When I predicted that as I settled into more of a day-to-day routine my frequency of posting would drop off, was I correct? Or have I dropped off my frequency of posting because I predicted that? Anyway, I have not forgotten you, oh blog-readers, and while I have not taken the time to post as often as I did before, I think of you often. As evidence to the fact, I have beside me a growing list of thoughts I’ve had in this day-to-day life of things to share with you. Surely if I had sat down the evening after each thought arose, each would have its own full-length post. As it is, several will only receive honorable mention and be all but passed over. The first of which being that I find it more amusing than I think most do that in Israel one does not choose the cheese for her sandwich by words like “Cheddar”, “Mozzarella”, or “Swiss”, but rather “Yellow” or “White”…even though I see no lack of variety in cheeses at the market or shuk! Go figure. The same goes for the bread at restaurants: Not “white, wheat, sourdough, rye, or pumpernickel” (Who serves pumpernickel?), but “Brown or white?” Brown. Always brown! Also in the genre of ordering: “Mint Tea” does not mean an herbal infusion composed of mint, peppermint, or spearmint, but rather a mug of hot water with mint leaves in it, and a Lipton teabag on the saucer for you to seep to your heart’s content. The vast majority of places do not serve what I usually picture when I think of “just normal coffee” (i.e., drip coffee). Therefore, if you sit down for dessert and they offer you coffee, a simple “yes” is rarely sufficient, though such an answer will often get you a latte. If you don’t want milk, you better ask for an Americano (espresso and hot water – which I think looks and tastes like drip coffee, but my coffee connoisseur friend assures me I am mistaken), or a Macchiato (which comes in a teeny little mug that takes you back to your days of play-tea-parties with dolls and acorn cups. No, I never actually had such experiences, but I have just recently caught up on the Mary Russell book series, and in the last two books one of the main characters is a little girl who likes to play Tea Party. (By the way, Laurie R. King, if you read this: my friend and I are eagerly awaiting your next book – and Ms. Sterling we hope you will continue to read them onto tape, because what would Mary and Sherlock be without your bringing them to life!)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few months ago someone asked a group of us from the USA what we missed about our country. Aside from people I miss, I had a hard time coming up with something. He asked if I was saying that Israel is better, and I replied that they are both great places, just each in their own ways. I spent several days afterward contemplating what I miss from home. And I discovered it. Smoking laws. Yep, that’s what I came up with. I miss the attitude that most people from the USA have regarding smoking, and the laws that provide me with some respite from second-hand smoke. I wish I had asked my doctor for a lung scan before coming here, because then we could do a post year-of-second-hand-smoke scan and I think have some interesting findings…will my lungs clean up next year when I return? Anyway, it’s quite telling to me that even after several days of consideration, I only came up with the one thing. :) (And of course I miss a few restaurants and Disneyland, too, but I hardly think those count. ;-))
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Soon after arriving I learned the phrase, “Le’at, le’at”. It essentially means “Slowly, but surely” and is often used as an encouragement to people learning Hebrew. Well, I heard it from various professors, which made sense to me, but when I started hearing it from taxi drivers, baristas, and grocery store clerks, it fascinated me. If someone in the states is clearly still learning English, I smile at them and try to encourage them, and practice patience, but it never occurs to me to say, “You’ll get it, just keep practicing. Day by day it’ll come.” (Le’at, le’at, is literally “Slowly, slowly”.) Here, I find that is a very common response to my broken Hebrew followed by a laugh and a shrug. Is it because of the country’s (and language’s) recent beginning, with such an incredible number of immigrants and new language learners? The government has made a concerted and conscious effort to help new immigrants to learn Hebrew and get integrated into society if they want. Has that making the process so explicit created this culture of encouragement and taking my broken language in stride? It’s so nice! :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At one point in my ISL course, someone was spelling a Hebrew word that had a daled (ך) in it, and was having trouble remembering how to pronounce that letter in ISL (to all you non-signers, when I say “pronounce” I simply mean what shape to make the hand(s), where to put them, and how to move them, etc.). The professor reminded him how to sign “Daled”, and everyone practiced and looked at their hands, commenting on how it is not iconic at all. The professor explained, “You know how the sound that a Daled makes in Hebrew is similar to the sound that a Dee makes in English? Well, ASL has a sign for “D” that looks like the English written “d”. ISL borrowed the ASL “D” into our aleph bet.” Ohhh…. Well, anyway, that’s what he would have said if the students were fluent. Basically, he showed them how to sign it, and then wrote an English “d” on the board next to the Hebrew “ך” and held his hand up next to it to show them it iconicity from the written English letter to the signed ISL letter. It was so funny to hear the whole class verbalize an “Ohhhh” all together, like it was a play and the audience was responding to a well-executed monologue.
My “Ohhh” of course was in response to my own revelation that to them the sign was far from iconic, looking nothing like the horizontal and vertical lines that create a Daled. I was coming from such a different paradigm. Borrowing is so interesting. We have the same phenomenon in ASL with signs we’ve borrowed form LSF (the sign language used in France). Our sign that means looking for something, people often gloss as SEARCH, and explain the handshape as perhaps referring to a magnifying glass or something. But actually it seems to come from an initialized sign from LSF, where the French word of the same concept begins with a C. Go figure. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My research is coming along well. I have finished coding the data and am working with my co-researcher on comparing the ASL and ISL. I’m hoping soon I will also begin a preliminary look at the ABSL data, and will be brainstorming with the team on how to go about conducting a comparison, given the very distinct sociolinguistic situation (and consequently different data set) of ABSL from the other two languages. I’m having a great time; I find it amusing how often, sitting in a coffee shop looking at my data with brows slightly furrowed in concentration, my food or drink all but forgotten by my side, I will all of a sudden, with no apparent instigation (to my fellow coffee drinkers, at least), burst out laughing. Last time it was in appreciation for one of my ASL participants who looked at the English sentence she was asked to translate, signed it to herself a few times, then looked up laughing and said, “I don’t know how to say that in ASL!” I laughed heartily because more than once someone here has asked me how to say some Hebrew word or phrase in English (after explaining it to me for several minutes) and after a beat or two, I’ve blinked and said the same thing, “Well! I don’t know how to say that in English!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am very happy with how my Hebrew is coming along (although, of course I always wish it were better ;-)). I find it is really quite poor in the mornings – as if my brain hasn’t woken up enough to access my foreign language module? But once it warms up, I can conduct most daily interactions smoothly. Well, externally smoothly, at least. I order my food, and at the next question, catch the words “want” and “drink” and answer, “Lo, toda”, happy I caught the important words and that I have my water bottle, so don’t have to try to make a choice and speak at the same time. Then the cashier opens her mouth again and my brain stops congratulating itself and snaps back to attention in time to catch “which kind” and, oh, was that “milk”? Oh! No, it was “bread”. “Hoom”, I answer: Brown bread with my salad, not white. I exhale and try to lower my heart rate back to its normal pace, but then there she goes again! She’s inhaling! Quick, what else could she possibly be asking? Oh, she said, “Which” again! Hmmm…oh, I ordered a salad… “Which are there?” I ask, thinking I know what we’re talking about…though I may have said “Which is there” in my attempt to ask, “What are my options?” (a far too complex question for my language level). Anyways, she begins listing something and I focus all my attention on grasping each word. I thankfully catch “Vinaigrette” and order that as my dressing. Finally, her intonation tells me this next question is the last one, and I catch “Shem”. I release a huge internal sign of relief, “Chris”, I say, trying not to beam too obviously over the personal victory I just accomplished. Please, oh please don’t ask anything else. I need a rest. My head feels like it’s about to explode after that unexpected “What kind of dressing would you like” curve ball! I take my tray to the table, and calmly pull out my laptop or book, and pick up my fork, replaying the whole scenario and considering other sentences I might have constructed, or words I might try out next time, before getting down to the work at hand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Thursday nights I join some other women from my congregation for Bible study. There is an English speaking group on Tuesdays, but I learned of this one first, and thoroughly enjoy it. So even though I sometimes get lost in all the Hebrew, I am happy to continue in it. Almost everyone there also speaks English, but I ask them to speak in Hebrew most of the time (I’m never comfortable with the power that English commands), assuring them that I am understanding parts, and don’t mind when I am lost. When I really cannot figure out what we’re discussing, I take the time to pray silently for the study, for the other women, for my Hebrew learning, for whatever the text has brought to mind, for…oh, all kinds of things come up during those times! It is certainly not wasted time. And hey, who knows how my brain is subconsciously taking in the exposure to the Hebrew still entering my ears even while my conscious mind is on whatever God and I are discussing at the moment. At the end, when we’re sharing prayer requests, I make a more concerted effort to grasp the main points, and then I do sometimes ask for English translations. But during the study, I do find that I understand quite a lot (it helps that I know the text, of course!).
We are studying the first few chapters of Bereshit (Genesis), and it’s been a great study. We are practicing inductive Bible study, so each week some things come up that none of us have noticed before. Quite a few things regarding Eve have stuck out to me that I had never noticed before. Like that when God gave the command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of tov and ra, that Eve wasn’t even there yet. While it’s pretty clear that Adam related it to Eve, really the command was given to him, not her. (I’m not venturing interpretations from that fact; it’s just something I never noticed before, and may offer some insight regarding things like Romans 5 and 1 Cor 15, etc…(Also, in my Hebrew course we learned that the word translated “sin”, which I’ve learned before means “to miss the mark” is the same one that today you hear from announcers at basketball games in Israel when someone misses the basket.))
Then when the serpent was talking to Eve (with Adam standing right there, of course), the serpent misquoted God, which we all know. But also Eve, in trying to correct the serpent, also misquoted God…which gave deceit an open door. Eve took on herself a stricter rule than God did, and inaccurately prescribed it to God. It struck me how important it is to know and recall which things we do based on what God says and which we do based on culture, our country’s laws, or out of our own decisions — and how our relationships to each set of guidelines differ from one another.
I also never noticed that Adam was created outside of Eden, while it seems Eve was formed inside it, and of course Adam was made of dust, and Eve, from flesh (there was discussion on the Hebrew word most often translated “rib”, but anyway, flesh and bone). Again, not sure what to make of it all, just interesting to notice new things from a text I’ve read dozens of times.
It was a nice reminder again that only on the sixth day of creation did God not say that all was “tov”. In one of my classes we discussed the translation of “tov”. In this context, “good” seems to mean “complete”, not needing any addition or adjustment. So, all was complete up until the creation of man. But once man was created, the earth was not complete until his partner was also created. I have heard Eve compared to the final touch of a masterpiece, to the final crescendo of a symphony, called the crown of creation. It was interesting, also, to discuss the specific consequences to the serpent, to the earth, to Adam, and to Eve, after they ate from the tree. We talked about how our choices affect not only our own lives, but potentially everyone and everything in our sphere of influence, and noted that God cursed the serpent, and that the land was cursed, but the consequences described to Adam and Eve were not called “curses”.
And I was pretty stoked at the cool imagery of Adam and Eve, after eating from the tree they weren’t supposed to, hiding behind the trees they were originally welcomed to eat from. But instead of using those blessings as they were meant to be used (lunch, dessert, perhaps for building forts, and arts and crafts, etc. ;-)), they used them as hiding places. Do we ever use blessings from God not in the way they’re meant to be used, but as a way of hiding from someone or something? Ooo, nice metaphors. ;-)
Then Adam and Eve were sent out of the Garden, to work the land from which Adam had been made, and a guard was set over the way to the tree of life – often people talk about this guard as keeping people away from the tree of life. But another way to look at it is that the guard over the Way to the Tree of Life is there to ensure that that Way will be kept passable and safe so people can return to the tree of Life…
Anyway, sometimes I’m not sure what everyone else is getting out of the discussions in Hebrew – perhaps we discussed all these things, but then again, perhaps they were talking about bread, and I thought they said milk, and went down an entirely different line of thought, haha. Sometimes I jot down words I don’t know, if I can catch their pronunciation. Other times I infer their meaning based on context. Other times I ask my neighbor. And other times I read the passage again and pray while I wait for the topic to return to something including more vocabulary I recognize. :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Sundays and Thursdays I’m still volunteering at Shema. One thing I’d looked forward to in coming to Israel was the hope of receiving an ISL name sign. So far that has not happened, as the Haifa deaf community is quite drastically different from the American Deaf community I’ve been happy to be a part of in the last decade. I am just now starting to make friends in the Tel Aviv Deaf community, so we’ll see what becomes of that in the next few months…but, I have received a few new spoken names since arriving here. My friend from Japan and my friend from France both call me ChRIStina (which I found quite humorous as I had been joking with my sister about changing my name to that about a week before coming here); my friend from Slovakia added the Slovak diminutive ending and called me Christinka; in Hebrew class, the professor distractedly wrote a Kaf instead of a Nun by accident when writing my name on the board for a project, so in class we all started calling me Christeeka; and this Sunday, after asking me how to spell my name and writing it down, one of my Shema students sounded it out and called across the room to me: “Cartisina! Caritisina!”. Apparently in the way I’d chosen to spell it in Hebrew, the first five letters spelled the word for “Ticket”, so that’s how she pronounced the first two syllables. Love it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purim is coming up, and Valentine’s Day just passed, and Tu Bishvat occurred during my apparent, unplanned blogging sabbatical. Tu Bishvat is similar to our Earth Day, except it’s all about trees. It is the tree’s birthday, and on it, you eat dried fruit and sing nature songs, and plant trees. Cool, huh? It is celebrated on the 15th of the Jewish month of Shevat. In Hebrew, you can write the numbers by using letters, like “A” would be 1, “B” would be 2, “AB” would be 12…sort of like that. So, the first word of the holiday “Tu” comes from how you would write “15” using letters. “B-” is like saying “of”, so: Tu Bishvat = The 15th of the month of Shevat. I was at Shema on Valentine’s Day, and sad to see that it is not celebrated here in schools at all like it is back home. I told the other volunteers that when I was a kid, we would bring Valentine’s Day cards to everyone in class, and that I often dress in red or pink and take little bags of candy or brownies around on Valentine’s Day every year and hand them out to professors, baristas, train conductors, etc. in my life, but this year I just slacked off. They laughed good naturedly and then we talked about how different holidays are in the states and here. Not the different holidays that are celebrated, but how in the USA, we really get into it all, with decorations, cards, special clothes, music, parties, etc., and how we adopt holidays from all over the world (I mentioned wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day, and pinching and whatnot, and one guy looked at me puzzled, “Isn’t that an Irish holiday?”). I am excited about Purim. One of my friends and I have been discussing our costumes and are thinking about going as one of the girls that the kind didn’t choose, ha, with fake warts and fun hairdos, and whatnot…nirei (“we’ll see”). ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few weeks ago, all the Fulbrighters got together and we each took about 15 minutes to share about our projects and what else we’ve been doing since arriving. It was unspeakably nice to hear about each person’s project in a clear, concise, powerpoint-supported way, and to hear about each of our personal experiences in Israel. We chat each time we get together, but to have a structured presentation and 15 minutes for each was very helpful in aiding my brain to form a better picture of what each person is doing. And being a visual learner, the pictures and diagrams were invaluable. :)
Last week they took us on a two-day tour up to the Galilee area. We visited Nazareth and met with the assistant to the mayor, who shared with us about the socio-political situation in his city and beyond, then over to a kibbutz for lunch, and (oh dear, I’ve forgotten the order of things, anyway) to Tiberias for the night.
On the way to the kibbutz, our bus had to stop a ways before a traffic circle, as the police had blocked the road. Apparently there was a suspicious container of some sort (thermos?) on the island in the middle of the traffic circle. We watched as one, then another, and then increasing numbers of neighbors and school children came out to watch, from a safe distance away. An official van pulled up and armored men got out with their special equipment. We could not really see anything from where we were, but be assured many stories were being shared on the bus of similar experiences. Eventually we saw the police moving people to viewpoints further away and then there was a very loud, short POP! Apparently standard practice in such circumstances is to safely enclose the object of concern and then blow it up. Sure. That’s what I’d do. :-) They cleaned it up, removed the roadblock, and we went to lunch.
I have a friend coming to visit me starting Saturday for a week and a half. Her parents were expressing concern about safety here, especially with the, um, excitement going on in Egypt. I assured her it’s fine. The next day, on the bus watching this go down, I wanted to email her again and say, “See? They’ve got it covered.” ;-)
On our trip we visited a second kibbutz where a man shared with us some of his life’s musical journey through a room filled with percussion instruments – one that we’d never seen before, from Switzerland. It sounded very similar to the steel drums I often enjoy played by street performers, but it looked like a flying saucer with dents, and was small enough to carry under one arm.
The next day they took us to a settlement formed by immigrants from the Caucasus region (between the Caspian and Black Sea). It was a wonderful tour, and they shared with us some of their food, traditions, dance, language, and lifestyles, that they have brought from home and adapted to life in Israel. Through history they have been regarded as great warriors, and now make up a large majority of the IDF.
One of the languages they shared about has many words that are derived from onomatopoeia, which was interesting to parallel to ASL and ISL’s use of iconicity for much of their lexicon. And their engagement tradition was a topic of some fun discussion amongst us afterward. The to-be engaged woman awaits her to-be fiancé on her parents’ porch. When the man rides by on his horse, she either turns her face downward, in rejection, or lifts her hand up to him. He takes her hand and pulls her up on the horse, and they race to the town’s boundaries while her family and the other men of the village chase them, shouting and whatnot. They call it, “Bride Abduction” or something, but they assured us it is not violent or anything, just a tradition, for fun. Once the couple rides beyond the city boundaries, they are engaged. Then they return to her parents’ house for the engagement party!
Most of our discussion centered on wondering how difficult it is to be pulled up on a horse in motion. Does one practice this art in secret when one starts dating a man seriously? Does she ever bring a stool out onto the porch to make the jump easier? Does she ever reach up two hands? Or does that perhaps come across too needy? Does she practice pull-ups inside, in preparation for her engagement day? Oh, the logistics of getting married. ;-)
After the Caucasian village, we visited a Druze village for a late lunch, and then made our way back to Haifa. The others continued on to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and us Haifa-ians head home to begin our catch-up from the delightful two days off.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My friend from DC arrives Saturday morning. It is her first time to Israel, so we will be fitting in as much as we can in her short time here, and I am eagerly looking forward to showing her around, and to the good conversations and belly-splitting-ouch-my-face-hurts-stop-making-me-laugh times that we always have together. I have made some good friends here, but there is certainly something about being with someone who has known you longer than six months that will be pleasant.
