Let's not get too political, I have had a radical and culturally intensive time in both Israel and West Bank, making friends on both sides of the wall and trying to understand a little more about this controversial piece of land.
The West Bank is not Gaza, (they are on opposite sides of the country). I have little idea as to what the reality of that situation is in Gaza, other than it is the most densely populated area on earth, but the West bank is not a war torn place. The four days that Meg and I were in Ramallah and Nablus we just chilled out, drank a lot of coffee, ate some shwarma, hummous, kanafeh and falafel and visited with our couchsurfers friends and family; we took some car rides, went to the park and had chewy ice cream. We also visited a couple of refugee camps, witnessed some peaceful protests, and learned about Palestinian travel restrictions. We wore all our clothes and would gather quite an audience whenever we went to play cards and drink coffee alone.
In the West Bank, people go about their day to day lives, working, cooking, taking the bus or shared taxi, going to school, and spending a lot of time with family and friends.
Many Palestinian people, especially those living in the 64 year old refugee camps (which are not made up of tents but are small, crowded cement houses, making up poorer neighborhoods on the outskirts of Palestinian cities), believe they will return to their original homes in what is now Israel. This is called the "Right to Return". The West Bank is not a giant refugee camp. Many Palestinians have lived in the towns, villages and cities of West Bank long before it was the "West Bank".
Jewish settlers lived in Palestine lived before it was "Israel".
Shalom from Israel.
Sorry for the delay, it's just that the Israeli's,
have so much to say. (in english).
Many moons have passed since I crossed the border in Aqaba (Southern Jordan) to the holy land. And I have to say, I really dig Israel. After my week of volunteering, drinking 10 shekel ($2.60) wine, and watching many many hours of Scrubs in the Maktesh which is Mitzpe Ramon, my reverse culture shock subsided, and I became used to seeing prices marked 37.90 shekels for cereal in the grocery store.
But more importantly I was able to chill out with Meg in the most rockin' apartment in Jaffa, an old port city which is technically not Tel-Aviv, but feels like a neighborhood of the city. We spent an incredible three weeks hanging out in a beautiful, old arabic style building with some radical Israeli's who were stoked on showing us a good time.
-the view from the balcony in Jaffa house. Every morning we would get up, make our coffee and breakfast and sit outside; talking, playing cards and people watching.
-except during passover...and shabat
We were invited to a Passover dinner which is similar in the timing of easter, but a completely different holidays surrounding the leaving of the jewish people from Egypt to wander the desert for forty years. There is a huge dinner, with the different foods symbolizing different parts of the story. My favourite part of the meal was when the kids search for the hidden matzah (weird, wheatless, yeastless, passover cracker bread) and then bargain with the head of the household for something in exchange for the missing matzah...also the Gefilte fish
Our next big adventure was a road trip with one our couchsurfering hosts in Jaffa to the desert to see the Ahava Dead Sea music festival, featuring some of Israel's more popular rock and roll artists. It was a fun evening, which stretched into early morning, leading us to see a beautiful sunrise over the hills of Jerusalem on the way back to Karme Yosef, our friend's hometown. We spent the next day hanging out in Newe Shalom, the peace oasis, making coffee, wondering when the guy mowing the grass would be done and shouting in the silence dome...
later that week, after Meg's Birthday and a lot of sunning ourselves on the sands of the medeterranean sea we went to another sea. The DEaD Sea. Smadar, also from the Jaffa house, took us on a dreamy picnic to a deserted area along the shores of the world's lowest elevation point, over 400 meters below sea level. We lay around in the waters, covered ourselves in mineral mud and made avocado, tomato, and goat cheese sandwiches. It was a magical day. The dead sea was a completely bizarre experience, similar maybe to being a happy sausage rotating and baking under a heat lamp in a bath of salty oil. There is no sinking in the dead sea, or even sitting, when you push one part of your body deeper under the water, the salt content flips you around and forces you nearly out of the water again, see rotating sausage metaphor.
Boo-Yah!
-old pals, sultans bitzy and glumloch have a day at the spa
but it wasn't always fun and games. Sometimes real life would come and slap us in the face. For example, the day when Meg had an itchy eye because Hartool (the cat) and Mika (the dog) slept on our bed.
the most obvious solution was to strap a bunch of tea leaves to her face
Two side notes, firstly, whenever we have gone on a road trip there are always some great new tunes and artists to learn about. The first which sticks out in my mind is besides Dudu Tassa, and the Bonai Brothers is Asaf Avidan. We listened to him a lot. Many Israeli artists use english lyrics instead of hebrew, hoping to make it in the big ol' scene of international music.
Secondly, one the greatest (in my opinion) car ride/getting to know people/being bored games ever is the questioning game "Your girlfriend is sababa (fine, in hebrew) but..." The but part is the most important part and the asker usually goes something along the lines of "your girlfriend is sababa but...she never changes her socks" To which the person being asked says "yes," it's cool with me, or "no" I couldn't do it. Meg, myself and our friend Ido, played this game endlessly on our hummous eating trip to Ben Sima's in Jerusalem.
-our foreign tour guide Ido, and Meg hanging out waiting to eat the best hummous we have had so far. And we have had a lot of hummous.
The day after the Dead sea, Smadar loaned us her car and we took off for Northern Israel. A land of Kibbutzim, magical forests, and tradition. But it is 2:55am in Jerusalem, so I will continue catching up when I have time.
