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."
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