Blue sky, warm sun. The burbling hum of hundreds of excited children, the pungent musk of animals.
This is the second zoo I’ve been to in Israel. The other is in Haifa. My clearest memory of it is the single honey badger pacing furiously in its small enclosure, swinging its head back and forth, all in an eternal oscillating search for an exit. Oh, and the hobo kittens living with the otters. Then there were the pop songs pumping over speakers, because apparently listening to the sounds of the animals would be much too boring for zoo patrons. Needless to say, I wasn’t overly impressed, and I left feeling guilty about all those trapped creatures.
The Tel Aviv zoo, Ramat Gan Safari, however, provided a far happier vista. It boasts the largest collection of animals in the Middle East, a Noah’s ark in the midst of an urban sea.
To enter the zoo, we first drove through an expansive park where herds of African savannah animals roam–zebras, antelopes, elands, wildebeest, scimitar horned oryx, hippos, and rhinos, among others, including the greedy ostriches that poked their bald heads toward the drivers’ windows of the passing cars. It was pretty neat to watch a whole herd of hippopotami nap standing up like boulders in the sun.
Sleeping in, hippo style
The most impressive scene was, of course, the lions, which played, stalking and ambushing each other, even leaping over one another, in an exhilarating game of big cat tag.
Within the zoo, the most striking exhibit was Israeli family life. The paths were flooded with children and their parents to the point that I was concerned about moving too fast for fear of accidentally trampling a toddler. Then there were the frequent stroller traffic jams. I felt a bit out of place without a child, or at least a stroller, in tow.
The kids…haha, pun!
Besides the impressive collection of homo sapiens cubs, there were the monkeys–so many primates! Tamarins, baboons, capuchins, orangutans, gorillas, lemurs, colobus, monkey A, monkey B, monkey see, monkey do… One orangutan sat still on the edge of his enclosure’s moat with a hand outstretched as if waiting for a long overdue gift. On the whole, they were better behaved than the children.
Hand it over…
It was an apt time for me to visit a zoo, having finally finished an excellent book my mom recommended to me years ago called The Zookeeper’s Wife. The prose in this vividly written history was so delicious, I wanted to slurp it up. The story, on the other hand, is one of sorrow and struggle, as it follows the true story of a zookeeping couple in Warsaw through World War II as they survive the destruction of their city at the hands of the Nazis and help to hide Jews on the grounds of their zoo. I shan’t say more, because you should really just read it yourself, but Diane Ackermann’s painstaking research introduced me to the complex politics of zoos. For instance, even this Ramat Gan Safari has some involvement in the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict. After a Palestinian zoo in the West Bank, Kalkilya Zoo, lost three of its zebras to violence, Safari gave it several animals in a gesture of peacemaking. Animals are not spared in war, but their return can, it seems, help to rejuvenate a nation.
Crusader “signatures” in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
It is 5:45 in the morning and Haifa is still darkly asleep. This is a time I rarely see–only during the Fast, really. But today, we are on our way to Jerusalem, a caravan of three travelers.
We take a bus and then another bus, and have a layover at the central station in Jerusalem, which is full of young soldiers, fresh-faced in their fatigues.
“DONUTS!” I haven’t seen donuts in six months and I’m pretty excited that this huge bus station sells them. (Now I know where to go when craving hits, and it’s a mere three hours of buses away!) Jasmine and I share a big one with sprinkles that stain my lips while Sergey drinks some coffee sludge. Finally we make our way to a tram that takes us near to one of the gates of the Old City.
I have a plan of attack. First the Church, then the Wall, then the Dome, then the Mount. En route to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we pass by several Stations of the Cross, and pause to touch the spot believed to bear the handprint of Christ.
“I touched this before,” I comment, showing off my worldliness. “Yes, I’ve touched everything in Jerusalem.”
“No wonder you’re sick,” Sergey replies. Indeed, I wasn’t the classiest travel companion, what with my wad of tissues and plugged ears.
When we get to the Church, we go through the various sites—the anointing stone, Calvary, the Armenian chapel with the Crusader imprints on the walls, that subterranean chamber… I try to recount the fragments of history I remember. Something about Saint Helen and Constantine.
Next stop: the Western Wall. The female side proves less interesting than the male section, where a number of simultaneous bar mitzvahs are happening. Lots of Torah scrolls, boys in yarmulkes, and tossed candy give the place a jubilant spirit. We climb onto unwieldy plastic chairs that seem placed there for the express purpose of letting female visitors ogle the masculine goings-on. I’m pretty sure I ended up in at least one lad’s bar mitzvah video.
Bar mitzvah(s)
But the stop I’ve been eagerly awaiting is not the Church or the Wall—it is the Dome. If I learned anything from the documentary that eased Jasmine into dreamland, it is that the Temple Mount is super important historically. I hadn’t gotten to see the Dome of the Rock on my last visit because its hours are so limited, but this time, I was ready.
After a long wait in line, we walk up a sheltered bridge to the mount, where we find ourselves in a large open space with a long mosque to our right, the al-Aqsda. Like moths to a flame, we are drawn up some wide stairs to the Dome itself, resplendent with delicately painted greenish blue walls and its shining gold dome. Inside (off-limits to non-Muslims) is the rock from which it is believed Muhammad ascended to Heaven during His mystical night journey; apparently His footprint remains.
We wander around the huge plaza, which dates to the time of King David. The area is surprisingly casual—some young women in hijabs study in a circle on the ground, while boys kick around a soccer ball. Four young boys, munching on their lunch in an alcove of the wall, beg Jasmine to photograph them, then come to assess the result. “Facebook!” they demand happily.
Facebook! WordPress!
After lunch, we headed to the Mount of Olives to visit Gethsemane and the Church of All Nations…or the Agony, I’m not sure what its proper name is. It is quite a different experience from last time, when it was thronged and someone came over the loudspeaker repeatedly to instruct “Silence”; this time, I feel at peace sitting in a pew, looking at the nighttime garden scenes on the huge mosaics around the walls.
It is sunset by the time we entered the Valley of the Dead, which is between the Mount of Olives and the Old City. A funeral unfolds with Jewish men swaying in black robes; the muezzin pipes a call to prayer.
Eventually, exhausted, we got on the bus back home and realized with sighs of relief that the most comfortable seats had been reserved for us: the floor. Yes, apparently it’s a-ok in Israel to allow people to stand for two hours on the highway. After about 15 minutes of swaying over an IDF soldier and watching another passenger giggle at cat videos, I succumb to gravity and wedge myself and my backpack down into the narrow aisle, with my cohort following suit. Soon, at my offer, two sleepy heads loll against me. In a weird way, it was cozy, the three of us snugly squeezed onto the floor with views of people’s shoes, the lights through the windshield, and the diminishing kilometers to Haifa.
Thus I return shamefacedly to the blogosphere after a truly prolonged one-month absence. It has been far too long, my friends. I know you’ve all been biting your nails to the quick, desperate for news of my life. Has she been wandering in the desert of Israel? Dallying with her hordes of suitors? Or working in an office by day and doing more Bahá’í activities by night?
Ok, all three have been a little true, but mostly the latter. But I did have a very important break from my routine: Jazzy came!
That’s right, and I’m just now recovering. As of a few days ago, no longer does putting on my jacket chafe my elbow wound excruciatingly. No longer am I partially deaf. Just kidding, Jasmine, it was precious to be with you and suffer multiple physical privations together, one of them the cold that you brought for me (imported from the good ole U.S. of A.!).
The elbow–ah, yes. When I knew that Jasmine was coming, several months ago, I started planning our itinerary. She would volunteer while I was in the office, and then when out of the office, we would go to the Bahá’í Shrines and then explore Haifa and Israel with my boundless energy. Seriously, this was the most amazing, compulsive itinerary, with a full spectrum of color codings.
Jasmine gets a taste of Israel
One of my goals was to have Jasmine visit the Dead Sea. It was such a strange, otherworldly experience for me to float upon the water and look across the sea to the mountains of Jordan. So Jasmine would float there too. Thing is, it’s rather far from Haifa–three hours one-way–and I’m too dangerous a driver to rent a car here. So I organized a ten-person sherut trip.
I had been the concerned about the temperature. I mean, “beach in January” sounds rather unappealing, unless you’re a penguin. But thankfully, the temperature was as cooperative as possible. The real problem was the wind, which stirred up waves–not whitecaps or anything, but still, steadily rolling, hyper-saline waves.
As we walked down to the beach, we passed two other members of our group.
“How was it?” I asked.
“I would not recommend going in,” one replied. “I got water in my eye.”
After that ringing endorsement, we went in. I think we managed to get at least a few moments of calm floating in, although the waves made me nervous. Jasmine glommed onto me and we floated side-by-side like a human raft.
We were actually moving quickly away from our point of departure, pushed by the waves. “Let’s try and get back to the shore,” we decided. So we “swam” Dead Sea style, doing a slow, splash-less backstroke.
Five minutes later, my friend Reggie, who was accompanying us, said, “Hey, remember when we said ‘let’s get back to the shore?’ We’re actually farther out now…”
And now I was tired. Thankfully he offered us a lift back, grabbed my leg, and pulled me (with Jasmine in tow) back to the shallows, where I managed to get water in my mouth and eye. We at last hefted ourselves out.
My other friend joined us onshore. “You’re bleeding,” he pointed out.
“Oh, interesting,” I said. There was a scratch on my back, scrapes on my elbow, and little scratches on my forearms from a run-in with a salty rock formation. And poor Jasmine’s feet were wounded, which was not helped by the extremely painful barefoot journey across the sharp stones of the shore back to our things. I clenched my teeth and pretended I was one of those silly people who test their resolve by walking across hot coals. Actually, hot coals might have been preferable.
Eventually, two freezing public showers later, we got back in the sherut. I examined my wounds. “Souvenirs,” I concluded.
“Well, I’m glad I got to see the Dead Sea,” Jasmine said, “because now I know I don’t need to go back there.”
I smiled, dabbing some dried salt off her cheek. That’s my girl.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered today to mourn the loss of my 52-month old MacBook Pro, upon whose recent demise I shall blame my prolonged absence from the blogosphere.
But guys, the craziest thing happened. The season changed, seemingly overnight, from summer to winter. I suppose there were a few brief weeks of “fall,” when I could look super cool in my pleather jacket. Then suddenly the rains came and soaked us for a fortnight, dropping the temperatures outside and, more noticeably, indoors.
Yes, this is the season of chocolate, I’ve decided. For evolutionary reasons, once the damp cold seeps into my bones, I begin to crave cocoa in all its forms. This has happened before, during my sojourn in the Chilean winter. Similar to Israel, the winter there is short but vicious, turning everything damp and gloomy. The buildings, designed for a summery clime, lack insulation and central heating.
Speaking of which, did I ever tell you about the time I almost killed my host mother? No? Well, mi’ija, in Chile, estufas are the space heaters of choice. These clunky heaters run on big natural gas canisters. To light one, you turn on the gas and hold a match to the grate.
One day, I came down to eat an early lunch before heading to the university. I turned on the estufa in the dining room. Nothing happened when I tried to light it. Late for work, I scarfed down my meal and headed out. Once I arrived in the English pedagogy building, I realized my error. A sick feeling sunk through me–I remember gazing helplessly at the dark paneled walls of the corridor as I foresaw my sad future, the headline scrolling across CNN–“American intern murders elderly Chilean host mother with gas poisoning/explosion.” Would I be extradited? Would Mount Holyoke disown me?
Desperately, I dialed Isabel’s number, and said something along the lines of, “ARE YOU ALIVE? I left the gas on! Please don’t light any matches or turn on any lights!” Except in mangled, breathless Spanish.
She was alive, and told me the gas canister had been empty–therefore the lack of flame. And that is how I nearly killed my Chilean host mother.
Anyways, chocolate. In Chile, Isabel would buy me giant milk chocolate bars, and I also spent many of my own pesos on them. I would carry around these embarrassingly huge bars in my purse, constantly nibbling. It turns out that chocolate is a great accompaniment to anything, be it a cup of thick Nespresso, flank steak, or a lesson on Henrik Ibsen. (Although macaroons suit the latter best.)
Let’s face it, I lack personal insulation, and my body wants me to pack on some blubber to get through the chilly months. So I find myself bending over the oven on a Saturday night, the heater cranked to 30 degrees Celsius (I think the average high on Mercury), making the chocolatiest double chocolate zucchini bread ever (Betty Crocker does it again), or dreaming of a steaming mug of hot chocolate paired with a toasty s’more. I should go have dinner…
My body’s scheme is working. I think I have a tummy! If I keep chowing down on the sweet stuff, maybe I’ll even be able to feel my fingers again.
For the weeks leading up to the fateful day of 30 November 2013, my life revolved around one thing: Thanksgiving. You see, there was never any question in my mind that I would host Thanksgiving. It is, as a recent New York Times article put it, the most important meal of the year. And I think that’s all the more true for expats like yours truly.
First came the invites. Once I had fussed over sending the most beautiful Outlook invitation I could make to fifteen friends, I realized I needed some food. I asked my Moldovan friend Sergey to help me go grocery shopping. He was puzzled by most of the foods on my list. Squash? Currants? Celery? Worcestershire sauce? But mostly by French-fried onions, which I struggled to explain. I mean, explaining them as, “The crispy onions that go on the green bean casserole, along with cream of mushroom soup and milk,” would surely cast doubt on American cuisine.
Well, I could not find those special onions, nor could I find the turkey, or breakfast sausage for the stuffing (solution: kebab with maple syrup). Nor could I find whipped cream or pumpkin puree. My dear American readers, I want you to appreciate how lucky you are to be able to crack open a can, dump in some cream and eggs, and basically have your pie, as opposed to chopping, then boiling, then blenderizing fresh pumpkin. And don’t even get me started on trying to manually whip cream.
Oh, I did find butternut squash. When I cut it open, I found that all the seeds had sprouted, giving the inside the look of a nest of white worms. I stuck it in the fridge and haven’t looked at it since. I probably should go deal with that…
There was a turkey leg for sale, but somehow, that did not seem right. First, I considered going to Haifa Zoo, hoping they might display some American fowl. Alas, I didn’t get a chance. So I went to the butcher shop to buy some whole chickens. A truck was being unloaded out front, and when I entered, there were crates full of apparently recently deceased chickens. I bought three, and nearly fell over when the clerk handed me the bag.
“Um, do these have guts?” I inquired.
He shook his head, not understanding. I shrugged and resigned myself to my fate.
I staggered up the hill back to my flat under the weight of fifteen pounds of meat, feeling like the Demon Barber with my cargo of carrion.
The day of Thanksgiving, I pulled out the birds, hesitantly grabbing them by the legs. There…was…blood. Ew. I brought the first bird to the sink to rinse its cavity, and noticed the cavity wasn’t entirely deserted; two tiny kidneys dangled, and beneath, something dark red that I assume was the liver.
“Dear God, please give me strength,” I said. If I were more in touch with nature, I probably would have said a prayer for the bird with whom I was enjoying intimate communion. As it was, I grabbed a knife and started sawing away, thinking back to the cat dissection I did in high school. I did poorly, but not because I was grossed out by the formadehyde-drenched feline. I’m just not very good at cutting things. But I do remember one thing: fasciae. So much fasciae to slice, and here was fasciae once again.
Eventually, after submerging the chickens in olive oil and tethering their legs, I stuck them in the oven. Actually, I crammed them in. And then I bleached the entire kitchen.
Two and a half hours later, after I had manically swept, mopped, dusted, and decorated, the guests began to arrive. The first one pronounced my cooking skills “legit.” I told him he should wait to actually try the food. The next guest I dragooned into carving up the chicken. “How do I do this?” he asked. “Here’s a book that tells you how,” I said, thrusting Betty Crocker and a knife into his hands. I hovered nervously nearby, hoping the juices would run clear, as Mommy said. The juice seemed clear. The flat was filling with friends.
And then there were two.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal, even if the greenhorns (your usual World Centre mix of South African, Dominican, Ugandan, Kenyan, Norwegian, Mauritian, and Moldovan) were a little puzzled by all the strange dishes. “So what is with the orange food?” the Ugandan asked, poking at the candied sweet potato. “You Americans like orange, both on Halloween and Thanksgiving.” Hm.
All I can say is, I broke only two glass items and nearly started only one fire, and I am very thankful for that. Happy Thanksgiving!
I just had to share with you my latest and most hilarious bout of “lost in translation.” I had told a friend about some flower shops in the commercial district, and he called me to ask about them. Here is the conversation I thought we were having:
Sergey: Hello Layli, how are you doing?
Me: Good, good. What’s up?
Sergey: [in his usual blithe tone] Well, I found out today that my uncle is dying, and I need to get some flowers–then maybe he will survive.
Me: Oh! I’m so sorry!
Him: I remember you told me you knew some flower shops…
So I gave him directions in my most condoling manner. Strange, I thought, that he hoped to remedy his uncle’s demise with flowers… Also, he sounded so nonchalant. But cultural sensitivity is my aim, so I didn’t question this odd mourning/offering custom.
Later I realized that when I heard “uncle,” he was saying “anthurium.” According to my investigations, that’s a flowering ornamental plant, not the brother of Sergey’s parent. You know, sometimes context clues just don’t cut it.
Sweet as a low voice wafting up to my window, that
pomegranate my father brought in a Pyrex
custard cup, puckery tart as a perfunctory
peck on the cheek, bright as ten fingers wearing
red nail polish waving in the sunshine. Mysterious,
too, pile of rubies walled inside the thick hide
of a red rhinoceros, and I never realized
the lengthy mining trips Daddy went on
to bring those bright seeds in the clear glass
until I fight the whole creature on my own.
Slice and pull, wiggle the seeds loose like baby teeth;
they collapse and bleed, and soon red spatters stain
the counter, the wall, the floor, and me. This is
a good fruit to teach patience, I think, my impatience
increasing while the seeds drop into a bowl
like sand in an hourglass. And I try to picture
Daddy doing this invisible exercise with his long
pink fingers, maybe slow, surely neat,
and me receiving the glowing seeds, the teaspoon
ready, savoring the flavor but never quite
tasting their message: This I give for love.
Mr. Jamshid Arjomandi, custodian of the House of Abdu’llah Pasha in Akka, is a beloved figure at the Bahá’í World Centre. His whole life has been devoted to the Faith, and he is full of stories. Sadly for us, he is leaving the World Centre shortly. Luckily for us, he gave a farewell talk on Enoch Olinga, who was one of the Hands of the Cause. I’m going to do my best to paraphrase the story he told. Of course, my write-up cannot convey the emotion and reverence he expressed–often, he would have to pause to gather himself and wipe his tears. But here goes.
“A few weeks ago, I was showing some of the friends around Akka, giving them a tour, telling them stories. One young lady in the group said to me, “Jamshid, your cup is so full!” Now I puzzled over what she had said. I was full? Then I looked back over my life, and I realized that yes, my cup is full! And I figured I should share it with all of you, because keeping it to myself would be greedy.
When I was a boy, I lived in a small town in Iran–it was so small, in fact, that if you ran fast enough you wouldn’t even notice that you had passed it. It was very sandy. The buildings and streets were the color of sand, and so were the people. But the Bahá’ís had their local Haziratu’l-Quds (center). The inside was so huge! And just imagine, having a big, beautiful hall in a town like that.
Well, it was October 1957. I remember I was at a Bahá’í gathering in this hall, and a telegram from the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi [head of the Faith at that time], was read. In this cable he announced the final contingent of Hands of the Cause. One name struck me: Enoch Olinga! Enoch Olinga, from the mysterious land of Africa! It was a strange name, and from the moment I heard it, I knew that he was my Hand of the Cause.
Later, in the early 1960s, I was in university in Ireland, and I had the opportunity to help at the convention in London, ushering delegates at the resting place of the Guardian. So, in between ushering, I rushed to the hall where the convention was being held. But I arrived late, and all the doors were closed–all except the entrance to the gods. Yes, that’s actually what they call it in the theater–the highest balcony, so high you can’t go any higher! So there I was, miles above the stage. And there I saw two people, one the blackest black imaginable, so black he was sparkling, and one whiter than the most precious flower ever to bloom, with streaks of yellow and gold. Yes, the black one was Mr. Olinga, and the white, Amatu’l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum [the wife of Shoghi Effendi and a Hand of the Cause]. And to behold those two souls standing together!
In 1963, I had a special hope. You see, this was the hundredth anniversary of Bahá’u’lláh’s declaration, and I wanted so badly to go to the convention in the Holy Land. But I was a student and very poor. I worked in a canning factory just to keep studying–not that I was a particularly good student! Only by the grace of God did I graduate–I guess He wanted me to have my degree in theology so I could go teach! Anyway, I received a message from the National Spiritual Assembly inviting me, if I wished, to attend the convention as assistant to Mr. Faizi. ‘If I wished!’ I had just enough to cover costs. It was quite a lot of work, arranging flights and hotels for the British delegates, about 200 of them–because you know, if we put them all on one plane and something happened, there goes our British community!
By the time I got to the Holy Land, I was quite tired. I wasn’t even able to get to the first day of the convention because I was staying far outside Haifa. But that week, I was walking down the stairs at one of the holy places, and to my astonishment, at the foot, I came across Mr. Olinga! He was telling some friends about the place, and they were nodding along, positively enraptured by his warmth and the way he spoke. But they could not understand him–they spoke no English! I humbly went up to him and said, “Mr. Olinga, they do not speak English and can’t understand you–do you want me to translate?” He said yes, and that was the first time I ever translated. Once we were finished, my knees went so weak I had to hold myself up against a pillar. I dreamed of one day returning to give pilgrims tours of the holy place, and thirty years later, I did!
After I graduated college, I was asked to pioneer to Guyana. That didn’t work out–they thought I was a British spy! So I went to Suriname. One day, I got a message that Enoch Olinga would be visiting, and would I please arrange his stay. He wanted to go visit the tribes there. You see, many slaves escaped and each tribe established a settlement along one of the five main rivers. They call themselves Bush Negroes, and each tribe, which is dispersed among various villages, has a paramount chief toward whom they show complete deference.
Getting to these villages was a long journey up the river in very long 45-foot dugout canoes that occasionally had to be taken out of the water and pushed over land were there were rapids. We would stop at a village for the night, and they were very hospitable, always giving us a place to stay and a meal. Enoch Olinga, somehow he always had plenty of food for all the children. Give him one plate, he could feed twenty–it was like the loaves and fishes.
Eventually we reached the paramount chiefs. They were fascinated by Mr. Olinga, the visitor from Africa. He told them about the new Revelation, how we are all equal in the sight of God. The chief said to Mr. Olinga, ‘I cannot blame anyone for bringing my ancestors as slaves, for if that had not happened, I would not have met you.’ Imagine! One day, while Mr. Olinga and the chief were talking, a woman came wandering up, very distressed and wild. “Paramount Chief, you must cure me! I am possessed by a bad spirit!” The chief said to the woman, “Sit down. I am talking with a very important visitor from Africa–and he will cure you.” What!? When this was translated to Enoch Olinga, I expected him to react with surprise, but he took it calmly. He turned to me and told me to recite the Prayer for the Dead. It was communicated, “Our guest has ordered his assistant to chant a prayer in a foreign language to cure you.” Luckily, I had one from Abdu’l-Baha memorized, and I chanted it in Farsi. (Enoch Olinga would say to the friends who always relied on prayerbooks, ‘In the next world there are no prayerbooks! We should learn prayers now so we can say them there.’) It sounded very good, I must say! The woman calmed down.
Later I had to ask Enoch Olinga what that was all about. He explained, ‘There are many spirits in the afterlife–those who died peacefully or violently, and those who led terrible lives and have not come to rest yet. We were praying for the restless soul who was tormenting the woman to find peace.” This is amazing, no? We understand very little of the spirit world.
Oh, how he loved to laugh. He had an incredible laugh–he could laugh for fifteen minutes straight, until tears poured from his eyes. I knew lots of Irish jokes, and I told him this one on that trip. ‘Patty went to the pub one night and had a bit too much. As he staggered down the street, the pastor looked out at him. “Patty, where are ye goin’, my son?” he asked. “Home,” Patty slurred. “Well, God go with ye!” the pastor said. Patty continued walking, then stumbled and fell into the gutter. He lifted himself, and wagging his finger, said, “You can come with me, but don’t push!”‘ Enoch Olinga roared at that one! And on this trip, as we would walk behind him, he would tell us, ‘You can come with me, but don’t push!’
At the end of this journey, he told me I should come to Africa. I promised. Things did not work out. It was 27 years until I went to Africa, and then I visited his grave. ‘I came, my Hand, but too late,’ I told him, kneeling there.
But Enoch Olinga always wanted the friends to be happy. He struggled greatly, living the peaks and valleys, but still, he was happy.”
Now that I’ve concluded my day-trips for the season, I’m back to quotidian life–the office, some volunteering, study groups, laundry, cooking, cleaning, collecting houseplants, the regular. But even the routine is not quite routine here.
Part of it is just that living adultly is still new to me. I’m doing all sorts of things on my own, hey! And so what if mopping sometimes results in breaking the shower, or dusting in a sore hamstring. This week, I cooked rice for a study group. It didn’t turn out as fluffy as I wanted, yet for the first time my tadik was unscorched. “Hm,” I thought. “Well, tadik’s not very good as leftovers. And I’m the only one around.” Standing by the kitchen sink looking up the mountain toward the Dan Carmel, eating a bowl full of fresh tadik, I realized the joy of independence.
But a lot of it is my environment. The air is different, for one. Hamseen has arrived. While it’s not as if I can see motes floating in front of me, looking out to sea, the horizon is obscured by a thick haze. Apparently this dust has traveled up to Israel from the Egyptian desert in a climatological Exodus. Maybe the hovering dust is the Middle Eastern equivalent of Midwestern leaves falling in autumn?
Even the simple act of walking is different here. You know, being on a mountain, everything is steep. Plus, in the Bahá’í gardens, most of the paths are gravel. I have two pairs of shoes that I wear to the office: my flats and my heels. They are both practical shoes, unobtrusive black leather with plenteous arch support. Even so, walking in heels on gravel poses a challenge–I mean, walking in heels is a challenge, period. So I do an ungraceful slow march. It’s rather like trying to walk on snow with a veneer of ice–I need to dig in my heels but also keep moving. I thought I was doing a pretty good job until the other day when not one but two people, after watching me, commented sympathetically on the difficulty of walking with heels here. “It’s such a challenge! Your poor heels!” And then someone pointed out to me that one heel is actually broken, causing a distinctive “clip-clop” whenever I walk on hard floors. She recommended a cobbler. My experience with cobblers is limited to the shoemaker and the elves.
Fruit. Let’s talk about fruit. The Persian coworkers at my office are wonderful people for all sorts of reasons, and one reason is that they always bring fresh fruit to break time. (I, on the other hand, contribute the occasional sugary, buttery baked good.) Mango, pomegranate, oranges, grapes, apple, pear, peach, nectarines… and recently, we’ve entered fruit territory that is foreign to me. There’s lychee–inside the bumpy red skin is white flesh with a subtle fragrant taste. Figs are delicious in dried, jam, or Newton form. In natural form, however, they are just weird, mushy and seedy. And guava. I tried it because I thought it was a strange seedy pear. No–with its overripe scent and nearly salty flavor, it is definitely not to be compared with pears. There is pomelo, a huge citrus (actually, citrus grandis) with a super thick rind that needs to be practically sawed off and a bitter membrane around the flesh that also needs to be peeled off. It’s not for the lazy fructarian! It tastes like a tentative grapefruit and looks like it belongs among the many balls from gym class that always threatened me, maybe a yellow medicine ball or the enlarged tennis ball that smacked me in the face. “Ok, guys, today we’re going to play pomelo.”
Jerusalem. A city precious to the three major Abrahamic religions, and still a magnet for flocks of pilgrims and the occasional sherut-load of Bahá’í tourists.
Once again, I am straining to understand the explanations of Abboud, the sherut company owner/tour guide extraordinaire who is shuttling us around like a flock of ducklings. We are approaching Jerusalem on a highway that apparently featured in the Six-Day War in 1967. Several hollowed-out army trucks stand in the median strip as a memorial to those lost in the fighting.
The newer parts of Jerusalem look much like any other larger Israeli city, with sandy-colored buildings and wending roads. We stop to visit All Nations Church by the garden of Gethsemane. From here, on the Mount of Olives, we have a clear view of the walls around the Old City, the golden bulb of the Dome of the Rock peeking above, and the Valley of the Dead below. Abboud tells us that according to some tradition, the people buried in this valley will be resurrected half an hour early come Judgment Day, so spots go for $150,000 a pop. “I ask, ‘What can you do in that 30 minutes that you couldn’t do all your life?'” he quips. In Islam it is believed that on Judgment Day a bridge as thin as a hair will stretch between the Mount of Olives and the Dome of the Rock, and everyone will walk across. The unrighteous will fall to their deaths in the valley below. I’m probably too much of a literalist, but does this valley really look like it could fit all the unrighteous?
Valley of the Dead
We get into the Old City through a thriving marketplace in the Muslim quarter. Here is what I mean by thriving. At first, it is merely bustling, a mixture of tourists and residents going about their shopping, vendors hawking their wares in loud Arabic. But then we take a turn and the crowd grows thicker, until we are squeezed shoulder to shoulder, barely moving. I hang on to the person in front of me, wishing that we had one of those ropes preschoolers hold on to to when they walk outside to keep everyone together. This recalls riding the Metro at rush hour in Santiago, when there was always a distinct possibility that, unable to push through the packed bodies to the door quickly enough, I would miss my stop. Now barely moving turns to unmoving. Eventually the culprit behind the traffic jam appears, a young man pulling a cart loaded with what seems to be about ten giant boxes, three times his width, shouting hoarsely for people to get out of his way.
We saw the Dome of the Rock from a distance, because it is not open to non-Muslims. But we were able to see the holiest places for Jews and Christians, the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, respectively.
To get to the heart of the Holy Sepulcher, we wove our way through a maze-like succession of chapels. Various sects have a (tense) agreement to share different bits of the church. After we had touched the spot believed to be where the Cross stood and gone down to the underground chamber where St. Helena discovered the buried Cross, we went upstairs to a different chamber with a short passageway, where Abboud invited us to look at some tombs. The first clump of our group clambered into the small space. I stayed outside and watched a priest we had encountered energetically waving his censer near the Armenian section reappear. Apparently this was also part of his scenting territory. He approached the little tomb grotto and nearly yelled at our group, “EXCUSE ME! What are you looking at?” Then he swung his censer around in front of the cavern, as if trying to smoke out some unwelcome moles. Soon he swept out of the room, leaving us baffled and smoky.
Guess he was incensed about something…
Now my turn came to go into the passage. This was the second time I whacked my head on a low overhang, so to be honest I couldn’t really gather what Abboud was saying, other than that there were four tombs around us, carved into the stone. Two were open and empty; two were closed. “Wait, so does that mean someone’s in there?” someone asked. “Yes,” he said, causing her to whimper. “Don’t worry, they don’t bite!” he said. I wonder what zombies from the years BC would be like…
In the end, it’s as much about the little things as the super famous sites. For instance, at lunch we were brought falafel fixings. Among the various dips was fool, a bland dip of mushy cold fava beans, which I would not recommend. “What is this?” someone asked. The server, a young teenage boy, responded monosyllabically, “Fool!” The inquirer heard “Food!” and burst into laughter. But even if he had heard right (fool!) it would still have been hilarious for us poor fools.
Layli Maria Miron 