Too much of a good thing?

Now, the first surprise of the week shouldn't have been a surprise, really. Jordan is not the height of organization, and so when you ask if a bus runs on Mondays you should never expect the answer you get to be 100% correct. Because, just for future reference, the bus from Irbid in Jordan to Nazareth in Israel does *not* run on Mondays. When we arrived at the hotel in Irbid where the bus departs from, I watched Daphna's face turn from normal to red to some shade of purplish-green that I didn't know existed outside of cartoons as the same person that had told her the day before that there would be a bus recanted. I was glad that I was outside, behind glass doors. We were lucky, though: Halil and Emre (our infallible "Turkeys") were with us, and they somehow decided that our trip into Israel was their top priority for the day. They each made several phone calls, inquiring with their friends about ways across the border, and finally Emre convinced a Palestinian friend of his to travel with us to the Israeli border by cab. We felt a little baby-sat: we've taken cabs before, walked across borders before, the whole shebang. They would not hear of any resistance. So Emre's friend sat up front and Emre (all 6'3" or so of him) crammed into the backseat with us (Halil had already stayed so long that he was late to meet a friend). They even called us an hour after they dropped us off to make sure that we'd had no problems at the border.

Oh, Turkeys. Why would anyone ever eat them?

Sorry. This is a vegan blog, after all.

The rest of the crossing proceeded little better than the beginning, only without the help of passionate friends. We were fined at the Jordanian border for over-staying our Jordanian visa (our permitted length of stay had been explained improperly), and then, at the Israeli border, the patrol looked at my passport (water damaged since our 2003 stint backpacking throughout Central America), went to her supervisor, and returned to tell me that it was the last time I'd be entering Israel on that passport. No biggie - I'll just be a security threat this one last time, right? And hey, it only took us one more taxi ride and one more bus ride to get to basically where we would have been if we'd been on the Nazareth bus in the first place.

It is amazing, though, what a couple of kilometers can do for you. There is no doubt that Israel is a different country from Jordan. Somehow, in a way that I don't truly understand, it literally is greener on this side (I blame the pine trees). And women don't all wear head coverings (or, when they do, they don't cover nearly enough hair by the Jordanian standard). What's more, walking around Irbid, even when I try to fit in, I've been taken for Arab few enough times that I can count them on my fingers. Walking around Israel, even in shorts with a camping backpack on, people have walked up and asked me for directions in Hebrew ("No, no, of course I live here - I just get depressed if I don't walk a forty pound bag around the block several times a day").

The culture shock reached its apex at Jackie's wedding, which was beautiful. The bride and groom glowed, and were so excited to be together that he turned bright red (and I'm still not sure if his feet touched the ground, though Daph just claims that's because he was jumping up and down) and, well, Jackie's make-up had to be. . . um. . . touched up after the first time she saw him. They were wonderful together.

But we had walked out of Jordan and right into a group of rather conservative American-Israeli Jews, many of whom live in the West Bank. We got a wide range of reactions to our activities, ranging from, in essence: "Wow, I'd love to do that," to "Well, you know, Bibically-speaking you were actually in Israel, so it's OK" to "My son in the army kills terrorists every day" (I'm still working on how I should have responded to that. My favorite idea came from my mom: "Oh, no! Really? I've got to call Ahmed!"). Towards the end of the night we were told that American Jews only have months to leave with all of their possessions before Obama, it seems, creates a Nazi-like state (I still don't quite know how I should have responded to that one, either. Any ideas?).

The height of culture shock, though, might have happened on Thursday. We are staying at Yael's (Daphna's sister) apartment in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. Her roommates found a vegan restaurant in Tel Aviv, which we walked to, but it was closed. So we went to another vegan restaurant in Tel Aviv. The restaurant, Buddha Burgers (http://www.buddhaburgers.co.il/english.asp), had amazing sandwiches and burritos and a raspberry-chocolate mousse-coconut pudding-chocolate cake-dessert that, well, promoted Israel out of the "Land of Shawarma" category, to the point where I can no longer talk about it on this blog. Look for updates on the far less controversial: Vegans in the Land of Vegan Desserts, due out next week. The worst part (and note the sarcasm here, please) is that, as we were leaving, one of the workers said, "You know, if you like the food, there's a buffet tomorrow from 12-5."

Let's just say that three-and-a-half months of no tofu, of sub-par vegan items and subsisting off of appetizers in restaurants were obliterated in a two hour smorgasbord of vegan whole wheat crepes, tofu lasagne, wraps, pancakes, salad bar, so many different types of latkes that I couldn't count accurately, chocolate cinnamon cookies and (try to stay seated, folks) homemade mango-apricot soy yogurt with fresh fruit and homemade chocolate granola. It's twenty four hours later, and I'm almost able to move again.

And Israel doesn't only have vegan food. It's got beaches and sun, and we found out the hard way. Yael and her roommate Rikki took us sunbathing after our first lunch at the restaurant, and it was as if we'd gotten the chance to play basketball with the Nuggets and thought it was really fun until we both tore an ACL. Ya and Rikki are daily beach-goers, and Daph and I are on the Disabled List until our sunburns go away (It's OK - we've got enough of our bodies not burned that there's a position we can both sit in without pain). The beach was amazing, though -- perfect water, clean sand, no vicious sea urchins. . . . like Aqaba without all the unpleasant parts. But you try going straight from "cover everything you're in Jordan" to "don't cover anything you're in Tel Aviv" and see if you don't look like a slightly oblong heirloom tomato.

We hate to say it, but we kind of like Tel Aviv. That was a shock, really - we've never loved it in the past and we've started to wonder if it's because it really is a cool city (you have to admit between the wonderful beach and the cute cafes and the ridiculous amount of stuff going on, it has something going for it) or because we basically came here from Irbid, which has none of the above and could make a cow barn seem like an epicenter of activity. It's also been a jarring look at the political situation, a further reminder of how everywhere in this insane conflict there are people. People (those wonderful, beautiful individuals with incredible dreams that blossom everywhere from Irbid to Tel Aviv), and people (those same passionate, stubborn, complex individuals that know how the world works and exactly what is necessary to make it better).

I love so much more about the Middle East than I did before we left on this trip. More about the land, about the people, their warmth and generosity and vision. I have less optimism, though, than I have had before. This is not merely a conflict of governments, as much as the people here want to be done with the fighting. There is stubbornness and fear and pride in this conflict, down to the individual, and it is not only about bending the will of political leaders to work together -- it is about reconfiguring the way that citizens of these many countries think about the land, about each other, about the possibilities of the future. One could say that there is excess of everything here, and not just in the land of milk and honey. And, once again, I don't know what the proper response is.

Your Arabic/Hebrew phrases of the week:

Different cultures -- Tarbooyote sho-note (Hebrew) -- Thiqaaffat muchtalifah (Arabic)

I'm vegan (English) -- Ani Tivoni (Hebrew) -- La akl lah-me, halbon, beyed, ah-sul, o semek (Arabic, literally "I don't eat meat, dairy, eggs, honey or fish" as there's no word for vegan in Arabic)

Dancing with Distinction

Thursday was the last day of class for most of the students at the Language Center, and so at the end of the day there was a small party at the Center and then a volleyball game engineered by the Italian girls. A couple of the Korean students came, as did a Turkish student, and few of the Italians’ Arab friends (another “mini-UN” as one of the students remarked). We had a couple of extra players, and so took turns sitting out and watching the disorganized game as it took on aspects of soccer (one of the Palestinians had a better record heading the ball over the net than many of us had hitting it at all) and chaos (you mean there are positions in this game?!?).

The first time that I sat out, I ended up chatting with one of their friends named “Ash.” We talked about the game for a bit, and then I asked where he was from. He said Egypt, to the North, in the desert. I asked if it was a heavily populated area, as I’d heard that outside of the Nile Basin, Egypt has a fairly sparse population. He said, “Truthfully, I couldn’t tell you.” In fact, Ash has only visited Egypt once – he was born in Jordan to a Jordanian mother and Egyptian father, spent the first twenty years of his life in the UAE, and considers himself Egyptian.

It is not uncommon here that people report their nationality as something other than their place of birth and the location of their livelihood (sometimes it makes me feel as if I shouldn’t say that I’m American, but rather from Kiev, or that Daphna is German or Czech or Polish). Ash carries Egyptian citizenship (and only Egyptian citizenship), and yet the point underlines one of the many issues in the Middle East: it is incredibly difficult to find a home here. Many families have generations that live in Saudi Arabia, and, perhaps now, the UAE, without being considered a part of the countries. Even the smaller, less oil-rich countries are strict about new-comers, and people attach themselves heavily to places that they’ve never been, something which is highlighted by the Palestinians, a lesson we learned when Daphna first met with a friend of ours, Lana.

When Daph asked where Lana was from, Lana said that she was Palestinian, and Daph asked, “Oh, where from?” Lana answered, “Haifa.” Daphna said, “Oh, it’s such a beautiful city!” And Lana said, “I’ve never been there.” It is a startling contrast to America, where citizenship is granted by birth, and where “Where are you from” tends to be defined by the now (or, at the very least, by your generation – just as I can’t imagine saying that I’m Russian or Romanian, I can’t even imagine claiming that I’m a New Yorker, no matter where my dad was born). And, in a time when money and jobs move people all over the Middle East (for instance, only 5% of the residents in the UAE are citizens), it is understandable why countries would not want to accept so many newcomers, and yet it is also hard to feel that the complete lack of identification fluidity is a problem here. If you can live in my country, where your father also lived, and always be recognizably and identifiably an “other” (an other which, most likely, because you’ve grown up in my country you can not identify with), how can we ever be equal?

One of the many things that I love about America is the inability to walk its streets and point out non-Americans. They’re wearing different clothes? Doesn’t matter. They’re not speaking English? Still doesn’t mean anything. They can still be American, and the moment that they are American, they’re as American as anyone else is American. Here, it is not the case. Even the Palestinians that carry Jordanian passports are not “Jordanian-Jordanian” as we’ve heard some people call themselves (and this despite the fact that the West Bank was part of Jordan until 1967). This is the “Arab World” and at Yarmouk University there are over 2000 foreign students, but they will never confuse themselves for Jordanian (and it is unlikely that any Jordanian would, either).

It is an ironic psychological boundary for a part of the world so renowned for its hospitality (and it was just today, as we sat on the sidewalk in the shade, that a shop owner, without expecting anything in recompense, brought chairs out from his shop and offered us water while we rested), and it has been one of the saddest things for me on this trip. I could not ask these countries to change their ways, because that would be asking them to lose their identities, but when does humanity begin to trump culture?

Last night we joined the Italians for dessert behind their building with some of their same friends from the volleyball game. After partaking, their friends taught us the dubka, the traditional Arab dance that has slight variations in every country (it’s like the “Amia”, the variations that every country has of the Arabic language). We learned the Iraqi and the “Shemali” (northern Jordan and Palestine) versions. It is a simple dance, intended to be mastered by everyone, and built on as ability allows. But even though every country celebrates with the dubka, every country does it differently, and can recognize the nationality of everyone else by the way that they dance. Even in joy there is distinction.

And now, with some trepidation, and, dare I say, a great amount of joy, we are headed for Israel on Monday to celebrate Jackie Siegel’s wedding, to see Daphna’s family, and to pick up our friends. At Jackie’s wedding we will dance, I am sure, in single-sex circles, to traditional music, while moving predominantly clockwise, all just like the dubka, but, to anyone who knows, it will look very differently. We will be in a country where some people with roots in every corner of the world will call themselves Israeli (or even Israeli-Israeli) without trepidation, but also with others who live within its borders with no citizenship to any nation-state, whatsoever. And I am afraid that, despite all of the love that is sure to be there, I will be no less confused.

Your Arabic Phrases of the day:

Kurat at-tairah -- Volleyball (Literally airplane ball)
Meen Ayna Antee / Anta? -- Where are you from? (to a female / male)

Fee hummus woh salata?

". . . Maybe it's the third world, maybe it's his first time around. Doesn't know the language, holds no currency. . . ." - Paul Simon

That about sums it up.

OK, so we now have a little bit of currency, and we can ask if someone has hummus and salad and greet someone without (if we're lucky) completely making fools of ourselves. As soon as someone else speaks, though, I resort to my minimal Chinese and crawl into the fetal position. Daph just starts rattling off the alphabet in Spanish.

Welcome to Jordan.

OK, so, really, it's not that bad. Everyone here is sweet, and tries to communicate, and most are happy to try and find someway to help.

But really, I'm getting ahead of myself. We should start back on Tuesday afternoon, where we left off. You see, after all that poetry (which, I should brag, has gotten me compared to Gwen Stefani -- if you don't know who that is, just ask, *ahem*, Mark), we headed to Philli and Sevonne's wedding. Philli was a close friend of Daphna when she spent a year in Israel during high school. He is sweet, and was so excited to see her that I thought Sevonne might get jealous, but really they both just floated through the evening. The ceremony was beautiful, complete with pauses for the camera, and was followed by a multi-course meal and a disco party. Very wonderful, and, in an odd way, very Israeli. Who else would dance the hora to a throbbing techno beat? Nothing like the holy land. . . .

The wedding was a wonderful way to leave our Jewish segment of the trip for the time being. On Wednesday morning we headed to Turan, an Arab village in northern Israel, to visit Vera, a friend of Daphna's through Building Bridges for Peace. We were still in the same small country, but it felt like a rather large transition. We left the crowded, small apartment-style living of urban Rishon for the houses and olive trees and Arabic of a new place. And Vera's family (see pictures) was wonderful -- sweet and loud, funny and friendly and hospitable. Who knew that okra could taste so damn good? But it was OK -- we only ate about 7 meals a day. We also met Vera's fiance, Iyad. They will both be in the states in the Fall (Vera, unfortunately not very bright, was forced to accept a Fulbright Scholarship to get a Masters in the States so that she could escape the constant belittling in her town for her poor intellect). Everyone should have them over for dinner.

While we were at Vera's, Israeli election results came in. The village was a hard place to be when the right wing (including a man whose largest premise was to force Arab Israeli citizens to go through loyalty tests or be deported) did so well. It felt to us like Vera, in particular, was in a lot of pain -- her family has endured a lot, and to have this type of agenda in the ruling coalition is scary. It interested us as well, that there are four different Arab political parties, three of which each have around four seats in the parliament (the fourth protested the war by staying out of the elections, which seemed to me like when Israeli students "struck" by not going to class when the government raised the price of education -- who, exactly, are you hurting here?). Vera suggested that, if the four parties united, and all of the Arab's voted, they'd get over 20 seats, enough to be in the coalition. It didn't seem that simple, though -- the parties are not that similar, and one is even a communist party. Ever hear that one about two Jews and three opinions? Well. . . .

Finally, we are back to this morning. Iyad dropped us at the Nazarene Express in Nazareth (for an hour, we were Ben and Daphna of Nazareth!) and we took the bus into Jordan. It was a beautiful drive -- the green hills of Israel's Jezreal Valley gave way to the arid hills of Jordan, which had far less agriculture but far more olive trees (Iyad told us, "If there are Arabs, there are olive trees"). We pulled into Irbid, a sprawling, fair sized city in the hills. Daph said that the approach was like the approach to Jerusalem, minus the green. We clambered out of the bus, and somehow, found the university. We arrived at the security gate, and asked about the language center, and they pointed us to another security center, and they made a phone call to find out where it was and then waited, and then made a phone call to ask someone else, and then walked us the 100 yards to the Center.

At the Center, we met Ahmed and Omar, one of whom will most likely be our professor, and both of whom were flabbergasted by our complete lack of Arabic. They kept saying things like, "But you know. . ." and we'd just look at them blankly and they'd shake their heads and look at each other, as if perhaps the other one was (hopefully) using us to play a practical joke on him. We met the director, who reminded me a lot of Bruce Heitler, came in and said hi, and had the foreign student liasion, Ayhem, show us to our apartment. Ayhem brought us to a well-used but large one bedroom apartment in the corner of campus. It has white walls and beige carpets and ugly but useable furniture and a TV that gets the local Jordanian stations. Nonetheless, it's cute, and Daphna has promised to spruce it up.

Ayhem then called a driver and took us on a tour of campus and the city, showing us where many things that I can't remember are. It was very sweet and detailed and, after showing us the incredible student center where you can do mosaics and ceramics and painting (we think they're free, but aren't sure), he brought us to his office and gave us some materials. One of his co-workers practically begged us to come practice Arabic with her and to teach her some English, and then we went home.

Even after a good afternoon's rest, though, it's best not to try to order vegan food in a foreign place without a dictionary. Now, we did it ("sandwich felafel" and tea and water and hummus and salad for two for under five dollars), but it was kind of ugly in the process. A lot of very blank looks, shall we say.

Now, 'tis time to go shopping and fall into bed for an early night (so, the afternoon's rest wasn't so good). We have tomorrow and Saturday as our weekend, and classes are supposed to start at 8:30am on Sunday. Wish us luck.

Arabic word(s) of the day:
Been Hehbak = I love you

Been hehbak, everyone! Thanks for all of your comments and e-mails (we love them!) and we hope to talk to you soon!

Look how hard we flapped our wings!

When we arrived at the airport
We heard the dreary re-port
That the plane was not there
It was somewhere in the air
And we had seven hours to burn.

So sit we did,
(and sit and sit and sit, I do not kid)
Until finally we were able to board,
And we took off as the plane roared,
For a land I had not seen.

In London, we ran into town
Forty minutes to hop around
We had to run and take the tube
Slide around on the icey goob
And finally get to meet Big Ben.

We arrived in the "holy land"
Needing for sleep, our eyes heavy like bags of sand
And headed up North to see the fam
(see all our pictures from the cam!)
And to relax with Safta Miri, Ya, and the clan.

Three nights of rest and play
Chocolate as abundant as hay
A trip to the sea
Naps dail-y
And finally a big meal complete with the whole fam.

Now we're in Rishon Letzion,
For a wedding, and to see one
Little sister of Daphna, before we head to the east
For an entirely new beast
And a new adventure ahead.

Ahem. Thank you, thank you. Signed copies will available starting in August for the paltry price of visiting us in DC.

Well, we are here. The trek itself was an adventure. We checked the plane the night before, but upon arriving at DIA, a woman apologetically handed us a piece of paper (she couldn't bring herself to say it) showing that the plane had been delayed a mere six and a half hours. But let me tell you how much there is to do in DIA! We became like the little kids that live in the Met and solve mysteries, but we were too big to hide for too long, and security has improved so much since then that, really, we weren't necessary. But we were definitely that cool. Let's just say, thank god for Wi-Fi and meal vouchers.

Anyway, our plans for a casual day of seeing the sights in London were ruined, since what had been a thirteen hour layover loomed as another casual six hour romp in an airport. The flight from Denver to London was low-key, full of nothing but sleeping through the endless entertainment options. But then brilliance struck, and we went against the advice of every person we asked and decided to rough it into the the jungle of. . . The Tube. Now, I wouldn't recommend taking the tube for two and a half hours for forty minutes of bouncing around Westminster Abbey to everyone, but it was beautiful. Big Ben was slightly, well, smaller, than I would have guessed, but the sights were great, the city lit up against the dark early evening skies, and it was fun to be an ever-so-brief part of the London bustle. We didn't have time to find any vegan food, but never fear -- we had the same meal we'd gotten on the way from Denver to London on the way to Tel Aviv, so at least we didn't have to face the insecurity of something new.

The rest of the voyage, really, was easy, and Daph's Safta Miri set us up with Yael in a cute, sparse hostel a ten minute walk from her apartment. The days in Haifa went quickly. We spent a good bit of time with Safta (when leaving she said, "Oh! I'd gotten used to having you here"), eating meals with her, playing rummikub until she relegated me to the bedroom, taking a walk along the crowded Haifa beach on Saturday morning. Saturday night Daph's aunt and cousins joined us for dinner in Safta's apartment, which suddenly became loud and full of laughter and the nonsensical commentary of Kfir, our 1 1/2 year old cousin. It was a beautiful sight in the small living room.

Yesterday we left Haifa, our lives hanging over our shoulders, like the Jews of thousands of years ago, but with goretex, lumbar support, and buses. The trip to Yael's home in Rishon Lezion was uneventful yet exhausting, and it has been great to see her in her home environment, the apartment she shares with four other pre-college girls. We walked around the commercial center of Rishon last night, and hung out with a couple of her friends. Today we are taking it easy before we head to the wedding tonight, and before we head into the real unknown, tomorrow.

Under 48 hours to go

Thanks for checking out our blog. This is where we will be posting updates about our trip as we travel to Israel and Jordan for the next five months. If you want to contact us, you can comment here or e-mail us at our g-mail accounts.

Preparing for this trip has been an amazing experience, uprooting ourselves from the incredible Denver community and diving into the unknown of a country that we've never visited and and a language we don't know. Saying goodbye, and feeling the incredible depth of love that surrounds us here has been humbling, invigorating, and awakening. Thank you all.

We'll do our best to keep this blog updated, and hopefully we'll have sufficient internet access to do so. I'm not too worried.

Well, here we go. Wish us luck.