Newsletter #5 - Culture Shock in the Details

Dear Family and Friends,

There is a point, when living in a culture that is not ones own, that one comes to feel a certain amount of dis-ease with ones surroundings. For some, this point happens upon arrival and for others it takes months or years to develop. For me, in regards to Israel, it happened before I left the U.S. While the Stimac in me excels at creating confrontation when I think it is necessary, I am generally too sensitive to conflict to search out situations and people where I know it is common. Even the little I knew about Israel before moving here indicated that this was a place of conflict, a land where I would be engulfed daily by history that wasn’t precisely mine and war that I could not understand.

Writing about culture shock when living in the Middle East takes on far more dimensions than it did in West Africa. Here I must walk a careful line between reporting my experiences and seeming to take sides in a conflict that has spanned decades, if not centuries. I have already raised the hackles of several new Israeli acquaintances by expressing my distress at hearing bombers fly out of Be’er Sheva on their way to Gaza every couple of nights. I am not on the side of the extremists inside Gaza that are launching missiles in the general direction of Israeli towns. However, I cannot say I am really in support of Israel’s choice to bomb the general population of Gaza in return.

Here is what I know from my own five senses:

-My culture shock is directly in relationship to Jewish (practicing and secular) Israelis, as that is who I am surrounded by every day. It is not political to say that I find them abrupt, loud and argumentative…even rude. It’s simply how I find them. It is a frequent occurrence for me to find myself walking down the sidewalk toward two people (of any age and gender) who are apparently having a loud and rude argument and then to find that they were simply discussing how much they like the weather today. It is disconcerting to a woman who is largely used to her family being the loudest people around.

- Customer service frequently seems non-existent here which doubles the anxiety related to ordering sliced extra-sharp cheddar, in Hebrew, in the deli.

-My school was founded by Zionist Orthodox Jewish Israelis. Or would it be Orthodox Jewish Zionist Israelis? It has been implied (but never directly said) that our school is a part of the Jewish Zionist movement. In any case, our mostly American and Canadian student-body is apparently thought to be indicative of the high level of the concern that Israel has for the International Community. This to me seems ironic, since the only Israelis in the program are of American origin and want to keep living in Israel after school. Also, there is not similar international focus in the Israeli medical school next door. What is more, most Israelis that I speak with (medical students and otherwise) think I am crazy for wanting to work in the developing world, that I am just kidding myself and will surely go home and stay in America where I “won’t want to leave once you are making $200,000 per year,” this last part being a direct quote from the doctor that took me on our first clinical rounds in the pediatric emergency room this past week.

-Many of the administrative staff and some of our professors (but certainly not all) seem totally unconscious of the derision in their tone when they speak of any non-Jewish populations in the Negev. Many of them are genuinely trying to be open-minded toward the huge variety of communities that receive care at Soroka Hospital. But there is a larger pattern in their tone and word choice that I find troubling.

-Driving through the Judean Desert in the West Bank makes me wonder what everyone is fighting over. It’s a desert…. Not a very pretty one… I know it is so much more complicated than that, but the thought persists nevertheless.

-I am stared at all the time. This one is weird. In Africa the staring was not hard to figure out… I was, and still am, white. Most people there are not. In Israel though, this is puzzling. I have enough Eastern European blood to fit right in here, especially in Be’er Sheva, which has a huge immigrant population. Israelis mostly dress like a combination of Europeans and American/Canadians so my clothing shouldn’t stand out. Many young Israelis walk around with ipods in their pockets, so even that shouldn’t make me strange enough for a long stare… AND, when asked, most Israelis I have spoken with say that it is quite rude to stare! However the staring is so persistent that, earlier today, when sitting in a café, studying Immunology, someone walked in and didn’t stare and I was convinced they were American…

-A fact that I may have failed to mention before or that I probably down-played: Gaza is 30 miles from my home. What does this mean? Well, to begin with it does not mean that I am in any danger. But it does mean that Israeli Army Helicopters regularly (at least a couple times weekly) land next to our classrooms and bring in the wounded and dying from the continued conflict in that not too distant place. My classmates and I watch them unload from our desks… Recently, an Israeli friend of mine explained that it is easy not to worry about the conflict that is 30 miles away, but that one is only really concerned if bombs are going off in one’s own town. This I find extremely strange. I found the conflict in Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon distressing from half a world away. I cannot help but feel it is more so from a distance of 30 miles. And yet average Be’er Sheva residents act as if nothing is going on. Truly. If there was an armed conflict going on 30 miles from your home, what would you do? Would you protest? Would you join the armed forces? Would you put all of your energy towards a peace process? Would you go on a Gandhian-like hunger strike? Or would you go about your life in the normal way? I cannot help feeling like I should do something… but what? As my father pointed out, I am here on the good graces of the Israeli government. And now I have an Israeli visa in my passport which makes travel to nearly any other Middle Eastern country a real problem.

On the counter side of culture shock are these points:

-The aforementioned café is lovely and is only two blocks from my house. The owner knows me and likes to help with my Hebrew. He makes this incredible brown bread with lots of nuts and seeds on top that is so good I do not feel like it is healthy.

-Shabbat brings this alluring quiet to everything. Fewer people drive, shops are mostly closed and children play in the streets. There is a sense of not quite peace, but real calm, that descends and pervades even my most stressed weekend studying.

-I did my first patient interview today!

-Thanksgiving is tomorrow. My class is having a huge dinner together, complete with a table of kosher food so our religious Jewish classmates can join us. I am excited for Thanksgiving… for the food and the community.

-I will be home for Christmas a month from today.

All my love,
K

Halloween

Just a couple of pictures from a MSIH Halloween Party a couple of weeks ago...
















Three guesses at who I was... As for the rest of these crazies, from left to right, A as Steve Zissou, R as Ginsburg, V as a cat, myself, I as "God's gift to women" (his costume was lost by this point in the evening), C as Bombs over Baghdad and, down in front, C, as Goose, missing his (better?) other half.





















Two of my favorite members of the Class of '10, C and A came (I think) as TivTam... the local, non-kosher grocery store where all the employees speak Russian and are usually mildly grumpy.















Myself, E as Maverick (the better half of Goose?) and Bombs of Baghdad...





















Waltzing with "Steve Zissou"......

My Favorite Tea

S & A! Thank you so much for sending my favorites. Your package was a huge bright spot in my week!

Access at Home

I finally have internet access at my apartment so if anyone wants to call me using Skype ('cause it's free!) I'll be online a lot whenever I'm home!

Overdue Thank-You Notices

A - Thank you so much for my first package and great coffee and music! A woman couldn't ask for a better cousin!

Mom and Pop - I know I already said it, but thank you again for sending just what I need when I need it!

J, C, J, M & E - You ladies are the best kind of friends. It is amazing how much it lifted my week (a couple of weeks ago! yikes!) to receive a package from five women who obviously know me well and love me! You are the best! That package was amazing!

A & R - You're going to be annoyed but I haven't had a chance to become a Grey's Anatomy addict yet... I'll work on it as soon as my Cell and Molecular Bio quiz is over on Sunday!

Kitsap County - Thank you for sending my ballot in a timely manner. ;)

You are all the best! If anyone else is interested in sending some material love my way... I'm going through the coffee and tea like a flash... and please don't forget to mark the package as "personal items/gifts" of less that $50 value as the import taxes in Israel can be astonishingly high for items of higher value than $50.

My Apartment

Where I live:




The kitchen...




















The Living Room...














The Dining Room... these first three are also all the same room.


















My room....




















My desk...






















My closet... because I know you were all concerned...

Too Much Fun

For those of you who think I'm having too much fun in Israel.... this is how I spend most of my evenings and weekends:

Yep... it's pretty exciting.

Camping at the Kinneret (a.k.a. The Sea of Galilee)

The weekend of Yom Kippur we had a four day weekend so I joined seven of my classmates and a friend of one of theirs from home and went to northeast Israel. We spent the first night just north of the Kinneret at Yehudiya (I don't have any pictures of the campground) where the next morning we hiked a beautiful slot canyon... part of the hike required swimming the trail... we had a great time! We spent the second night right on the Kinneret which was also beautiful but not quite as mystical as my mind had somehow built it up to be... there were lots of windsurfers and parasailers...

Group at the start of our slot canyon hike.















S and A on the trail.
















The guys...





















The ladies....





















S and I in one of the pools.





















C and N in the back (having gone back to find the hat I dropped....)
















Group climbing down into one of the pools





















Group in one of the waterfalls....














View of old (ancient??) town we hiked through earlier in the day.





















Sunset over the Kinneret





















Me eating pasta fron a jar... the car with the utensils had gone on a water run...






















The guys in the Kinneret sunset...





















S and I during our late night swim...
















The next morning we were all a little tired but....
















N made breakfast and we headed home....

White Coat/Physician's Oath Ceremony

Just a few moments from a wonderful night of confirmation and celebration....
















R and B and I before the ceremony....
















C and R before the ceremony.















K & A at the White Coat Dinner.















Me with C and M at the White Coat Dinner Party















Y and S at the White Coat Dinner.

Biking Into The Desert Sunrise

Just one quick picture with C from a couple weeks ago...















I haven't been out on my bike as much as I like... but I am doing just about every kind of activity a girl can do in Be'er Sheva... soccer, swimming (around 2000 + meters in an hour), running, and tennis... whew!

Newsletter #4 – Prejudice and Pride

Dear Family and Friends,

For the last month and a half I have been puzzling over how to discuss Israel’s Unrecognized Villages with you. I cannot help feeling as if I have less than half of the information I am going to need to explain this properly, even in an introductory way. This is what I understand thus far:

In 1948, when Israel became a state, the Bedouin population of the Negev (the southern desert region of Israel where I now live) was about 160,000 people most of whom were semi-nomadic, meaning they lived in traditional and highly agrarian villages and the men moved the flocks of sheep, goats and camels to distant areas for months at a time. Through numerous pieces of history that are not yet clear to me, a vast majority of the Bedouin left the Negev shortly here after and moved to Egypt, Jordan, etc. For the 20,000 remaining Bedouin the Israeli government built 7 cities over the next couple of decades in an attempt to have the Bedouin leave their traditional lands and settle into a more structured, “modern” lifestyle. Israel also forcefully moved a vast majority of their rural populations to a small triangle of land near Be’er Sheva which consists of about 2% of the land their people had inhabited for hundreds of years. Needless to say this did not sit well with the Bedouin Arab-Israelis, especially since this same triangle of land contained several large military testing zones, massive toxic waste dumping sites and huge chemical production plants.

The Bedouin Arab-Israelis have for the last 10-20 years been moving back to the parts of the Negev where their traditional ancestral homes are and building villages that are unrecognized by the Israeli government. There are currently approximately 75,000 Bedouin in the 7 recognized cities and 80,000-90,000 Bedouin living in 45 unrecognized villages. These villages are on land that used to belong to the same families that now live there… but since their land-ownership agreements were all oral, the government has not honored their possession of the land and claims ownership itself. (It should be noted that approximately 95% of all land in Israel is owned by the Israeli government.)

And there in a nutshell is the issue. These unrecognized villages are on not on official maps. They do not have schools, clinics, water or electricity. They have no legal representation in Israel’s government. In the last few years several of them went to the Israeli supreme court and won the right to pursue recognition and those 8 villages have started building schools and clinics, but still do not have water or electricity… and they are still not recognized because the Israeli government wants them to build their village in a certain way… but the villages already exists and the Bedouin don’t want to tear down their homes and rebuild just so they can receive recognition, especially since they believe they should already be recognized. I have had a number of lectures about the Unrecognized Villages and even spent the night in one, but I am still so far from completely understanding all of the nuances.

On a completely different note, yesterday I went to Jerusalem! About 25 of my classmates and I were taken on a tour of the Old City… we saw the Roman ruins in the Jewish quarter, shopped in the Arab quarter, and went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Christian quarter. It is a privilege to have walked in the streets where King David and Christ walked! We stood on the rooftop of the Old City and learned the geography and history of the four quarters. We did not, however, visit the Armenian quarter because, ever since the Turkish slaughter of the Armenians during WWI, the Armenian Christians have preferred to keep to themselves.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is amazing… such a place of dispute and disquiet in the holiest center of my faith. Tradition says that rock on which Christ’s cross stood, as well as in which Adam’s skull was buried, as well as Christ’s tomb and the final resting place of Christ’s cross were all found in the relatively small space where this church now stands. The church, in particular, is shockingly filled with sense of a conflict. Every block of stone is measured out so that none of 6 or 7 denominations of Christians that claim rights over the church has more space than the others. The outside is unfinished and the inside striking in its lack of unification. The inscriptions turn from Latin to Greek to Armenian to Russian as one moves from room to room.

I will go back soon… perhaps by myself, so I can be there without the social obligations of my new community. It was singularly odd to visit these sites with my classmates… along with me, those classmates that I know share my faith, seemed more hesitant to leave the room were the Last Supper was supposed to have taken place and the Church… we seemed to wander with more wonder and I sensed a mild disquiet in our hearts as our classmates walked simply with eyes of historical/cultural interest. Perhaps this was only me.

I was overwhelmed by the Holy City from the first moment off the bus when one of my classmates quietly pointed out the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane from where we stood on the Promenade of Jerusalem, a view point from which you can see the Old City and the Mount of Olives adjacent to each other. This promenade is traditionally the location of Jesus’ trial and condemnation. From there I could see the Dome of the Rock shining like a sunrise and yet later in the day, when I stood at the Wailing Wall, so close to the Dome that I couldn’t see it, pressing my prayer into the cracks, I was struck by a sense of sadness. Back on the bus headed home to Be'er Sheva, I read the chapter of C.S. Lewis’ "Mere Christianity" were he writes on pride and cannot help feeling like Jerusalem, the Holy City, is daily torn by the pride of millions of believers from the world over.

My classes continue well... I am currently taking Microbiology, Immunology, Biostatistics, Cell and Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Histology, International Health & Medicine, Clinical and Global Medicine, Aging Around the World and Hebrew. This past week I had 38 hours of class! I am slowly but surely making a few new friends and have found a really great faith community! I play soccer two to three times a week, run regularly and just this past week started playing tennis and riding my bike. The weather is rapidly cooling and at night it cools off to the mid-70s which is lovely. My apartment is large and has a guest room should you feel the need to avail yourself of it!

With all my love and with the name my classmates call me by:

K

(Nearer the top are several classmates in the market in the Christian quarter, then a picture of the Dome of the Rock, then R and I pressing prayers into the Wailing Wall and finally A and I in front of the Wailing wall with the Dome of the Rock peaking just over the wall. There are no pictures of the Unrecognized Village because we weren't supposed to take any...)

Hi... Remember Me?

Your daughter/granddaughter/niece/cousin/friend? The one that is stuck half-way across the world without a french press? Or a proper bottle of baking vanilla extract? The following is a quick and pictureless plea for care packages. If you feel so inclined to turn your love into material items please send the following care of the school:

A French Press
Coffee
Vanilla Extract
Trader Joe's sponges (the yellow ones made of veggie protein)
Taco Seasoning
A Travel Mug
Chai Tea bags

For those of you not so inclined... please do send me postcards keeping me updated on your lives. I made it through the first week of real classes without too much stress and I continue to be glad to be here, though I miss you all daily.

Shabbat at the Grocery Store

B, R and my computer, at the cafe in the grocery store, using the wireless internet. We walked here on Shabbat because it's a non-kosher grocery that is open on the Sabbath. We just moved to a new sub-let that doesn't have internet service and were feeling deprived after 14 hours of internetless living....
















From my seat this is what the grocery looks like... just like in the states. Even the music is cheesy American/British rock. At the far side of the grocery store is a pan-asian cafe with mediocre sushi and pretty good pad thai.... we're about to go there for lunch.

Moonlit Desert Hike

Present and future flatmates, R & B and I in front of a famous desert canyon about an hour outside of Be'er Sheva.




















This picture and the one above are taken from a beautiful park where Prime Minister Ben Gurion is buried. We took a moonlit hike down this canyon Thursday night:














After viewing the canyon we had a picnic dinner by candlelight as the sun went down behind tall cyprus trees...




















My hand is holding the bag to protect against the strong desert wind at dusk...

The desert is both serene and a bit overwhelming at night... While I do not have pictures of our actual hike I do have this one from right before we set out after dinner....

New Home Away from Home

Saroka Hospital and Medical Center where I have classes:

In the early morning -














In the middle of the day -














At night -

A Few Pictures....

View of the Dead Sea about halfway down the decent from the higher desert:

Sublet Flatmate, B, and I on the bus on our way to the Dead Sea.













Three classmates in the valley of David's Waterfall.




















Several classmates in the Dead Sea.