Shalom! No, really, shalom. It's been so crazy the past five days; we really need some shalom.
This past weekend was Purim, the holiday that celebrates Israel being saved from Haman's evil plot by Esther the Jewish Queen of Persia (you can read about it in the book of Esther in the Bible). Israelis celebrate by wearing (sometimes incoherent) costumes and basically partying and having a good time. They also eat
Oznei Haman or "Haman's Ears," which are little triangular fried pastries filled with fruits, chocolate, nuts, and other tasty things. My lovely classmate Adie made some gluten free ones, so I got to try some. They were delicious!
One of my classmates Adam had an MSIH Purim party at his apartment. Adie, Julia, and I went as a three-part costume:
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| Can you guess what we were? |
Cute, right? Julia kept calling me a "bucket rock," which got a giggle out of me every time. Making my costume was rather fun. We had no class in the afternoon, so I called my mom for her expert advice then headed to the Old City to get art supplies. I ran into Becky and Diana when I got there, and they were drinking fresh-squeezed fruit smoothies. Of course, I wanted one! So I went to get a smoothie and got distracted by looking for an empty box for my costume. After asking a street vendor for one of his, he said he didn't have any extra ones, but pointed to one down the street on the sidewalk and said "
Matana!" which means "gift." I snatched that box right up and left the smoothie in hopes of later getting
gleeda (ice cream) from Gleeda Be'er Sheva (the best ice cream in town), which I did later, of course.
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| Becky and I next to Abraham's Well in the Old City with my new box! |
I took my box home and did my best to shape it into a rock and paint it accordingly. I haven't painted in awhile, and it was so fun!
My favorite costumes from the Purim party were Sriracha sauce:
And Tim and Diana as each other:
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| Oh, look! It's Tim and Diana! Or, wait, Diana and Tim . . . or Tim and . . . |
The next day (Thursday), I packed my hiking backpack and sleeping bag and hopped onto a train up to Petach Tikva to attend a student conference for Arabic, Hebrew, and English speakers. It was quite a crowd, and we had a wonderful weekend in the beautiful Baptist Village.
Seriously, this place was gorgeous. There was an orchard of citrus fruits (clementines? I'm actually not really sure) with an abundance of rich, green grass and palm trees.
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| The magical orchard. |
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| I could have spent a few more days there! |
Naturally, I chose to spend my quiet time in this beautiful orchard. There were all sorts of birds fluttering about the whole time. I didn't really pay attention at first, until I caught a glimpse of a beautiful green and aqua bird with a long greenish-blue tail. The colors were so vibrant, and the sun reflected off its shiny feathers. Then I realized I was looking at a wild parakeet! There were quite a few of them flying from tree to tree, singing and eating fruit. I tried to take a photo of them, but it was too far away.
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| Kudos if you can spot the birds (I made the photo huge so that it's humanly possible). Don't feel like a loser if you can't. I barely can, and I took the picture! |
During our weekend in Petach Tikva, we were getting texts and emails from MSIH administration about the "situation" down in Be'er Sheva. I didn't really think about it too much, but Gaza was firing rockets on southern Israel again. I got home late at night, and sure enough, school was canceled the next day. It's a good thing, too, because in the morning we had a siren. Then another. Then another. . . okay a lot. The rockets continued, and we even had a couple around 3am on Monday. Of course, school was canceled again and we had 3 more sirens, the last at 1pm. That didn't mean all was quiet, though. When the rocket trajectory doesn't land it in the city, no siren is sounded, but we still hear the explosions and there were a lot of them that spanned this entire 5-day escalation. We can also hear sirens from neighboring cities sometimes, then explosions. Needless to say, it's not really so conducive for studying, which is bad for me since we have an quiz coming up on Thursday.
Though I did get some studying done. Yesterday was incredibly beautiful (as was the day before - in the 80s), and I sat outside to study in the sunshine with the gentle breeze tousling my hair and generously cooling me down from the sun's rays. Birds were tweeting sweetly all around my yard, and bombs were exploding in the distance. What a relaxing, peaceful study time ;) Oh yeah, then there was another one of those darned wailing sirens.
School was canceled again today, but a cease-fire agreement was reached that was supposed to be effective at 1:00am (Israel time) this morning. Not so much. While Be'er Sheva hasn't had any sirens today, rockets have been fired on other cities, and I just heard a couple explosions as I'm typing this. Granted, that explosion could very well have been fireworks, because for some inexplicable reason when there is a threat of rockets, Israelis bust out the recreational explosives. I think maybe they just think it's funny to make everyone's heart skip a beat every time they set one off. Regardless, the situation is settling down, which we are very, very thankful for.
Over the past few days of escalation between Israel and Gaza, over 200 rockets have been fired into southern Israel. This is the largest outbreak of violence in the past year, even greater than last semester when we had a siren like every hour for a little while there. Here is a timeline if you're interested:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/timeline-a-breakdown-of-number-of-gaza-rockets-fired-at-israel-over-past-year-1.418187
If you want to read up on this, don't let CNN be your only news source. That's all I'll say about that.
A couple of the rockets on Sunday weren't intercepted by the Iron Dome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome), and landed in the city. I found the site of one of them and took some photographs. The rocket landed in an open area next to a school, and sprayed shrapnel at its walls. That shrapnel can do some serious damage:
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| It looks like a super powerful machine gun hit the side of the building. |
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| School was canceled Monday, so there were no children in the area. |
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| Violence is so ugly. |
It was quite sobering to see what one of those rockets could actually do. I'm really glad this is almost over and that everyone here is safe. We spent our times hiding out during/after sirens praying. It's really a great time to pray. Your nerves are on edge to hear how close the explosion is and how many there are, and you're crying out to God for safety, for the lives of people on both sides, for salvation for these people, for His glory to be shown to the world. It's a pretty unique, awesome experience.
And I've been learning and remembering throughout this 6-day Rocket Weekend that: "We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." --Ephesians 6:12
