don't stop believin'

after our last meeting, i slept at inbal's until 2pm the next day. i was so beat. it was amazing though. after we woke up, we drank coffee and took the bus to the mall in downtown hadera (inbal's town) and walked to inbal's parent's lottery shop. it was really cute. i like her town. her neighborhood reminds me of los angeles, pacific palisades a little. it's very cute and quaint. i like her family very much also, so i hope i will spend time while i'm here. after we got back from the mall, we hung out and ate freshly homemade hummus (i watched inbal's mother make it, so that i can also --- dad, tell gammy for me). then, inbal drove us in her car to tel aviv university to pick up alysse (one of the girls from my trip). after some frustrating navigational delays, we finally found alysse and went on our way to a pub near downtown tel aviv called freeland's until the boys (max, cameron, and adam) called us to meet up at 1AM. we had a couple of beers and some fabulous conversations about religion, philosophy, atheism. mostly about being jewish. inbal told us about her brief stints in kaballah and as a messianic jew, and her current obsession with 'the secret', which i'm vaguely familiar with. alysse, like me, leans more towards atheism and has a hard time understanding how people can believe most of the things involved in religion (esp. christianty, etc.) but that after this trip, she identifies with being jewish in a way she didn't before. this is exactly what happened to me. this conversation just reinforced my pride in being a jew, as my culture and upbringing and heritage as well as my non-belief in a supernatural force. it was cool.

anyway, we left the pub and about 2 hours later (ridiculously frustrating trying to find this club on the beach, it was just silly), we found the boys at this stupidly douche-y club on 'cheech beach', that inbal describes as full of 'arsim'. arsim are basically a kind of guy that we in dallas would refer to as 'uptown/ghostbar' people. we convinced the boys to leave the club as we couldn't get in, and we walked to a really cool bar that was on the beach, bought some beers, and sat outside in the soft sand. i walked to the water, where people were still swimming at 3 AM, and just watched the tide come and go. it was really nice.

max decided to come with inbal and i back to hadera, so we drove back at 5 AM, got there at 6AM, slept for 2 hours, and then woke up. we figured out that i should go ahead to ramla, the place i'll be living for the day/night, so i packed up my things, we all got on a bus into tel aviv, and i said goodbye to max and inbal as i took my bus to the central station, where after some confusion and lots of bad hebrew questions from my direction, i caught a 'sherut taxi', or shared taxi, to ramla. 30 minutes later i arrived in ramla, where naama (one of the directors of my volunteer program) met me.

now, i've heard some sketchy things about ramla from israelis. mainly because ramla is a mixed city, meaning that jews and arabs both live here. also, it is an area of considerably low socio-economic status in some places. of course, this is why we are volunteering here. so i'm driving in the taxi and looking out the windows trying to judge for myself whether this place looks dangerous, and at first it kind of does, but the closer i get to the center of the city, the less nervous i become. it's just like any other city, and it's quite pretty actually.

so i arrive at the entrance to ramla (called tromet akerach) and waited to meet naama. she found me and we walked about 5 minutes to her parent's house where she lives, for lunch. i just want to take this opportunity to say that i've never experienced such hospitality like i have in israel in the last few days. it is overwhelming. i have been treated like family anywhere i meet someone. they've invited me to stay, given me food, showed me the kittens that they rescue (apparently, naama's mom is the dr. doolittle of the neighborhood, taking in a fixing stray animals), tell me about their lives. it is wonderful to be here. and i got to speak to naama about the program on the walk to her house and i am so excited to be here i can't even express it. she just talks about all the exciting, creative ways we can contribute to the kids' lives here. i can teach them photography, show them how to see in a new way, give them a passion. i can even teach a mixed class with arab and israeli children together at the youth center. they can see each other finally. there are subsidized classes that i can take for 150 sheckles a month (bellydancing, pliates). i can buy a bike to ride from one end of the city to another. i get to live in a sweet apartment or a house. i can cook every night fresh fruits and vegetables from the market that i can walk to. and it's CHEAP. and i may not want to leave.

i am excited. and i am starting to learn hebrew. i have a little notebook that i'm writing all the new words i hear. i'll start an intensive ulpan (hebrew lessons) so i can catch up really quickly for conversational purposes. fuck, i am bursting. i can't wait for each day. i just get to be brave with my photography, because the opportunities here are amazing. everything is so interesting and the visual textures are fascinating. i might even start a band with inbal and some of the other people in my group (inbal is a drummer, so she can possibly leave her drums in the house and we can practice there and gig on the weekends). i found out that our weekends are free, so i can travel to other countries. FUCK, i'm so excited.

i miss everyone. pictures soon soon. i need to get a converter for my laptop charger. i just wrote a novel. enjoy. i love you.

sally