A collection of anecdotes from 24 hours of traveling

Segment #1: The Djerba Island Ferry
This part of the journey began at 4:00am from Gabes. To get to Djerba (where my regional flight was departing), one must take a ferry, or drive 120 kilometers out of the way to a bridge. Thankfully the queue for the ferry was not long and we managed to secure a place on board behind a truck full of cranky dairy cows and next to a man in a truck who wouldn’t stop staring/smiling at me. An old man on the ferry was selling concessions: hard-boiled eggs (with which I was impressed to note he offered ground black pepper), chewing gum, and some pre-packaged cakes. All the things you might wish to indulge in on a 6:30am, 20-minute ferry ride. I, having a tiny bladder and no common sense, decide that the ferry, opposed to the public restroom by which we waited for over 30 minutes to board the ferry, was a perfect place for me to use the ladies room. How bad could it be, I thought. So I ventured out of the car. Past the smiling man eating hard-boiled eggs, and around the truck of dairy cows waiting to crap on me, and over to the concessions man who was now seated by what I thought was the only toilet. Yes, it had what could have been a man, or a gender-neutral figure, painted on it, but I figured (1) surely there are not two separate toilets on this ferry, and (2) if I attempt to enter the men’s toilet, surely someone will stop me. But, the concessions man helped me open the door into what I can only describe as shit hell. Imagine (or don’t) a squatty potty, with no running water, and used by men eating hard-boiled eggs on a ferry. Well, I had to pee, so I went with it. The stench stayed with me for 30 minutes, but the memories will last a lifetime. I learned upon our exit from the ferry that there was indeed a women’s toilet which I am sure had running water and fresh-cut flowers inside.

Segment #2: From Djerba to Tunis, by Plane
Things that make you wonder about the safety/security of your flight:
1. The sign over the Djerba Zarzis airport reads “ JERBA ZAR IS”
2. (Note: This is a small, old airplane with propellers.) The stewardess gets up from her take-off position and cannot open the storage/cockpit door because some baggage in the storage area has shifted upon take-off.
3. Mid-flight, some guy in plain clothes walks up to the cockpit door, opens it, goes inside, and apparently hangs out in the cockpit for a while.

Segment #3: The Tunis Airport
Everyone is smoking when there are clearly posted signs advising against it and regular recorded announcements “reminding you that smoking is strictly prohibited inside the terminal.”
My flight is departing from Gate 50. I roll into Gate 50 and everyone is staring at me. I look at the board and it says Benghazi. A guy behind me laughs and says “Libya! Libya!”. I turn and scamper away back into the smoke cloud. Indeed my flight is departing from Gate 50 and eventually it shows up on the board. The Benghazi flight is just delayed by four hours.
While the Benghazians are boarding, I hear shouted out from across the gate “Allahu Akbar.” For a moment, I wait for my end. Then I realized it was just a religious man encouraging others to come pray with him.

Segment #4: From Tunis to Cairo, by Plane
Surprise, no one wants to fly to Cairo in an impending military coup. I relax with a row to myself.

Segment #5: The Cairo Airport
Actually, it was not as crowded as I expected. I enjoyed observing a flashy, hairless Egyptian man with more buttons undone than done on his crisp, white shirt as he hit on a similarly classy lady at the airport bar.

Segment #6: From Cairo to Doha, by Plane
An actual surprise, even in an impending military coup, no one wants to take a flight from Cairo departing at 11:15pm and arriving at 3:30am. I relax with a row to myself.

Segment #7: Doha
It’s like really hot.

The day my neighborhood caught on fire

I haven't posted anything for a while. I mean, I have stories, but I didn't feel like they were worthy enough of an entire post. Now, I have something interesting...

So here I was, Saturday afternoon, frantically trying to finish a conference paper that I completely forgot is due on Monday, when I hear this crackling outside my window. Then I look. Oh, it's a fire. Oh shit, it's a big fire. To me, when there's a fire, and it's large, this is usually cause for some concern. I quickly threw my computer (with the conference paper open) and wallet into my book bag, made sure I was reasonably dressed, and ran outside. I see some other people from the neighboring building kind of leisurely looking at the fire moving up the hillside toward the apartment building. One guy is kind of looking around for a garden hose. There is literally no look of concern about my neighbors.

Assuming that everything was somehow going to be okay and now hearing the firetrucks in the distance, I took off down the street for a photo opportunity. Unfortunately for the photo, but fortunately for the building, the firetruck had arrived by the time I got to a decent vantage point and the fire isn't as big as it was. My building is the second one behind the one you see on the left. I haven't gone down to see the aftermath, but I certainly have a much clearer view down the hill now.

While there are a lot of little problems here every day, people know how to deal with them. Less than 30 minutes after I packed my bag and busted out of what seemed like a rather serious situation, people are back to their lives: cutting stone for the building under construction and kids are playing. I think there's a lot to learn here about how to live a better life.

Well... now to rid my apartment of campfire smell and get back to that paper. But I could really go for a hotdog (with ketchup) and smores.

Breakfast with Abu Wael

Today I went with Eng. Abdalrazzaq to a village north of Ramallah to visit with a farmer, Abu Wael, facing water shortage problems. This village was indeed rather remote. When we reached the village Abu Wael was waiting along the main road to show us to his home which was up a rocky road. As soon as he saw me and learned that I was from America, he began carrying on about America and Israel. I was thinking, well this is really awkward, maybe I'll just stay in the car for this visit instead of subjecting myself to this badgering. After some careful translation by Abdalrazzaq and further explanation by Abu Wael, I learned that he was happy to see me and wanted me to see that Palestinians are not terrorists, but simple people trying to live simple lives. Abu Wael, who was a father to 18 children, 6 of which had died at a young age because of a lack of healthcare services in the village, shared some of the problems he faces on his farm, including threats from the Israeli military to destroy his home, and a severe shortage of water. The shortage of water is a particular hardship on his family because there are so many people living in his house, and as a farmer his way of live is raising sheep, chickens, and other birds, and he has a horse and donkeys for working the land.
Abu Wael's wife serves us breakfast, consisting of homemade yogurt and cheese from the milk of their sheep, tomatoes, cucumbers, olive oil and olives from their trees, preserved squashes filled with almonds, bread baked in the home, and tea and coffee. Everything was really delicious and in my worst Arabic, I tried to tell Abu Wael and his wife how much I enjoyed their fare.
Abu Wael was really interested in me and offered to have me and other foreigners to his home again for a big meal to show more people the way of life of the Palestinian. Before I left, they brought me a big bottle of olive oil, a big bottle of olives, a box of cheese, and some bread. Their amazing generosity despite their marginalized situation was absolutely incredible.

Yesterday's adventure in Wadi Jahir

Last week I signed up for a day hike, which was described as follows:


The spring of Ein Jahir, near the start of this hike, is unknown to almost everybody except the Bedouin who come here to water their flocks. From the spring the path winds down to the valley floor and follows the rocky stream bed to the spring at Ein Fusail. Again, the trail involves some light scrambling down the eroded watercourse. 


The hike is no more than five kilometers, but this must be one of the best walks in Palestine for observing birds and wildlife. There are gazelle and ibex here, as well as hyrax and desert foxes. The long legged Buzzard, the snake eagle, and the Lesser Kestrel all nest in the cliffs above the valley. The whole valley feels quiet and remote.

Requirements: Good/comfortable non-slippery hiking shoes, a hat, sunblock and bring some fruits and/or energy snack bars, light lunch with you,and minimum 3 liters of water. 

So I am thinking to myself, "light scrambling," "five kilometers" ... shit, I can run that in under 30 minutes and I definitely don't need to carry 3 liters of water. The mental image I had of this hike could not have been more removed from the reality I was about to experience. After not sleeping all night, I gathered myself and got to the meeting point by 7:00am. It turns out there were only five of us signed up: all women, all foreigners, plus the guy organizing the excursion. There was one tidbit of information that the organizer shared that morning that should have cued me into the rest of the day... "I've never done this hike before, so it's good we have a small group to test it out." 

So we roll out of town and pick up our local guide, Fadi, in the village near to where to the wadi where we're hiking, and drive on out to the trail head. The trail head was not at all what I expected. At 9:00am, we jumped the highway guardrail and found ourselves looking down a steep hill that ran down to the stream bed. We zigzagged down the hill, following the goat paths, and it took about an hour to get down to the stream bed. At this point I was thinking, I am already tired and I think this hike has just started... and I wish I would have brought more than one liter of water.

Break #2 after reaching the stream bed

Terrain just after reaching the stream bed

More of the terrain

The going was pretty slow down the hill, but it got even slower once we reached the boulders and steep areas that required our guide Fadi to catch or support each of us as we passed. Unfortunately I didn't get any great pictures of the ridiculous outcroppings we had to traverse down. Probably because I was too scared for my life to grab the camera, or so thankful I had just survived the passage that I didn't bother to think about snapping a picture. Anyway, the scenery and remoteness of the place was amazing. 

We were having to take breaks every 20-30 minutes because of the heat and exhaustion that everyone was experiencing. Everybody probably thought I was a huge bitch because I was getting really cranky about the breaks. I was looking at my one liter of water, which was about a quarter of the amount I should have brought with me, and thinking, we need to get the hell out of here. Everybody else was either out, or close to being out of water by about 1:00pm. At break number 4, Fadi made us tea with some wild sage he found along the way. 

A very flattering picture of Fadi making tea at Break #4

Just after tea time, I was really excited to find our first furry creature of the hike. It was a hyrax, but it was acting very strange.  I thought maybe it had snagged its leg between some rocks, but after convincing our guide to come rescue it, it became more clear that this thing definitely had rabies or something of the like. Maybe this little hyrax went on a hike with some of its hyrax friends and ran out of water. Is this going to be me?

Rabid hyrax - Still cute despite the fact it was barking at some hallucinations under this rock and its eyes were rolled back into its head.

Skipping ahead a couple hours. Finally it seems that we're coming to the end of this hike. Thank god because it's the heat of the day and I'm looking around at this group thinking, we're not all going to make it out of here if we don't get a move on it. Our guide says the spring has to be just ahead, so I took off with him, the trail opened up into more of a field, and saw the sweet, sweet oasis in the distance.

Trees ahead!

I took this selfie to document my satisfaction with seeing the trees

I felt kind of bad, because I had no idea where the rest of the group was. I literally abandoned them, ran up to the spring, and took my shoes and socks off, chilled in the spring, and waited for them to arrive. (Haha. Ok, in retrospect, it sounds even worse.) Everyone finished around 2:30pm.

Chillin' in the spring - There were so many tadpoles in here!

After we got out of here, we headed back to the village where we had an amazing lunch of roasted chicken, salads, rice, and watermelon. I think I drank about a liter of Spite. 

Today, I think I'm still dehydrated and every part of me hurts. While I never want to go back to Wadi Jahir, I can't wait for the next one of these adventures into the countryside.

Happy Easter-Labor-Day and the gum kid loses my business

Today was a Palestinian holiday. Who knew? I certainly didn't.

As I was walking to the office this morning it felt like something was off. It was a little quieter than usual: not as many cars on the road, not as many people out and about, not so many people trying to sell me stuff on the sidewalk. I also noticed there were some police out in the city center and what looked like a demonstration setting up. So lots of things are running through my head: Closure? Strike? I carried on and walked into the office. No one is there. The offices are locked and there's one guy scurrying about. I asked him what was up, and he replied, "we're off today, it's Labor Day!" Okay? So I turn around and start walking back to my apartment wondering what Palestinians do on Labor Day. In the US it's a three-day weekend of drinking beer and grilling stuff. Well, as I approached the park I was hearing music and cheerful voices, so I'm thinking, "here's my answer to what people do on Labor Day!" As I got closer, the music sounded familiar, but it a very out-of-context sort of way. The park speakers were blaring "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" and the shrubberies were adorned with balloons and crate paper. Little boys and girls were dressed in their best pastel dresses and bonnets and were carrying Easter baskets. So I can only surmise that on Labor Day in Palestine, people celebrate Easter.

Later in the day I went out for coffee. This same kid has been trying to sell me what I can only assume is the same package of Wrigley's Spearmint gum for over two weeks. This evening he tried to push it on me again. I declined his offer and kept walking when he grabbed for my wallet. That's just not good business ethics. And I was even starting to think about buying that damn gum... His loss.

My precious!

Life got a little better after finding these in the grocery store yesterday!

On my own

This should have been uploaded on Sunday... Internet problems.
Last night I said goodbye to Tim. It was a long day of saying goodbye, hugs, and not so successfully holding back tears, but eventually we headed out in the cold rain to the bus station to send him on his way to Tel Aviv. When I got back to my apartment there was a pack of wild dogs chilling outside. I guess that's who I have to keep me company now.
The weather has been extraordinarily craptastic here. There was a legitimate thunderstorm with hail here yesterday. I didn't even think that was a thing here. I'm not the only one confused. Everyone is saying this weather is worse than winter. I just hope that this rain means a front is moving through and there's sunshine and warmth on the other side. I'm sick of my apartment being cold and damp. There was a mosquito buzzing in my bedroom last night. I assume they're breeding in the window condensation, or even just in the air, since it's so damp in there.
Speaking of wildlife in my apartment, I killed a centipede and a millipede one after another two nights ago. It was like a petting zoo for exotic creepy crawlies. As long as that's as exotic and creepy as it gets though, I will be extremely grateful.
So this week starts the countdown. I have 10 weeks to get my work done here. That includes figuring out how to get the price down on my water samples (which turned out to be about 5 times as expensive as I budgeted for), collect said water samples (which involves finding a local technician to do some soldering on my borrowed autosampler), get them analyzed here and shipped back to Purdue, conduct several days worth of surveys, and try to prove myself useful to the organization I am working with. Somewhere in there I would like to find a way to engage in some community service. There's a UN women's science training facility nearby my apartment. I have no idea what they do there, but I feel drawn to the place every time I pass.