We've established a daily pattern that goes something like this: Marimba alarm sounds at 7am. Erin and I stay in bed waiting for the other one to get up first. becca out waits Erin, and Erin goes into the bathroom to put her contacts in and do her hair. At 7:20 we ate breakfast, which is waiting for us on the table: four hardboiled eggs, hubez (or as we call it at home, pita bread), olive oil and zata for us to dip our bread in, something that resembles cream cheese, apricot jam, and a pipping hot pot of black tea with mint. At 7:45 we leave the house and walk up the hill (our cardio workout for the day) to The house where Lydia and Laura are staying. Laura has a couple more olives or finishes off her glass of tea and Lydia brushes her teeth, and then we're on our way. We sing our way to The ATG office where our group meets every morning at 8:30 for Arabic class. For the next 3 and a half hours, we practice bending our vocal chords in new and mysterious ways with our respective teachers. I am in a class with nine other students and one Nadia, our Arabic teacher. She's maybe 65 years old, a retired teacher, and she has no sympathy for our tongues, molded for 18, 19 years by the English language. She demands quick answers which usually means someone ends up responding in Spanish. One of her favorite remarks to make when we fail to pronounce well or remember the new vocabulary is, "It's easy." Another comment she likes to make is, "I don't know why you don't study." Most of us are going a little crazy or have completely shut down by the time class is over. We are on our own for lunch, so for convenience sake we buy lunch at the same place every day - a small falafel stand down the road from ATG. The second half of the day is usually free time and then a late afternoon lecture or a small day trip. We take longer day trips on the weekend when we don't have Arabic class. Then around 4 or 5, Laura, Lydia, Erin, and I walk home together. When Erin and I stumble back into the house from our walk down the hill, I open the gate, Erin opens the glass door to the porch and holds it for me as I walk through, and the. I open the door to the house. It happens this way every day. Shifa is usually right inside the door, in front of the TV. She always looks a little bit stunned when we walk in the door. she just sort of squints at us, warming her hands over the space heater until we say, "Hell-o" to which she replies, "Hell-o" and smiles. This greeting happens as we are walking past her on our way upstairs to our room. The rest of the family lives downstairs, so Erin and I have a nice secluded space to escape to. We change out of our hiking boots and into the house slippers that Shifa gave to us on one of our first nights, grab our journals and latest reading material (and I, my sketch book), and descend the flight of stairs to our favorite daily question "You want to eat?" From the moment that question is asked until we fumble into bed at night, we are eating. First the two of us are served a meal fit for six, helping size decided by our host. Then fruit: an orange, a couple of tangerines, and a banana for each of us. Then we have tea and biscuits, which are cookies from the bakery. After tea there are nuts and olives and glasses of wine and an Arab version of Fritos - deep fried chips covered in garlic powder. Everything is so sinfully delicious and so hospitably and forcefully offered that Erin and I have eaten absolutely everything that they have offered us at this point. I have never been so close to bursting for so many consecutive days in my life.
Most of our days are scheduled and for the most part predictable in this way - taking Arabic classes, eating 4 sheqel falafel sandwiches, visiting checkpoints, and touring refugee camps - but when we arrive back home in the evenings around 5, the real learning begins. One night, during the Feed Them Till They Burst game, Shifa brought out a bowl of baked and seasoned pumpkin seeds. Someone from our group had just been talking about eating pumpkin seeds, and recognizing them, I excitedly grabbed a big handful and put them all into my mouth. No no no! Shifa scolded as I crunched down into rock solid shells. "Like this", she said, and taking one seed in between her teeth, she bit down and cracked the shell to reveal a small flat seed. I chomped through the mouthful of shells and seeds already in my mouth and swallowed it down to try the new technique. The entertainment for the rest of the evening then was not the Turkish soap opera that we usually watch, but me attempting to pry the small seeds from their shells. When Sherihan walked in the door later that evening, Shifa retold the story of my first encounter with "bizzer". I could tell it was the story by the hand motions and the use of my name "Beeka" several times. As the week went on, I found myself being offered bizzer quite often, and each time Shifa enthusiastically pointed me out as I struggled to snack to everyone in the room. Normally I don't enjoy being the butt of a joke, but this joke was okay because it broke the language barrier and was a way for me to feel like a part of the conversation. Being talked about isn't talking, but it's better than sitting silently in a sea of language you can't decipher. For that reason, I've continued to eat bizzer whenever their offered.
More stories to come!
Becca
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