Kickstart my heart

I'm writing a book! I'm not doing it alone though. I'm working with an amazing team of people, including a friend I met in journalism school over 10 years ago. The book will not like this blog at all because very little of it will be dedicated to writing about myself. Instead we're collecting interviews from Palestinians about their daily lives. We had a publisher, but it was going to take too long to get started going that route, so the publisher encouraged us to get started on our own through a website called Kickstarter. This is our campaign here. Check it out to see what we're up to and follow our progress!

Lords of the Land

Note: I'm on vacation in the U.S. for the month of December, so I'm not actually in the Middle East for the next few posts. But, I'm taking advantage of the fast Internet speeds to post some articles I've been meaning to do for a while. Oh, glorious high-speed Internet! It just took me 30 seconds to upload a picture that would usually take me upwards of an hour.

Lords of the Land is very literally heavy reading. The book is encyclopedia length and I blame carrying around the hard-back version for all the painful knots in my shoulders. Although it's a commitment, if you want to understand the issue of the settlements in Israel and the West Bank, this is the definitive book to read. It's meticulously researched and beautifully written, with lines like "Almost out of sight and out of mind, it [the settlement project] is going on with the full cooperation of the state of Israel and its institutions, as though it were an involuntary, unconsidered movement of a body that had lost its mind." The authors, Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, a historian and a journalist, sometimes veer toward the over dramatic. But, their subject matter is so shocking that, most of the time, it seemed in context to me. Overall, they chronicle the story of how almost 300,000 settlers came to live in the West Bank and Gaza and the many people that made this massive project possible, and as the Economist wrote, "Lords of the Land lets no-one off the hook."

Pause in the Sinai

I was invited to go with friends to the Sinai this week. We stayed with Bedouin in the desert, drank tea, rode camels, and drank more tea. It was not a tourist experience. The friends who invited me are German anthropologists who've been living on and off with this tribe for years. It was not exactly a comfortable experience. My Arabic is terrible, and I don't speak German. So I spent a lot of time sitting quietly, and drank a lot of tea. A lot. Plus, half our group got violently ill. Which was made more difficult by the fact that there were no toilets or toilet paper. But, despite all this, when we returned home, we realized we had collected all these vivid and funny stories and sat around the table shaking with laughter over them. Like the camel that managed to run after a female camel from another caravan despite the fact that his legs were tied together. Or one of the young boys in the Bedouin tribe who was given a mattress for Eid (the rest of the tribe sleeps on the ground) and showed it off joyfully to anyone who came to visit. And it was revolutionary to live a deep and simple life even just for a few days.

Wanderlust

And so it's been nine months that I've been in the Middle East. I've gotten to the point where I feel uncomfortable about being so comfortable here. As I adjust and Bethlehem begins to feel more and more like home, I've started to feel rootless. When I left, it wasn't my intention to sever the strong network of relationships I had back home. But, time is short and phone connections are bad. In one painful experience, a friend sent me an e-mail baring the intimate details of her life, only to have an virus send the message to all of her contacts, including family members and teachers. This incident has effectively frozen either of our attempts to communicate since. And although I've made new friends here, none of them can compare to the 10- to 15-year relationships I left back home. All of this has led me to wonder, fairly often, what in the hell am I doing here?

This feeling was encapsulated by an trip to Jericho my friend B. and I took yesterday with her five-year-old daughter. We were attempting to go to a food festival that was part of Jericho's 10,000th birthday celebrations. Jericho being 10,000 years old seems like it would be a big deal, so we were surprised to be completely unable to find the festival.

It's pretty typical in the Middle East to roll down the window and ask whoever is walking by for directions. We did this about six times. Nobody had ever heard of any festival, and the people we asked gave us completely opposing directions. We finally ended up following a policeman on a motorcycle who drove us all around town before finally understanding where we wanted to go and taking us there. The whole time we were driving around, B.'s daughter kept piping up from her car seat, sounding like the voice of reason.

"Why are we following this strange man on a motorcycle?"
"Red and white lines mean we shouldn't park here. Why are we parking here?"
"Why don't either of you know where you're going?"

B. and I lost whatever mythical adult-knows-best status we had ever had months ago, the last time we got incredibly lost in the West Bank. But, we kept turning around and cheerfully explaining that things would work out. And, in the end, it was true. The festival was a disappointment, but we had good conversations, a long lunch by a fountain, and came back with our bags full of homemade jam, cheese, and honey. And somehow, that image of the three of us persistently leaning out the window to ask for directions, and cheerfully trying to make the best of things sums up what it's taken to make a life in the Middle East. It's adventurous, but almost never glamorous or comfortable or smooth. And when my voice of reason pipes up, I turn around and tell it everything is going to work out.

Back to class

I've been told that it takes six months of living in a foreign country for the language to start to stick. That has held true for me. When I first arrived, it took a Herculean effort for me to learn each word. The moment I stopped studying, all that hard-won vocabulary would slip out of my Teflon brain. But now, seven months into my time here, I'm getting some traction. I decided it's time to go back to Arabic class. My friends recommended a great teacher. She's encouraging, which is important because learning Arabic tends to make me feel completely incompetent. And the way she explains the language is almost like poetry. About halfway through the class, I had a funny tickle in the back of my throat, and I realized if I were a cat, I would be purring.

This is some of what she told me:
• "When you say yaret, or I wish, it comes from the deep heart. I wish I could go to Jerusalem. (She lives about three meters from the checkpoint to Jerusalem, but can't get a permit to go there.)"
• "When you want to love the people, you want to speak the language."
• "If you tell someone niyyalak, or I envy you, you want to say it with a smile on your face. If you say it angrily with knots in your stomach, people are superstitious, and they will say you sent them the evil eye. I don't believe in this, but it's a word to be careful with."

And most importantly, she told me, "Talk! Talk loudly. Look in the mirror and talk to yourself. Don't think you will break the language."

Summer in Palestine

People here in Palestine would think it's funny I'm even bothering to post this because this salad is as common as french fries in the U.S. But it's what I have been living on in the hot weather. It's been in the high 90's, and often past 100 every day for months. This is abnormally hot for Bethlehem. It's hard to think, move, and eat. As my friend recently posted on Facebook, "I'm sorry if I'm not returning phone calls, but it's hot and I'm dysfunctional. Don't blame me, blame your God." This salad seems to be the only thing that helps. It's commonly called Arabic Salad.

Ingredients:
• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes
• Fresh Mint
• Fresh Parsley
• Lemons
• Hot pepper to taste (such as jalapeno)
• olive oil
• salt
• avocado (optional)
• tahini (optional)

I'm not giving you amounts because it really doesn't matter. If you can find cucumbers with thin, sweet skins, those are the best. These are also ubiquitous in Bethlehem, and my roommates and buy several kilos at a time and eat them in a few days. Chop all the vegetables into small cubes. Peel and chop the lemons as well. On days when this salad is all I eat, I add avocado or mozzarella so that it has a few calories. Mix everything together and Add some olive oil, mint, parsley, and salt to taste. If you want a thicker dressing, mix a few teaspoons of tahini with the olive oil and a little water until it's a thin paste. That's all! If you really want a true Palestinian experience, you can throw lemon juice, mint, sugar and ice in the blender for a limonana, or mint lemonade.

I didn't know

This weekend, I took a business trip to Jordan. We had to make it to a meeting in Amman at noon, so I woke up at 4:30 am and headed to the checkpoint. I've been through the checkpoint many, many times, and thought I knew the drill. I know it's busier in the mornings when everyone heads to work. There are few jobs in the West Bank, and an unemployment rate of 40-70%, so the people who are able to get permits often go into Israel to work. But even though I was expecting to wait, I was completely unprepared for the complete chaos of the checkpoint at 5 in the morning. This video from Machsom Watch captures what it's like:



A few months ago, confronted with this scene, I would have turned around and gone home. But this time, I decided to push forward. Women have an advantage at the checkpoint and are given a special line to go through. Despite this, a crowd of men, desperate to get to work on time, had filled the women's line too. I followed the lead of an older woman ahead of me and pushed to the front of the line. Then we ducked and dodged and smiled and yelled our way through turnstiles, metal detectors, passport checks, and line after line after line. Afterward, I thanked the woman who had helped me. She beamed at me and told me stories about her two children living in New Jersey.

When I had first seen the line at the checkpoint, I had been sure that I would be at least two hours late to meet my co-workers. But I showed up only 10 minutes after our meeting time, full of adrenaline, and ready to go to Jordan. It's only now that the experience is sinking in, and I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from it. I feel simultaneously sad and frustrated by what I witnessed. I also feel slightly embarrassed that I felt entitled enough to push past everyone who waits in line every day. I started this blog determined not to write from a political or ideological viewpoint, although I certainly have them. But, at the same time, it seems important to show what daily life is like in Bethlehem, and the consequences politics and ideologies have had on almost every aspect of life here.

On resourcefulness

This is where we've been watching the World Cup from.



I think the waiters are a little shocked about all the new business they've been getting. They're so busy, it takes about an hour to get a cup of coffee.

Reading List

One of my favorite places to go in Jerusalem is the Educational Bookstore on Salah Eddin Street. It's tiny, but packed with books in English. It attracts the expat community with a bias toward Palestine. They also make very good cappuccinos. I've dropped a good portion of my paycheck there a few times and my shelves are quickly filling up with treasures I've discovered there. My latest purchase is Palestine by Joe Sacco. It's a graphic novel written during Sacco's trip to Palestine in the early 90's. It's important to note that what he describes is not my experience of Palestine, but it's a good primer on things are such a mess today.

The book is addictive, in fact, B. is sitting across the table from me now, completely engrossed. The characters are done in broad brushstrokes, and are a little too simplistic for me to say that they resemble the friends I've made here. But, despite that, I've found the book to be a masterpiece of documentary journalism. Many of his observations are ones I've had as well, but found much too contradictory or confusing to ever say out loud. This book would be a good place to start if you know little to nothing about Palestine. (Like I did before I got here.)

Another night in Jerusalem

So I haven't written much about what the conflict/occupation is like. The trouble with it is it sneaks up on me. Last night, when I left my Arabic lesson the dry, dusty heat had faded into a soft evening. The Jasmine smelled stronger than I had ever smelled before, and there was bright pink bougainvillea that stood out against the white limestone wall and the fading blue of the sky. And I was picturing what this city would be like if there were no settlements or soldiers, if people had time and money and energy to invest in it. Kids were playing in the street. When I first moved in, they used to stare at me suspiciously, but now they were used to me and ignored me as just another adult interrupting their games.


Coming to the end of the street, I saw my bus waiting. It was the last bus of the night and if I missed it, I would have to take a taxi to the checkpoint and then another taxi after I got to the other side of the checkpoint. Relieved, I ran to catch it, not realizing until I got to the doors that the bus wasn't going anywhere. The end of the street is the soldiers come to "fish". They take everyone's i.d.'s on the bus, looking for anyone without a permit. I often see the results of these fishing expeditions: a line of young men sitting on the sidewalk, waiting to be taken to jail. Soldiers milling around glaring at everyone who walks by. The soldiers don't ask me for my i.d. as I get on the bus. Racial profiling has become an art form here. Once, I'm seated, the bus sits in place for a long time. The driver keeps getting out to talk to the soldiers, and inside people get tenser and more and more angry, asking what is happening. After 30 minutes, a new army vehicle pulls up inexplicably. After more milling around from the soldiers, they finally hand out all of the i.d.'s. The passengers on the bus form an assembly line trying to get them back to their owners as quickly as possible. By the time we get to the taxi stand, all the taxis to Hebron have left, except one. Passengers sprint to try and get a place in the taxi. I'm glad that I'm staying on the bus. The remaining passengers are quiet, subdued. Just another night.

Welcome to Bethlehem

So, my friend T. pointed out that if my purpose in starting this blog was, as I told many people, to provide evidence that I wasn't dead, then I wasn't doing a very good job. She makes a good point. So, even though I don't have much to say tonight, I'm posting anyway. I moved to Bethlehem a few days ago. Hopefully, after I'm done assembling my Ikea furniture, I will have much more time to write. I no longer have to commute through the checkpoints, which often involved multiple taxis and lots of waiting in line. I'll leave you with these murals done by the mysterious, but famous British graffiti artist Banksy, which are all over Bethlehem, especially on the Separation Wall between Jerusalem.

Nothing to wear

The second most common question I was asked when I decided to move to Jerusalem (after is it dangerous) was, will you cover your hair? The answer was, and still is, no.

First of all, it's not required, despite the stereotype (repeated in the new Sex and the City 2 movie). There are a few countries like Iran, where it's required by law to cover. But, Palestine is not one of them. Second, I'm not Muslim or Jewish. (Women of both religions often cover their hair here, but in different ways.) Finally, I would feel silly covering my hair, because there's an art to it that I've never learned.

So, I'm pretty clear on head covering, but what to wear below my head seems to get more difficult by the day.

"When you go to another country, you are, in actuality, asking millions of people to let you into their home. I, for one, don’t much cotton to people who come into my home and disregard the basic rules I honor." This quote from the travel column Inga la Gringa is my motto when figuring out how to dress in other countries. I generally try to fit with the customs because then the people around me are much more likely to engage and not dismiss me as just another tourist.

So, when I arrived in Jerusalem, I adjusted to wearing long-sleeve shirts that covered up to my collar bone, and loose long pants. The outfit above from Hejab Rehab is a good example of typical dress here--trendy, but modest. This was what the guidebook told me to do, as well as our office guidelines. After a while, it started to seem normal. When I saw a woman wearing a t-shirt, it seemed risque even to me. And then summer hit and I moved to Bethlehem. All of a sudden, the women pulled out their t-shirts, and yesterday, I saw a woman wearing a strappy knee-length sundress. In the West Bank. It seemed so revealing, and yet so temptingly comfortable and cool. So, now I have no idea what to wear. I have a closet full of long-sleeve shirts, and it's 90 degrees outside. I still feel uncomfortable wearing t-shirts because men on the street tend to give me a lot more attention. But it feels strange for the American to be the most conservatively dressed one in the room.

Lost Fears

Today I am in such a shape
That I can't differentiate
The load from the donkey.
I am in such shape today,
That I don't know which is the thorn
And which is the rose.

My Love put me in this shape today.
I don't know who is the Lover
Or who is the Beloved.

Yesterday, drunkenness led me
To the door of the Love.
But today I can't find
The door or the house.

Last year I had two wings.
Fear and hope.
Today, I don't know of wings,
Don't know how to fly,
Don't know of my lost fears.

-Rumi
From Essential Sufism

The million-dollar question

So here's the last post attempting to answer the insightful and challenging questions you all have left me in the comments section. This final set is from my dear friend Kate.

What does the air smell like?

I started to answer this question before when Nate asked me if you can smell the desert. But, since I live in the middle of the city, the smells are much different than out in the rural areas. The city itself smells generally bad. The pollution in Jerusalem is overpowering and it has all the usual city smells--stale food, trash, urine. The smell increases the hotter it gets, and sometimes seems to cling to my skin. But tonight, there's a windstorm whipping sand through the city, scattering clothes off clothes lines and carrying away anything not nailed down. So tonight, the air smells cold and fresh.

How does the water taste?

I don't actually know because we drink filtered water because of the chance of parasites. I did drink water from an underground spring a few weeks ago, which was the tastiest water I've ever had. (I'm not entirely sure how water can be tasty, but it was.) But I was sick for days afterward, so I wouldn't recommend that.

Are their toilets designed the same as ours?

For the most part, except most of the plumbing is ancient and delicate and so it's common not to be able to flush toilet paper, which takes some getting used to. In more rural areas, it's also common to have the squat toilets that don't use running water and are "flushed" with a bucket of water.

Are you happy?

Well, that's the million-dollar question. There have been many moments during the past four months when I've wondered what urge caused me to make my life about 50 times more difficult than it already was. Getting through daily life is already tricky wherever you are, but now I've added language differences, cultural clashes, and checkpoints to my list of challenges. But the truth is, I am happy. There is a part of me that is finds the culture here strangely familiar, as if it's a place I'd known before but forgotten. Many people have told me the same thing about the Middle East, and maybe it's because this is truly the cradle of civilizations where many of our modern customs come from. Maybe, it's because, as my roommate believes, I lived here in a previous life. Who knows? But, for now, it feels right to be here and I have much more I want to learn and explore before I go home.

Oh...How about the stormwater management - is it good?

This answer is only for Kate because probably no one else will understand or care, but the answer is no, it's not at all good. Lots of ill-thought-out pavement and flash floods and such. Pus, the region is facing a severe water shortage, so needs all the help it can get. I did actually mention your company to one of my co-workers and he got pretty excited. So, if you need any clients in Jerusalem, you know who to ask.

Coffee, Jerusalem Style

"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love."
-Turkish Proverb

I have a deep love for Arabic coffee. It's strong and sweet and gritty and stains your teeth. It's a symbol of hospitality in the Middle East. I was told that many years ago, people here saved their coffee for guests. When they ground it in the desert, the sound could be heard from miles around and neighboring communities would hear it and come to welcome the newcomers. In a typical day in Jerusalem, it's easy to drink 5-6 cups of it between seeing friends, shopping, drinking it at home, etc. Luckily the cups are little. It took me a while to learn to make it, and my first attempts were pretty horrific. But with the help of my patient neighbor, I've learned to make it fairly well.

You'll need a pot shaped like this one. Ours is much less ornate. You'll also need coffee ground Turkish or Arabic style, which is extra fine, almost like powder. Here they mix dark and light roasts and add cardamom to the blend. If you don't have a Middle Eastern grocery store nearby, either ask for an extra fine grind or grind it yourself, and it should work fine.

To make the coffee, spoon about 2 1/2 heaping tablespoons into the pot. (It depends on the size of your pot, and you can make it to taste, but you want to put much more coffee in the pot than you think you should.) Next, fill the pot with boiling water. Then, place it on the stove on low heat for a few minutes, stirring constantly. The coffee should foam up. In Jerusalem, you're supposed to spoon this foam into the cup because it's considered a luxury. But our neighbor told us that's bad form in Galilee because it shows that you didn't boil the coffee long enough and are rushing your guest out of the house. After the coffee is hot you add sugar to taste. We usually add about a tablespoon. Then, you pour the coffee into cups and let the grounds settle. Here's B. making his first pot ever. It was terrible. But, after much practice, he can make a pretty decent cup now.

Answers Part II

Here's the second half. These were not an easy set of questions to answer. But I used my incredibly honed reporting skills to find them.

What kind of electricity do you have? US plugs, british, euro, etc...? Do you know if it's expensive or cheap? How do they make it?

They seem to have their own brand of plugs, but the European plugs kind of fit, sort of. Electricity is crazy expensive. (In my humble opinion.) And to get it, we have to go to the electricity store with a special key and then they somehow charge the key up and then we take it home and touch it to our electricity thing and then more electricity comes. That's the highly scientific explanation. As for how it's made, in Israel, there's a lot of solar power. According to the highly accurate Wikipedia, 90% of Israeli homes use solar energy for hot water, the highest per capita in the world. Also coal and hydro-electric power. That's not a very comprehensive answer, but it's a start.

How do you heat your apartment? DO you heat your apartment, or does it not get cold enough often enough?

We have electric heat that is very necessary in the winter, but we only turn on the heaters at night. These big stone houses are frigid in December.

Have you seen/heard anything about Better Place, the electric car company there?

No, what is it?

Are there many SUV's? What does gas cost? Everything's in metric, right?

Little mini European SUV's. And then the big black SUVs that the American secret service drives with mirrored windows that make them incredibly conspicuous. Gas is hovering around $4 a gallon, which is probably why tiny little VW's seem to be the most popular car. Everything's in metric, so I haven't known what temperature it was for months.

How far from your apartment to your office? How often do you travel for work?

It's about 3 km, but it can an hour or more to get through the checkpoint. I haven't traveled at all for work, which makes me sad. But I just returned from a vacation in Jordan.

All the answers

Heartfelt thanks for all the comments that you all have left. It's nice to know I'm not writing into the void. And for the thousandth time, I swear to post more regularly. I think it's finally time to answer some questions you all have sent me, so here goes. Nate, this one's for you. This is part I. I'll write part II after doing some research, which will mainly consist of asking my neighbors for the answers to your questions.

Can you see the ocean? Can you smell it?

Well, first of all if you call it the ocean, people correct you really quickly, and point out it's the sea and give you a condescending look. (I still call it the ocean all the time. It's not my fault. I'm an American. This whole sea thing is new to me.) And unfortunately, I can't see or smell the sea from Jerusalem. The closest beach is at least an hour away. But it's still closer than Colorado and we try to go as much as possible

Can you smell the desert?

Hmmm, difficult question, but yes I think I can. I think the first thing I notice in the desert is not having to smell the dirty city smells. But then I think you can smell faintly all the herbs, like the zatar (oregano) and maramiya (sage) that grow wild all over. A month ago, the desert was covered in a glory of wild flowers like the ones below, but now it's getting hot and the plants are drying out and dying.



Are you asking your neighbor about fruit in English? Can you go to the market with English? I take it you can go to the office with English, right?

Yep, yep, and yep. I'm incredibly spoiled and almost everyone around me speaks amazing English. Especially my neighbors who are language teachers and the whole family is fluent in four languages. Sometimes, I have trouble in markets or taxis, but can usually get my point across for what I need, if not to have an actual conversation. Now that I'm learning Arabic I can communicate some very basic ideas, but my pronunciation is so bad, the people I speak with are pretty much humoring me. I have found that some things don't translate though, like sense of humor. I realize I have this running commentary going in my head of things I'm saving up to tell another American who will understand my strange ideas of what is funny.

How old is your apartment? When was the building built? Do the stairs creak?

It's not too old, maybe 20 years old. The family that owns it built it themselves with some help from neighbors and students. The stairs don't creak because they're marble, which is very common here. (Not much wood available!)

Are there stray animals (dogs/cats/other)? What about rodents? Surely it's not as bad as NYC's famous rats?

So many stray cats. They're constantly having turf wars outside our window and then limping around covered in war wounds. But our neighbors' five house cats quite efficiently fend them off from our yard. There are rats because I'm still traumatized from stepping on a dead one the other day, but I don't see them much. There are also scorpions that apparently come into houses! But everyone says scorpions don't come up to the third floor where we live. Plus, the cats hunt them. The idea finding a scorpion in my shoe still gives me the creeps though. Also, lots of lizards and so many birds. I've never heard so many birds singing as I do in the mornings here.

Spring in the West Bank

When we were out walking near Taybeh a few weeks ago, we came upon this shepherd with a newborn baby lamb. We had actually heard the lamb being born as we walked down the hill and were amazed to come upon the mother cleaning her baby. The shepherd was nice enough to let us take pictures of what to me seemed an entirely miraculous event. Although, I realize it's probably pretty common for people who grew up on farms or around animals. Still, it's an image of the West Bank rarely seen in the news. I was even more amazed to see the baby lamb take its first steps a few moments later. That afternoon, a man rode by with a dead sheep, probably taking it home for dinner. So, it was a complete circle of life that day.

Morning the light

In Arabic, the answer to Good Morning is Light Morning. Half of the alphabet is divided into sun letters and half into moon letters. Ein is a letter of the alphabet, an eye, and a spring. The word for letter (something that is written) is also the word for destiny. Lovely, eh? Almost makes up for having to learn how roll a g sound.

On Hospitality

The Palestinian culture is a culture of hospitality. It catches me off guard. It's hard for me to shake out of my self-contained, hyper-independent existence. We stayed the night in a village in the West Bank. We arrived soaking wet and cold from the rain. The women of the house spent the night finding us clothes and serving us endless cups of tea. In the morning, the oldest woman of the house, who must have been in her 70's came into our room early in the morning. She sat down at the end of my bed and tucked the end of my blankets around her, grinned at me, and patted my hand. I stared at her awkwardly, trying desperately to piece together some coherent Arabic words to say to her and coming up short.

"This is a very high honor," my colleague explained. "The oldest member of the household is the most respected, and so the most respected member of the household is coming to check on us as the first thing she does today."

I felt honored, but continued to stare inanely trying to figure out to express my thanks. I'm not really sure how to repay the hospitality I'm receiving here.

Scenes from Easter in Jerusalem

I'm sorry to take such a long break from posting. I've been out hiking in the desert the last few weekends, and I've gotten a little behind on everything. To make up for it, here are pictures from the Easter madness in Jerusalem. My fiancee, B.'s and my plan was to go to the Old City and find the chaos, which we did. Here are a few of the thousands of worshipers waiting to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus' tomb is believed to be. The different Christian denominations have historically not been able to share the space, so almost 1,000 years ago, the Ottomans handed the keys to the church over to two prominent Muslim families, who, to this day, are in charge of opening the church every morning and locking it at night. (Really!) So, on the Saturday before Easter, thousands of people come to wait for the church to be unlocked. Once it is, there is a huge ceremony. This picture was taken while we were pinned to the wall covering our ears waiting for hundreds of bagpipes to parade through.

After everyone is let in, they take candles and light them inside the church, and then bring them out into the world to symbolize the resurrection. Most of the pilgrims wandering around yesterday looked a little bewildered by the whole thing. And the shopkeepers looked like they couldn't wait for the day to be over. After a few hours of fighting the crowds, B. and I collapsed onto the bus with our backpacks stuffed full of herbs, frankincense, fruit and a new blender. It was a strange and lovely spectacle in this city that seems stranger and more beautiful by the day.

Credo

"More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn't be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.
"
- Henri Nouwen, Catholic Priest

The Ministry

The Israeli Ministry of the Interior has been heavily featured in the news this past week. This is my own small experience with it.

I'm in the process of applying for a visa for a year-long stay in Jerusalem. There are many steps involved, but one of the most important is making an appointment at the ministry. It took me a while to find it because the address they give online is not even close to the place you actually need to go to get a visa. With help from a kind taxi driver, I found the ministry, which looks less like a ministry than a nondescript door wedged between two shops on a busy commercial street. I asked the driver three times if he was sure if this was the right place.

When I walked up, there was a fight already going on between a girl speaking heavily-accented English and the security guard, who was snapping at her from behind an almost-closed door. After a few minutes, I learned that the girl was trying to get her visa extended for a week. The guard kept telling her that she needed to call the number on the door, and the girl kept insisting that she had called the number many times and nobody ever answered. Soon, a woman and her children pushed in front of the girl and started their own fight with the guard, who continued to peer out at us from the crack in the door. Not wanting to be left out, I jumped into the fray and started to yell at the guard with everyone else. After a while of this, another guard appeared and told us that our only window of opportunity to get what we wanted was to come back at 7:45 the next morning. This seemed like progress.

I woke up early the next morning, but my bus was stuck in miserable rush-hour traffic, and I didn't get there until 8:15. On my way in, I ran into the girl from the day before.

"Did you get your visa? Am I too late?" I asked her.

"I have my visa and you're very lucky," she answered. Apparently everyone who had come at the appointed time had been told, once again, to call the number on the door. The woman in charge claimed that this was a special new number, but really it was the same useless number we had all been calling to no avail. But not knowing what else to do, the crowd wrote down the number and left. Infuriated, my new friend complained to the security guard on her way out. He realized something was wrong and took her back upstairs where it turned out that the visa officer had simply been late to work, and the woman had been trying to cover for him. The visa officer himself was a very kind man.

"Go to room 204!" The girl called as I raced up the dilapidated stairs to try to catch this miraculous visa officer. When I arrived at room 204, I walked past it three times. There was a sign that said 204, but no room there. The closest room was down a cramped hallway. I got in line, hoping I was in the right place. Around me were piles of papers that appeared to be people's files stacked haphazardly on top of each other. In front of me was a couple speaking French. (Details have been changed to protect their identity.) I asked them if this was the line to get visas.

"No, you don't get visas here. You get appointments to be considered for a visa."

"Right! That's what I want," I said pleased I hadn't been standing in the wrong line for the past 30 minutes. We talked, and the couple started to vent about the Israeli bureaucracy in French. They had been living in the country for some time, and even had a son in the army.

"They're just ill-mannered!" The man was getting heated. "It's a country for the ultra-religious and no one else." I looked around to see if anyone could understand our conversation, as the couple became louder and louder with their criticism of the Israeli government.

Finally, it was my turn. The kind visa officer gave me an appointment date and sent me on my way. I said goodbye to the couple on the way out. We had the same day, so we will be meeting again. After my experience, I began to wonder what percentage of the ministry's behavior is discrimination, and how much is complete disorganization.

Boiling over

"Jerusalem is boiling," a friend said today. Riots and protests in the Old City have been escalating for days. It was strange to walk by the Old City today and see the usually bustling streets closed off and guarded by soldiers in riot gear. It doesn't help that there has been a strange gray haze settled over the city for the last few days. (Note to my mom and others concerned: This is not dangerous for me. The outbreaks of violence are far away from where I'm living and I'm monitoring the situation carefully.) "Good. It needs to boil," my co-worker replied angrily. Jerusalem has been considered a cold conflict. The only comparison I can think of is a married couple who are tired of fighting with each other and exist in a state of tense silence. So compared to that, maybe bringing the conflict to the surface is better. But, I've heard a few people say that the events of the last few days have an ominous feel.

In season

One of my favorite things about living here is that it's very easy to tell what fruits and vegetables are in season. Unlike the U.S. where you can buy any kind of fruit at any time, here the vendors' stock is always different. Last week, all the fruit sellers in the old city had piles of a green, fuzzy little fruit-like things. At first, I avoided them, but then decided since everyone was carrying them, they must be worth something. When I got home, I asked my neighbor what to do with the strange little fruits. She laughed and told me it was an almond fruit and that I should eat it with salt. I did, and at first it was odd. It's not at all sweet and very crisp. But then they were strangely addictive with tiny green baby almonds inside. I'm looking forward to seeing what's on sale next week.

This too shall pass

I know about culture shock. My stepmom has lived abroad and taken many students abroad and she explained exactly what it would be like.

The first stage is the excitement of going to a foreign country. Then, comes the honeymoon period that lasts for the first few weeks. Everything is cast in a romantic glow--the food, the pace of life, the language, the architecture. But, then the new culture starts to grate. The pace of life is painfully slow, people are rude, even basic tasks take an extreme amount of energy. I've only lived outside of the U.S. for a few months at a time, and so I've never gone past this stage. But the rumor is that after culture shock, you adjust. This can take anywhere from 6-12 months.

Despite being familiar with the symptoms of culture shock, it took me by surprise. The confusing part is I'm still enamored with almost everything about living here. Little things like the jasmine just starting to bloom on our front gate make me deeply happy.

But simultaneously, a lot of other symptoms were starting to crop up. Wikipedia says culture shock is "often marked by mood swings caused by minor issues or without apparent reason." Check. I've been irresistibly drawn to McDonald's and Starbuck's because I can walk in, order exactly what I want, and get the food that I expected for the price I expected. And there are other things. I stopped communicating with people back home because it just took too long to explain the context of what was happening to me, and any story I told was completely inadequate in conveying my experience.

So, now that the problem is identified, where does it leave me? Wikipedia says that 60% of expats find it impossible to accept the foreign culture and isolate themselves until they can return home. Ten percent lose their identity and completely disappear inside the new culture. And 30% manage to keep some of their identity and make some adjustments to the new culture. Of course, I'm aiming for that golden 30%, but we will see how everything shakes out. Today, as I was getting dressed, I was wondering what would the best deodorant for a stifling hot day when I have to drive through impossibly narrow streets, negotiate hostile security guards, bypass crowds of angry protesters, and convince my new boss that I'm competent to do my job. I could imagine the commercial for my life. "If the security guards don't let you through the checkpoint; if you get lost in the middle of Jerusalem with no map; Secret will keep you calm and dry." But the truth is, there is no deodorant made for this strange situation I've put myself in. I'm just going to have to sweat my way through it.

Testing my luck

I drove in Jerusalem for the first time yesterday, and it went very well. My mistake was trying it again today.

When my roommate first mentioned buying a car, the idea of driving here terrified me. This is a city of impossibly narrow streets, aggressive drivers, and often hostile police. But no one else seemed to share my worry.

"Driving here is no problem. Just ignore the honking, and when in doubt, just go. Otherwise you'll never get anywhere," my neighbor told me. But, as it turned out, my roommate's car arrived when she was out of town and I was the only one available to pick it up. My heart was pounding when I sat down in the driver's seat, and there was an awkward moment when I couldn't get the stick shift to go in reverse. But, then I was moving! I didn't have to rely on taxi drivers who charged too much or endure the glares of people on the bus. I could go anywhere! Of course, the first place I went was the wrong way down the highway, but a quick u-turn and I was headed home. Yes, the traffic laws were strange, and the cars around me didn't seem to understand what lanes were, but I seemed to be able to adapt to it intuitively. I made it to the store and bought a lot of bulky items I never could have taken on the bus, and returned home in triumph.


It went so well, that I decided to try again today, forgetting that on Friday mornings the roads are packed with people preparing for Shabbat. Driving today was surreal. I regularly saw scenes like the one above, shot by Melissa Yeo. An older man driving some kind of golf cart at 2 miles an hour decided to take up an entire lane of a very busy street. I couldn't get around him, so I just had to follow him. I saw a giant two-section bus suddenly do a k-turn in the middle of a residential street. I parked the car, and then realized that the street was so narrow that to back out, I would have to block both lanes of traffic. I couldn't wait until the street was clear because the street was never clear. I watched the woman next to me back out calmly into oncoming traffic. Everyone just moved out of her way. I took a deep breath, and then did the same thing. Miraculously, it worked. I made it home with both the car and I undamaged. But, it will be a while before I get back behind the wheel. Buses and taxis are looking much friendlier now.

The heart

My colleague H. is a talented tour guide. He was talking about his favorite places to take visitors. Highest on the list is Jerusalem. He told me, "Jerusalem is the heart--all the pain, all the love, all the beauty, all the loss. Jerusalem is a story." I'm not sure how this sounds without hearing him actually say it with all of the emotion in his voice. It was a particularly wrenching thing to say because H. is Palestinian and hasn't been able to get a permit to come to Jerusalem since 2004. But it's been lovely to hear him talk about the many layers of stories and the deep connection he has to the land and the history here.

On Fear

"But is it safe?" It seems to be the first question that Americans ask about traveling to the Middle East. My answer is almost always a confident, "Yes, of course." Even though I know that's not completely true.



I've always been a worrier. When I'm at home in Colorado, I worry about car accidents, I worry about walking alone at night, I worry about accidentally burning my apartment down. I've been known to declare my younger brother dead because he didn't return my phone call for a few hours. And so, of course I worry here too. In fact, I rely on that low level of anxiety to keep me alert and aware here, where I am so thoroughly out of my element.

But the reason that I'm so quick to gloss over these worries is because what I'm trying to say is, "It's not what you think." Being here, I realize how deeply the perception of the Middle East as a blood-soaked war zone full of hostile people has seeped into my psyche. I realize it because sometimes I'm surprised that living here is so intensely ordinary. Most days, what I focus on is getting through life. I go to the office, I buy groceries, I get stuck in traffic. And so do the people around me. They go to school, they cook dinner, they walk the dog. And instead of hostility, the people I have encountered so far have been deeply gracious and hospitable.

I don't mean to minimize the incredible suffering that conflict and war have wreaked on this region. And I also realize that being a foreigner gives me protection that local people don't have. What I'm trying to say is that, in the U.S., we've allowed our perceptions of the Middle East to dehumanize the people here. That somehow because we believe this region is violent and has always been violent, then we are able to turn off our empathy. What I find devastating about living here is that the violence occurs amidst such ordinary daily life.

It's all in the details

A friend of mine in Colorado, an intrepid traveler himself, wrote to me with a long list of questions so that he could visit the city vicariously through me. The man knows how to get down to the details, so I'm posting my answers here.

1) Is it a desert?
The desert is nearby. But compared to Colorado where it is so dry that my skin cracks and nose bleeds, it doesn't feel like it to me. It is certainly not the complete desert with sand dunes and oases that is the stereotype of the Middle East. I know that those deserts exist, but I have yet to see them. In fact, it feels lush compared to Colorado, with lemon trees and giant aloe plants. The lemon grove above is across the street from me.

2) What parts of the city can't you go to?

There aren't any parts of the city I have to avoid. Jerusalem has an intense security presence, that makes it safe to be a tourist here, but has disastrous consequences for the local population.

3) What are the holy places like?

To be honest, overwhelming. Every inch of the Old City seems to have religious significance. I've spent several days touring Jerusalem and seen maybe two percent of the religious sites. There is a church carved directly out of stone, and a church in the shape of a teardrop in honor of Jesus' tears. There are spectacular mosques, and holy pools. I will need to spend many more days wandering the city before I can properly answer this question.

4) How often do you see big guns?

Every day. It's required for all Israelis, male and female, to enter the military around 18 years old. It's disturbing to me to see eighteen-year-old girls holding guns almost the size of their body. As one former Israeli Defense Force soldier said, "Teenagers should not have that much power."

5) How often do you cross security checkpoints to Palestine and back?

About once or twice a week. It's easy to get into Palestine and harder to get back out. Until recently, internationals had a free pass and didn't get the same harassment that Palestinians get. But this week, we've been noticing that the security guards are making it more difficult for internationals to get through, questioning our visas and sending us back to other checkpoints. It's nothing that would put us in danger, and nothing near the trouble Palestinians have, but it seems the idea is more to make it so inconvenient that we'll stop traveling to Palestine.

6) What can you hear from your apartment?

Late on a Friday night, someone is practicing the flute. I live in a quiet residential neighborhood. I can hear traffic all the time, and calls to prayer over a loudspeaker five times a day. On Fridays, I can hear an entire sermon in Arabic blasted over the loudspeaker. On Mondays, many women clean house and bring their rugs out to beat them on the balcony, which makes a surprisingly loud thwomping sound. Other daily sounds include children playing, cats fighting, and my landlord's dog, Blackie, barking. I can hear American voices when my neighbors who live downstairs come home from work. Occasionally, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I hear a herd of sheep meandering their way down the street.

7) What time is it there?
11 pm, which means although I could write much more, it's time to sleep. Thanks for the questions, and I will try to flesh out my answers over time. Leave more questions in the comments section, and I will try to answer.

Tongue-tied

I'm making my first stuttering attempts to learn Arabic. Stephanie Saldana has a particularly apt description of what this process feels like in her book, The Bread of Angels:

"The problem is, my attempts at learning Arabic aren't working. I'm just terrible. The words feel unnatural coming out of my mouth, and I sometimes think my tongue isn't the right shape to pronounce them...Even when I manage to sort out the letters, I can't get any of the new words to stick in my brain, because they don't sound like any words I already know.

Almost every day I've made embarrassing, even offensive mistakes. Last week I went to buy a toothbrush from the pharmacy, and instead of asking the pharmacist if he was open, I asked him, 'Are you a virgin?'" Worst of all, I keep repeating what I hear other people say to me, which always worked fine in English. Yet along with its impossible alphabet, Arabic has separate grammar for speaking to men and women, and all adjectives are gender specific. I've picked up the unfortunate habit of speaking to all of the men around me as though I'm speaking to a woman, insulting their manhood in the process."

So this is what I'm getting myself into. I like learning languages, but every time I start my Arabic tapes, I feel a sense of panic. Even simple phrases like, "Good Morning" (sabah el khair) seem impossible to remember or pronounce. But, I'm already here in the deep end of the pool, so I may as well try to learn to swim.

By the way, Stephanie, who was the first Jerusalemite I ever met, will be in the United States on her first book tour this month. She will be stopping in my home town of Boulder, Colorado, and many other places for anyone who would like to see her speak or buy her wonderful book on falling in love in Syria.

First Impressions

What is it like here? (Ha! In journalism school, they taught me never to open with a question, but now that I'm a blogger, I can break whatever rules I want.) So anyway, what is it like here? Both remarkably the same, and surreally different. My neighbor owns all the latest Mac products, and yet yesterday, two men led an entire herd of sheep down the street past my suburban house. I don't know where they came from or where they were going.

I live in a sprawling house that's divided into three apartments, and a creepy laundry room in the third floor tower. Our own apartment seems decadently large with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and three spacious balconies to divide between two people.


Despite the beautiful houses, the neighborhood has an old feel to it. It may be the polished sunlight that is unique to Jerusalem, making everything seem as if you've wandered into the distant past. My street perches on the edge of a hill overlooking many more hills in the distance. There are masses of children screaming and laughing and making toys out of whatever they find--rocks, fences, a truck parked at the side of the road.

Some things are simpler here. Almost everyone dries their clothes on a line instead of a drier. It's easy to find freshly picked vegetables, some with dirt still clinging to them. This was my lunch, pita bread still hot from the oven, and the hummus was some of the best I've ever had. Although, it came in a big tub from the corner store, and would probably be an embarrassment to a local.


Other things are more complex. Today was the first day it's been too hot to wear my long trench coat, and so it took me four outfit changes to get out of the house feeling reasonably modest. I am still a spectacle and draw stares wherever I go, although I see other Westerners all the time. People are kind to me, but suspicious. They usually warm up quickly when I make bumbling attempts at Arabic. Still, I'm not sure I will ever feel I fit here.

Stranger in a strange land

Tomorrow marks two weeks since I left home for Jerusalem. I don't know where to begin to describe this city, so I'll start with a story. I lost my passport and my credit cards a few days after arriving. They were taken out of my bag while I was shopping for chicken, of all unglamorous things to be doing. Much of my time since has been taken up at consulates and police stations, trying to replace what was lost.

The worst day was spent trying to pick up a wire transfer sent from the U.S. I needed the money to buy a new passport, but had been turned away from two Western Unions because I didn't have a passport. No money, no passport. No passport, no money. After the third attempt, I could feel my cheeks get hot and my logic drain away. I decided to take a break from the negotiations and go to the police station to file a report. After being sent through an increasingly confusing maze of hallways, I finally barged into a policewoman's office, hoping to find someone to help me. The woman snapped at me for interrupting her lunch, and then I started to cry.

While not pretty, and certainly not in line with the image of a competent world traveler, crying is its own universal language that has gotten me past tight spots before. It worked wonders. Several police officers rushed to help this strange, broken American who was demanding help, but spoke no Hebrew. A kind English-speaking medic took down my report. Confused by my tears, he told me, "Money comes, and money goes. But you're OK." I left the station armed with a new clarity and a police report in Hebrew, went back to the Western Union and got my money.

A few hours later, I was on the bus with my money in my bag, feeling strangely triumphant. The bus was packed with men returning home from work in the city. Another woman with a young boy sat down next to me. I turned and looked out the window, but soon noticed she was crying, quietly dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex. She was wearing a bright blue hijab and was carefully made up. From time to time, she took out a notebook and looked desperately through it. None of the men surrounding us seemed to notice. I was unable to speak to her because my Arabic is just as bad as my Hebrew. I touched her arm softly and smiled, unsure what else to do. She smiled back, and I felt strangely connected to her, and completely separate.