Another unusual day at Ulpan

Last Wednesday, April 6, Ulpan Gordon held a "mini" Passover Seder all morning.  I say mini, not because it was small (see picture at right) because all the classes were there, easily 200+ students and teachers.  It was also not shortened.  It still took at least an hour and a half of songs and readings before we ate.  It was "mini," because it only included the boiled egg, boiled potato, matza cracker and gifilta fish ball. 

I'd like to say it was interesting, but it was hard to follow.  We read the Passover story in class before hand, so I understand the holiday is about the Jew's exodus from Egypt, which included avoiding eight plagues.  I understand that the appetizers each represent something as well, and the readings and songs correspond to these.  But I couldn't really follow it. 

Still, I stuck it out until the end. 

Afterwards, upon leaving class and turning the corner onto Ben Yehuda a block north of Ben Gurion, we were haulted by the police.  They had cleared the intersection to check a suspicious "package" (I never saw it, so I don't know what it was).  The bomb squad hooked up some lines to it, went back about 50 feet, and tugged.  Nothing happened, so I guess they were sufficiently comfortable that it was a false alarm.  They packed up and left, and we were able to go on our way too.  

It reminded me of the NYC campaign in the subways - "If you see something, say something."  Obviously, somebody said something.

The Moth comes to Tel Aviv

When we were living in Michigan, we discovered a great live storytelling program called The Moth, thanks to NPR coverage.   The concept started in NYC, in someone's living room, where a group of people got together, people put names in a hat, and 10 were drawn to get up and tell an original story under 5 minutes.  You can read about the exact structure of the events on their website.  The concept caught on, expanded to public locations, and then to LA, Chicago and Detroit.  We attended the Detroit events several times.  You had to get to the bar, Cliff Bell's in Detroit, at least 2 hours before the storytelling began, if you wanted in the door.  And it was standing room only once you were in.  If you live in any of these cities, I highly recommend going in person.  If you don't, you can hear selected stories on NPR, or, you can do what the following couple did.

A few months back we met an American couple working here in Tel Aviv.  I was put in touch with them by a fellow Wellesley alum.  He works for Better Place, and she just finished her master's degree at Brandeis, where I began mine, so we have a few things in common.  In March they decided to start StorySlamming in Tel Aviv, by hosting the first one here (at least, the first one we know of, and almost certainly the first one in English (although one of the 10 stories did end up in Hebrew). 

They held it at their apartment, starting on the roof and then coming back to their living room when it got too cold.  (Yes, it can get cold here).  The theme was "danger."  There were about 40 of us there.  And Dan put his name in the hat.  Sure enough, he was picked, and I have to say he represented us very well.  I on the other hand, am not much of a live storyteller.  You'll have to settle for mine in print. 

They plan to throw another StorySlam after Passover.  We'll be there!

35,000 feet in the air

This is it.  We're on the plane from Los Angeles to Atlanta, then on to Tel Aviv tonight.  I can't believe it has been six weeks already.  I haven't spent more than a two week visit in Washington State since the summer of 1997.  While I would have much preferred for this visit to have taken place in August (thereby experiencing the best weather of the Pacific Northwest while avoiding the worst of Israel), it was a great visit. 

I met my nephew, Ernest, in his NICU room, then watched him come home and grow from barely 5 pounds to over 7.  I visited over a dozen family members all across the state including all my grandparents.  My good friend Erin, from Wellesley, came up from Santa Rosa, CA to visit for a weekend in Seattle.  I had a crazy night out with my best friend from high school, Leigh, and was asked by my best friend from elementary school, Stacy, to stand up in her wedding in July.  It is exciting to be going home, knowing I will be back again this summer to see more friends and family whom I missed on this trip.  It is amazing how quickly days can pass when a member of the house is on a 3-hour eat, sleep, and diaper cycle.  I spent many mornings and afternoons cooking, and many evenings babysitting.  And I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

I took full advantage of the exceptional local seafood - oysters, clams, and salmon.  And realized how much I miss access to raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and all the local native versions like salmonberries and huckleberries.  Unfortunately the local varieties are only available in August, so I will miss them this year.  I will also miss the tulips and daffodils that will sprout up all over the Skagit Valley in a month.

Dan joined me for my last few days in Seattle, and we wrapped up our visit with a weekend in Los Angeles for his cousin Ariel's wedding.  This provided a bit of easing back into my new reality in Hebrew.  I have a bit of trepidation about the inevitably confounding struggle to communicate that I will face upon my return home.  But it does feel like I am returning home, and that's a nice feeling. 

I am looking forward to stocking up on fresh produce from the shuk, and not layering my clothes to keep warm anymore.  And I am excited to see Israel in springtime.   

Drylands, Deserts, and Desertification Conference

On Sunday evening November 7th (my birthday), our bus load of participants drove down to the Sede Boquer campus of Ben Gurion University.  It was a 2 hour drive, punctuated by a stop in Be'er Sheva at a mall to buy dinner (not the best).

We arrived at about 8pm, well after dark.  After dropping eight participants at a hotel outside the campus which looked like a glorified motel complex (they used four locations for boarding the 600 participants from 65 countries), we arrived on campus at the field school housing (no better than the off campus options). 

We were greated by frantic 20-somethings, students and staff who were nearly as confused by what needed to happen as we were.  It took them about a half hour to track down all the room keys for the participants.  They could not answer basic questions about the campus, such as where/when breakfast was to occur the next morning, or whether there was internet access somewhere nearby (as there wasn't in the rooms).  Remember, these participants are experts in their fields from all over the world.  This was not their first conference, and I could tell they were more than a little frustrated by the lack of information and resources that enabled them to prepare for their speaking engagements in the following days. 

After about an hour and a half of trying to get participants settled, I was ushered onto the lap of one of the student coordinators in a tiny car full of oranges, pizzas, and more, with my suitcase in tow.  We drove to the one retail outlet in the area, a pizza joint, where we waited a half hour for them to bake 4 more pizzas.  Finally we drove to the student housing area where we met with the conference chairman.  He proceeded to provide the 20 or so student volunteers the structure for the upcoming day.  I asked about the possibility of getting a few basic resources for the participants, based on my observations earlier, including printed maps of the campus that they could use to get around.  I was brushed off in typical "don't bother me with the details" fashion, at which point I wondered if anyone was thinking about the details at all.

The student coordinator took me across the path to her apartment around 11pm (don't forget we had to be up at 6:30 to get the conference going the next day.)  Instead of finding the location where I was to stay, she insisted that I sleep at her place, in her bed (not with fresh sheets, mind you).  Although a very nice girl, she clearly hadn't the head for events management, appearing quite frantic, and insisting that she planned to stay up all night to everyone who would listen.  I gave up and tried to get some sleep in her bed, despite the chatter downstairs.  After 2 hours of restless sleep, I awoke to her coming in to bed herself, on our couch.  She said she found the key to my place, but at 2am I wasn't interested in searching for it in the dark.  Luckily though I was given another opportunity at 6am when her alarms started going off every 5 minutes for 20 straight minutes.  She was 5 feet from them, but didn't budge.  So I gave up, dressed, grabbed the key from the table, and went out to look for this illusive room. 

Rolling my little suitcase along behind me, I headed for the guard shack, hoping for help.  Unfortunately, they weren't even up at work yet.  While surveying my options in the intersection (north, east, south or west), I saw a guy a block down walking his dog.  I went up to him and tried my hebrew on for size, "eifo ha ___" and pointed to the sheet of paper with the info on it.  I was pleased to learn he knew exactly where to go, and he walked me there himself.  It turns out this room was in a small trailer, surrounded by other trailers, which I can only imagine became the cheapest, quickest way to house incoming research students on this tiny campus.  With my copy of a copy of a key that would sometimes take 5 minutes of attempts to unlock the door, I finally got in to discover a clean, never-before-used, mini apartment.  Perfect for a shower (and a nap later that day!)

The Conference opened with the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Luc Gnacadja.  I was excited for this section, hoping to learn a bit about the global strategies employed in this field.  My excitement ended in disappointment as his accent was so strong that he was hard to understand.  While there were translators for the participants listening with headphones, there weren't translators for the presenters, so the non-native English speaking presenters were really at a disadvantage trying to communicate their hypotheses and discoveries.

Despite the organizational challenges, there were some great presenters.  On Monday morning I attended the Public Health and Desertification session.  Professor Jonathan Patz of the Univ. of Wisconsin talked about the impact of the 3 degree Celcius increase in air temperative that the earth is currently undergoing in relation to public health.  Two examples that I had never considered really stuck with me.  Afterall, how could a slight temperature increase impact our health?  If anything, us northerners would be happy with a little less snow, right?  (Never mind the melting of the polar ice caps and rise in sea levels, but I digress).  Patz talked about the impact of 3 degrees on mosquitos.  Mosquitos are cold blooded, and thus take on the temperature of the air.  Any blood they suck will then also be air temperature.  When that blood carries malaria, it is now warmer which means it is less likely to remain dormant and quicker to spread.  A few degrees isn't a lot for a human, but it can be deadly via those pesky little mosquitos.  Second, with the temperature change we are seeing an increase in precipitation intensity (not volume).  This is leading to things like sewer overflows into places like Lake Michigan.  When tested, these waters have E. Coli and all kinds of little nasties, and guess what?  Our drinking water is being pulled right back out from these lakes.  Another very important point he made was that if you consider a more holistic view of the cost to convert to clean energy, it suddenly becomes a no-brainer.  Cities in the midwest U.S. showed a $4B healthcare cost savings by electing one day per week without driving (less polution, more exercise - kind of makes your head explode with the obvious simplicity of it).

In the Economic Development Strategies, Public Policy and Remote Sensing category, Alan Grainger from Leeds University talked about the World Forest Observatory, the first global monitoring system for the forest lands we have left.  Sounds crazy that we wouldn't have global monitoring systems by now (doesn't google monitor everything?) but it has been a real challenge create a publicly accessible data warehouse or wiki.  This one appears to be launching this year, however, and they hope it will lead to other global resources for gathering and monitoring data that spans the globe. 

In this same panel, I learned about two Israeli companies that have developed Concentrator Photovoltaics which significantly improve the efficiency of solar energy.  The companies are Zenith Solar and MST. 

During our Monday field trip, we visited a UNESCO world heritage site - the ancient Nabataean city of Avdat.  It was a major stop on the incense route from Asia for over 600 years B.C.  Continuing with the theme of the conference, we were shown their advanced agricultural techniques which allowed them security and prosperity with less than 8cm of rain per year, that hasn't existed in the area since.  While there, a military helicopter did several fly-bys and then hovered over us for a while (quite irritating when trying to listen to a speaker.)  This wasn't the last of the military operations overhead though.  There were planes rocketing overhead on a regular basis out there in the Negev.  Sadly, less than a week after the conference, a plane went down due to pilot error in practice, killing the 28 and 30 year old pilots.  It has been big news here.

The bottom picture here is the view from the field school in Sede Boqer.  I went out for a morning walk on Tuesday and ran into a family of mountain goats.  They were curious about me, but as long as I didn't get too close to the two young ones, the parents left me alone and continued along the edge of the cliff.   I didn't know what to expect in the "desert,"  but I was surprised by the large valleys.  I could never live in a place that dry, but it was definitely worth a visit!

Ulpan, take 2

ani lomedet ivrit. 

While 6 weeks (150 hours or so) of Ulpan helped me see the possibility of becoming bilingual, it certainly didn't make me that.  So, in order to make my first effort worthwhile, I have signed up for 5 more months.  This time however, I am attending Ulpan Gordon, which is walking distance from our apartment.  It is also 4 days a week instead of 5 - Sun, Mon, Wed, Thu.  However, it still goes until 1pm, which means 16 hours a week in class plus homework. 

Dan and I have made a new resolution to attempt a daily evening walk during which we practice speaking Hebrew (for my sake).  It's amazing how exhausting it is trying to get over the initial hurdle of speaking another language.  Being an introvert doesn't help with the motivation, but being stubborn does, so I think it's a wash.

Today I was reminded of both the advantages and disadvantages I have as an English speaker learning Hebrew.  On the one hand, I have never become fluent in another language, unlike many of my international classmates from Germany, Belgium, France, India, Japan, Sweden, even Canada.  I do not have the advantage of having my brain hard-wired for languages at an early age.  However, I also am not trying to learn Hebrew through a second language like they are.  For example, today, we studied the structural changes that must be made to nouns when you pair them, such as "bus station," "kitchen cabinet," and "table cloth."  These are a challenge in Hebrew because you have to modify for the gender of the noun.  And you also have to modify in plural.  It seems obvious in English that you would say "bus stations," "kitchen cabinets," and "table cloths."  You pluralize the second noun in English, but not the first.  It works the same in Hebrew  (despite the fact that in Hebrew you reverse the nouns, the same way you reverse a noun + adjective in many languages - "stations (of) bus").  The Swedish woman in class had real trouble with this concept.  She asked how you would say it when there are many tables and many cloths.  Of course, that doesn't even make sense - you would never need to say "tables cloths," but if your English isn't perfect, it's an easy mistake to make in such a context.  I have gained significant respect for those in class studying Hebrew, through English, when their primary language is something else all together. 

Learning a second language (again, as I tried once before with Spanish in high school), can make you more aware of the culture behind both.  I find it interesting that while in English we have a few contractions, like "can't," or "I'm," the entire Hebrew language omits vowels in written form, and they have contractions for phrases like bishvil-i - "for me/you/him/them,"  im-li - "with me/you/him/them," and shel-i - "of me/you/him/them," etc.  Talk about being efficient (and tricky!)

Emotional Intelligence

From Wikipedia, "Emotional intelligence (EI) describes the ability, capacity, skill or, in the case of the trait EI model, a self-perceived grand ability to identify, assess, manage and control the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups.

I am finding that functioning in Israel can take a fair amount of emotional intelligence, and emotional energy. 

A few days before we moved into our apartment, the owners called us and tried to change the terms of our agreement by offering to leave the TV for 3,000 shekels (about $800).  As this was the very first item we asked to be left during our initial meeting with the owners back in May, we were more than a bit peeved.  After reminding her that we were 100% certain that they had agreed to leave it along with the patio furniture, she let it go.  But needless to say, everything in Israel seems to be a negotiation on a good day, a battle on most others.

My first visit to the shuk hakarmel (the tel aviv market), resulted in my ability to catch one vendor trying to rip me off (he told a guy in hebrew 15 shekels for asparagus, then told me 20 in english).  When I told him to forget about it, and that I was irritated by his attempt to rip me off, he gave them to me for 12.  Who knows how many times I didn't catch someone trying to take advantage of me.  But my overall spend still seemed less than the grocery store for fruits and veggies, so here's hoping I did ok.
 
Mindless tasks in the U.S. take a high degree of attention and focus here.  Sometimes I get so tired of it I'd rather not go out and have to interact. 

Burekas, Meze, and more (hungry yet?)

Foods (like languages and cultural traditions) are often more similar to their neighboring countries than they are different.  Even (and most often) between countries that fight like brothers.  I just read a great blog post by good friends Tracie and Wayne http://www.surleevoyage.com/ - "A Turkish Food Primer:  Borek and Beyond," about a common food found during their visit to Turkey.

Israeli's have their own version - burekas.  But it's basically the same idea.  Filo puff pastry stuffed with various cheeses, potatoes, mushrooms, etc.   We've had them several times these past 2 months, and they are tasty, but you better live in a walking city if you're going to partake in this calorie packed breakfast often.

If you read a few posts earlier on their blog, you'll also see a great photo of meze, or a HUGE tray of small plates of various salads.  This is a common approach at fish restaurants here.  You have to order a few less fish than people, as you'll all likely fill up on the salads before the fish (or mix grill meats if you prefer) even get there!  This experience has made our greatest hits list for any and all visitors who choose to make the trek across the Atlantic to see us while here in Tel Aviv. 

So, when are you coming to visit?

Balagan in my brain

Chaos in my brain.  Resulting from 4 days of intensive hebrew studies so far.  From 8:30am-1pm every day I sit, focusing like a maniac on what our mora (teacher) is teaching us.  I've got 6 weeks of this.  Class all day, hours of homework each night.  Each week we'll take an hour and a half test, to help her gauge how we're doing so she can modify the course for us.  It's me, a German woman on her summer vacation, and about 20 college students.  We also have a teacher in training in the room helping out.  They are both great.

The methods are amazing.  I actually read a whole paragraph in hebrew today - on day 4!  Of course, that's in phonetic english, not hebrew characters.  Next week we switch to reading and writing only hebrew.  Each day this week we have learned 5-7 letters of the alphabet.  Then we practice writing the script versions (different characters from the script), and sounding them out.  Listening to me read is like watching paint dry. 

Time to do my shiurey bait...