Dogs of War
I'll share this story, which speaks a bit of how life on the moshav was before we moved to the "big" city of Rehovot last fall:
The first week of the war (July 2006), a semi-stray dog we had befriended had puppies. Beeka had them under a house 3 doors down but would come to our house each day to be fed. We'd go check every day to see if we could see the pups. About 3 weeks later, she brought them out. There were 9 of them! Our girls loved to play with them.
One evening we went to go check on the puppies. We took a flashlight since it dusk. We rounded the corner of the house and I got down to start looking under the house, and Stevy heard a HISSSSSSS, HISSSSSS, HISSSSSSS. I started shining the light looking around for the escaping steam, 'cause that's what it sounded like to me. I caught the sight of something patterned and moving under a sign leaning against the house.
A snake! Yikes, a big one, too!
I jumped back and Stevy got everyone else away. He told the owner of the house, who had 2 kids in diapers crawling around. The next day, they called the unwanted-animal-control, who charged them 400 shekels to climb under the house and catch the snake. It was a "tzefah", Palestinian Viper, a rare and extremely deadly variety. I'm not sure if it's true, but we were told you have 17 minutes to get help if you're bitten. Also, the skin is supposed to be poisonous 6 months even after the snake dies.
More than likely, this snake had come to make a meal of the puppies in the coolness under the house.
Well, thanks to good fortune, and some help from above, all the dogs of war lived to see another day.
Update
It has been a long time since our last posting. We have had a war and three kidnapped soldiers and life goes on. It really doesn't just go on. Everyone knows the war ended and we don't have our chayalim back. We wait and we hope that someone is making a deal or that they will find out where they are hidden and go rescue them. We wait and time passes and life goes on.
The girls are now pretty much fluent in Hebrew. Maayan knows words in Hebrew which she does not know in English. Noa is learning to read in Hebrew and English. A few weeks ago Alison took Noa to a store in order to translate for her.
Why is it that they pick up the language so quickly and we will struggle for years? You should hear their cute Israeli accents. It will come to the point very soon where we will have to make sure the girls only speak English at home to preserve the language skills they have.
Our trip down south ...
This last weekend, we went to the Arava, a valley that runs between Jordan and Israel from the Dead Sea down to the Red Sea. The valley is part of the Negev Desert, which in general is Israel's Wild West. At times, I certainly felt that we weren't even in Israel anymore. For starters, it's very deserted in the Negev, as I guess most deserts are.
On the way to the Arava, we visited a Bedouin market in Beer Sheva, where Stevy was warned not to photograph or else risk having his camera broken. (He managed to sneak in a few shots, though.) He later wondered if the reason was because there were women in the market, most covered from head to toe.
In a corner section of the market, men — mostly Bedouin, some Jewish — sat playing backgammon and cards. Table after table was filled with men drinking mud coffee, playing games, and smoking cigarettes. (The younger men sat in cafe-like enclaves smoking hukkahs / water pipes). Zoe, Maayan and I were the only females in that part of the market, and I sensed that we'd broken some unspoken code by being there. A nice female shopkeeper warned Stevy more than once that we should be careful about the girls in the market. She never articulated what could happen to our curious 3- and 5-year-olds, but it was unnerving to be forewarned.
After Beer Sheva, we continued down past Dimona, where Israel's non-existent nuclear reactor is. It's surrounded by miles and miles of fence-off land with lots of warnings about not trespassing.
The sight we beheld as we crested the top of the mountains before entering the Arava was amazing. We drove, often alone for miles, unto our first destination,
Kibbutz Lotan.
Kibbutz Lotan uses alternative building techniques to construct homes and public-use buildings. The kibbutz members give workshops on building techniques, and Stevy got to watch them in action for a while.
The homes there that used this mud-and-straw-homemade stucco were quite beautiful, decorated with glass and ceramic pieces. The girls enjoyed the donkeys roaming through a field of date-palm trees. (Lotan supports itself, in part, by growing dates.) When we were out in the fields, we were only about 200 meters from the Jordanian border. We probably could have walked right over. At night, we could see lights of a village rounding a slope of the Edom mountains in Jordan. The people of that village probably could have walked right over.
We had a flat tire when we woke up Friday morning, so we got the tire changed with the help of a man from the area around the Kinneret / Sea of Galilee. He was at the Kibbutz to learn alternative building principles. We headed off to have the hole fixed at a nearby kibbutz, where we learned that we really needed 2 new tires. The girls enjoyed visiting the camels and cows on the kibbutz. The camels enjoyed my hair.
With new tires on the rear of the car, we headed back north though the Negev to the
Maktesh Rimon, "Israel's Grand Canyon". We had arranged to stay over Shabbat at the SPNI field school in Mizpe Rimon. The field school is one of several run by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. (I'd like to visit the others, too.)
All day Saturday, we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. We began to know what it would feel like to be the last people on earth. That's the amazing thing that the desert can do to you.
Purim
Purim in Yatzitz is over and we are exhausted. Ruth is right, Purim really is a big deal in Israel. Last night we went to hear Megillah reading at the shul in Yatzitz. Scratchy followed us to shul which is about 7 houses away from where we live but started chasing a horse that was on the sidewalk nearby. He chases horses just like he chases cars. The shul in Yatzitz is very pretty and we are starting to get to know some of the regulars there. Their services are according to Nusach Sefaradim and we are slowly getting used to the differences. Noa and Maayan have adjusted and found the "candy man" almost immediately. Noa has even picked up some of the Sefardi customs from Gan.
This morning we went to a parade in Mazkeret Batya. What a blast! Hundreds of kids dressed up and walking down the main street with their parents. We noticed that the most common costumes for boys was police officer and for girls was bride. Our two girls wore Chinese outfits from Value Village. The parade was made up of bands, clowns, acrobats and all the kids and parents. Everyone walked together and participated in it, not like the parades we are used to where people watch other people perform for them. Some parents were very creative and come up with beautiful costumes, some very elaborate.
Afterwards we took a sherut to Rehovot and passed yet another parade. Not wanting to miss it we jumped off the mini-bus and walked around a while longer.
We then walked to the train station at the north end of Rehovot (the girls have become excellent walkers) and arrived just in time for a train to Zichron Yaakov. Zichron Yaakov is a kind of sister city to Mazkeret Batya. Both were founded around the same time and have that quaint European feeling. Zichron Yaakov means "in memory of Yaakov" (Baron Rothschild's father) and Mazkeret Batya means "a memory of Batya" (Baron Rothschild's mother). We were heading up north to visit our friends Ruth and Menachem and their 4 kids.
This was our second trip on the train in Israel. The first one was when we went to Tel Aviv a few days after we arrived. At that point we approached the entrance to the train station and Noa froze. All public facilities here have guards outside. You can't walk in to a bank, restaurant, mall or bus/train station without going through security. They examine your bags and in some places, such as bus stations, will put your bags through x-ray machines similar to those used at airports. As we appraoched the train station door Noa saw that there was a guard there with a gun. She had never seen a gun before and her understanding of guns is that they are used by "bad guys". We had some explaining to do and since then she has gotten quite used to seeing guards with guns and soldiers with M-16s strapped to their backs walking down the streets or shopping at the grocery store. As I write this I think that I have also gotten quite used to seeing firearms on a daily basis here. It is part of life in Israel. When we were in Canada we talked to the girls about what life would be like for them in Israel. When we explained to Noa that after high school she would be going in to the army for two years like most other graduates, she announced to us that she wanted to be a ballerina in the army! We have seen all kinds of soldiers since we arrived, some in pants, some in skirts but so far we have not seen any soldiers wearing camouflage tutus. But in Israel you never know....
As it happens we spent the hour and a half train ride sitting together with a female soldier. The girls used most of the 90 minutes to eat their ice cream cones (it was very warm today) and talking with Ella, our new chayelet friend (female soldier) about her work in the army. Noa got to ask Ella questions about her dog tags, green beret and uniform. Ella shared with us her news that she received a promotion today and was given three stripes to make her a sergeant. We all congratulated her and watched as she removed her two-striped patches from her coat to make way for her new rank. Noa, our five year old with excellent interview skills, subtlety asked Ella if she had a "special" friend. Ella told her that indeed she did and took out from her wallet two small snapshots of Assaf, her boyfriend taken "before" and "after" the army. Alison noted that there was quite a difference in the way he looked in the two pictures. Ella smiled and explained that Assaf "grew up" in the army.
It did not take looking at "before & after" pictures of Ella for us to realize that this young soldier, sitting across from us, probably no more than nineteen herself, has also grown up, probably way too quickly, like most Israeli kids that are garbed in green, given guns and taught to defend our tiny slice of the map.
To Ella, who became a sergeant today, Happy Purim and Mazel Tov!
Purim & Elections - Let the Zaniness Begin
You can feel the buildup to Purim as walk you through the streets here. The stores are displaying costumes and sweets and for weeks kids have been shooting off firecrackers and lighting roman candles at night. Everywhere you go you see the preparations and feel the excitement as kids prepare their costumes for this annual holiday. Our friend Ruth sums it up simply: "Purim is a big deal here." It really is. Coming from Canada, I can only compare it to Halloween, that fun holiday that other kids got to celebrate while we stayed home handing out candy to the neighborhood kids that came to trick or treat. Here, the whole country is celebrating a holiday that does not require fasting, encourages having fun and does not commemorate a tragedy in Jewish history. We forget sometimes that we are actually in a Jewish country where one of the leading news items is kids in costumes or the whole class in one school that dressed up as police officers (they were adorable) and the weather woman wishing us a "Happy Purim."
Today the kids got dressed up in their costumes and had a celebration at Gan. They brought in a clown to perform for the kids. Speaking of clowns... the TV commercials started showing last week for the upcoming elections. They are something else. In a country where the world subtle is not known, the commercials are a real slugfest for votes. Some commercials extoll the virtues of their leaders with sappy "call home" type pieces that nobody believes and the next moment attack the leader of the other party. There are 31 parties running for the Knesset. The method of voting here is very low-tech. They don't use electronic ballots or the old "X" on a piece of paper, you are given an envelope and you put a piece of paper inside that has a letter or combination of letters representing a party. Sometimes the letters will stand for a word or idea. The Labor Party uses the letters EMET which means "truth" while Kadimah will use Ken, which means "yes". I don't know if it is an accident or not but the "Party for the Struggle with the Banks" has chosen the letters "PUTZ" which is a Yiddish word and not complementary to say the least. Besides the Bank party there are a few other partys that have a single issue agenda. I wonder how "Strength to the Poor" and the "Green Leaf Party" (marijuahna) will deal with serious foreign affairs and security issues.
The commercials are part of the Israeli race to the Knesset and the TV news reports on the various messages shown in the ads as well as all the mistakes that were made. The best ad we have seen so far is for Meretz. The commercial showed different people at the Kotel each whispering their wishes. Very effective and did not attack anyone else.
One party had to pull an ad because they were attacking Charedim and yesterday we heard that Shas had to pull one of their ads that promised people who vote for their party would receive a place in the world to come. While waiting at the bus stop last week we saw a poster asking people to protest and instead of putting a ballot in the envelope the organizations request that people put a piece of toilet paper in instead.
P.S. Here are the answers to our Purim photo puzzler:
1) Dome of the Rock is gone; 2) Tree has moved; 3) Orange bags have multiplied; 4) Band on David Zvi’s sweatshirt is a different colour; 5) Stevy has a twin; 6) Strap on camera bag is larger; 7) Alison’s watch is missing; 8) Zoe’s sleeve is longer; 9) Maayan’s sock is taller; 10) Why have just one Mishpacha Epstein, when you can have two?
Chag Sameach!
P.P.S. If you haven't receive our Purim photo, we apologize. E-mail us, and we'll send you one.
Girls in the City
Yesterday, which was Yom Rishon (the first day after Shabbat, a.k.a. Sunday), we decided to hit the road and take the girls to Jersualem. They had been to the city before, but only at night, sleeping most of the time there. This day, we had several errands in the city and all needed a "fun" break from regular work and kindergarten.
The girls were real troopers, walking all the way into Mazkeret Batya, where we caught a sherut (mini bus) to the highway, where we could grab the bus to Jerusalem. They were very happy, though, to be able to sit down in the green cement bus stop to wait for Egged bus No. 434 and nibble some cheese and crackers.
Surprisingly, the bus was packed. Stevy and I stood the whole way and the girls shared a step that led to the last row of seats at the back of the bus. We arrived in probably less than 45 minutes. Our first errand was to cash a U.S. dollar cheque. The money changer was a friendly ex-North American, who also had the ability to deposit the money directly into our account. (A good thing since the banks here have the nerve to charge money to count cash deposits over 5,999 shekels, or about $1,500.)
Then our friend Dov picked us up and took us to the Old City. He also brought in the car a bag we had left at his place in September and which we needed to get back (errand No. 2). The bag took up most of Dov's trunk. Dov and his brother, Moishe, own and operate Shoreshim (roots), a gift shop in the Old City. After a chat with the brothers, we headed through the winding streets down toward the Kotel, or Western Wall.
All entrances to the Western Wall Plaza are heavily guarded. We passed through metal detectors and had our bags x-rayed. The girls asked if they had to take off their jackets like Stevy and I did. I explained that they don't since they weren't carrying keys, money or cell phones in their pockets. The vast majority of Israelis and visitors don't seem to mind this intrusion, which can occur many times a day depending on the places where one works or frequents: shopping malls, banks, bus stations, grocery stores, cafes, office buildings, etc.
Once through security, the girls and I waited in the plaza while Stevy headed to another exit, where he was to meet a guy who had de-bugged Stevy's computer of a nasty virus. Noach actually drove to our house last Friday morning to work on the computer and then took it home to finish up and was returning it to us (Errand No. 3). The girls and I looked around in the meantime.
The sounds of Muslims' afternoon prayers wafted over the wall from the plaza of the Dome of the Rock, above. Near the entrance to the women's side of the Kotel were old, old women begging. Some of the faces I remembered from my visits to the Kotel in years past. Jersualem is timeless in so many ways. I took out my little leather change purse that I've begun carrying for bus fare and gave the girls shekels to give for tzedekah (charity).
Stevy returned and took the girls off to the men's section. I headed to the women's section to leave a note in the wall for a friend whose doctors just discovered a malignancy. I felt I should daven (pray) beforehand, so I found a siddur (prayerbook) with English. Like times past when I'd prayed at the Kotel, I did not feel the earth move. I don't know if I ever will. But some women around me were clearly moved by praying there. I find the Kotel noisy and distracting as women walk toward and away from the wall. Nevertheless, I hoped my note would have some affect on God's willingness to heal our friend.
After I found a crack in which to stash my prayer note, I returned to the common area of the plaza, where men and women are not separated. Peeking through the fence behind the men's area, I spotted the girls and Stevy — their brightly coloured clothing in contrast with the mostly all-black garb worn by so many men there. As they walked up the ramp toward the common area, the girls cried "Imma!" (mommy) and came running toward me. I was glad to see them, too.
The girls played on the steps while Stevy and I planned the next part of the day: a stroll through the shuk (market) and finding some promised ice cream for the girls and then something substantial for all of us to eat. Leaving the plaza, we passed a group of yeshiva students singing and dancing.
Later, we visited Stevy's friends who live and/or work in the Old City. One, David Aaron, runs a learning centre called Israelite. Atop his offices is an impressive view of the Old City and the Dome of the Rock. A young couple sat talking on the roof. The woman offered to take a camera-phone picture of the whole family. Zoe enjoyed running around on the roof; I was getting hungry.
We found something to eat and then found a playground, which the girls thoroughly enjoyed. It was probably the most exciting part of the day for them; I remarked to Stevy how the playground was much like those in New York City. Everything in the Old City is made of Jerusalem Stone; there are few green spaces — not like Yatzitz or Mazkeret Batya. The girls didn't seem to notice or care.
The playground was around the corner from Dov's shop. We returned around closing time, and he drove us and the big bag to the central bus station. Maayan fell asleep in the back seat. Zoe sucked her thumb all the way home.
A Friday Morning
Walking to Mazkeret Batya, in order to catch a sherut (mini-bus), is often a relaxing experience. Today was no exception. As I headed out to get our groceries for Shabbat, I passed the usual homes and farms, neighbourhood dogs Scratchy and Beka following me part-way, sun shining after a night of rain — the beginning of a good day.
At the edge of the moshav, I turned off the main road to take the shortcut we often take. (The walk into Mazkeret Batya is about 3 kilometres as the crow doesn't fly.) The path cuts through an abandoned orchard. The trees have been uprooted and most of the wood hauled away. I'm not sure if it's to give the ground a rest or even what sort of trees once grew in this field. Nearby are orange groves, so this could have been one once. But there are also many olive trees here in Yatzitz.
In addition to saving time, the shortcut offers a great view of surrounding fields and hills. Today I was surprised to see a flock of sheep walking toward me on the path. We often hear sheep bleating, but the only ones I've seen have been in a barn. I pulled out my camera phone to capture the scene.
An elderly man wearing a red & white kafiyeh, a young boy and an old woman were tending the sheep. "Cousins" is how we've heard Palestinans called. They said, "boker tov" (good morning), and the woman asked me in Hebrew how I was doing. "Be-seder," (all in order / OK) I replied. I noticed how thin and sundried she looked. Her smile was yellowed and gap-toothed, and she reached out with the hand that wasn't holding a cigarette to shake my hand. I smiled back, took her hand and asked, "tov?" (good?)
Kol tuv (all good).
Walking, I thought how I wish there were easy answers to the problems we cousins are having these days. I have to believe across the fence there are others who only want peace and to raise their children in happy times. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be enough of these cousins to make the difference. So we'll have to wait awhile longer before everything is really "kol tuv".
Returning from the supermarket — the groceries on their way by delivery van — I stopped again to take another photo of the view looking southeast.
Hills in the distance ... possibly the mountains that climb up to Jerusalem ... call to me: "See what a lovely land this is."
A Hot Shower
Getting a hot shower in Israel during the winter isn't as simple as it is in Canada or the States. Here, the sun either has to be shinning brightly; otherwise, the "dude hashmal" (I call it just "dude") has to be turned on at least 30 minutes prior to pulling open the shower curtain. The "dude" is a electric (usually) water heater.
Israel has a long way to go on environmental issues. But one area where we're miles ahead here is in the use of solar power — at least for hot water. Most homes and apartments have a "dude shemesh" to heat water. This applies to 300-year-old villas and brand-new studio apartments. By law, all new homes have to have a dude shemesh. (Shemesh = sun in Hebrew.)
With early-morning sun unreliable during the winter months, its often easier to "top 'n tail" at the sink or forgo bathing altogether before getting dressed. Today, however, we turned on the dude, so I'm looking forward to a steamy-hot shower ... and there probably won't be another one this week until Friday, before Shabbat.
I recently read that women who lived in the United States 100 years ago only washed their hair once a month. Just think how far we've progressed: I get to wash my hair twice a week — if I remember to turn on the dude!
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