So Terry is away on an evaluation trip for the coming two weeks; he left Saturday night and will be back next Friday. So far we're coping pretty well; V keeps saying things like "Where's Owl? He will come back very soon to see us." On the other hand they got lots of Mama-time on Sunday and slept fairly well last night, so we're good on that score.
Here are some excerpts from Terry's first e-mail recounting his trip, in his own inimitable voice:
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[Someone took him out for ice cream in downtown Jerusalem]…it was all open walkways, cool old city streets and modern
malls built in a very outdoorsy grape-viney fashion. So a cool combination of modern convenience coupled with
Arabic architecture and Jerusalem history. Plus awesome views.
In downtown Jerusalem there's this beautiful open, green
space and lots of casual walkers enjoying their lives - and just over the hill
out of sight are the Palestinian settlements clustered behind high fences of
razor wire. Downtown are the Jews
and the Israeli Arabs and out of sight are the majority of the population
crammed into these little barren hillsides - and getting more crammed as
religious Jewish settlers encroach bit by bit on the "good bits" of
the Palestinian territory.
As we were driving back from the airport (an hour's drive) I
kept thinking "why? HOW is
this type of thing allowed? - it's insane": I told that to a passing Israeli and he said "oh,
you're right - we never realized.
Okay, we're fixing it all now.
Sorry about that". I
felt good that I could make a difference - all it takes is an external
consultant coming in and pointing out the obvious :)
Okay, that didn't really happen. But it should have…
In terms of environment, it's a lot more deserty than I
expected. Well, we know the Middle
East is desert, but still. Driving
back from the airport - I kept thinking "hot and rocky - with lots of olive
trees everywhere". However,
the olive trees are a lot more scraggly and toughened than the ones we see in
Albania. Kind of like they are dug
in and holding on by the skin of their rootlets in a hostile environment.
There's also more open space than I expected. There are a LOT of people in Israel in
terms of population density, but they are heavily concentrated to make better
use of limited resources - it's cheaper to maintain people clustered tightly
together in terms of services. So
you'll have these barren hills and then "poof" a thick cluster of
apartment blocks of a settlement...and then "whoosh" back to barren
hills again.
There's LOTs of light.
That clear desert sky and light that's really cool. Also, because it's desert, it's hot
during the day, but at night it gets cool and comfortable. So the time we were out for ice cream -
everyone was out walking around and hanging out as the cool of dusk set
in. I really like that kind of
scene.
Food wise - it's awesome - everything Arabic - humus, olive
oil, pita bread, cheeses, falafel, etc.
So I was pretty happy on that score too.
Walking around the old walls of Jerusalem was kind of
cool. Lots of history there and I
kept imagining Christ from the Mount of Olives (where WV headquarters are)
saying "oh Jerusalem...." I can't remember the rest of it, but
something like "you're great, but you suck". [Ed. note: Luke 13:34 [NIV]: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"]
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