The Kindness of Strangers

I end my last week at work and one of my last few in Israel as well the same way I begun this entire trip – looking back while looking ahead, anxious, hopeful and extremely grateful for the time that has passed. I have survived Israel and benefitted much from the kindness of strangers turned friends.

So this week started with a celebration at a bar somewhere in Frishman, where Danny and I toasted to our newfound friendship and the various handyman skills we have acquired from living in our clunky but otherwise perfectly-located apartment. Drinking exactly like it’s my last Goldstar beer till God knows when, it was almost inevitable that I would forget something when I got home more tipsy than usual at about two in the morning before Sunday – the first work day of the week here in Israel.

It turned out to be my apartment key and my phone. Nevertheless, I spent the whole Sunday oblivious to this fact, and even had a goodbye coffee/chat with Fr David at Jaffa that evening.

My next-door neighbor Shlomi the cook magically appeared at half past ten in the evening, while I fumbled around my bag, wishing for my key to appear. And for the next couple of hours till around three in the morning, we suffered to watch late night crappy movies, while I wished for Danny to come home from partying soon. To keep the story short, I ended up being given a place to sleep, a phone and coffee by a neighbor I’ve never met before for the next twenty hours. And just as I was about to give up and dreadfully prepared myself to shell out an insane amount of money for a locksmith and wreaking havoc in all the daily lives of my co-workers, friends offline like Michael and online like Wuiling, Danny finally came calling using the phone number that Shlomi lent to me. Finally. I never felt so happy to see my summer sanctuary, faulty drainage and lighting notwithstanding.

whatever happens, happens.

I can summarize my work week in one paragraph. Egypt visa denied. TF application denied. Tour company tries to rip me off. Emails are ignored. Texts are answered. Invitations are made and accepted. Egypt visa reapplied for. Yet another TF application considered. Deadlines loom large in the distance.

But things took a turn when the weekend finally started. And it’s always good when it starts with a drink. Or so I thought. I was torn between going to a party thrown by a colleague/friend from the office Mara, and just ordinary drinking. I ended up going to a bar instead. Finally, I got to try out the Armadillo bar near Sderot Rothschild with my friend Itamar. It was extra nice to have the trusty-old San Miguel to keep me company. And I even got Armadillo stickers they give for free to patrons.

Despite my promise to Daniel not to stay up until 2am Thursday night so I can be in Jerusalem on time early Friday morning, I only managed to get home half past two. In any case, I still managed to wake up and be in Jerusalem by half past nine in the morning in time for our City of David tour. Part of the Ancient Jerusalem National Park, the City of David is argued to be the center of the Davidic and Solomonic kingdoms around 10-11th century BC. It is a mecca for archaeology and history buffs, but a bane mostly for the villagers of the Palestinian village of Silwan, situated at the foot of Mount of Olives just beside it. This is a one of the many contested aspects of the Israel-Palestine conflict. My colleagues at Gisha in fact told me that the 55 shekels I was going to pay for the Guided tour would just be used for more settlement-building in the area.Though I found some of the history revisionist, I just thought it was an incredibly interesting place with all its ancient structures intact. It did have a very theme park-ish feel to it. The ticket booths reminded me of Disneyland.

 

We had to go through Hezekiah’s underground tunnel somewhere during the tour, hence the wet pants and the claustrophobia-inducing caves.

 

After making our way back to the Old City, we had a nice pasta lunch in the Jewish Quarter and walked around while waiting for another friend to join us.

When Ashley arrived, we visited the Garden of Gethsemane and hiked (yes, I can’t believe they got me into agreeing to this) all the way up to the Mt. of Olives where we checked out the Jewish cemetery. Much to our dismay, the Church of the Ascension and the Tomb of the Prophets were closed Fridays and Saturdays.

 

Afterwards, we took a cab (because of my begging, they were ready to hike down on foot) all the way to the American Colony hotel to look around and change clothes. From there, we made our way to the ultra-orthodox area of Jerusalem where we saw Ultra Orthodox Jews hurriedly going home to prepare for Shabbat. Then we walked to the city center where we took a break and had pizza.

Lots more walking later, we found ourselves hanging out at Ashley’s apartment in the German colony area where Daniel played endless guitar as we waited for half past nine in the evening to watch a movie. The three of us caught Sin Nombre at Lev Smadar, a quaint movie house in the same neighborhood, while sipping summer frozen concoctions with Bailey’s. It was in a state of total exhaustion that I surprisingly managed to get back to my Tel Aviv apartment around one in the morning, and slept till noon of today. Finally, some rest.

But now, reality looms large. Deadlines approach. And its my last six days at work. Reflections on those next time.

odd come-ons

There must be something odd at play when the two things that most people use as come-ons to get me to attend their events are the following: beer and English. Yes, English as in the English language. And beer, well, that’s a universal language too. But that, I suppose, says a lot of things about my stay here in Israel.

So my last two weeks are jampacked with those two main attractions. Though I’m not really in a celebratory/nostalgic mood just yet, I guess it’s time to bring out the camera and start storing memories somehow. Now, if only I can get the energy for it.

reasons people give.

There are several reasons why I came to Israel, among them political, religious and cultural ones although I am still at a loss on why I really came. But the past three days provided me a glimpse of all those reasons in one-go, and now, after sleeping in and waking up for lunch, I suppose it is a good time to stop and engage in a reflexive story-telling.

For better or worse, I love taking on new responsibilities. And so I expectedly said yes when offered a new job that required sending of my over-hyped legal thoughts every once in awhile for the next three months, at least over email to some influential folks at home. I spent Wednesday night to Thursday morning (330am) working on a memo that was supposedly received very well (as I was told via email today) and ended up spending the whole of Thursday at work half-asleep.

Due to my lack of foresight in scheduling things, I also had to go out pretty late Thursday night with my friend Michael, together with his friend Shachar and Shachar’s girlfriend Carmit. We got together for dinner and drinks at Nanuchka, over at Lillenblum st where Michael described every item in the menu with great detail. We ended up having, in my layman’s terms, Georgian lamb stew, caviar, sampler salad, something which looks like a pizza (I think). I was pleased to see that they serve our native San Miguel beer here, but Michael said he always thought it was from Spain. I watched with detached fascination and amusement the vagarities of Tel Aviv nightlife with people dancing on top of the bar, lots of drinking, dinner at twelve midnight, and all the bright lights outside. If not for my eyes that are about to shut down by itself without permission from my brain, that it was already two in the morning and that I had to be in Jerusalem by half past nine the following day,I would have said yes to Michael’s invitation to drink in another bar somewhere. But maybe another time.

I woke up in time to get ready and take the sherut to Jerusalem by 9 in the morning yesterday and attend an early screening of the films at the ongoing Jerusalem Film Festival. Instead of Liam Neeson’s Five minutes of heaven, Daniel and I caught Vincere, the only Italian movie in the running for the Palme d’Or in Cannes this year and tells the story of Benito Mussolini and his first wife, Ida Dasler. A review of that film is appropriately addressed in a separate entry but suffice it to say that I thought the first four minutes was excellent and it was all downhill from there. Professional movie critics from Variety and the NY Times think otherwise. Overall, for me, it was an okay movie but nothing spectacular. Or maybe I’m still miles away from being a profound movie critic a la Manohla Dargis.

With my small intestines threatening to eat my big intestines out of hunger, Daniel and I navigated the Old City to find ourselves once more on the doorsteps of Jafaari’s where we ate sweet knafes as desserts in advance. We also made a detour by visiting the tomb of David in the Jewish quarter of the Old City.

From there we took the blue Bus 21 (as opposed to the green Bus 18 to Ramallah) in the Damascus gate to Beit Jala where we were met by my friend Nidal. Nidal works for the Lajee center and organizes children and youth activities every summer in the Aida camp in Bethlehem. He then drove us inside the camp. Best known for being the place where the pope said mass and spoke, during his most recent visit in the Middle East, it is also a place where hope just manages to stay afloat despite everything (perhaps not entirely by choice).. Nidal told us stories about the camp (he was born there and grew up there as well) and the politics behind the Pope’s visit. Here are some pictures I took from the place.

Afterwards, since we were in Bethlehem already, we took a cab and decided to visit the city’s cash cow. Apparently, we have signs all over us screaming we’re tourists so that we didn’t even need to tell the driver that we’ve going to the Church of Nativity. The picture of the door is the entrance to the church.

Supposedly the nativity spot is here and St. Jerome’s statue is on the right.

From there we hurriedly left to make it to my meeting with my friend Fr. David, a forty-ish affable Jesuit priest at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem, just beside the King David hotel. But that wasn’t before we made the usual checkpoint stop,only this time, the border guards actually checked our passports. Daniel and I were just amazed to have heard Fr. David speak in four different languages (Arabic on the phone, Italian and Hebrew at the door, and English with us) within an hour of speaking with him. It gave us more resolve to learn Arabic. He told us many interesting stories but two particularly stuck to mind: about the one event in Jerusalem that unites all leaders of different religious faiths, even though they would otherwise hate each other, and this is the gay pride parade in Jerusalem and his own personal story of refusing to serve in the IDF during the first intifada. We ended up having dinner of pizza, soup and fish at the Institute as well, together with American architecture students who are having a summer camp and staying at the Institute, and with two other elderly Jesuit priests, both Americans, who were very curious about our participation in the human rights activities here in Israel. Fr. Don, an American professor at Fordham, also works with organizations based in Gaza.

It was already rround nine or so but I felt like the whole day was information-overload-day of some sort, and Daniel felt that way too so that we decided to rest and sit inside the lobby of the King David hotel and just do a recap of the whole day. I finally made my way back to Tel Aviv two hours later and just plopped myself on the bed at just a little past one in the morning.

Today, my friend Itamar invited me to a demonstration this afternoon against the recent deportations of foreign workers and refugees at Levinsky park. But for now, having had around ten hours of sleep finally, I just sit here and relax and sip cold coffee with no intentions of making any plans for the coming week, as my stay in Israel slowly winds down to its end.

alternative tours…

Despite being bit tipsy after a steak and beer dinner at Meat Bar last night with a new friend, I nevertheless managed to have a semi-serious conversation with my roommate Danny over wine at home. At some point in the now seemingly-distant past, there were days when all I cared about was getting record scores in Guitar Hero or drinking and eating with friends or racing to finish law school exams to catch a movie nearby. I was reminded of those days during our conversation. Danny’s life philosophy  is in a nutshell, something along the lines of hakuna matata from the movie The Lion King, saying that life is too short to worry about anything and not to enjoy living.

But it also got me to thinking how living that kind of life doesn’t seem possible anymore, at least in a complete sense. For the past three weeks, I feel like I’ve absorbed the problems of this country too much in one big gulp. In addition to the occupation, my new Jesuit friend, Fr David, has been telling me about the plight of the foreign workers here in Israel. And in some way, it connects to the problems at home (Manila) too, since Filipinos form a  large chunk of the migrant worker community here. Anyhow, here are some of the pictures I took.

Last week’s Hebron Hills tour, conducted by Breaking the Silence (a group of former IDF soldiers who give testimonies about what goes on in the territories) mainly told the story of settler violence against Palestinian villagers.

    

This weekend’s East Jerusalem tour focused on the haphazard expansion policy by the Israeli government in terms of building settlements and annexing strategic points in the West Bank, the lack of services provided to the Arab residents of East Jerusalem and house demolitions. This particular tour was organized by the group called Combatants for Peace, an Israeli-Palestinian group.

We ended the tour yesterday with a vegetarian lunch in the town of Anata, and where Salem, whose house has been demolished four times by the IDF, spoke about his experience. His house has since become a peace center, rebuilt by volunteers from ICAHD and all over the world. Palestinians whose houses are demolished for lack of a building permit (it is in any case impossible to get a building permit even if one applies) will have to pay a huge fine and clear their own rubble. The municipality doesn’t clear the rubble in the Palestinian neighborhoods as shown in the picture above – there is a picture/drawing of the Palestinian nationalist poet Mahmoud Darwish on the wall.

And of course, Daniel and I ate my favorite sweet knafes at the Old City afterwards, before I caught the sherut back to Tel Aviv. But not before looking at the famous signatures on the lobby of the King David Hotel. Barack Obama’s seemed to be the most recent one at 2008.

  A couple of days ago, we also went to Ramallah to catch the French Gipsy Kings in an outdoor concert, in the Ramallah Cultural Palace. I figured the best time to practice my bad Arabic is with markets, asking for directions and with cab drivers when I have a captive audience. But the cabbie understood us nonetheless so that’s at least something. In any case, I find Ramallah to be a very interesting city.

Next week’s stop will be at the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem where I will visit a Palestinian friend and his family so I will post pictures from that too.