad decision was. We went to Florentine, where there was a huge neighborhood party, and a bunch of streets were blocked off. The streets were packed with people in costumes, and there were people in balconies dancing and waving.

Aside from the night we went out in Florentine, it rained the whole weekend. I was watching the storm with a buddy on the balcony, and suddenly lightening struck the house next door. It scared us pretty bad, I could feel my bones quivering the thunder was so loud. And then it struck again! We could see the sparks flying up in the air from where it hit the metal pipe on top of the house next door. It was a scary and exciting thing to see.

("Let there be songs to fill the air," from "Ripple," by the Grateful Dead)

Life is short, I'm going to spend mine searching for the light

Apparently there has been some talk of another war erupting around these parts. Gaza fired a missile at us and it hit just south of Ashkelon. Our building is on the south side of Ashkelon, and it's also the tallest building, and we live on the top floor. We have been informed that our building is itself a bomb shelter and if the sirens go off we're supposed to go into the stairwell. Only when the sirens continue to sound are we then supposed to go to the shelter. But I'm not scared, I have really good luck. More recently than that though, are the bombs that have been washing up on our beach here from Gaza. So far I believe they have found about four. There are constantly helicopters and jets flying over us, and we can hear explosions from Gaza almost daily. I don't know whether to laugh or cry that this is our daily life, and we've become used to it.

We recently had a five day seminar in Jerusalem about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. We visited some settlements in the West Bank, in a bullet proof bus, which was pretty cool, and planted some trees there. We met with many people who talked to us about different view points. We visited a small Palestinian "village," if you can really call it that, called Susya, in the southern Hebron Hills. It was interesting because a Palestinian guy talked to us about how the Israeli army keeps tearing down their huts and trying to steal their land. This "village" had about ten huts made from whatever materials they could find, pieces of cars, rocks and stones, and linens. Their chicken coops were made of the same materials, scrap metal and car parts. They had a donkey, sheep, chickens, and the cutest little puppy named Beisbeis.

We took a bus tour through East Jerusalem, and it was really pretty, but sad because although the people who live there pay taxes to Jerusalem, they have no municipality, so no one comes to pick up their trash, and it is everywhere. Covering hillsides and streets, it's so gross.

For Shabbat they split us up into groups of two or three and we stayed in one of two settlements, Takoa and Nokdim. I stayed in Takoa with one of my roommates, with a super religious family that had seven kids, a snake, two chinchillas, two hamsters, two birds, and a dog. The mom is a pet therapist, and uses animals to help treat ADD, ADHD, and other problems. They didn't speak any English, but luckily my roommate is fluent.

School is going fine, I still have lots of snot nosed kids, but I do have a lot of good kids too. I am helping some of the sixth grade students with a nation wide essay contest about fostering mutual respect. They also have an English Day coming up, and I get to help come up with games and activities, and prizes for the kids. I'm excited about this, I think the kids will like it.

I recently found out that one of my student's dad murdered his mom, is now in prison, and my student is being taken care of by his aunt. One of my teachers told me this one day, very casually in passing. She couldn't tell me anything else about it, not even how recently this happened. So all day, I'm giving this kid sympathetic looks, and wondering if he was there when it happened, did he see it? Did his dad try to hurt him too? It's so crazy, I'm not used to this kind of stuff and this is everyday life for these kids.

My time here has been going by pretty fast, I can't believe I'm more than half way done already! I am having a great time here, especially now that it's getting nice out again. I'm going to the beach today! I could really get used to a month long semi-winter....

Title: "Life is short, I'm going to spend mine searching for the light," Yonder Mountain String Band, "Things you're selling."