Cultural Learnings

It’s been two weeks since I left home, and so far my travels have been highlighted by Borat moments. The beauty of traveling is that you know things will go wrong, you just don’t know what they will be. But my failures are overshadowed by the amazing moments I’ve had, for sure. I spent my first 3 days in Boston with two old friends. There is snow there. Honestly, I know more about the subjunctive mood in Latin than I do about snow. My high school friend Veronica took me around town. She has lots of time on her hands because she can’t find a job despite having a BA and being awesome. Well, she had one, but she got laid off after a month. I enjoyed seeing way old cemeteries. There aren’t really old things in California. Anything from before 1906 is way old for the Bay Area, and Boston just has 400 year old stuff just chillin’ downtown.

I went to a sorority event with Haley, and I had culture shock. I also looked way awesome in my new Phenomenauts cadet jacket that I made. They played a dating game, and globs of girls would all go up together, after hesitating and whispering “I’ll go if you go!” “No, I’m not going!” “Ok, fine! *giggle*” An a Capella group performed a few songs, and the sorority children behaved terribly. The group was by far the best part of the night. Haley had to study (and entertain me), but she feared that if she cut out early, her “sisters” would shit talk her. What does it mean when someone fits into a culture like that? I also saw a guy we met at camp many years ago (who is now her ex— mer), and that was super. Basically I was really stoked to see all these people!

I arrived in Tel Aviv at 6 am. That was after a 5 hour flight across the Atlantic, a four hour layover in Heathrow, a half hour delay, and another 4 hour flight. And one of my suitcases was not there. My friend Miriam picked me up, and I am eternally grateful. We and her uncle (who is her age) drove to Netanya. We got breakfast at a café in a mall. I was watching the guard at the entrance check some bags and wave old ladies through. Miriam casually mentioned that the mall had been bombed. Her uncle said it would have been worse if the security guard hadn’t been there to slow him down. Oh, also, that Passover seder bombing, that was there down the street. I saw no memorials, just Israelis going about their business in the mall. You would never think there could be so much bravery in getting a cup of coffee. We ran some errands in preparation of Shabbat. I love Shabbat. We went to the Shuper-Sol (Israeli Costco). There is someone who checks receipts at the door, and she gave us a hard time. She didn’t think we had paid for the water and detergent on the bottom of our cart. I couldn’t understand everything that was said, but it’s pretty clear what’s going on when European and Middle Eastern Jews are waved through, and the Ethiopians are stopped. Did you know there are Ethiopian Jews? Their story is truly inspiring, and I recommend looking it up on Wikipedia. Her mother burned incense in honor of having a guest, and offered me traditional Ethiopian coffee. She roasts and grinds the beans herself. I was jetlagged hardxcore, so I missed most of the fun parts of Shabbat. They had chicken soup and Ethiopian food for dinner, but I had to go to bed before 8. The next day we went to a park with her cousins and napped there. There were at least 1000 people there. The play structure was wooden and too dangerous for America. I do not at all pretend to be in touch with my inner child, but I still wanted to play on it. Her family doesn’t speak English, so I had to scrounge around for whatever Hebrew words and rules were lying about between the cushions of my mind. My suitcase was delivered at 12:30 on Saturday, a good 30 hours after it had arrived. When I opened it, I found the contents rearranged and a note from TSA saying they had searched it. Really?! Cool. Thanks. I didn’t get to brush my teeth from Wednesday night until Saturday. I really enjoyed that.

I spent the next few days with Maliya and Sara in Kfar Studentim on the Hebrew U. campus in East Jerusalem. I took the bus with them and claimed a boyfriend with ridiculously long peot who sells chicken wings in the shuk. (Translation: peot- sproingy Jew curls. shuk- outdoor market.) We walked through the Christian quarter and after a particularly lechy cat call, I shot back “fuck you!” Maliya and Sara say I can’t swear at Arabs. I have yet to figure out the intricacies of Israeli race relations.

The first five days of my program were spent touring Jerusalem. It was rather overwhelming to meet nearly 100 people at once. I got awfully tired of asking people’s names and where they’re from. We did play some successful games of Jewish geography, though. There are no lines in Israel. It’s not that things are not crowded, but rather that if you want something, you need to use your elbows. I consider it an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Almost each time I’d go out in public, I would do something to give away my non-Sabra status. The bus was the easiest place to give myself away, and ordering food was usually somewhat of an ordeal. I can say what I want in Hebrew (or I stick to ordering things I can say), but then they always ask me something in Hebrew and then I look scared and then they say it in English.

We heard a few lectures about Israel, and we toured the separation fence. It’s wild how uncontroversial it seems when you actually see it, and when you see the results. People in the States get so worked up about the Conflict and who should do what and who should never have done that etc. I always felt like I had to defend every Israeli action. Now I can have an actual opinion, because if I criticize or disagree with an Israeli policy, I won’t worry about that hordes of anti-Israel people will jump on me screaming “We told you so!”

It’s been two weeks since I’ve left home. I haven’t called my family or responded to their emails, and I am damn tired of living out of my many suitcases. It is cold and rainy, and I love it. I want to unpack, I want to eat something that wasn’t handled by a low-wage worker, and I want to sit on facebook for 3 hours. Did you know “to facebook” is a verb in Hebrew? It’s pronounced [l.fas.bEk.]

I took this video on a rooftop in the center of the Old City of Jerusalem. You can hear a number of muezzin (who call Muslims to prayer). The sound is not great, but I'm saying "This is the Jewish Quarter. This is the Muslim Quarter, and there is Mount Scopus. There is the Christian Quarter. There's some tourists, and there's the Armenian Quarter. And then we come back."