The first photo illustrates the proximity of my balcony (you can see a small bit in the corner) to a Baha'i holy site (the circle of cypress trees surrounded by a pebbled path). The site marks the spot where the founder of the Baha'i faith pitched a tent upon arriving in Haifa and indicated where the Shrine of the Bab should be built. The middle three photos are views of Haifa from the street at the same altitude as the 19th terrace of the Shrine of the Bab (in the last of these, the rounded building topped with green tiles is the one in which I normally work). The last is the Japanese art museum.
While I feel like I'm being a bad documentarian for the entire month of February, the fact is that not very much is happening. I think February is a grim, slow-moving month as a matter of universal law (perhaps this is not true for the southern hemisphere, and instead August is the runty month). It's a well-established phenomenon that February is the worst time of year for any travel-related enterprise. In fact there have been so few pilgrims lately that I've hardly noticed their presence. A number of holy days are approaching which makes me think that I'll probably be unable to not notice them soon.
As I think I've mentioned, the Baha'i faith has its own (solar) calendar, largely unused except by those few Baha'is who are numerical fanatics, who often do the rest of us the courtesy of putting the Gregorian, i.e. A.D., date alongside the Bahá'í, a.k.a. B.E. (Bahá'í era) date, so that we have some clue when they mean. (My Hebrew teacher tells me that the Israeli government follows a similar practice with respect to Jewish calendar dates; outside of official documents, everyone excepting perhaps the Arabs uses the Gregorian date). In any case, the Bahá'í calendar consists of 19 months of 19 days. This comes out to 361 days, so leap days are added every four years according to common practice. (I realize this raises the question of why leave some well-enough aspects of time-telling alone and others not. I don't have an answer for that but maybe you can think of one.) This leaves four days most years, and five days others, left over. Naturally, these spare days are reserved for partying. I have to say that I really like the idea of setting four whole days aside for partying without any particularly special significance about it to be corrupted. It is pretty clever.
These "intercalary days" always fall at the end of February - February 26-28 and March 1. When I say "partying" I hope you don't have mental images of Mardi Gras because that's not the case. The spirit behind them is roughly the same as the way Christmas is celebrated. Gifts are exchanged and people gather to enjoy each other's company and do community service works. I don't have work off for these particular days, but I already have plans to attend a couple of parties with white elephant exchanges and that sort of thing. There will be a special party for the children.
All this serves a parallel function to Mardi Gras, if we don't wear shiny beads and flash people. From March 2 to March 20 is the Bahá'í 19 day fast in which healthy and appropriately aged Bahá'ís abstain from eating or drinking (except, naturally, as necessary to sustain health) between sunrise and sunset. When I ask people what fasting in the Holy Land is like, I get mixed replies. Some say that the atmosphere is very spiritual and others say that most everyone seems grumpy. I suppose that probably means that fasting is what you make it and how you see it. The purpose of fasting is hard to define even though it's a common practice across religions - everyone has their own interpretation, and I think that's the way it should be. I think it's a way to remember wealth disparities in the world and the necessity of diminishing them, and exercising the ability to put material preoccupations a bit lower in my consciousness...among other reasons, but I will refrain from attempting a laundry list.
The fast concludes with the first day of spring, also the Bahá'í new year. This day will be a work holiday for me. A lot of Bahá'ís consider this their favorite holiday, myself included. I don't think new year's resolutions are common but the first day of spring carries with it an inherent sense of renewal anyway. There is a big celebration with a lot of food and performing arts.
After that there are twelve holy days in april with three days of observances, two of them involving the suspension of work, but I only mention them now to give a sense of what a dense time of year this is in terms of special occasions. I'll describe them later, hopefully adequately, because they are called the "Most Great Festival" and so are akin to Easter or Christmas in their significance.
In terms of recent events...last week there was a wonderful art show with submissions from the staff and their family members, with so many different art forms and approaches to creativity represented, including calligraphy and photography collages and fine pottery. I don't know where anyone here finds the time or the facilities to make and glaze fine pottery. I wanted to buy some of the children's artwork but none of it was for sale. That was probably a requirement to keep the kids from developing too much of a capital focused mindset too early on. Kids here are rare enough that people tend to fawn over them, so if their work had been for sale it probably would have sold out in a heartbeat. I didn't buy anything because it was all too expensive, and there was nothing I was really truly compelled to own. My walls remain bare for the most part, except for a picture I found of the Bahá'í temple in India, an impromptu flower painting I made on posterboard with cheap acrylics, and a Jewish prayer for blessing a home that I can't read save for the title (and honestly I can't read that with 100% grammatical and lexical certainty) but that is only motivation to fill them myself.
Speaking of Hebrew, my enthusiasm for learning has waned a little bit, I think because of the nature of the class - three quarters of the attendees gave up a few lessons ago and the teacher seems to have slackened the structure as a result and now it feels like I'm learning random words. Still I feel like I have a good foundation. The problem with learning Hebrew is using it where it's not appropriate. I live in a mostly Arab Christian neighborhood and they don't like to be spoken to in Hebrew, preferring Arabic. (My Arabic is limited to one word, "shukran", "thank you.") I however am ignorant to non-obvious context clues, if they exist, which would tell me which language to use. I guess I just have to gradually build a piece by piece memory of who speaks what where. A friend of mine suggested that I approach all linguistically uncertain situations by speaking Spanish and then switching to English. However this friend is half Persian and could easily pass for hispanic (or nearly anything except east Asian for that matter). I don't think I could even pass for Spanish. His idea might be worth trying in a really uncertain situation though.
In some situations however it's really easy to tell. There is a neighborhood in Haifa called the Wadi that is mostly Arab Muslim...and it really looks and feels like being in the Middle East. Its businesses are open on Shabbat unlike those belonging to most Jewish people/Hebrew speakers. So when I go there I know it's safe to use my, ah, limited (but, if we are optimistic, slowly growing) Arabic vocabulary. The neighborhood has indoor and outdoor markets stuffed with fruits and nuts and vegetables and spices. Many of the fruits I don't recognize and many I would recognize are so enormous that I don't recognize them. Some friends and I went there yesterday for falafel and baklava (both indoor establishments, I assure you). Both were the best I've ever had. I think living here might change my eating habits forever.
