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.