Israel Run Down

So I'm really bad at keeping this up. Maybe my lack of replies to all your wonderful emails makes a little more sense now. I guess its because I don't know how I feel, so I don't know what to write here. But enough is enough, so here I go.

I am in Israel. Living in the student village (Kfar Studentim) of Hebrew University on Mount Scopus (Har Hatzofim), the highest point in Jerusalem. The dorms have little kitchens though no stoves and are white and now have very nearly only foreign students here and the lawn is manicured and the grass is so rough it hurts and I don't like it much though I have a pretty amazing view from my bedroom window of the Old City and the Desert and if I crane my neck far enough out even the Dead Sea.

I have been here one month already, in Ulpan, or Hebrew study, from 8:30 to 1:15 Sunday through Thursday. I am in the lowest level, but I now know so much Hebrew! Wow, going from zero to sixty in a matter of weeks even with speaking English almost always outside of class is really something. Hebrew is a pretty easy language to learn. It comes easier to me than most other people in my class, I'm not even one of those people who has a natural genius of languages. I met someone this weekend who knows Spanish just from living through the 90s' telenovela craze in Israel in her teenage years! My having studied Spanish certainly does make this venture a lot easier.

There are perhaps 15 people in my class. A handful of French students about to start their first year of university in Israel; a handful of American college students; a German man who, as my college graduate friend explained, is a "real adult", working for the German consolute or the like, recently transferred to Israel; a German girl Demaris who is doing a joy year of Graduate school here; an American nurse who just moved here with her husband who is doing his masters in Biblical studies, and an Israeli? Palestinian? Jordanian? (she has all three passports) girl who lives in Bethlaham and just graduated from high school. We have two teachers, Maya and Ronit, who switch mornings and afternoons to give us two different perspectives. The curriculum is very structured, we use the book Hebrew From Scratch which coincidentally is published by the Hebrew University (its the same one used in the states) but the vocabulary in each lesson is very random. For example, in today's lesson I learned that to ogle (someone) is ...עושה ל, Telephone (the game) is טלפון שבור, luck, the sign of the zodiac, is מזל, and a shoe is נעל. Now make a sentence using all our new vocabulary.

But really, Ulpan is good. It goes extremely fast. My one complaint are the chairs, which kill my back and make me squirm. I have three weeks left, then I am off to Turkey and then to Egypt! Wow, world travelers don't rest.

Speaking of which, several weekends ago the student activities office at the Rotherberg Internatioanl School of Hebrew University organized a trip to the Golan Heights for a night. As part of this adventure, we stopped to say Hi to Syria:
For the most part, though, I am sticking it out here in Jerusalem. I do not consider myself a city girl by any means in the least, but the other dad my mom pointed out to me that I'm not entirely not a city girl (Hebrew double negatives are enveloping me), I live in Portland and like it and here I am in Jerusalem. How is this happening? I suppose its a bit true, though I would never prefer it. Jerusalem is difficult because it is tourist capital of Israel (Hmm, wonder why..?) which really puts me in a funk. On the plus side, its absolutely fascinating!!!

What's that? The Kotel? Dome of the Rock? A huge crowd of Jews? Oh, no big deal, just my back yard.

I spend a lot of time at the Shuk, the outdoor food market.

See those dried figs? A pound for just under $2.50.

Wow, the other night I took a taxi home from Kabbalat Shabbat services downtown (the entire country's bus system, Egged, stops running an hour before Shabbat starts on Friday until a half hour after Shabbat ends on Saturday. By the way, an interesting note: the first several buses from downtown on Saturday are free, due to all the people coming back from shabbat services in the Old City because it is part of Jewish observance to not carry anything or spend money on Shabbat.) Halfway home, however, we met a roadblock, and a human one at that. Perhaps 50 Haredis (very observant Jews) - men, women, and children, were blocking a main road right near the Western Wall in protest of a parking lot for the Wall staying open on Shabbat. So there's some pretty apparent contradiction at work here. These people are upset because Jews are not to work on Sabbath, and Jerusalem is a Jewish city; Shabbat is a Day of Rest. Yet, here they are becoming heated and filled with anymosity, going so far as to throw bricks at cars (remember that part about not carrying anything on Shabbat?). Furthermore, a tenent of Judaism which personally is very important to me is that one is to be careful not to make others uncomfortable. My taxi driver Yacob tried to drive through but was stopped by men laying down in front of his car egged on by angry shouts reminding us what day it was (you're not supposed to drive on Shabbat!). To each his own, if only it could be possible. Only this week I learned that Jerusalem recently elected a new governer, who for the first time is secular, thus inciting the reactions of the haredi community concerned at the trend towards secularism in this holy of holy cities. As Yacob kept repeating, "Holy land, not holy people."

Cocounut Revolution

I just watched this documentary and highly suggest it. It is incredible to see that this is going on in this day. I just can't believe I had never heard of it before. It is amazing what people have the capability to do when they put their hearts to it! The description of the documentary is as follows: Bougainville, with a populations of only 160,000 has managed to close and keep closed one of the biggest mines in the world. They have held their ground for a decade with antique weapons and homemade guns. These people have taken on the biggest mining company in the world and won.

Im here!

Last Days in Stumptown

Rachel and I went to Crater Lake this weekend. We backpacked in a mere 2.5 miles to camp for two nights, hiking out the middle day to make investigations around the lake (and even dipping briefly in!). At every point around the lake there was a perfect view of the entire expanse. We drove back up along Hwy 97, through the desert, and I felt like I got to know my new state a lot better. I was struck by the fear such dry expanse instilled in me. I was on the lookout for a fruit stand to get a good apple, but after many miles I had to come to terms with the fact that there was no water and no fruit trees growing in these here parts. Though stunning in their own right - especially Smith Rock - I was relieved to hit forest again. Yet, there is a heat wave in Portland this week and it is 104 degrees today, so water is not entirely back into my reality. Portlanders don't quite know how to deal, and we are being sent home early all this week from work and instructed to STAY HYDRATED. Which I am really trying to do, sitting inside of The Fresh Pot, adjacent to Powell's Books on Hawthorne, sipping a tasty thyme and rosemary infused black iced tea. That fear really jolted me in looking towards the upcoming months in Jerusalem. How am I going to react living in the desert? And for that matter, in a city? A big school? So many unknowns. I will report back.

Further Documentation

I really love this photograph. Alice working on an art project.
Alice and I made pizza, with rice flour crust. We made the sauce out of crushed cashed tomatoes, tomato past, fresh tomatoes, diced onions, oregano, salt. Mushrooms and zucchini on top.
I went to Virgina for the weekend for the Wolf family reunion! My friend from Reed lives there, and I spent Friday afternoon making femo creations with Lauren and her little sister Claire. Here we are showing off our new necklaces.
One of the few times I've cooked by myself for myself! For the vegetables, I first steamed the asparagus and carrots for 7 minutes and then sauted them with ginger, salt, soy sauce, and sugar. On the right, arugala salad (too dry) with hand-picked thimbleberries from the Canyon
as garnish.
Claire made Alice a peach rhubarb pie for her birthday. Claire is really good at baking pies; she's careful not to make them too sweet or too tarte. On Monday, she baked a cherry pie with cherries Canyon Crew picked in the Canyon.
I realize I haven't written about Canyon Crew yet, which I soon will do. Well, these are two of my friends with whom I work - Claire and Rachel. This was on the first really hot day of summer last week.
Claire baked Amish Friendship Bread. She gave me a starter (because I'm her friend) on June 31. If you continue making it, you have bread every 10 days. We talked about what an interesting way of marking time it is. I couldn't believe this week that 10 days had already gone by since last time, when we ate the bread as breakfast at the beach after staying up all night to see the historic low tide (That night the sky was so clear that the Milky Way nearly spanned horizons).
For those interested, here are the instructions my starter came with. As you can see, it's particularly for those with a refined sweet tooth:
Amish Friendship Bread

Important Notes:
• DON’T use any type of metal spoon or bowl!
• DON’T refrigerate at any time during the process
• If air gets in the bag, let it out!
• It is normal for the batter to rise, bubble and ferment

Day 1: Do nothing
Day 2: mush the bag
Day 3: mush the bag
Day 4: mush the bag
Day 5: mush the bag
Day 6: Add to the bag: 1 C flour, 1 C sugar & 1 C milk – then mush the bag!
Day 7: mush the bag
Day 8: mush the bag
Day 9: mush the bag
Day 10: Follow the instructions below;

1. Pour the contents of the bag into a bowl
2. Add 1 ½ C flour, 1 ½ C sugar & 1 ½ C milk and mix until smooth
3. Measure out 4 separate “starter” batters of 1 C each into 4 different Ziploc bags. Keep a starter for yourself and give the other three to friends with a copy of the recipe. Be sure to write the date of day 1 (TODAY) on each starter so your friends know when to do what!
4. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
5. Add the following ingredients to the remaining batter in the bowl:
o 3 eggs
o 1 C canola oil (or ½ C oil and ½ C applesauce)
o ½ C milk
o 1 C sugar
o 2 tsp cinnamon
o ½ tsp vanilla
o 1 ½ tsp baking powder
o ½ tsp baking soda
o ½ tsp salt
o 2 C Flour
o 1 large box or 2 small boxes instant vanilla pudding mix
o mix until smooth!
6. Grease 2 large loaf pans and mix additional ½ C sugar and 1 ½ tsp cinnamon. Dust the greased pans with half of the sugar mixture.
7. Pour the batter evenly into the 2 pans and sprinkle with the remaining sugar.
8. Bake about 1 hour, then cool until bread loosens from the pan (about 10 minutes)
9. Turn out onto serving dish, and serve warm or cold.

Not something I plan on eating regularly myself, but a fun tradition and a good gift.

Thursday's dinner. Steamed carrots and yellow eggplant and yellow squash and chives and onions with ginger-miso-tahini sauce over rice and tempeh and salad with refreshing mango juice.
I sidewalk chalked! The picture I took from a book of Indian designs my mamasita bought be when I was last home (It's an owl).
We got Friday off work. I went to the Washougal River in Washington a half an hour away with my friends. I have never seen such a busy river! It was hot hot and the water temperature was just perfect. Claire and I read the same book (in between nap breaks). When we finish, we're going to have a bookgroup. It's called Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken, and it is about social movements, and why there had recently been such a search in them, though not collectively. I read in it last week that Sequoia trees are insect-resistant (because of fungi), and so attract no birds. Thus, the Sequoia forest is strikingly pitch silent to be in.

Breakfast

I woke up very very early this morning and went for a run. It is cooler today, and the grass was even a bit damp. I came home and was ravaged. With nothing readily at hand, I decided to be inventive. The result follows:
1. Saute spinach and sliced onions and apples (i used a quarter of a medium sized onion and apple, respectively) in pan with salt and pepper and cayenne.
2. Add to 9-grain tortilla coated in Earth Balance; fold tortilla in half and sprinkle on pepper and cumin to sides.
3. Let warm in pan; remove; eat with hands.
whole grains; vegetables; fruit in one, in less than 10 minutes! Yum.

Summer Time

Hi Blog, it's been a while, I miss you. Let's never go so long without talking again, okay?
I don't have internet access at my house, and though I can use the internet at the food coop just two blocks away, it is very easy to sit tight and put off writing or reading nytimes.com or responding to emails for just one more night. It's nice, I've been reading a lot, but I'll try harder though, people don't like to feel ignored, I promise I'll pay you even just a little more attention.

Since we last talked, I finished my sophomore year of college and moved into a new house. It's the same distance from Reed as my old one, but in the opposite direction, in a much nicer part of town, a cute neighborhood with lots of families and children and people who walk by me and say hello in the morning as I eat breakfast on the stoop.
I've been cooking a lot, esp. with my two housemates. Following is documentation of my summer, mostly of some of our wonderful creations, with the intention of recipes to look forward to.
.Salad with avocado and grapefruit and ginger miso dressing; cornbread with add diced bell peppers (best cornbread ive ever had) and pepper relish. From left, Alice, David, and me.
"Easy dinner" - rice and black beans with avocado and tomatoes and bells and onions and lettuce.
A night we had people over for dinner. These are my three housemates: from left, Alice, Seth, and Maura.
Lentils, a personal favorite, with zucchini tomato mint patties.

We found a bbq in our garage and decided to use it. The bottom screw may or may not have been slightly rusted. I made tzatziki with pita bread and we cooked kabobs and afterwards we made s'mores :)
A casserole I "winged" from scratch. My first! I felt particularly domestic with this one. Zucchini, carrots, onions, spinach, and pine nuts. Baked beats on the side.

As I sit here outside at peoples in my floral hat my dad bought me and my swimsuit top (now it's really summer!) I listen to the key note singing class upstairs and beautiful voices pouring outside.

More soon! Enjoy the sun, love maya