We've also had days that were long, tiring, and strange. Days where we've felt culture shocked, crowded, stunned by the amount of concrete, and asking every local where one goes to find parks.
"Parks? What parks?"
"Somewhere for the children to run."
This is meant with a blank expression.
"Trees. Grass. Open spaces?"
At this we’d see a sign of comprehension but no one gave us an answer.
(However, I have since been to the Jerusalem Zoo and an annual membership is quite affordable. The Zoo is large and wonderful, full of picnic areas and a large playground, not to mention animals I have positively never seen or heard of before.)
I enjoy going anywhere with Don, but some days I feel a little intimidated walking these streets without him. I’ve encountered some rudeness. Teenage boys yelled at me in Arabic. One very old lady simply looked at me with a look that could kill. On occasion the other woman at a bus stop will view me and my children with obvious contempt. Still these encounters are rarer than I’d expect and probably less frequent than a foreign national might experience at home.
I count head-coverings on the bus. I count them on the street because I feel so different. I knew I was so clearly “the infidel” in the eyes of that old lady. There was no concealing her hatred for me. Don’t know if I ever felted hated for my appearance before. It is a bizarre feeling. There is nothing you can do or say, no apology that can be made that will remove the hatred. My offence is committed and it’s irrevocable. Even so, in my head covering counting I almost always find one or two others, Arab women, who are not in Muslim dress.
Day and night the Muezzin calls out, literally day and night. I know one is at 5 am and there is one earlier than that. If for a little while in our apartment we’ve forgotten for a moment the trash on the streets and the fact that we are so different this call to worship Allah wafts in through the windows to remind us.
Don and I both caught some sort of nasty intestinal bug that resulted in fever, intense stomach pains, and all manner of nasty. I caught it first, I recall waking up in the middle of the night to the Arabic crier and being in pain all over and very cold. Don’s experience of it was intense and horrible where as I have been quite able to function but in some discomfort for nearly over a week now.
And on top of that, we’ve been unable to get our visas renewed. We’ve visited four buildings, phoned nine numbers, and the short version of the convoluted breurocratic red tape is that our situation seems to be absolutely nobody’s department. So, we have resigned to the fact we’ll have to take a trip at the end of the month and re-enter Israel, hoping that this time they’ll give us the three months typically granted to tourists.
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