Times they are a Changing

This is another post of lists (I am probably running out the door soon so it's gotta be short)

1. Sweets here taste funny. I don't know if it's because it's sugar > butter or if its sugar>corn syrup. I'm not a huge fan.
2. SHWARMA IS DELICIOUS. especially when you haven't had lunch and its 6 pm.
3. I'm starting to speak colloquial! its great!
4. Eggs are still delicious.
5. Salt is the new sugar. And it goes well with raw onion
6. Ben and Jerry Pints of ice cream look so much bigger here (keep your minds out of the gutter). I don't know if it's because packaging is smaller here or if they actually package these pints differently 
7. I have become totally inept at planning farther than the next day. And I often forget what day of the week it is
8. What seems like important news is very different here. 
9. All American TV becomes good TV. except for the doctors. That's just crap.
10. If you don't ask for what you want/need you're not gonna get it. And that's hard for me.
11. I still can go through a pack of gum in 2 days. 

 Alright gotta run. more later. especially since I GO TO TEL AVIV NEXT WEEKEND! turns out i have reaaaaally distant relatives here. who knew?
KAS

So I got into a fight with a hot pepper... and lost.

Funny story about the title of this entry: it actually happened. Specifically at 8 am as I was trying to have a healthy breakfast. Note, breakfast here revolves around bread (of course), yogurt, and maybe some veggies. So, me trying to be healthy, I went rummaging for veggies in the fridge. And I found a long red pepper. Excited (cuz I love red bell peppers) I took half and putit inmy sandwich. took a bite. and to my horror found out

IT WASN'T A SWEET PEPPER IT WAS HOT!!!!!

Steps you then must take to deal with such hotness:
1. Bread
2. Milk
3. Wash face and brush teeth
4. Try to deal with burning flames around your mouth
5. Find an ice pack. leave it there FOR AN HOUR.
6. Dance with joy when pain subsides.

Thank you god for giving me time to heal before work. I don't think I could have focused otherwise. Was still able to eat bell pepper later on today. May now have an aversion to red peppers.

Other fun things:
a) Went to the Dead Sea last Friday. Turns out that there are public parts of the Dead Sea. Went with my host family. We sat out ate fruit, and enjoyed the beach. The moon was huge and bright. I didn't go swimming, but it was fun driving there. We sang and danced. It was fantastic. I'm gonna miss living with them when I move.

b) the main couple of my Turkish soap opera KISSED. it was a big deal. although something tore them apart. again. what a shock. OH WAIT NOW THEY'RE BACK TOGETHER. yes. and now i may be learning all about her parents torrid past. HOW DID I NOT LOVE SOAP OPERAS BEFORE?

c) Visited a small woman's business in Tel Sheva today. Miriam was a really amazing woman. She started her own organic skin product line (products similar to what you would find in body shop or Lush). She had to struggle a lot against her family, which was hard to imagine (shout out to my family! thanks for being supportive of my crazy travelling ways). It was amazing getting to talk with her. She's going to Spain for a cosmetic conference. I'm super jealous.  I bought some foot cream. It smells great.

d) i may be reading through all of meg cabot's romance novels. I may get these novels in a less than legal fashion. ITS STILL AWESOME.

e)wracking my brains to figure out what to start my classes with on my first time with them. I'm going to be having discussions with them in English, helping them practice etc. I have no idea how to start...any suggestions/thoughts? comment away!

that's it. hopefully i'll have fewer stupid antics this week. although... who knows?
حب من النقاب(Love from the Desert),
KAS

Fasting for Religion, Fasting because your stomach is passive agressive and won't communicate properly with you.

Long Blog title. Mostly because after starving/thirsting for 25 hours two days ago... i can barely keep down any food/drink right now/the idea of both is pretty gross (don't worry... i'm drinking tea). So here's what has happened.

Yom Kippur started on Friday and went through Saturday. I took the train up to my boss's, Nicole, town called Renaan. Its about 15 minutes outside of Tel Aviv. Fun fact about suburbs/relative distance: you are only a suburb of Tel Aviv if you live 5 minutes outside the city. Amazing how people think of distances here.

The train was really uneventful. They're pretty nice, a lot of soldiers travelling back and forth because of the holiday. Some nice people helped me switch trains, but I feel pretty comfortable using it. For 2 hours, it was only about 10-12 USD. It seems like its mostly focused on the coast, Tel Aviv, Haifa, etc.

Arrived in Herziliyya, a town near Nicole's. Wandered through a park while waiting for her. Israelis love public spaces to play. Parks seem to abound in most Jewish neighborhoods (not down in Lakiya). Met up with Nicole, and we went to the mall, chatted, and grabbed coffee/lunch (well i did... I had an early breakfast).

Fun fact about Friday shopping in Israel: its generally a mad rush. People try to buy all their stuff for the weekends on Friday because Saturday the shops are closed, and Sunday they're back to work. Most Fridays, they close by 3. For Yom Kippur... it was 1 pm. I was glad I didn't need anything.

Finally went to Nicole's place. Nicole is married to an Israeli (who spent much of his childhood in the States) named Asaf. They have three girls: one set of twins who are 5 (Lital and Shani), and a 14 month old baby (Tamar).

In the house, the use of language was really interesting mix of English, Spanish, and Hebrew. Nicole is Colombian, and for the first 3 years for the twins, they were in Colombia. Asaf speaks Spanish, but he and Nicole mostly talk in English since they met in the states. Now in Israel, Nicole and the girls learned Hebrew, so its one big mess. Often times, Asaf or Nicole will say something in English and the twins will respond in Hebrew or Spanish. Shani speaks English more than Lital, but they both have adorable little accents when they speak English. Tamar says Abba (Hebrew for Father), gurgles, occasionally says Mama, and mostly bye when starts walking off somewhere. That baby is adorable.

Because daylight savings time changed earlier here, we had to get ready and eat dinner by 4 pm, so we could finish by 5:05. Afterwards, we walked to shul. Fun fact: most Jewish neighborhoods have multiple temples. I think there are at least 3 in Nicole's neighborhood. We decided to go to a more distant one (10 mins walk) that was an American Modern Orthodox temple. The best part of the walk? no cars at all on the street. You could walk in the middle of a usually busy road. People generally don't drive on Shabbat, but Israel shuts down on Yom Kippur.

Modern Orthodox service was interesting. It felt like a mix between a social gathering, with kids everywhere and a service. We were lucky that people lent us prayerbooks for the service and pointed out where we were in it (since we arrived late). I missed my home temple services, with more emphasis on each prayer, taking time to really focus on the prayer. It felt like i was rushing through it. I'm glad I got to go for services though.

We walked back, tired even though it was only 8 pm. I went to bed by 10 pm. It was a hard fast because I was hungry by the time I went to sleep! Next day I mostly lounged around, read some of the Bible and tried not to think about food too much. We went to services at 5 pm to hear the Shofar blown. This was a different temple, but also a modern orthodox service. Im glad I got to hear the Shofar, and was successful at a full fast. Not having the smell of bagels at home definetly helped :-)

Afterwards, we broke our fast with a quick snack / some water. This is crucial 1) to alleviate hunger and 2) not to stuff yourself silly initially. Although you are very hungry, your stomach has to readjust to eating, and frankly has shrunk w/o food. I had a couple pieces of delicious fruit (fruit here is so fresh. i love it) and then we drove over to Nicole's grandmother's place in a nearby town.

Quick story about Nicole's family: Nicole's family originally hails from eastern Europe. With all of the craziness of the 30s and 40s, her family fled and eventually settled in Colombia. Later on, some moved to Israel, including her grandmother and atleast one Aunt of Nicole's. Nicole's mom and dad moved to Israel from Bogota around the same time as she did.

So it was a big family dinner at Nicole's grandmother's house. The dinner was mostly in Hebrew and Spanish, although lucky me I could understand some b/c of my french (one day my language skills will work in this country!!!). Colombians also love bread: pasta, ravioli, matzah ball soup. Thank god there was salad and this delicious eggplant dish. Still, the food was delicious, and it was a nice way to break the fast.

Spent Sunday and Monday at Nicole's as well. We did some work, went shopping (turns out the cost of living/price of goods is ridiculous here, partly due to the political situation. They can't do mass shipping to Israel + middle east. So goods imported go up in cost.

So... somehow I got sick in all of this. Sunday night Lital had a stomach bug and was throwing up. We thought it was odd... but she stopped by yesterday morning. Seems I might have gotten it. Woke up nauseous. don't want to eat. Barely want to drink. And have been sort of throwing up all morning. blegh. Hopefully tomorrow I will be better. Can't go to Jerusalem today to the meeting, but I can get some work done from Lakiya via computer. Resting now, and hopefully this time tomorrow I'll be great.

Sorry: super long post, but hope you enjoyed. As always, much love
KAS

Rosh Hashanah: A tale of many courses

L'Shanah Tovah! I hope that everyone had a wonderful Rosh Hashanah/ is getting ready for Yom Kippur. Can't believe how a year has gone by. Certainly didn't think I would be in Israel celebrating the holiday.

For those who don't know, being Jewish is very different in Israel. Zionism and the emphasis on living in Israel. By living in Israel, Zionism believes that's enough. That our connection to the land is what matters. So, on the one hand, you have secular Jews. They don't go to services, don't fast on Yom Kippur, etc.

On the other hand are the Haredim, the very religious. They tend to live in separate communities, they have their own super strict Kosher regulations, and don't do anything on Shabbat (except maybe read, services, and go for walks). Basically, they follow all of the rabbinic decisions through the centuries. It's a very different community.

So, being a progressive Jew, is mostly an anomaly here. There are Reform synagogues, but they tend to be on the coast or in larger cities such as Tel Aviv and Haifa. None seem to be around Beersheba, and I don't have the transportation to take myself to those cities/wanted to go by myself. So my options were
- Secular dinner with a Jewish family
- try and find conservative/orthodox services

I chose the secular path:  I went with an acquaintance, Lauren, with her and her boyfriend to her boyfriend's parent's place 40 minutes north west of me in Moshav Nir Moshe. They have a beautiful house in a small neighborhood surrounded by fields. We got there around 4 pm, as everyone was getting up from their afternoon naps/getting ready for dinner. We ended up chatting, and having some tea. Eventually, I met the whole family: Roi's parents, two sisters, and the three dogs. Everyone was welcoming, although it was hard with the language blocks (this time Hebrew). Lauren was sweet, and helped translate me the gist of the conversation so I at least knew what was going on. I appreciated that immensely.

Dinner was intense. We had a huge mean including

-symbolic foods for new year (apples and honey, challah, and mostly different candies with plays on Hebrew)
-salad course with 5-6 different types of salad and salmon
-Matzah ball and chicken soup with carrots, artichokes and onions
- Chicket, Roast Beef, and Potatoes
- Tea, Coffee, and coffee cake
needless to say... I was really full after that.

That evening I stayed at their place, falling asleep to BBC TV. The next day, we mostly sat around, read, watched tv. They have an amazing cereal here like chex cereal except stuffed with chocolate on the inside. We had lunch, all left overs from the night before (with enough for all 8 of us to eat that 3 more times). Lauren and Roi dropped me off back at Laqiya that evening.

It reminded me of Thanksgiving, family, food, and conversation. I think that's what I miss most is being able to participate in conversations. Who knew a jewish girl loved to talk? Still, Roi and Lauren were wonderful and I enjoyed speaking a bit of French with Roi's mother: she was born in Paris and moved to Israel years ago.

Right now, just enjoying my long weekend that started with Rosh Hashannah. Going to start looking into hebrew classes/taking a class at Ben Gurion University in English. I'll let you know how that goes.

Much love,
KAS