A McDonald’s Thanksgiving, with Strawberries and a Side of Homesickness

            Happy Thanksgiving from Nazareth!  It’s not a holiday here, nor is it cold.  The traffic is it’s normal crazy self, but nothing out of the ordinary.  This morning at chapel, we did sing a number of thankful songs.  I don’t think they’re traditional thanksgiving anything, but we sung them in Arabic and English.  And somehow being thankful made me think of home, and then homesickness hit me in the middle of chapel.  Unfortunately, my emotions tend to come out of my eyeballs, but in some ways that’s probably best, because I can’t hide it.  Pretending you’re great when you’re not so okay isn’t helpful.  Crying in public is embarrassing, but there were lots of people I know who care about me who gave me hugs and told me that’s it’s okay to be sad and that I’ll feel better soon.  Most of them have lived abroad, or have children who live abroad, so they’ve been there.  I sat with our volunteer coordinator for a while, and drank a cup of tea, because that’s what British people do. 

Then I went for a walk, because my mom says that exercise is good for your emotional, as well as physical, health.  I walked to the big grocery store across town.  It may not have been quite so great for my physical health because I bought stuff to make a chocolate pie, which is what we always have at thanksgiving.  I also got crasians, because they were the only cranberries I could find (I love cranberry sauce), and strawberries, because November is strawberry season in Israel.  (Admit it, you wish strawberries were a Thanksgiving food)

I caught the bus home by power-walking to the next stop while it was in traffic so that I didn’t have to walk up the hill.  I baked my pie, which helped me feel better because I like being busy.  My mom emailed me the recipe, but it was still a little weird to make it without her in the next room to yell for when I needed help. I had to make several substitutions, and I baked it in a cake tin because the pie pan is a tin disposable one that looks highly questionable.  And I licked the pot, which is a time-honored thanksgiving tradition at my house.

And for Thanksgiving dinner, I had McDonald’s with Adri because it was the most American thing we could think of.  Yes, I know McDonalds is not the healthiest, and it will never compare to thanksgiving dinner at home.  But it still tasted like home in it's own way (it's funny what I like here for that reason, even though I'd never, for example, drink peach iced tea at home). It was fun and silly, and silliness is always a good way to keep homesickness away.  There were scary purple trees to laugh at, and Christmas decorations to look at in the mall, which almost felt sinful since thanksgiving wasn't over yet.  We came home and ate pie, which didn’t really solidify in the refrigerator like it was supposed to, so we ended up eating it out of the pan.  With strawberries.  It wasn’t as good as my moms (because nothing ever is), but it still tasted yummy. 

Even though I’m halfway around the world, I have so much to be thankful for, including the opportunity to be here (even if I get homesick sometimes).  I have two lists of ‘things I’m thankful for”.  One list is things that I’m thankful for here in Nazareth, because it really is wonderful.  The other is things I’m thankful for at home, because I realize how much I have at home when I don’t have all of it here, or at least not in the same way.  Each has three things, not because I only have six things to be thankful for, but because I have SO much to be thankful for that I doubt anyone wants to read all of it.

In Nazareth

1- I’ve gotten to know so many people, and they all care about me.  In addition to the other volunteers, I’ve made friends with people at the hospital, Nazareth Village, and church.  I’m halfway around the world, but I’m in no way alone.

2-  The time I’ve been given to learn Arabic, and the brain God gave me to learn and use it. Arabic is really hard, and it still can be pretty hard now.  But I can usually make myself understood, and I can talk to people who don’t speak English, which is especially nice in the hospital.

3- God made a really amazing and beautiful world.  Nazareth looks nothing like North Carolina, but it’s still beautiful with the palm tress and the flowers that bloom in November.  The hills are more aptly described as steep mountains, but they don’t fall down and have their own rugged sort of beauty.  The Jezreal Valley is barely visible from my doorstep, and is flat and green.  I’ve been to the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee, and the Mediterranean, which are all different shades of blue, and different again from the Atlantic Ocean and the lake at camp (we won’t discuss the Crim Dell at William and Mary, though God created the flesh-eating bacteria that live there too).

At Home

1- I’m thankful for my family and friends.  There are a lot of both, and they’re all wonderful.  Maybe a little bit crazy, but they (or rather, YOU) are my crazy family and friends.  It makes home seem not so far away when I get random facebook messages that say things like “I saw this” or “this came on”, followed by “it reminded me of you”.  Both my family and my friends are strewn about the world, but they are all still there and still care about me, and I care about them. And I thank God for them as often as I remember, and it’s never often enough.

2-   I’m thankful for the internet and the technology that makes living in a different country a little easier.  From talking to people with Skype, to seeing pictures, to being able to find instructions in English, it just makes it easier.  It’s silly, but it’s still very true.

3- I’m thankful for my home country.  I’m never as patriotic as when I’m away from home (except maybe during the Olympics).  Yes, the US has it’s own set of problems and it's in no way perfect. But when I see everyone else’s problems, especially up close and personal, I’d chose our problems.  I like our diversity, because even though it can make things more difficult, things are also richer and more interesting.  I like our political system.  It’s slow and messy and I like to complain as much as the next person, but it’s still one of the best out there.  I like our food, even if we should eat better and less overall.  I like our culture, though probably mostly because I understand it.  I like our infrastructure, because it’s nice to flush toilet paper and use the oven and microwave at the same time.

So I hope you have a wonderful day, full of loved ones, blood relatives or not, and food, and time to remember all of your blessings.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Not All Who Wander

“Not all who wander are lost”  - JR Tolkien

This is one of my favorite quotes, and is fairly appropriate to my preferred method of travel.  Now, I’m not one to just wander around with all of my stuff on my back, no sure destination, and no place to spend the night.  I'm not that adventurous; I like knowing where I’m going to sleep and knowing that I can find food, and how I’m getting home again.  But there is something wonderful about wandering around and seeing what you find.

            Today I had a lovely wander through Jerusalem.  I’ve been visiting Jerusalem with my friend and fellow volunteer Adri, but this morning we split up so we could each see different things (neither of which actually got seen).  I wanted to go to the Rockefeller Museum, but it’s closed on Fridays (I don’t know why, because it's open on saturday, which is Shabbat and the day when everything else is closed).  I decided to walk towards the old city and see what I could find.  I stopped in several stores along the way, and then headed towards a church that I saw down a side street.  It was a Russian Orthodox church that was built fairly recently (probably in the past 100 or 150 years).  The inside was beautiful, but I didn’t stay long.  I followed signs towards another museum, apparently about underground prisoners, which was also closed on Fridays.  (Hopefully I’ll go back, because it looked interesting)

I walked through a municipal complex back towards the main street, passing the trial court and some other government buildings.  I ended up in a courtyard with a modern art installation.  I generally don’t like modern art, but this one was unique, interactive, and playful.  It was a group of brightly painted bicycles, raised off of the ground, with their gears connected to various things on poles above the bikes.  

There were phonographs that played music when you peddled, and lights that came on, drums that beat, and fans that spun.  

I was there by myself at first, and I’m sure I made a strange picture.  I happened to have on a long sleeved shirt and a long skirt, which coupled with my long curly brown ponytail makes me fit in well with the orthodox and ultraorthodox Jewish neighborhood.  So most people passing by probably saw an orthodox girl happily riding a bicycle to play an Edith Piaf tune out of a phonograph. After a few minutes, a man came and rode one of the bicycles with a drum, and we smiled and waved at each other.  (to all of my matchmaking friends, no, stop, not THAT kind of man) It felt like I was in a Pixar movie.

My path then snaked through the old city.  I went in through the Jaffa Gate, but didn’t follow the crowd of tourists through the market.  I strolled through the Armenian Quarter, and found a place to get hot chocolate.  There isn’t a whole lot to see in the Armenian Quarter, because most of their churches and houses are huddled behind walls and heavy gates. 

Then I walked through the Jewish Quarter, though I startled a man in the market on my way there.  He sneezed and said something in Arabic as he passed me, so I said “Bless you” in Arabic.  He looked really confused, but gave the reply (everything you say in Arabic has a proper reply) and said thanks.  And I got a what-on-earth glance from the kippa-wearing man in front of me who witnessed this exchange. 

The Jewish Quarter has some really neat ruins that have been preserved for viewing underneath the more modern buildings. Most of them are on the Cardo, a reconstructed street from Roman times.  There are also actual ruins nearby, including a section of wall that contains parts from the first temple period (ie a really long time ago, and a really long time ago here is about 800 BC).  

I think the part in the bottom right corner is the oldest part.

As I headed back towards the Jaffa gate to meet up with Adri, I found a museum that was actually open.  It’s a museum of what life was like in the Jewish Quarter during the 19^th century.  There are lots of objects from daily life.  Some look very Arab (and were probably used by Sephardic Jews from the Middle East, not Ashkenazi Jews from Europe), others look more European and even modern, and a couple looked like they were artifacts discovered in an ancient city (there was a grain mill like the one in Nazareth Village and the ones found at Masada).  There were wedding dresses and cooking pots, and even a collapsible canopy bed, which was apparently rented out to new mothers for their 40-day recovery period after giving birth.

Adri and I ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the shadow of the city wall, then went to find the place of the last supper.  On the way there, we stopped at a garden along the city wall that had plaques explaining the history of the wall that surrounds the old city.  The current wall was actually built in the last 500 or so years, but it contains older parts of the wall as well.  Then we stopped to take silly pictures in those boards with pictures and places cut out for faces.  

We found the ‘church’, but it mostly seems to be on top of a Yeshiva, so it was hard to find what we were looking for.  I don’t know if we found the supposed room or not, but we did get a nice view of the outskirts of Jerusalem from the top.  There was also a closed Holocaust memorial.  On our way back, we wandered through a beautiful neighborhood that felt completely empty, but had lots of pretty flowers, and saw a park and another outside art exhibit, and some dancing soldiers outside the city wall.

In terms of seeing-all-the-sites, wandering around may not be the best way to travel.  You may miss things because you didn’t know when they were open, and you may waste some time being lost-ish, especially if you don’t have a good sense of direction and it’s a big place.  It might annoy your traveling companions and make you tired from walking around in circles.  But for me, there’s nothing quite like wandering around and seeing what you find.  The funny little roads and gates, the hidden museums and shops, and seeing where normal people actually live.  Here in Israel, it’s especially important, because what life looks like from the tourist sights is nothing like daily life.  And you don’t need to be half way around the world, or even in a city.  Just go out side, go for a wander, and see what you find.   

  

Baking in Nazareth (or the story of how Google is wonderful)

            I really, really, really like to bake, much to the benefit of those who lived in dorms with me, and much to the annoyance of my mother, who says that it’s bad for her diet.  So of course, after I’d been in Nazareth for a couple of weeks, I wanted to bake something.  At first I thought that baking from scratch would be too much of a hassle, due to the whole I-can’t-read-anything part of life in Nazareth (there’s a blog post about illiteracy under this one).  Trying to figure out which box contained baking soda versus baking powder seemed like a stretch when I was lucky to get the right kind of juice.  I thought that a good solution would be to buy one of the box mixes, where you add eggs and oil and water, mix it up, stick it in the oven, and eat it.  They aren’t the same as homemade, but they’re pretty good.  You can buy the same Pillsbury mixes here in the grocery store, except that all of the instructions are in Hebrew.  They don’t even have pictures like most of the mixes at home do.  So… I’ll be good at baking from scratch by the time I get home, even if I do learn to read Hebrew eventually.

The lady in the hospital kitchen gave me flour and sugar and apples, and the nice man at the store at the bottom of the hill helped me find baking soda.  I found a recipe that used ingredients that I had (thanks Google), and I baked a lovely apple cake.  Except that it wasn’t really so lovely after all.  I’m going to the blame the oven and not the chef.

         

This is our oven.  Instead of things on the dial that make sense like ‘bake’, ‘broil’, and whatever else your oven might say, there are a lot of pictures, with boxes and circles and squiggles.  These mean absolutely nothing to me.  So I just picked one that made the oven hot, converted Fahrenheit into Celsius, and went for it. It didn’t work so well.  The cake got burnt on the top, and wasn’t cooked in the middle.  We ate it anyways (it tasted okay if you put it in the microwave), but I didn’t want to waste my time trying to bake things that wouldn’t cook.  Yes, the emergency room is only a skip and a hop away, but I’d rather not get food poisoning. 

            Again, Google to the rescue.  The brand name of our oven is in English, so I was able to find an instruction manual online.  I don’t think it was for this model, but it showed pictures of the boxes and circles and squiggles and explained what each was for.  Hence the sticky notes adorning the back of our oven in the picture.  I don’t want the next person who lives here to have to eat a simultaneously burnt and raw cake.

       

            Once we had the oven more or less under control, I tried to bake chocolate chip cookies with two of the other volunteers.  And they came out really well!  We used a different recipe than the one I use at home because we didn’t have brown sugar or the molasses to make a substitution (thanks Google, for helping find the recipe).  We also didn’t have a proper cookie sheet, so we put the balls of dough in a brownie pan instead. I checked with Google, to see if anything terrible would happen.  Just so you know, it works fine.  And if you’re ever desperate to bake cookies and don’t have a cookie sheet or anything else that’s designed to go into the oven, you can apparently wrap the oven rack in tin foil.  It’s not recommended.  I don’t quite know what to make of that information, but that’s what you get with Google.

            So baking has been an adventure, but we haven’t set the house on fire or set off the smoke alarm (mostly because we don’t have one).  We do flip the breaker for the kitchen, and sometimes our entire apartment, and I’m still not quite sure why.  But I know how to fix it, so perhaps I’ll figure out how to not flip the breaker in the first place.

             

Lessons from Baking

-  You should know where your breaker switches are.

-   People will usually help you find strange ingredients at the grocery store.

-  Recipes are often more guidelines than actual rules.  You can use baking soda instead of baking powder, and it’ll probably work.  Same for using 500 grams of butter instead of ½ cup.

-  Google can convert units so that you don’t have to.

-   Google can also help you learn from other people’s mistakes.

-  There’s nothing like eating chocolate chip cookies and watching a movie.

Since then I’ve baked brownies and a fully cooked apple cake, which I may have finished for breakfast this morning.  And now there’s butter thawing on the counter to bake another batch of cookies.