A Proverb in Amharic.

Today my field instructor taught me a really interesting proverb in Amharic. Amharic is the language that is spoken in Ethiopia. In Amharic they say that when someone points at you with one finger, complaining or excusing you of something, they have three fingers that are pointing at them. When you point at someone else, you should always remember that three fingers point back at you and you should ask yourself what you have done to make things the way they are. Rather than complaining, you should ask yourself how you can create change for yourself. I wish I knew how to say it in Amharic, but although I do work with a non-profit that works with the Ethiopian community, everyone speaks Hebrew. Perhaps I will ask my field instructor how to say this in Amharic.

Today I reached a benchmark as I strive to regain my Hebrew back. While I do my work in English, I hear Hebrew every day in the office. I went on an adventure today by myself to find the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. My benchmark reitterated the fact that confidence is key in learning to speak a different language. What I have lacked is the confidence in myself to speak with mistakes. The struggle has held me back and the frustration has created barriars up until recently. When I got to the Israel Museum I went to get a ticket to enter and started speaking the the sales person in Hebrew. Out of no where all this Hebrew just flowed out of my mouth and I guess I was just amazed that perhaps I was just holding myself back. The salesperson wondered where I learned my Hebrew because I spoke very well. So today I reached a benchmark, reach a goal and I am some how managing to regain my Hebrew abilities back along with gaining new vocabulary without spending money on an Ulpan class.

I woke up the other day and was chatting with a friend on facebook and writing to her in Hebrew. When suddenly I had this realization. If I could write in Hebrew and have a conversation than I can speak in Hebrew. So that day I went to work, threw my fears out the door and had a conversation in Hebrew with one of the Israeli girls that works in the office. Up until that point I was nervous and didn't know how to approach talking to her because I thought I couldn't speak in Hebrew. With that, I am approaching my learning in a new way. I still struggle sometimes with understanding. Some people are more clear to me than others. But I've already made significant progress in the last few days!

The other day I sat through a meeting in Hebrew and was able to make out parts of it. But the reality was that since I lacked a lot of the vocab used it was difficult to follow. While I learned later that I missed the important parts of the conversation, I came up with a whole new set of vocab. I can now say "vision" in hebrew, which I feel is a really great word to know!

Along with this, I have started with my roommate a Hebrew wall on a pillar in my apartment that was painted with paint you can on with chalk. I've decided there should be a word of the day. Yesterdays was "Alarm clock" and the day before it was "toothpick." Now that I think of it, I did not pick a word of the day for today.

Todays word of the day is, ’’נאנח''– In english it means "sighing." I learned it today when I went to buy envelopes. The salesman said "Why are you sighing" but all i heard was "why blah blah" Which is usually how people sound to me if I don't know the words.

to be continued....

Thru Jerusalem

Appropriate that I share this.

A continuation of my world travels.

I arrived to Israel a week ago and started writing a blog about my internship with the Ethiopian National Project as a project that I must do in turn for a scholarship I received from my school. As the week went on I kept thinking that I needed to write down the things I've been seeing and the people that I have encountered here. So I have decided to continue writing in my blog from when I lived in Israel two and a half years ago. This time I'm back, with more perspective, with a different way of approaching this country and with different goals. And this time I'm living in Jerusalem, a place I never thought I'd live, but after a week I see there is something very intriguing about it.

When I first got here, I wondered if this had been a good decision or if I had gotten wrapped up in a crazy idea that I somehow managed to make work out. Perhaps its a combination of that and a combination of fate. From the moment I returned from Israel June of 2009, I haven't been able to get over Israel. I fell in love with this country, with its history, its land, its beauty and sometimes I don't even mind the crazy people. After navigating myself physically and mentally past the stumbling blocks I encountered I once again feel like I have been pulled back into what ever enchantment this place creates. My internship allows for creativity and outside the box thinking and I'm somehow managing it in 3/4th English and 1/4th Hebrew. When I look back at not just the effort I put into making this happen, but the things that just somehow seemed to work out for me, I can't help but think that I'm supposed to be here. I always said I wanted to try living here beyond a program, and here I am doing it.

Perhaps though I'm still seeing this place with rose colored glasses because I'm not really a citizen here and I haven't had to go through the obstacles of a new olim. Countless times I hear the same things. "Everything takes too long to get done," "The people are rude," "People don't talk nice to eachother," "Its dirty." I could go on with a longer list but you get the idea. At the same time, even though the streets are infested with cats, and yes people are rude quite often (depending on who your talking to), There is so much culture here and there is quite a lot of diversity just in this small little country. The country itself is beautiful, with history that dates back 1000's of years.

With that, today I decided to take a walk to the Old City of Jerusalem because it is Shabbot and almost nothing is opened here. It was my first time ever being in Israel and going to the Old City and the Kotel by myself. The walk was beautiful, blue skies and sunshine. It was a two mile walk for me to get there from where I live, but I realized how nice it was to have that time to myself. I entered the Old City through the Jaffa gate but realized I actually had no idea where to go. Previous to today, I had only ever been to the old city with groups and once I went with my friend Jess. I chose to not venture through the Arab quarter by myself right away, so I walked around into the Armenian quarter. With other people around it was ok, but alone it felt questionable. After much walking and searching I came upon the Jewish quarter and finally the Kotel (Western Wall).

Entering the Kotel area I was mistaken for an Israeli and was assumed to be able to speak Hebrew (which is half true). This made me happy to not look like a tourist! From there I entered the women section of the Kotel, took a prayer book and sat in a chair.

This time was different than other times. It was the first time I really had an extended amount of time to really think about what I was doing and the significance of this wall right in front of me. Previous to this time, I've seen women pray and I've seen people crying with their hands and heads up against the wall. When it comes down to it though, this wall that is so significant to so many people, that people come to from around the world, is just that, a wall. But is it? I was sitting looking at it and couldn't help but think about the history that it stands for. The only left remenents of the Temple from thousands of years ago. A place that people have come to, to pray to g-d, to ask for forgiveness, for health, for happiness, or to just stand in silence. This wall is surrounded with little pieces of paper from people from around the world. They are stuck in little cracks, in holes, loaded on top of other peoples prayers, they are surrounding the bottom of the wall and bursting out of bricks. Pieces of paper that they stick in the wall hoping g-d or someone will hear their prayers. I've also put pieces of paper into the wall many times before. This time I didn't. This time I just sat and observed people and wondered what this wall meant to them. This time I sat and thought to myself, what does this wall mean to me.

Here is a little secret about the wall. Your prayers that you put in it, on those little pieces of paper, they don't remain there forever. Eventually cleaners come and collect them when they begin to overflow. Where they go, I'm not quite sure.

I come here and i always wonder if I'm searching for answers for something along the way. Its my fifth time here and I'm not sure if I have really found anything. What i have discovered though is a place that has weirdly ingrained Judaism into their culture and their country. I have discovered that this country still has a lot of growing to do. I have discovered that the situation in the Middle East is not simple. I have discovered that without confidence my Hebrew will never improve. I have discovered that sunshine and blue skies makes me really happy. I have discovered that nature inspires me. Lastly, I have discovered a love for a place that is often unexplainable.

reminder of israel...

I found this amongst the pages of my Hebrew notebook I carried around with me during my time in Israel....

Standing in the Center of the world

The Sun sets beyond the hills

As the sky is painted in shades of red

Our worlds grow farther apart...

Our eyes view life through different lens

Nature, open spaces, trees swaying in the wind

Awakens my soul

Noise, tides crashing in, crowds of blank faces

Capture your heart

Protestors in clown makeup march in Tel Aviv Saturday

Protesters march in Tel Aviv to mark 42 years of occupation

By Ofri Ilani

Tags: Israeli Occupation


Protesters held a rally in Tel Aviv Saturday to mark 42 years since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

Around 1,000 demonstrators marched in the rally, which led from Rabin Square to the Tel Aviv museum.

MK Nitzan Horovitz (Meretz) addressed the crowd, calling on Israel to stop settlement building and heed calls by U.S. President Barack Obama to restart the peace process.
"The negative reactions to Obama's initiatives are only coming from Al Qaida and [Israeli right-wing party] the National Union," Horovitz told the crowd, adding "this is the time to end the occupation."

Head of the far left Hadash party Mohammed Barakeh also addressed the demonstration.


____________________________
I was running yesterday (finally) and I decided to not run on the tiyalet near the beach and to explore a little more. As I'm about 10 minutes into my run I find this protest that is written about in the above article. From what I could understand from the Hebrew I could tel it had something to do with Palestinians but it was a little unclear to me. It was by far one of the stranger things I have seen in awhile. Of course my curiosity made me stop and get as close to the drumming protesters as possible. I squeezed through the crowd and around the camera guy and peered in through a couple of strangely dressed Israelis and the many clowns standing around me. My first thought was why the hell are there clowns here. I thought to myself that maybe it was some sort of entertainment for a good minute but the chantting and drumming squandered that thought. As i stood there I was sweating up a storm because Tel Aviv has become absurdly hot these days, but still I stood and became the curious bystander. About 5 minutes in the police started coming in and later I noticed there was a row of army guys standing there too. As the Police tried to break up the circle of drummers and chanters a couple guys start yelling in English "Fuck the Police." Beyond this experience being quite thrilling i decided this was my cue to keep on running. I stood and observed for a few more minutes trying to figure out what i was observing and kept running. About two seconds a way was a whole crowd of people , young and old, Israelis, Jewish and non Jewish it appeared holding up the colors that represent Palestine. A guy was yelling something through a microphone coming out of his beat up truck.

I always have wanted to be part of a protest but i guess a observer is close enough at the moment. Although until this morning I had no idea what i was observing or that the the buildings I was standing near were government,army buildings. The question I pose though is , How exactly being dressed as clowns fit into this whole picture and have to do with the occupation?

And the whole country ran for cover....or not.

JPost.com » Israel » Article

Jun 2, 2009 0:44 | Updated Jun 2, 2009 20:53
Sirens sound in home front drill
By YAAKOV LAPPIN, JUDY SIEGEL, JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP

Air raid sirens sounded across the country at 11 a.m. on Tuesday as part of a week-long, country-wide war drill dubbed "Turning Point Three."

Home Front official on Turning Point 3
When the sirens went off, citizens made their way to designated safe rooms, while schoolchildren were led to bomb shelters and shown a 20-minute film on safety procedures.

Israel never ceases to amaze me on the out of the ordinary things that occur here. A full out country wide drill occured today. When i was first warned about it i thought it was a joke. But no. This really happened. at 11 am exactly today I was walking around the art street with my friend Julia when the alarm went off. The day before i had asked, "What do i do if i'm on the street" the consistent response was do what everyone else does... Well the alarm goes off, julia and i look around to see what everyone is doing and well the answer is nothing. Everyone just went on with there buisness like it was no big deal. And why is there a country wide drill? for the chance that there could be a full out attack on Israel. a little scary wouldn't you say?

Now this is something to write home about.. "Dear mom and Dad, Today i particpated in a country wide drill to practice what to do if the country is under attack.. Don't worry because I actually don't know what to do because during the drill no one ran anywhere."

My niece told me she had to hide under desk during the drill and my brother ran to a bomb sheltor. As i said...israel just never ceases to amaze me. in a good way and odd way sometimes.

The Bubble

10 Reasons to Love Tel Aviv....
-time out israel-

1. there are draconian laws against smoking which nobody seems to know about

2. you can buy rolling paper, bongs and God knows what else at the corner store

3. its easier to find passion fruit smoothie than a parking spot

4 there is a gay beach right next to a religious beach and g-d doesn't seem to mind

5. the prostitutes, policemen, street cleaners and convenience store owners are all... jewish

6. you can bring your dog to a gourmet resturant

7. the city's official language changes to french every summer

8. every taxi driver feels the need to tell you about his brother, the millionaire in the usa

9. who knew that people actually play paddleball

10. rabbis driving around and dancing to loud trance music are the city's biggest noise violation



p.s i didn't write this, i just read it somewhere. the reality is that half of it is true......tel aviv is like no other part of israel.