You Are Now Entering A War Zone

I feel like a sign with this phrase on it should be posted on the door of my classroom. No, it's nothing like the war zone that currently covers much of the Middle Eastern landscape, but it's pretty bad. [I have to preface this post, however, by saying that my class actually gets along quite well, generally speaking. But 5 hours of Hebrew a day could make anyone go crazy!]

It's only natural, of course, from a group of 20 people who sit together in the same classroom for five hours a day, five days a week, in another language. This group ranges in age from 14 to 30-something, and comprises students from Italy, France, Russia, the US, Mexico, and Arabs from Jerusalem. There are Christians, Jews, and Muslims. And naturally we all have different opinions and are trying to express them in a different language. It's natural, and I think that's why they keep the ulpans (the intensive Hebrew language programs) short.

The biggest war in my class is over airconditioning. For those of you who run at a higher temperature than average, like me, you can see how airconditioning in a hot classroom for five hours would be vital. Seriously, people. I just want to die when the air conditioning is off. One day I walked out crying in the middle of class because it was so hot. I had to go to the bathroom and pour cold water all over my body for 10 minutes to cool off. It was horrible.

But for those of you who like to wear minimal clothing and keep rooms hot, perhaps you will understand the reasoning behind some people in my class wanting the airconditioning off.

I certainly don't.

Anyway, the war goes something like this: the AC is on when we come into class. Sometimes it lasts a whole hour, but usually within the first 30 minutes someone will get up, walk over to the AC unit (unfortunately it is manual), and flip the switch off.

In about 20 minutes, someone will walk over and turn it on.

Since I am usually the one dying (but many people in my class want it on), I am usually the one to turn it on. I also strategically sit right next to the AC so I can keep things under control. (Unfortunately, this also leads to requests from people farther away from the AC for me to turn it off. Seriously, people? Are you really going to ask the person who will die without the AC to turn it off for you?)

Anyway. One day after class I told my teacher, "This has got to stop. It's like a war here."

Actually, I was speaking Hebrew, and I accidentally said family. "This is a big problem. It's like a family."

My teacher: "....? (looking at me quizzically)

Me: "War. I meant war. Family, war, same thing right?"

Anyway. She told me the funniest thing. I am still laughing about it, days later. She told me that maybe I was hot because I sit in the back of the classroom and the AC blows stronger at the front. And I said, "No, it's fine when the AC is on, but when it's off the classroom is equally hot."

And she said, "Well, maybe if you sit by the AC, even after it's off your body will remember that it used to be cool and you won't feel so hot!"

Nice try. But that is perhaps the most useless solution I've ever heard, actually!

Today there was another war, but this time about what it meas to keep kosher and Shabbat. We were reading a text about percentages of Israeli Jews who believe in God, who keep kosher laws, who celebrate Jewish holidays, etc. And for some reason, a few people in my class started arguing about what it meant to keep Shabbat and kosher, and how accurate these statistics were. Cries of "Guys, this is just to help us learn Hebrew, not give us correct statistical figures" were ignored.

I just sat in the corner chuckling because I thought it was so funny.

The worst part, however, was when the 14-year-old brought up the fact that the text was talking about Israelis--but there are Israelis that aren't Jewish (they are Palestinian) and why doesn't the text acknowledge them? (You could feel the tension go up a notch in a class that houses both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs.) I quickly stated that this class can't even talk about kosher laws without arguing, so we probably shouldn't get into politics!

We do have some funny misunderstandings, though, that keep people laughing. I believe that open warfare won't happen as long as we can all laugh together!

Like the other day when one of the Arabs in the class was inviting us all to a class party. He said that we would go to a park and eat kabobs. And one of the girls mentioned that she didn't eat meat. "Don't worry!" he said reassuringly. "They have chicken!"

Yeah, we all laughed about that one.

And then today, as we were reading the text that caused so much disagreement, one of the other Arabs thought that the text said "Chinese" instead of "Sinai." In Hebrew only the vowels are different in the two words, but the vowels aren't written. They are both written syny. Anyway, the text said that most Israelis believed that Moses received the Torah in the Sinai, and as we were reading, she said, "Moses received the Torah in China?"

Yep. It's the little things, friends, that make life bearable at this point!