Living in Nazareth Part I

Now that I have been in Nazareth for a few days, I thought I'd try to give a general update of what I am doing, where I am living, etc. But now that I sit down and try to write it, I don't even know where to start. How about living arrangements:

I am living in the volunteer apartment owned by Nazareth Village. It is in the French Hospital complex, so it is very secure and quiet (my next door neighbor is a convent of Italian nuns). Another bonus is that it is right across the street from Nazareth Village, where I am volunteering. The apartment is big, way bigger than I need, and quite nice. It is very well furnished, thanks to the volunteers who have come and gone before me. It feels like a perpetual Easter egg hunt as I find things that I need hiding in corners of the apartment.

Here are some of my favorite finds that this apartment was furnished with:
1) A man's cable knit sweater. I wear it almost all the time that I'm home, because my apartment is pretty cold at night. Since it doesn't get very cold here, none of the buildings are heated, and my bathroom windows are not even made to close all the way. However, since we are in the dead of winter, the temperature is around 60 inside.

2) Spices. More spices than my mom has in her kitchen (although not nearly as clearly labeled or alphabetically organized). Don't know what I will do with them yet, but the point is, I COULD.

3) The Book Shelf. There were several books on the shelf that I've been wanting to read, some Arabic textbooks to supplement the ones I already have, and now I have a place to trade out books I brought along and have read already for new ones!

4) Washing machine and detergent. Clean clothes are just a wonderful luxury after a month of travelling... I did successfully wash some clothes, no thanks to the not-so-helpful English instructions on the detergent:

"Use Instructions: Refer to Hebrew text and have all precautions and instructions explained to you before use."
Gee, thanks. Might as well just say "Use instructions: What? Can't read Hebrew? HAHA TOOOOOO BAD!"

5) Last but not least... The More with Less cookbook. I literally squealed and jumped up and down when I found this. If there was one cookbook I would have brought along (which, I wouldnt' have, and didn't, but that's not the point), it would have been More with Less. I was excited as much for the familiarity of the book as for the usefulness of the recipes.

Next week I will be sharing my apartment with a couple from California here for a short-term mission trip. This is the agreement that I have with Nazareth Village: I pay half the normal rent, in return for sharing my space sometimes. That's fine with me, because I don't have much money, and there's way more space here than I need, and honestly I'm not used to living by myself so some company might be a good change...

I realize that I've now provided you with far more details than you could ever want about nothing very exciting at all. But before you decide to stop reading my blog entirely-- my next post will be about Nazareth Village, and if all goes as planned, I will include pictures of myself in first century garb... Just to give you an idea of what to look forward to:

"Why didn't I ever become a villager? Well... um...... something about the clothes.... I thought maybe I would wear a costume if there was ever a day when I really really hated my outfit, but... that day never came." --Rhoda, Nazareth Village tour guide

Reflections on the last month

Since I didn't post any thoughts from my last month of travels I decided to back up and share a couple of things. First, this video is a great summary of a lot of the realities of the current situation in Israel-Palestine that our seminar group witnessed over the last few weeks of learning and observing in and around Jerusalem:


Watch CBS Videos Online

Second, here is one of my journal entries from a couple of weeks ago (ok so I expanded and edited it a bit for this context. It wasn't this wordy in its original format):

Wednesday, January 14

Since I got here to Israel-Palestine, a lot of people have asked me if it is dangerous for me to be here. Actually, from all appearances this is a very peaceful place, and I have felt very safe here. The weather has been beautiful. Today was a great day of hiking around on archaeological digs in 65 degree sunny weather. This trip has also has had very much a feeling of religious pilgrimage as our group walks in the footsteps of Jesus and the ancient patriarchs of our faith. Just a few days ago I had one of the most picturesque and peaceful experiences of my life, watching the sun rise over the Sea of Galilee.

So yes, I do feel very secure here, but this is a bit of a deception. Both the histories of the places we visit, and the current realities we see in the news and hear from the people we meet, give evidence to the deep-rooted anger and unrest of the all the people of this place.

This is a country that carries in its national consciousness and personal histories very deep wounds. Each person in this nation—on both sides of the conflict—has in his or her past the kind of dehumanizing experiences that most of us can not imagine.
As someone very interested in the effects of the past on the present, I find myself both fascinated and terrified at my first thoughts of implications of such histories for the present state of Israel-Palestine and, unfortunately, for the future of this entire region.

For without resolution, the trauma of these historical injustices not only accompanies the population into the present, but is also an ongoing reality. This is not even a nation with post traumatic stress disorder, but one continuing to experience trauma daily. The trauma sits just below the surface of daily life, life which must go on in spite of the unresolved injustice. Each day provides many many opportunities for this underlying trauma to boil over. Although the news that reaches us in America makes the violence of this region seem arbitrary, each of the seemingly sudden acts of violence and war that occurs here has a history and therefore a chain of events leading up to it. When an entire nation of people is some combination of fearful, disempowered, humiliated, stigmatized, and desperate, it can only be a recipe for an outpouring of violence (if not now, then later) until these problems are addressed and justice is felt on both sides.

As tourists we can keep ourselves fairly insulated from this volatility (even though, as Americans, we are directly involved, whether we like it or not). But the evidence for and causes of the injustices of the past are there and obvious if you are looking—from the unobtrusive cacti marking the boundaries of the sites of Palestinian villages destroyed during the 1948 Nakba/ Israeli War of Independence, to the fairly obvious wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

While visiting Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial and museum, I was struck by the current truth of line from a poem written during the Holocaust. Even in the midst of peace and beauty,

"Here, all things scream silently."

I woke up this morning at 6:30, thought better of it... woke up again at 7.  Michelle's bathroom is three shades of obnoxious pink.  I took a quick shower, accidentally used face wash for shampoo.  Maybe I was tired, or I'm always a little on edge staying in a stranger's home, or maybe it was the fault of the pink bathroom itself.  I couldn't wait to get to Nazareth and settle in.  

Three short walks with rolling suitcase in tow, one Palestinian bus ride, one taxi ride to the central bus station, one grumpy interaction over my lack of exact change to pay the taxi driver (somehow, having the right change for things seems to be a constant struggle for me here), and two traffic jams later, I was finally in front of the Jerusalem central bus station.  

Through the metal detectors, then to scan my bags, before I could even get in the station.  Then a ticket to Afula please, another 39 shekels--I would eventually need to catch a different bus from Afula to Nazareth, then get a taxi once I was in Nazareth.  A long day. 

The station was crawling with soldiers headed for different parts of the country.  Attractive people in attractive uniforms, people my age and younger.  Confident and capable-looking--they must be the pride of the Jewish state.  

All of that security equipment and armed people around and you would think I'd feel safer.  But it still makes me feel a little weird to sit next to someone listening to their ipod with his gun slung casually across his lap, the person across from me resting his hand on the trigger of his gun while chatting on his cell phone.  

I shared my bus with at least twenty guns and their people.  This is such a typical scenario--the intrusion of weapons into everyday situations--that I feel ridiculously touristy to even taken note of it.  Anyone who has lived here any amount of time would probably consider it unworthy of comment. 

Already, it's easy to get used to things that would seem absolute madness in the middle of Kansas... Last night I went to a movie with Michelle.  On the way I realized I hadn't brought my passport.  "Oh shoot," I said, feeling awfully dumb, "Do we have to go through any checkpoints on the way there?" Turns out we didn't.  There was a pause in conversation.  "Isn't it crazy to have to think about something like that?" Michelle said.  "...What kind of place is this?"  

I think my visceral reactions have some value here.  All of these security measures and weapons accompanying us along to the grocery story, to the tourist attractions, to breakfast... My innocent outsider's shock says, this is not the way it has to be! This is certainly not the only way to live, and I think I could make a pretty good case for why it's less than desirable.  

I set up this blog in December, but I haven't been able to bring myself to write.  Partly that is because I so far haven't had reliable internet access... but mostly it is because the more I learn about this place, the less I feel able to say about it, the less authority and place I feel I have to even comment on it.  

But what I feel I do have to offer is my observations and honest reactions to things, especially my first impressions about them.  As I feel completely unqualified, I will try to leave political commentary to a minimum (although I have a feeling this might end up having just *a bit* of a political bent) and simply tell a little bit of what I see every day, especially those things that make me ask myself, "Oh #$%&, What kind of place IS this?"