So we are in the holiday season...not that you'd know it around here except by looking at the one restaurant on Ben-Gurion Avenue covered with showers of white Christmas lights and decked out with a couple of reindeer. I'm sad to have missed another Thanksgiving and to be missing another Christmas at home. I guess that's the choice I made when I decided to go to Spain, and I'm happy I did. I miss snow but I know I only miss it enough to enjoy it for a maximum of two days. After that I'd probably wish I were back in Israel or dead.
Things are unusually normal here. I'm still trying to explore the city, little by little (next on my list is a cafe with reputedly amazing bread at the top of the mountain called Lechem Eretz - I think this literally means "Bread Tree"), and the country too. It looks like I'll go to Jerusalem next week, for the first time! It seems odd that I've been here for more than a year and I haven't been to Jerusalem. Because I have a long weekend I may go for two days and spend the night at the same place where the pope sleeps when he comes - interestingly enough - though I'd be in a dormitory, not in the sort of classy digs I'm sure are reserved for him. It's probably more likely though that I'll go for just a day trip. I'd like to go on more trips to natural sites than visits to cities like Nazareth and Eilat. Fresh air is hard to come by here. I went for the first time in months to Carmel Forest last week - this is a forest that's nestled by the university, or I should say the university is nestled by the forest. It's scrubby and a lot of it burned down in the '70's but it still feels much nicer than being in the city. I was kind of disappointed in myself because I was exhausted by the end of it, even though we didn't find any of the difficult trails, so I sat out the excursion to the Ethiopian restaurant which was apparently much more fun - I can see what my groupmates thought of my hike planning skills, then. Actually, the restaurant is really good - and it seems better because it looks like a seedy hole in the wall that may or may not be the origin of tomorrow's food poisoning.
Sometimes I feel like I seem way too tired for my age, and own good - sometimes I find that I get distracted at work and sleepy too early in the evening and too late in the morning. I think it's a product of sitting at a desk ALL THE TIME but in any case I'm going to see a naturopathic doctor in January. He's a Baha'i from Canada volunteering his time and services here. The same is true of the dentists we see for routine check-ups (anything like surgery we'd go to a local health care provider for). As you might imagine this is hugely cost-effective and it must feel so good to render a service like that for the people living here - because a lot of health care providers here don't speak English very well.
I feel pretty same old, same old right now which I suppose is good to feel sometimes. In about two months two of my flatmates go home and so I suppose that will be an upheaval, not that I see much of any of my flatmates at all. In any case I will get a new bedroom. That's exciting. After that the only scenario in which I might move again would be one involving marriage. That's not so exciting. I was a bit overeager to move back in April and if I'd waited until my 25th birthday I could have moved into a two-share instead of a three- or four-share flat. The two-share flats, I've noticed, tend to be bigger, cleaner, and overall nicer (though this isn't always true) and their occupants do not have their flats inspected - as I'm in a four-share flat I'm grouped in with all the 19-year-olds in multi-shares who don't know how to use a sponge. (I'm sure there are lots of 19-year-olds who do know how to use sponges.) Though sometimes it's fun to run into my flatmates late at night and just have a chat, I will NOT be sorry to leave the communal living phase of my life behind.
Come to think of it I'm facing another pending upheaval, which is the departure of one of my four co-workers and the coming of his replacement. I'm still not ready and it looks like she will come to our office in February. After that, we lose another one, and gain another one, and after that, we lose yet another one, and gain yet another one. All this is happening within about four months and naturally, in an office fully staffed by medium-term volunteers, we want to minimize the disturbance caused by our inevitable frequent turnover - so we aim NOT to have three people leaving and three people coming at once, generally, though in this case it seems we coordinated poorly. It could be a really interesting challenge. It could also, quite objectively, be my worst nightmare.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
13 November
You know it's really hard to find the time to sit down and do a lot of things. Only in the past week have I learned not to succumb to "peer pressure" all the time and learn to say no. I'm not wasting my time if I need to spend an evening in one of the Shrines, or at home, or doing something with other people or having some time to myself. It feels good though it's hard to strike a balance. Many things are like that.
So, the pilgrims are finally back! And they are funny. I already have a small arsenal of funny stories and we are only halfway through the second group.
1) A pilgrim was the last person to emerge from the Shrine one night and found his expensive and custom-made shoes were missing. He found a custodian who lent him his (enormously oversized) shoes so that he could walk back to the visitors' centre. Later the custodian found a pair of extra shoes and showed them to the pilgrim. The pilgrim looked at them and said those are definitely not mine. They were old and worn, so it looks like another pilgrim decided to treat the collection of shoes outside the Shrine as a clothing exchange.
2) Another pilgrim begged the authorities at the airport in Tel Aviv not to stamp his mother's passport with an Israeli entry visa because they plan to go to Iran next year. Finally, after much begging and pleading, an official stamped her visa on a separate sheet of paper. And then the mother stamped her own passport twice with a stamp at a visitors centre that read "Bahji" (which authorities in Iran might recognize as a Baha'i holy place, as it refers to the area of our holiest Shrine).
3) For the first time last night I heard pilgrims sing while waiting for a pilgrim talk to begin.
4) For the first time last night I heard pilgrims applaud the recitation of a prayer. It's hard to imagine why people would do that. It's probably some social dynamic. A few people started clapping, and everyone thinks they should.
Anyway, inspired by my Spain trip I've been searching out the best bakeries in Haifa. I found some pastries I like better than the ones in Spain...and they are waaay cheaper, about 2 shekels apiece which is about 50 cents. Haifa seems to do chocolate and lemon custard pastries very well. Bagels not so much. I guess a lot of people from the U.S. come here with the notion that Israel must have great bagels because the best bagels in America come from Jewish delis. Well, the bagels here taste and feel like hot dog bun bread. But the pastries are fantastic.
I've been trying to get to know Haifa a little better, because I realized I've been living here a long time now but I probably have more of a composite knowledge of Spain after spending two weeks there. I'm finding new places to buy flea market goods and produce, get things tailored, see popular and unpopular films, etc. and discovering or rediscovering new ways to get around like the subway. I'm also working on seeing more of the country, gradually, though, because I don't need to spend money every weekend seeing everything.
Another consequence of the Spain trip is distraction at work. I think it stems from boredom because I know the pattern already in most aspects of my job. I'm volunteering myself to become the information technology liaison in place of a co-worker who is leaving soon. If they let me I will learn to use programs like Illustrator which is exciting and definitely something new. If I do work as a special collections librarian this might prove good knowledge, because I think the librarians of the future, and many of the present, need to know how to use graphic design technologies to make high-quality reproductions of printed materials, etc. So at last my work might have some direct implications for my career.
I'm still trying to learn Farsi after six months and it's interesting that I wrote in my last entry that I felt my Hebrew was better than my Farsi - because now I feel that the opposite is true. Finally I can form sentences in my head - they may not be quite right, but I get the idea. It's hard for me to even try with Hebrew anymore because I feel like it puts me in a very low position. I live here too, after all, and I don't like putting myself in a position where I might get ripped off because I'm making myself look vulnerable and eager to please. I'd rather assert myself in English than stumble in Hebrew. In any case, the people here speak Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, German, Spanish, Romanian, English, and other languages...it's a nation of immigrants.
I'm also still facilitating a Kitab-i-Iqan study group, mostly comprised of security guards, and it's fascinating to see their interest and determination in reading this book well. I'm reading this and many other books at this time because I am going through another reading phase. The last one tapered off in July but now my appetite for good books is back. Right now I'm reading Maria by Jorge Isaacs which is a classic, so it's a bit dated and a bit tough and it's a little over the top because that was the style at the time, but if you get past that it's really a sweet story.
So, the pilgrims are finally back! And they are funny. I already have a small arsenal of funny stories and we are only halfway through the second group.
1) A pilgrim was the last person to emerge from the Shrine one night and found his expensive and custom-made shoes were missing. He found a custodian who lent him his (enormously oversized) shoes so that he could walk back to the visitors' centre. Later the custodian found a pair of extra shoes and showed them to the pilgrim. The pilgrim looked at them and said those are definitely not mine. They were old and worn, so it looks like another pilgrim decided to treat the collection of shoes outside the Shrine as a clothing exchange.
2) Another pilgrim begged the authorities at the airport in Tel Aviv not to stamp his mother's passport with an Israeli entry visa because they plan to go to Iran next year. Finally, after much begging and pleading, an official stamped her visa on a separate sheet of paper. And then the mother stamped her own passport twice with a stamp at a visitors centre that read "Bahji" (which authorities in Iran might recognize as a Baha'i holy place, as it refers to the area of our holiest Shrine).
3) For the first time last night I heard pilgrims sing while waiting for a pilgrim talk to begin.
4) For the first time last night I heard pilgrims applaud the recitation of a prayer. It's hard to imagine why people would do that. It's probably some social dynamic. A few people started clapping, and everyone thinks they should.
Anyway, inspired by my Spain trip I've been searching out the best bakeries in Haifa. I found some pastries I like better than the ones in Spain...and they are waaay cheaper, about 2 shekels apiece which is about 50 cents. Haifa seems to do chocolate and lemon custard pastries very well. Bagels not so much. I guess a lot of people from the U.S. come here with the notion that Israel must have great bagels because the best bagels in America come from Jewish delis. Well, the bagels here taste and feel like hot dog bun bread. But the pastries are fantastic.
I've been trying to get to know Haifa a little better, because I realized I've been living here a long time now but I probably have more of a composite knowledge of Spain after spending two weeks there. I'm finding new places to buy flea market goods and produce, get things tailored, see popular and unpopular films, etc. and discovering or rediscovering new ways to get around like the subway. I'm also working on seeing more of the country, gradually, though, because I don't need to spend money every weekend seeing everything.
Another consequence of the Spain trip is distraction at work. I think it stems from boredom because I know the pattern already in most aspects of my job. I'm volunteering myself to become the information technology liaison in place of a co-worker who is leaving soon. If they let me I will learn to use programs like Illustrator which is exciting and definitely something new. If I do work as a special collections librarian this might prove good knowledge, because I think the librarians of the future, and many of the present, need to know how to use graphic design technologies to make high-quality reproductions of printed materials, etc. So at last my work might have some direct implications for my career.
I'm still trying to learn Farsi after six months and it's interesting that I wrote in my last entry that I felt my Hebrew was better than my Farsi - because now I feel that the opposite is true. Finally I can form sentences in my head - they may not be quite right, but I get the idea. It's hard for me to even try with Hebrew anymore because I feel like it puts me in a very low position. I live here too, after all, and I don't like putting myself in a position where I might get ripped off because I'm making myself look vulnerable and eager to please. I'd rather assert myself in English than stumble in Hebrew. In any case, the people here speak Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, German, Spanish, Romanian, English, and other languages...it's a nation of immigrants.
I'm also still facilitating a Kitab-i-Iqan study group, mostly comprised of security guards, and it's fascinating to see their interest and determination in reading this book well. I'm reading this and many other books at this time because I am going through another reading phase. The last one tapered off in July but now my appetite for good books is back. Right now I'm reading Maria by Jorge Isaacs which is a classic, so it's a bit dated and a bit tough and it's a little over the top because that was the style at the time, but if you get past that it's really a sweet story.
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