Going back to Bethlehem was, interesting. I'm not really sure what I expected. I had kind of moved on from the worrisome thoughts that I had before, about culture and my worldview perspective, and I was looking forward with being done with everything so that I could go back home. Not that being in the states was the most amazing thing ever. I just really appreciated being surrounded by people that love and support me, and who already know me. I don't have to explain myself to them, introduce my life to them, learn how to trust them... we did that a long time ago and now we're all family. I missed that a lot.
When the wife of the family that I had been living with came and picked me up from Jerusalem (there's a boarder crossing between Jeru. and Bethlehem, so the airport taxis won't go there) she informed me that I would no longer be staying with them. Apparently, they had moved into a new house that was quite a bit smaller and one of their teacher's had left during break. So there was an empty teacher's apartment available, and they decided that I could live there. They have a couple of apartments on the top floor of elementary school where all the single female teachers live. Which sounded all nice and generous, but it meant having to buy my own groceries (when they knew full well I had saved up very little money... by little, I mean none because I was never able to find a summer job), the apartments had no heating, no hot water, and my room had no electricity. So when I walked into my apartment room the only thing in there was a bed... with some blankets. There was no light, no dresser, not even a table to put my stuff on. I sat down on the bed and unpacked in the cold dark room while crying. It was a pathetic site. Oh, and the blinds on the windows that were supposed to be electric, weren't. So I had to learn a fun and difficult trick to open and close them. Thankfully, the other girls came back from wherever they were, and gave me a lamp to use. So, the main ceiling lamps didn't work, but the plugs did. I turned my suitcase over and used it as a table and made the best out of the situation. Showering, however, meant heating up pots, pans, and kettles of water and filling up a bath tub so that I could take a full hot bath. It took two hours, but it was worth it. However miserable the situation was, I was determined to make the best out of it. I was only going to be there for two and half weeks anyways.
My roommate, who lived in the room next to me, was a 60ish year old woman from Arkansas. She had come to the West Bank to learn about Palestinians and to see how bad they really had it there. There's no good way to explain Susan. She's older, has a southern accent, and never quite smiling. Her favorite phrase is, “Really?!” As if what we're talking about couldn't have really happened or existed. Everything was unbelievable to her. For instance, I was telling some of the other girls how I had bought a bunch of skirts at Good Will before coming to Israel. One of the girls is from my hometown and knows the area pretty well. So I was telling her how I went to the Buckhead Good Will, which is in the nicest area of Atlanta. Susan's response: “You got those here?! Really?!” My response, “No Susan... no... I got them in Atlanta...” I was desperately trying not to sound too sarcastic. “Oh, I thought you got them here...” Does Buckhead or Atlanta sound like somewhere in the West Bank or Israel? Or, Susan and the other teachers were going to get a taxi for the day and go to the Dead Sea, En-gedi, and Jericho. The problem with this is that if they were going to go swimming, it would inappropriate for them to do it in front of their Palestinian male taxi driver. Susan's thoughts on the matter: “Really?! Well why not? We're just going swimming.” Keep in mind that she had been there almost 3 ½ weeks and somehow she never picked up on how men and women aren't really supposed to spend time together in the first place, let alone go swimming. The real kicker was that you could remind her of cultural standards and ways that things worked several times and she never seemed to grasp the concept. For instance, one way to get a hot shower in the apartments is to wait for a decently warm day – has to be warm and not cloudy all day – and then around two or three you can get a hot shower. All the water tanks are on the roof and they can warm up during the day when it's nice outside. The problem is that this only lasts for one 5-10 minute shower per apartment. We had told her that several times. One glorious afternoon, I decided to run up to the apartment as soon as class was over and take a shower. Sure enough, Susan had gotten in there half an hour before me and taken a shower. I felt like crying, but sucked it up and took a cold one anyways. She just happened to be right outside the bathroom, when I came out all sad and dejected and frustrated, and she asked if there was warm water because she had just taken a nice hot shower. I proceeded to tell her, again, that you can only get one hot shower a day on the solar power. What did she say to that? “Really?! Because I only took a five minute shower. I wasn't in there that long, it was real short.” I had run the water for 10 minutes and then took a cold shower because there was no hot water. My skin was purple and blue! Crazy woman! She laughed and smiled and said that we would just have to alternate days, so I was allowed to take one the next day. Of course, the next day was cloudy, windy, and gross. There was no hot water. So the next day I decided to run up and take one before she could. It was my goal of the whole day. But, the end of the day came, and she had gotten in there before me, again. She told me, again, that maybe if I ran the water for a few minutes it would warm up. Keep in mind, just two days earlier, I told her it wasn't possible. Here she was, laughing and smiling about it, again, trying to tell me I may be able to get a warm shower. I thought about heating up water to take a bath and just lay in it's warmth for an hour or so to calm down, but the stove had run out of gas so there wasn't a good way to heat up water. For the last week she was there, she kept trying to make jokes about the hot water and talk about how she couldn't believe that it only lasted for one shower when her showers were so short. Needless to say, when she left, it was awkward and uncomfortable.
Of course, then I was able to move into her room which had working blinds, electricity, a full bath and shower all to myself, and her mattress had a heating pad! Did you know they make those? Woman was complaining about being cold all the time while she had a mattress heating pad! Anyways, my last week there was really great. My room was great, I had hot showers, I get along well with the other teachers, and I fell in love with the second grade class. I mean, they were still loud, unruly, and sticky. But I started to really see their personalities and who they were.
Of course, they did have their issues. Here's something I wrote during one of my lunch breaks:
When I was in high school, I drew stick figures on fire, blowing their brains out, or stabbing themselves in the chest because being surrounded by so many shallow and ignorant people made me feel like I was losing my mind.
Something weird about the Middle East? They don't have dust bins here. They use snow shovels, instead.
If it hardly sprinkles outside for ten minutes, then obviously that means that a flood is coming and everyone is going to die. [Okay, slight sarcasm. But it did rain lightly for a few minutes, it's stopped now, and all the kids are saying they can't go outside because it rained.]
It's amazing how many kids don't do their work. They're just going to have to do it later, anyways. And by later I mean during their break. So they're deciding to not do work during class work time, so that they can talk when they aren't supposed to and get yelled at for it, and then lose their free time anyways. I don't get it!
And why would anyone come to school without paper, pencil, or eraser? They end up asking for them every ten minutes or so. You would think that being so worried about it at school means that you may think about it outside of school. But second graders have the attention span of goldfish.
Sometimes they think they're the only ones in the room and interrupt people, call out, and get mad when they know an answer and don't get called on. Sometimes they think they're the most important person to exist and everything they don't like is unfair to them – like writing three sentences or being disciplined for talking out during class. But sometimes they think no one can see them and that if they aren't listening to you then it excuses them from having to follow the rules. So they do things like walk around the room and talk or purposefully continue talking even when you're staring at them and asking them to be quiet.
It also amazes me how many kids laugh or smile when they get in trouble. Are we manipulative from birth? Just shows me that even at such a young age, God's word is written on our hearts and we know when we do wrong. Because they know they're breaking the rules, they just don't care. I understand that they're children and haven't matured, but I don't remember ever being quite so disrespectful and my parents say I really wasn't that bad. Is it a cultural thing, then?
On a side note, the fifth graders are reading The Giver. In the book, each family is only given two children. This baffled all the kids in the class. Most of them have up to five siblings and Arab culture is to have lots of kids. What really amazed me is when one of the girls asked, “But what if God gives them more children?” You could really see them struggle with the concept of a world that had no war, but everything they do is constrained and they have no freedom. I just love that they thought about God in the context of a fiction novel, because it's so much a part of their life that it's hard for them to separate it.
So, living there had it's ups and downs. Some days were great and others I was really homesick. Over all though, I loved the women I worked with. They're an amazing group of Godly women. I also really got attached to their church and Bible study that the school supervisor runs. If I didn't have to leave the community there, I wouldn't have. Don't get me wrong, I was excited to come back to JUC and learn and take classes. But Jerusalem is such a tense city because of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and Bethlehem is so laid back. I felt such a sense of freedom there, and Jerusalem just feels like a constant struggle. I also wasn't excited about getting reintegrated into a new social setting. I didn't talk about it too much last semester, but I really struggled with the group of kids that were here. First of all, I felt like most of them were kids and they were focused on social drama, puppy love, and politics. Which isn't something I resonate with at all. So I felt almost ostracized, which is difficult in a small school of 60 or so people where there's no where that you can be on your own. And, realistically, I knew that this semester couldn't be the same. But it was a fear.
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