Sometimes A Sprained Ankle is a Good Thing

I sprained my ankle in the desert, which seemed like maybe it could spoil our travel plans, or at least make things difficult.

Well. It did make things difficult, but in some ways, it was a good thing. I spent the last day in Israel sitting with my foot up, which was good, since I got a lot of work done, and I was able to take a wheelchair when we went through Amman Airport in Jordan, where we had an overnight stopover, and when we arrived to Bangkok Airport.

The flight from Tel Aviv to Amman is so short, they don't even have time to turn off the seatbelt light or serve a snack. We don't even get up to cruising altitude. But then we had a long wait until our onward flight. Luckily, Royal Jordanian Airlines are a bit old-fashioned, and they put extended transit passengers up in the airport hotel with complementary buffet.

The hotel is pretty shabby - it probably was very nice and of high-standard when it was built, back in 1985. But it clearly hasn't been renovated or had any repairs since then. Still, we got a nice room with 3 beds, basic cable TV and a bath, which is infinitely better than the usual sitting in an airport "transit lounge" (an oxymoron if ever there was one).

Arriving to Bangkok, we asked again for a wheelchair, and a man came along with one. It was great. He pushed me all the way thorough the mile of corridors to immigration, and even jumped the queue for us and took care of the passports. Actually, he went so fast, Purple and Littletree could barely keep up!

Then he got my bags off the luggage carousel, and led us through customs and even got me a taxi! I think it was barely 20 minutes from getting off the plane to speeding away in the cab - a world record, surely :)

Anyway, now we're in Bangkok, it's hot. My ankle is starting to feel better, and tomorrow we fly to China. So it could be a whiles before I post again, Here's a cute pic of Littletree, just to tide you over...

An Elephant Ate My Daughter

One of the weirdest things in Tel Aviv (note it's definitely not the weirdest), is at the playground in a huge shopping mall called Dizengoff Centre.

They have this larger-than-life flibreglass elephant with stairs leading up into its mouth. Children climb excitedly up the stairs into the dark, red belly of the beast...

And slide down through a chute that comes out its butt!

The children emerge, barely digested, to gleefully run around and go again.

And no one seems to think it's strange.

Littletree and I followed this adventure up by getting into a fight with a random passer-by: I was standing on a busy street-corner, talking on my phone to arrange a meeting with my friend. Littletree was sitting at my feet, waiting patiently. It was a loud and hectic place to stand, and I was already feeling a little stressed and overwhelmed...

Anyway, someone walked up with a dog, and the dog proceeded to sniff Littletree in the face. Littletree whined and backed away. The dog followed and started licking her. She whined more, and tried to fend it off, but not very convincingly. I said in a good dog-commanding voice (in Hebrew) "Hey! dog! Go! Shoo!" The dog continued to harass Littletree, and she continued to be disturbed by it.

Then I saw that the dog had an owner standing right next to us, so I said to her (in Hebrew) "hey, get your dog away from here". The woman replied that the dog wasn't disturbing my daughter. I raised my voice (clearly not so cool, but hey), "Yes! The Dog IS Disturbing Her! She's Frightened, Now Get Your Dog Away From Us!!"

Without moving her dog, the woman said "whoa, you're so aggressive!"

So then I lost it.

Shouted in her face (in English) "OF COURSE I'M @#$%ING AGGRESSIVE! YOUR DOG IS ANNOYING MY DAUGHTER AND I ASKED YOU TO TAKE IT AWAY! NOW GET YOUR @#$%ING DOG AWAY FROM US YOU STUPID B!TCH!!!"

Clearly not my best moment,

But clearly, IMO, you can't just let your dog go around getting in people's faces, especially when they ask you not to. Littletree could have been allergic to dogs, or phobic, or anything. She didn't know. Clearly I could have dealt with this waaaaay better. But somehow, being in Israel has me acting like that much more than I'd like.

Thank goodness for Rescue Remedy. Then i took Littletree to the park to meet Butterfly and climb on stuff.

New Article

Another of my articles was published on Essence of Life
It's about a woman called Wangari Maathai, an African woman working on changing the world.
Check it out
and as usual, go make a comment in the forum :)

I'm pretty busy at the moment, since we're packing to leave Israel and fly back to Bangkok - we'll only be there for 3 days before we fly to China, to the rainbow gathering, so most likely I'll be offline for a whiles.

Desert Odyssey

This weekend we went for a big trip into the desert with Purple's family, in honour of his mother's 75th birthday.

Personally, I'm not really into the desert; it's very hot, and very dry, and dusty. We walk around for ages to look at interesting rocks, that mostly look just like the rocks we have here, except that Moses once stubbed his toes on the desert rocks.

So, it was eighteen people, driving in a convoy of four cars - for some reason they refuse to tell us exactly where we are going; we have to drive in a convoy, and about a hundred cell phone calls flash back and forth between the various cars during the course of a 3 hour drive.

We stopped a few places on the way; at one Moshav where we looked at the locked doors of the Cochin Jewish Museum, and had a picnic, while the kids climbed trees.

And not just the kids:

We stayed the night at a Bedouin guest house, which was very cool - we all slept on the floor in a huge Bedouin tent. Oh how I would have traded my first born for a mosquito net that night!

Anyway it was a nice place, and we had a big Bedouin-style feast for Shabat dinner. Though sadly, they were keeping Kosher for us, so it was served with Matzoh, rather than wonderful Bedouin pita.

So, here's the tent:

And our feast:The next day we drove into the desert 4 hours, the group divided into 3 4WDs, to get to Mount Karkum to see the rock paintings. On the drive we saw lots of wildlife; some Zvi (a kind of deer) and a cool lizard.

For me and Littletree, driving hours out into the desert, only to climb up a rocky mountain in the middle of the noonday heat just to look at rocks isn't really such a great time, but on the way, we drove through a firing range (a common-place occurrence in Israel), which was pretty interesting for us.

Littletree was fascinated to see all the missile cases and blown-up wreckage littering the desert, and it led to lots of discussions about war and Israel and such. Long-time readers might remember previous discussions about that, which is the real reason we don't live in Israel.

In the end, it was too hot, and Littletree didn't want to climb up the mountain. So after we walked around a bit, looking at interesting rocks, I sat with Littletree and some of the younger children in the shade while everyone else climbed up to look at the rock paintings. Purple took some photos:

Then I managed to sprain my ankle, tripping on a rock, en route to the aid of my nephew, who banged his head really badly by standing up under the open car door. It was quite a slapstick moment.

Finally, we climbed back into our cars and drove home. In a few days we leave Israel for Bangkok, and on to China for the World Rainbow Gathering

Rainbow Rant

We went off to the Spring Rainbow Gathering this week. Luckily, it was held in a relatively (for Israel) nice place, only about 40 minutes drive from home.

I thought I might stay a few days, but once we got there... well, though it was a pretty easy site - very small, easy access to everything, and we found a nice spot to put our tent up, it was SO hot. Like, Global warming came early this year. Seriously; when we left, the reading in the car thermometer was 42 degrees Centigrade (105F)!

We ended up leaving on the second day, choosing Ice Cream and Air Conditioning over Rainbow Warriors.

When we got home, I put our household thermometer outside to see how hot it is, and the poor thing went up to 50 degrees (120F) and then broke!

We spent most of the time there drinking lots of water and hiding in the shade. I, of course, found my way to the kitchen and started to focalise dinner. What can I say? I'm an addict.

There was a great kid there helping, he was 14, and lots of fun to chat with. Only he didn't speak English, so I had to brush up on Hebrew. Anyway, we chopped a huge pile of onions, and vegetables, and made a big dahl, and a salad. That went down really well, and we even had it served before sunset. :)

The main problem was that Littletree was miserable. The ground was got and rocky and dusty - not fun for going barefoot on her little tootsies. Only she refused to wear her sandals, coz she can't stand if bits of sand get in. So she went around barefoot, complaining pitifully the whole time. and it was too hot for her. and there weren't other kids for her to play with. and she wanted to go home. and she wanted to eat...

I still had the same old problem with the levels of hygiene in the Israeli rainbow.

Okay, let's be honest; hygiene levels are never too hot in rainbow - it's a bunch of hippies camping in the woods, without running water or proper facilities. So, in order to counteract this deplorable level of hygiene, we make really strict standards - thorough hand washing, no tasting of food from fingers or already-used spoons while cooking, and most of all: the food servers should *never ever* touch anyone's plate when serving.

But in Israel, everything is exacerbated by a couple of issues:

1) There's no water at all - This gathering thankfully had a tap that was only about 200M to walk to and fill up the jerry cans, but it's still a mission to get them filled. Some times they gather in the desert where there really is *no* water at all. They have this 500L tank, which supplies 300+ people. and it gets filled every second day. You do the math. Clearly low standards of hygiene

2) It's freaking hot! like you can't believe. And there's flies everywhere.

3) The people are mostly Israelis. This means that it doesn't matter what you tell them, they will insist that they should do just whatever the heck they were doing in the first place. The more you try to explain that a small splash of water from a bottle is not sufficient to cleanse one's hands after defecating, especially if one then goes to chop salad for hundreds of other people, the more they will insist on cutting said salad, and refuse to wash properly. Their final word in any argument is inevitably; "I'm not in the army any more so no one can tell me what to do."

Not touching plates while serving is the hard one. It's a strong habit. Now, I've been to over thirty rainbow gatherings, and I've focalised the serving at a lot of them. You get a few wingnuts, but in general, it's pretty easy to explain this to the servers - we carry the pots of food around to the people, and we let them hold their plate close to the pot while we scoop the food. We never touch their plates, not with our hands and not with the serving spoons. It's a new way of doing things, but totally doable, and in the long run, less work for the servers.

Only in Israel, they insist that the pots should remain in the centre of the circle, and the servers walk around collecting up plates, bring them in to be filled up, and then carry them back out.

Great. So that server, who just went and made a big show of washing her hands, is then going and touching the dirty plates of those dirty hippies. Plates that are sitting on the ground. Plates that haven't been washed properly for a week, and that dogs have licked, and flies have been on, and that people with random intestinal parasites from India have been eating off. And then they go and touch everyone else's plate. great thinking guys.

Now this non-touching of plates might sound extreme, but I've been to gatherings where literally 85% of the people got lying-on-the-ground-screaming-in-agony-in-a-pile-of-their-own-diarrhoea sick. It spreads like wildfire. I'd like to prevent it.

I explain all of this to people, calmly and patiently. They seem to understand. But the Israelis don't change the method of taking everyone's plates. Some Israelis even say they understand me, and say very nicely, "okay sister, I understand. Sometimes I do it your way. But today, I want to do it my way. We're in a flow".

Drives me batty. </rant>

Anyway, here's some highlights; The Welcome Centre: Breakfast Circle (well, not a "circle" because the shade was so precious):

Here's Me with Butterfly, and me after Littletree swapped our Shawls (wow, me in non-green!)

Now I have Seen Everything

Just browsing around the web, I somehow came across this T-shirt... well, it's hilarious really. Someone has made a T-shirt with a wi-fi signal strength indicator on it.

The makers say about it, "Finally you can get the attention you deserve as others bow to you as their reverential wi-fi god, while geeky chicks swoon at your presence."

Apparently, "The glowing bars on the front of the shirt dynamically change as the surrounding wi-fi signal strength fluctuates"

Check it out here, at Think Geek

It seems, the T-shirt has a little battery-operated panel (batteries not included) on the front that displays wi-fi signal. The panel comes off with some 'ingenious' hook system, so you can launder the shirt. (wait, I thought computer geeks don't do laundry)

Wow. I just have to get me one of these. If only they came in green...

Pessach Sameach!

We survived Passover; the Seder was fun, though I got annoyed with Purple for not translating things for me enough (as usual). We had 22 people for dinner - a very small turnout for my family, but of course, enough food for three times that much.

Littletree had loads of fun setting all the places, and working out where the cutlery goes. Here's the table setting, and below how it looked with most of the people seated:

The crazy thing about Passover this year, is that it fell on a Sunday (which means it starts at sunset, Saturday night). What's crazy about that, is that from sunset Friday, till sunset Saturday, it's Shabat. On Shabat, no one can do any work.

Sounds good right? you get to stay home from work. Don't we all get that? Only for religious Jews, the word "work" also includes driving, cooking, using electricity, lighting fires, even tearing toilet paper from the roll is forbidden on Shabat!

So, imagine, you need to prepare this massive feast for Passover, and you need to clean your house really well to make sure there's no Hametz. Only you can't because it's Shabat and you can't do any work. And you must eat bread with the Shabat dinner. Of course, then you have to clean up any crumb of this bread and be rid of it before Passover starts (at sunset) but you can't do any work until Shabat ends (at sunset). How they get around this, I'm not too sure.

I heard one rabbi was asked if having a picnic would be an acceptable option, or eating on a table outside, on all disposable plates and paper tablecloth. Then the lot can be just bundled up and thrown in the bin. BUT, the rabbi thought about it and said; no, someone might spill their cup of water on the grass, and cause things to grow. Watering plants is forbidden on Shabat.

Thankfully, my family aren't particularly religious, so we didn't have to deal with all that nonsense.

We ate waaaaay too much food, but it was all really yummy. We have a kind of potluck, where everyone brings a plate of food to share, but Purple's mother always makes more than enough for everyone on her own, and in addition to all that food, Purple's Sister-in-Law also makes enough for everyone. On top of that everyone brings at least 2 big dishes. It's a LOT of food.

We read the Hagadah, most of which goes way over my head, and drank the four cups of wine, which goes right to my head. And of course, the awful Matzoh, dipped in all kinds of weird things.

I like that all the family take turns to read aloud different sections of the Hagadah, I feel like reading as a family is something lost to us, in this age of television and personal DVDs.

Purple's father, of course, did all the blessings of the wine (for some reason he was drinking this cheap awful sweet wine, while the rest of us had good stuff). Then there was a fun tradition, somewhat reminiscent of the Christian Santa Claus;

The Saint Eliyahu came. It's funny; someone always slips out and dresses quickly in a white cloak and beard and hat. We turn out all the lights (so no one will discover the true identity of Eliyahu, and, like a religious Jewish Superhero, gives out gifts to the children.

Littletree sat upstairs for the most of it, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of people and noise, and the sheer boredom of sitting at a fancy dinner table while listening to grown-ups talk.

I fully understood LOL

Anyway, it was a good evening, and it's over. Till next year!

Pass-over Passover

Passover is coming on Saturday night, and everyone is busy preparing. The main point of the holiday is to remember how Moses busted the Jews out of Egypt. (They tried to kill us, we won; let's eat!)

The main way we remember, is by not eating leavened bread, because when the Jews escaped from the Pharaoh, they didn't have time to let their bread rise. Not only did they wander lost in the desert for ages, they didn't even have good Pita!

So, here we are, thousands of years after making this miraculous escape, and we keep eating Matzoh, so as to remember it. Let's be perfectly honest; matzoh is horrible stuff. it's like the driest, most flavourless, revolting, dry, tasteless, dehydrated, dry cracker you've ever eaten. Did I mention it's also dry and has no taste?

Okay, I get it, there's a religious significance, and during the Seder (the long feast we eat on the opening night of Passover, where we read this long story about how the Jews escaped Egypt), we're supposed to eat several pieces. But does it have to be the only bread-product we eat all week?

Haven't the Jewish people suffered enough?!

Anyway, I digress; the thing I wanted to talk about, is the extent Jews have to go to, in order to make sure they don't eat anything leavened.

You have to clean out all your cupboards, and throw away anything that contains Hametz; wheat, rye, barley, oats or spelt (and just for good measure, also corn and rice), and anything that might be fermented. So after you've thrown away all your food, you have to clean the whole kitchen really well, just to make sure no crumbs remain, and then boil all your dishes in a deep vat for a long time, to make sure no traces remain.

If you can imagine the enormity of this job, consider that supermarkets and food manufacturers also must comply; they have to throw away all their stocks of food, and clean their machinery, under the observation of a rabbi.

Of course, no one is really doing this. Most secular Jews are doing a somewhat half-assed job, by putting all their hametz food into one cupboard, high up, and pretending it's not there.

The big food manufacturers, and all the supermarkets, have a deal with this one Arab family. They leave all the food in it's place, but shut the doors on it till after Passover, and they sell it to this Arab family. Who knows how much for. Then at the end of the week, they buy it all back again. So for the week, nothing has changed, the food is all still in it's place, life goes on, but legally the food is owned by the Arabs, and therefore, it's all Kosher.

Lately this has gone one step further, with websites like this one offering to buy people's hametz from them, and then sell it back after a week. Of course, all the food stays in your pantry at home, and I don't think anyone checks if you have a little nibble while no one's looking.

It is just another way in which the Jews go to extraordinary lengths to circumvent Jewish law and still remain Kosher.