Thursday, April 12, 2012

How I finally became a Tourist when I tripped over my Roots

Everyone mentioned how I’m growing quite a tumtum. My mom thinks I’m pregnant (she’s always had amusingly high expectations of my romantic life), my granpa thinks I eat too much. I told them about 6shekel falafels.

On April the 1st my mother, father, gran and grandpa touched down, in the land of milk and honey. On the morning they arrived I bought fruit and cookies to stock up their rooms, welcomed them, and left an hour later for work. Spent the day as per usual at work, ran home right after to have supper with them and fell fitfully asleep. The rest of the week went pretty much the same. I don’t get any work done, I don’t get any sleep, and I don’t get any time with the family. Its been wonderful! I have been getting along with them alright as I don’t have enough time with them for the usual disputes, and rushing around everywhere is what I do best. Plus every day is an extra 6 hours long. Especially as their second half of the wek was spent in Jerusalem so I commuted like a beast, another of the things I love best.

Flashbacks of the week include me finishing up a letter on my little laptop with a South Sudanese baby asleep at my breast pretty much. Next flash is standing in the middle of Rothschild Boulevard with my grandfather to wait for the traffic light to go from green to red to green…  and then running down to my bus station in south tel aviv, crossing Levinsky park- the park where all the African refugees with no homes sleep where one might forget which country they’re in as everyone around is a northern African until a Hassidic jew, beard to his waist with black hat, black coat and fringes rides past on a bicycle, flash back to the land of Israel.

My favourite part of the whole thing was being able to stay in Tel Aviv, spend the nights there, walk to and fro in the vibiest city. Makes me think I should have escaped the comfort of a home life in Yavne and ate tinned beans in Tel Aviv for my whole Israel experience. We also made the most of residing in the centre of Jerusalem. On the last day there with the famjam, we dropped my grandparents in their snazzy hotel, my parents in their crummy motel (after riding the train to the end of the line, and showing them some of the nightlife sights), and went off to the house of the other gap-yah people on my sisters program, mainly to get a cup'a'tea and retrieve some things. However, after discussing Easter, pesach, Israel etc a group of 5 of us somehow ended up walking the short but spritual walk towards to old city, the plan was to sing Easter songs, at the Western Wall. It was late, we were in high spirits from exhuastion. Altogether I think we managed to be truly blasphemous, not intentionally but perhaps because of the company. We sung infrom of the Orthodox as the homie we were with didnt know better, and our service included reading stories about a Palastinian taxi driver, from a pamphlet picked up in Bethlehem. We ate oranges, and pee'd in the bused on the way home. All in all it was an experience I've tried very hard to forget about.
We left for Turkey the next morning
**
In the meanwhile, things are looking legit for Ghana. As opposed to when  I left the first time for Israel when no one believed I would/could/was going to do it up until I boarded the plane, for Ghana everyone has now accepted that that’s where I’m heading. However, this time perhaps all the doubt is on myside. I haven’t yet been to the embassy, paid for my ticket, or taken my shots. I’m again nervous that it might not happen. But ofcourse, I will pull through in the end. I hope. I hope. The world is waiting.
Last month, a world survey was
conducted by the UN. The only
question asked was: "Would
you please give your honest
opinion about solutions to the food
shortage in the rest of the world."
The survey was a huge failure...

In Africa they didn't know what "food" meant.
In Eastern Europe they didn't know
what "honest" meant.
In Western Europe they didn't know
what "shortage" meant.

In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant.

In the Middle East they didn't know
what "solution" meant.

In South America they didn't know
what "please" meant, and

In the USA they didn't know what "the rest of
the world" meant.

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