Jerusalem Light Festival

The past few posts have been very heavy on the words and light on the pictures. So I thought I would balance that out with some pictures. A week or so before I left Jerusalem, I went to the final day of the Jerusalem Light Festival with one of my friends, Carli, and my coworker, Rakheli. Due to the fact that there were massive amounts of people stuffed into the Old City, I was exhausted, it was a warm night, and I had just visited the Jenin refugee camp earlier that day (plus a 4+ hour round trip in non-airconditioned shared bus-van-taxi things), it was not exactly the best experience for me. But I won't ruin the pictures for you. Aren't they beautiful?

And then they gave me a key

I'm such a workaholic it's pathetic. The thought of spending a year without work was just too much for me to handle, so I decided to get an unpaid internship in Jerusalem. Because even without making any money, a year with a job was much better than a year without a job, in my opinion.

After arriving at Hebrew University, I realized that I could get an "internship"--unpaid, of course (I like to refer to it as "free labor," but others call it an "internship") and it would satisfy my need for having a job to keep me busy. I was incredibly lucky to land an internship with the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, or ICCI.

ICCI works with Christians, Jews, and Muslims to, according to their mission statement, "harness the teachings and values of the three monotheistic religions and transform them into a source of reconciliation and co-existence." And what they do is awesome. They have year-long dialogue groups with teenagers and college students, they have women's groups, they sponsor lectures and tours, and a lot of other stuff that I just don't know about.

My job was to interview participants from the college-age and teenage dialogue groups from 2010. This was ideal for me because I got to talk to Israelis and Palestinians from lots of different backgrounds about what they liked and didn't like about being in a dialogue group in a conflict-torn area. I learned a lot of things about myself, about dialogue groups, and about what I would do if I were to ever participate in sponsoring or working with a similar dialogue group. And I got to attend lots of awesome lectures for free, from the relationship between Catholics and Protestants at the height of the fighting in northern Ireland to Armenian Christians' presence in the Holy Land to a tour of the Christian Quarter of the Old City for Jews studying Christianity. It was an incredibly diverse learning experience, and I loved my coworkers to boot.

But the best part was the day they gave me a key. Being an unpaid intern, I didn't really need a key. A lot of the interviews that I did were out of the office, and why would I be at work when other employees were not? But on Tuesdays I went to work in the morning, and it was easiest to cross the checkpoint really early. Meaning I got to work about 7 am and sat in the lobby until about 10 am when my coworker came in and unlocked the door. I could still get an internet signal from the lobby, but there were no outlets within range of the internet, so when my computer was about to die I had to go to another floor to plug it in and let it recharge so I could go back down and use the internet. And it was often freezing in the lobby, especially on days when it was raining and I was already wet.

The coworker who saved me from the lobby each morning. No, this is not our office.

One day my boss and I were the last two people in the office. As he was leaving, he said, "You have a key, right?" Well, actually, no I didn't, and I thought this was my cue to leave. "Oh, you don't have a key? I just happened to bring two today. Just lock up when you leave."

All of a sudden a whole new world of freedom was opened up to me. On days when I needed to be in Jerusalem, I suddenly had a place I could go that had internet, plugs, and airconditioning. I started going to the office all the time. I finally had to tell my boss, "Just so you know, I'm not a super over-achieving intern. I'm just doing my homework here because it's a lot closer than the university." And most days I was in so early in the morning that I had the office to myself anyway.

One day, I realized that in order to have real freedom I needed a key to the office and a key to the building (which had several offices). It was a Friday afternoon and my computer was dead (my computer cord stopped working) so I went in to send some emails and get some work done. I got in about 3 and was excited to have three or four hours to work on transcribing some of these interviews I had conducted and writing the report before I came back to the States. And I knew no one would be in the office because, well, it was Friday and people don't work on Fridays in Jerusalem. About 4 I left my office to walk down to the basement to make sure the door to the parking area was still open. I knew they locked the building, but I thought that surely they would leave the door to the parking lot open (and I could jump a fence to get out if they locked the gates).

Unfortunately, I was very wrong. It was closed and locked. I ran upstairs to check the main door. Still open. Phew. I went back up to my office and knocked on the door of the yoga studio next door to ask them when they lock the building. "Probably in about 2 minutes," they said. "Go now or you will be locked in."

So I went back downstairs. Locked. The door was locked. Thankfully I knew that the yoga ladies probably weren't going to stay there all night and so had to have keys, so I went back up and found one who was leaving to let me out. Thankfully it was the last week of my time in Jerusalem, so I didn't have to be too frustrated. But coming back to a place where buildings stay open until midnight on Saturday nights (and on Fridays!!!) was the only thing that saved me from being too frustrated that day.\

Anyway, the point is, the internship was awesome. And the key and the office? Even more awesome.

Oh, and I've decided that if I ever go and live in another country again, I'm going to do it with a paying job this time. I'm tired of all this free labor! Just what, exactly, did I go to college for if I made less after graduating than before?

Hebrew University

 I'm sure that you have all been dying to know what life is like at Hebrew University. One of my friends emailed me a while ago and said that because of my post about Hebrew Ulpan, she pictured me in cramped hot classrooms with people putting their arms on my desk.

Thankfully, it wasn't that bad all year long, but my time at Hebrew University has certainly been interesting, to say the least.

The most important thing you need to know about Hebrew University is that there are cats everywhere. A long time ago there was a rat problem in Jerusalem. And what do you do about rat problems? You import cats. But what do you do about cat problems? That, my friends, was a problem that on one thought of the answer to. But at least half of the cats in the city, it seems like, have found a home in the university. They are EVERYWHERE--on the counters, sitting in the chairs, walking through the halls, sitting on the microwaves...

   

Some mornings when I get to the university, there are more cats there than people. Seriously. One day I saw a woman feeding the cats. No joke. And I wanted to run up and shout, Don't feed the cats! Don't you know that they have germs? And probably rabies? And worms? And they're filthy! They don't need any encouragement to stay at the university! But I couldn't figure out how to say all that in Hebrew, so I just kept walking.

I'm going to apologize right now for the bad picture quality. I took these pictures with my ipod, but they're better than nothing, right? Hebrew University isn't always filled with this creepy green light.

These next few pictures are of the Humanities building, where I had my Ulpan. It is seriously the most confusing building on campus (and that's saying a lot!). Each classroom and office is four numbers long--the first number is the section, the second number is the floor, and the third and fourth numbers are where it is supposedly located in relation to the other classrooms. Or is the first number the floor and the second number the section? I can't ever keep those two straight.

It sounds simple enough, but the 3-5 floors are a maze of offices and random sitting areas. I can never find the stairs down or up and often have to just take the elevator (which is not, contrary to common sense, next to the stairs--it's usually next to the bathrooms).

At the start of second semester, I was looking for my classes. I had decided to take classes only in Hebrew, so I was on main campus, with the rest of the Israelis. And guess what? I couldn't find my classrooms. I also couldn't find the administration offices. I finally found some office and asked, in my painfully inadequate Hebrew, where to find this classroom, feeling nervous the whole time that the woman would say, "What in the heck are you taking classes in Hebrew for? You can't even ask for directions!" But instead, she said, "That's not my department. You have to go to another floor and another hall and ask them."

Seriously, woman? Can't you just look it up on your computer? So I finally found the other office and asked them where this room number was. "It doesn't exist." Well, yes. I kind of figured that out, thanks. "What's the class?" I told them the teacher's name and they looked it up. "Oh, looks like you've got the room number backwards. It's actually 4273, not 3724."

ME? I've got the room number backward? No. Nope, that's exactly what they put on my schedule. So here I was being worried about my inadequate Hebrew, but feeling much better about myself because these people obviously have an inadequate system. I might not be able to ask for directions in Hebrew, but at least I can write my numbers the right way!!!

  

 

 
This is the inside of my classroom that I had during Ulpan. Imagine: 95 degrees, filled with students, stuffy room, neighbor's arm is on your desk, and you have to sit here for 5 hours a day learning Hebrew. Torture. Also, those desks aren't even big enough to hold a piece of paper, in case you were wondering. I guess they figure that we take notes on sticky notes?

These next few pictures are priceless. I guess someone had the brilliant idea to paint some of the pillars in the Humanities building, but then the project run out of money and they just decided to leave them like that. Or something.

 

  

 
What the weird. It's been like that all year.

My main complaint about Hebrew University is that they have RIDICULOUS library hours. Seriously, these people must never study. The library opens at 9 am every day (9 am!! Classes start at 8:30!), closes at 7:45 on Thursday nights, and is CLOSED Friday and Saturday. Ok. I can understand the library being closed on the Jewish Shabbat. The BYU library is closed on Sunday. But can you imagine if the BYU library was closed on Saturday and Sunday, and then closed at 7:45 on Friday nights? When would you ever do your research? And I think it closes at 10 pm or some other early hour the rest of the week.

The next few pictures will take you on a short tour of the north side of campus--where the international students' building, Rothberg, is located.

Looking east from Rothberg toward the Dead Sea.

The Hebrew University communications tower, visible from most parts of the city.

 
The view from Rothberg--an Arab neighborhood/village in East Jerusalem and a nice view of the separation wall.

Rothberg--the building for the international students.

It says "Shalom L-Israel" in Paleo-Hebrew.

 
The outside stairs of Rothberg.

Does that green door lead to some creepy garbage dumpster spot? Nope, that's an entrance into the building...the only one on this side!

What's inside those creepy doors (located inside the creepy green doors), the back of a kitchen?

Nope, guess it's just a hallway.

The Rothberg international building has its own library, although it's quite small. It has 5 computers and I am sitting on the far side of the room looking at the whole library.

Anyway, expect another post about Hebrew University. But now you at least have some context for my stories!

How Arabic Became the Best Thing in My Life

I never, ever thought I would write a post with this title. My previous experience with studying Arabic in the Middle East was quite a disaster, and I never, ever, ever in a million years wanted to hear Arabic or speak Arabic or even think about the Middle East. Even though I tried to be positive on my blog while I was in Jordan, the truth is that most days I would break down crying and go and hide in a corner of the university instead of going to class. I remember when my parents flew into Amman at the end of my program so I could give them a tour of Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank. Their flight was a little late, and as I stood there at the airport waiting for them, fearing that maybe they weren't really coming, and maybe I would never get home, and I just wanted out of this country (I stop thinking rationally when I'm waiting for late flights at the airport), I started weeping and cried until I saw them walk out of the terminal, relieved that I only had to stay for another week.

I was terrified to come back to the Middle East. I was terrified to touch the dead carcass of Arabic that I had so gladly left by the roadside on my way out of misery and anger. Because I not only had to touch that carcass, I had to resurrect it and live with it and somehow be happy about it.

When I first tried out the Arabic program at Hebrew University, I was very much less than happy with it. Taught in English, it was very much a focus on grammar. We opened up the dictionary every five minutes. The people in the highest level taught here couldn't form sentences in Arabic. And so, after fighting with the administration to get into the highest level, I dropped it after a couple of weeks. I didn't need any more incentives to be miserable in Arabic.

I hope you can understand at least a little bit of what I felt at this point. I had just spent a large amount of money to come to study in Jerusalem for a year because I felt very strongly that this was what God wanted me to do. I knew I needed to improve my Arabic. And now I had just walked away from my Arabic class (which was one of the best decisions I have ever made and the only regret that I had was that I had stayed there for so long). The only option I thought I had was studying on my own.

And then, I saw a sign at the university. "Learn Arabic in Arabic," it boasted. I emailed them the same day. Taught through the Polis Institute, a Catholic institution in Jerusalem, and one of several language options there, the Arabic program is taught completely in Arabic, patterned after the Hebrew Ulpan program here.

I can (and do) go on for hours about how amazing my Arabic teacher at Polis is. Although he is Jewish Israeli, he speaks Arabic like a native and knows so many random things about Palestinians and the West Bank. He learned Arabic by talking to the natives, all the time and all over, so he often tells about different accents all over the West Bank, Jerusalem, and even Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Morocco. Somehow everything about Arabic is an absolute joy and delight to him, and he loves speaking and teaching Arabic. The best part is that he doesn't speak much English at all and all of the other students in the class are Israeli, so if he has to explain something in another language he will speak a few words in Hebrew, which helps both of my languages.

After half a semester in his class (I had joined halfway through), I was excited and thrilled about Arabic. I was starting to understand so much more colloquial (my MSA had been dominant when I was in Jordan), and I was stoked every time I heard something new so I could ask my teacher about it. I had this urge to travel all over the West Bank and see how they spoke in each city, and even politically frustrating things became interesting because I could talk about them in class (since it is very difficult for the other members of my class to enter many parts of the West Bank). I was on fire. I lived for Wednesdays--on difficult Fridays, or Mondays, or Sundays, I would think to myself, today was horrible...but just a few more days until Wednesday!

This was a huge transformation for me. Not only had I resurrected that Arabic carcass, but now it had become one of the most exciting things in my life. The dead carcass had become a beautiful steed that I could ride all over, exploring the wonderful world of Arabic. Maybe I have taken the metaphor a little far, but I hope you get the picture. :)

At the end of the semester, I said my goodbyes to everyone. They were continuing, but unfortunately I didn't have enough money to pay for another semester. I was in a very good place with my Arabic and felt confident that I could continue with the other classes and programs that I had in place.

A few days later, I was in Morocco. I was so excited about everything I heard--how they spoke, the words they used, how similar it was to Egyptian, and how I could tell my class and my teacher what I heard and saw in Morocco. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't in the class anymore. During my extensive time sitting on trains in Morocco, I stared out the window and thought about the next few months without my Arabic class. I suddenly realized that this Arabic class was seriously one of the best things that had ever happened to me and it would be absolutely ridiculous to give it up. Since I was less than happy with my classes at Hebrew University anyway, I decided to drop to half-time status and use some of the extra tuition for another semester at Polis.

The second semester of Arabic has been even better than the first. Somehow the excitement and joy that I get from my Arabic class on Wednesdays gives me the strength and the energy to do all sorts of difficult things during the rest of the week. Since my classmates have few opportunities to speak with Arabs in Arabic (due to the complicated political situation here), I offered to record conversations I had with girls at Bethlehem University and give them to Elad, my teacher, to share them with the class. I hate going up to random people and talking to them. Even though I served a mission. And even though I did it for 2 hours a day in Jordan. I still hate it. And I would go to the university before my class started, look around at all of the girls just sitting around chatting with each other, and go inside and sit in my classroom for 30 minutes instead of talking to them. I just couldn't find the motivation to do it.

Just because I thought this door was cool.

But after I offered to record conversations for my class, I had new inspiration. As I walked onto campus, I would think to myself, I have to talk to these girls. First of all it will help me improve my Arabic, but more importantly, I can give these recordings to my class! And when I would walk up to groups of chatting girls, introduce myself, and ask if I could record their answers to some of my questions about Palestinian weddings, funerals, the relationship between Muslims and Christians, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc, their willingness was, I'm sure, in part due to my excitement about talking with them and learning more Arabic. I listen to the recordings over and over on my ipod, gleaning new words and phrases and improving my Arabic exponentially. Recording the conversations was great both for my Arabic and for my graduate school research, since I now have all these language samples in colloquial Palestinian Arabic.

I recently started a project of interviewing women all over the West Bank for my MA research. And each time I go and record our interviews, I get excited about how much I am learning and what I can tell my class about what I heard and saw. Refugee camps, villages, big cities, checkpoints, areas of conflict, cultural experiences--they all have become exciting and inspiring. Even days without water in my apartment have become bearable.

I never thought I would be excited by Arabic. I definitely never thought it would be the best thing ever in my life. I am shocked and amazed by the transformation that my mind and my emotions, in addition to my language ability, has gone through. I am eternally indebted and grateful to my teacher Elad. And if I ever teach Arabic or any other teacher, I hope to be even half as inspiring to my students as he has been to me.

Noelle's Visit

In March my friend Noelle came to stay with me. 

As usual, there were a lot of crazy and bizarre things that happened. Here's just a small sampling:

*We spent some time up at the Sea of Galilee. One day we stopped by the "Baptism of Jesus" site (the one on the Israeli side--the Jordanians have one too) where pilgrims often visit to be "reborn" and baptized, even if they have already been baptized. They put on these (incredibly see-through) long white t-shirts, all get down into the water, sing and pray, and then do some sort of immersion in the water. Just make sure you look away when they get out.

I was taking advantage of Noelle's willingness to be a subject for a photo shoot, because the lighting was perfect and, well, she's stunning and much more photogenic than me.

And then, we saw beavers swimming in the water. BEAVERS! They became the new subject of the photo shoot.

I think they liked getting their picture taken, because they came up out of the water and came right up to Noelle to play with her!

It was crazy! They played with Noelle for several minutes, but we quickly attracted a large crowd of curious tourists and so the beavers left (or maybe they just realized that we didn't have any food!).

*We stayed at this very cheap hotel in Tiberias. I'm pretty sure we were the only guests that night. We made the booking while we were at the "free wi-fi" national park of Caesaria, and we just picked the cheapest hotel we could find while searching the internet on our phones. At about 6 pm, I got a call from the hotel. "Hey," they said, "what time are you guys planning on coming by tonight? We've got your room all made up and ready for you!"

It was only a little creepy. When we got to the hotel, the two hotel managers were sitting at the front desk. Before they showed us to our room, they were telling us about the attractions around town and, as it always does in conversations with me, the fact came up that we're Mormon. These guys were just floored and super curious as to what we do to "have fun" if we don't drink coffee, tea, or alcohol. One of them asked, "So what do Mormons do when they just want to lose all control?" I thought it was a rather odd way to ask such a question, so I answered with some snarky remark about ice cream and barbeques. They were pretty hilarious, though, and definitely added to the culture of the rather ghetto hotel.

They gave us the "best room in the hotel"--one of only two with a balcony overlooking the street (and a few blocks away, the sea of Galilee!). And the back of the hotel was full of character--just go up those creepy metal stairs and you're in the lobby!

Like I said, Noelle is much more photogenic than me. While a jumping picture of her turns into an excited, "look I'm on the shore of the Mediterranean!", mine just turns into "I love disco."

I introduced her to the finer Middle Eastern cuisine. And by that I mean pita and hummus. :) My coworker Rakheli met us for dinner one night, where Noelle could finally eat real food: tuna steak.

I wanted to take Noelle to see the Dead Sea, but I didn't want to drive all the way to the beaches by Masada. As a poor student, I am opposed to paying much for anything, but I am especially opposed to paying Israeli institutions for things in the West Bank on moral grounds. You might disagree, and that's fine. The fact of the matter is, we stopped by this beach on the Northern edge of the Dead Sea. I really just wanted to be able to walk down to the shore so Noelle could see it, so when I saw a security guard walking by, I asked him (in Hebrew), "Can we just walk down and see the sea from around here?" He looked me up and down, glanced over at Noelle, and then said, "Come with me."

He walked into the beach area and we followed, where he pointed us down to the water. It was an awesome beach, with delightful mud and old people who were definitely not averse to changing out of their swimming suits right there on the beach. The whole time I kept telling Noelle, "I can't believe this beach is free! I totally would have brought my sister here if I had known!"

After several minutes, we were ready to be done. As we were walking out, I happened to glance over at the sign hanging on the wall of the reception desk. The normal admittance price was 50 shekels per person!!! I told Noelle the security guard let us in for free because she's Asian, because I never get freebies like that!

And of course, no visit to see me would be complete without deep discussions of and visits to controversial areas, like the Kidron Valley and the Herodian.

I can see the Herodian from my house, but I've never actually been. It was freezing cold and super windy when we went, which might explain for the lack of visitors. While Noelle was distracted by the rock piles, I was distracted by the settlements.

*I've always wanted to go shopping with someone that spoke another language besides English, Arabic, or Hebrew (meaning Chinese, since that is the only other language I speak), so I could bargain with the shopkeepers in Arabic and speak Chinese to my friend and we would NEVER have to speak English. And we would get a super cheap deal. (Everything is more expensive in English.) Well, when Noelle was here, I finally had my chance. And it was AWESOME. We went shopping in the Old City and I would bargain with the shopkeepers in Arabic and then tell Noelle in Chinese that it was way too much and she should shake her head no. And it totally worked, too. One guy dropped the price of a silk scarf from 200 shekels down to 65, so Noelle decided to buy it. He totally had his son chase after us with the scarf when we walked away because the price was too high and offer us a better deal.

It was great fun, Noelle, and I'm so glad you had a chance to come and visit!