Negev Field Trip, Synagogue Visit

Tomorrow I head off to Egypt for a week without school, classes, readings, or clean water. J As a forecast, we will be staying in a really nice hotel—the Egyptian economy is struggling so we can get really nice places for cheap—and it will be about 115 degrees when we land in Cairo. I am rooming with Maddy Truman, who I know from somewhere, though I can’t remember where for the life of me. Also I will be waking up at like 5:20 tomorrow. Yeah.

But lets talk about this past week.

Our group walking to the museum on free day. 3 miles!

Sunday was our free day,

Cody, Emma and I at the weaving center.

Monday we took a field trip down to the Negev, the arid region south of Jerusalem, before you reach the Sinai region. Basically a bunch of dead grass and wheat, with the hills stretching out to the east and the costal plain off to the west. It’s where the Bedouin people live, and we stopped to visit a weaving center in one of the few recognized Bedouin towns. The Israeli government created a bit of a problem with the Bedouin communities, especially with the women. They don’t have anything to do anymore, because they used to spend all their time weaving and taking care of the tent and clothes and blankets for the whole family, and now they don’t. The weaving center is an opportunity for the women to use their skills for pay and to provide a future for them. It was a cool place, because we sat under a hand woven tent on little cushions, with little cups of herbal tea—they are really big on hospitality with businesses and homes. Many places we stop have drinks ready and waiting for us, and they know we are Mormon, so they provide herbal tea or juice ready. Cool right?—and watched them go through the business of turning wool into amazing rugs. I didn’t buy anything, but I talked a bit with Atidal, one of the women working there at the center. She was sort of an administrator, and was working on a masters degree in International relations?—something like that. She had gone to school, and returned to help other women to become empowered. She was inspiring, and I had to get a picture with her. I also took some artistic pictures of the tassles and people and such, as well as some less artistic pictures. J

Tel Arad from a distance.

Afterwards, we went off to Tel Ber Sheva, close by the actual city of Ber Sheva, which was sort of a home base for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in their own times.  It was a very well preserved place, and we sat and talked about temples and wells and gates. We took a trip down into the water system under the city, which was amazing. We sang Come, Come Ye Saints down there, because “All is Well”. Hah. The puns these visiting professors come up with. The last place we visited was Tel Arad, which had some significance that I honestly can’t remember. But the important part was that we went, and stood in the tower the Crusaders had built in the middle of the town, looking down on it from above. Two significant details here: when they were excavating it originally, they found shards of pottery with writing on them, basically our equivalent of using scrap paper for grocery lists and such. Someone had written Hebrew words, but used Egyptian characters to do it. A sort of…reformed Egyptian. J Sounds familiar right? It should. Thing number two, the Israelites who lived in the area built a temple in the city that is still preserved because they retired it instead of destroying it. It had an altar, some of the original walls, holy space, and a holy of holies, complete with incense altars. Amazing. I took some pictures, because how many people can say they’ve stood in a holy of holies? We drove back along the Jordan valley, right past the Dead Sea, which we will swim in much later this semester. It was a two and a half hour drive back to the center, and so most people on the bus took a snooze. Dr. Mulestein, my Old Testament teacher and my field trip teacher, took pictures of everyone who was asleep. I think he puts them in a scrapbook and takes it out whenever he needs a laugh. Sleeping on a bus is a dangerous thing. Cody was asleep when we were all eating lunch, so we balanced chips in his mouth until he woke up and ate them all. The chips they give us here are weird, spicy cheese, and ketchup, and chicken. It’s universally acknowledged that the chicken ones are the worst.

Me, Emma and Hanna messing around at the museum.

Tuesday and Wednesday were full of fun and interesting discussions, including a mind blowing lecture on ancient Egypt that I’ll have to teach you all when I get back. Basically, ancient Egyptian beliefs and rituals and the LDS religion are similar in very specific ways. I’ll leave it at that for now, but I promise you, it was amazing. I’ve never enjoyed a class more. Another notable moment with the cats around the center: I’ve named the one that stalks our meals Cleocatra, and her kittens Anubis and Ra. And you guys say I’m bad at naming animals. These are naming gold.

I've got the Pharoah position down. Me and my
dear headless Ramsses the great.

Tuesday we also had Dr. Mulestein give us a basic run down of Egyptian religion and temples, basically a survey of what we would see and what to look for. He’s an Egyptologist, and it was amazing. My notes make me so happy, especially because we learned how to read hieroglyphics. More than just the symbols mind you. A symbol can either represent what it is, or the sound associated with it. So the symbol for house, which is a box with an opening along the bottom can either be a house, or the sound per, which means house. Also ancient Egyptians didn’t use vowels, so each hieroglyph represents just the consonants of a word. So the symbols for leaf  would be a l and a f. Based on that, you could have leaf or loaf or loufa or any number of things. So they add another symbol to give you a clue to the context, whether it’s an animal or an action, an object or a symbolic thing. I’m so ready for this.

Class was cancelled Thursday morning from 9-5 for the Israeli Independence Day, so Mary, Carly, Kayla, and Makayla and I took off to the city for a day of shopping. My original plan was to find some snacks to take to Egypt, because they only feed us three meals there. We walked around a lot, just browsing, all that girl stuff. Some creepy guys started following us, but we ducked into Shabaan’s shop and stayed in there until they left. I actually had a chance to put my Italian skills to good use. Three semesters, all for that moment. It was great. Omar, Shabaan’s son and the one who runs the shop when he’s not there, speaks a little bit of every language, from German to English to Arabic. It was a really cool moment. I picked up Mom’s gift—I know, already!—and we headed back in time for lunch, because we were having falafel!!!!!! You never pass up free falafel, and it was so good. Definitely a high point of the food this week. Though one night I was really missing my favorite foods, and wanted either a large bowl of Dad’s soup or a Café Rio burrito. Now, a bowl of Dad’s soup didn’t just appear, but we did have what passes as a burrito here, and it was so good. It was a tender mercy for me, who was aching for something familiar to eat.

Unfortunately, once again I was weak against the heat and got a migraine. But three hours of snoozing and 400 mgs of the good stuff later and I was up and kicking once again. It seems that I am one of 2 heat sensitive people on this trip, because Crystal was also down for a couple days because of the heat. I think Dr. Heiner, our resident health care professional, has me marked down for an extra close watch while we are out and about this next week. How fun? On the bright side, my sort of cousin Emily proved that she is the best person ever, because she came to offer me migraine medicine and a beanbag to put over my eyes to help me feel better. We talked until Arabic, where Iman taught us how to say hello and how are you and welcome. I’ve decided to be able to at least write a few things in Arabic when I come back. The first word I learned was peace.J I’ll have to show you when I get back, after I practice a bit more. My Arabic script needs work.

Friday we turned in a lot of homework, but then we don’t have to do any, so it was worth it. Just classes really, but I played a cut throat version of dodgeball called scatterball before dinner. It was really fun. We’ve also started our intermural basketball league, and I’m on a team with Aaron and Sam. I’ll get a picture for us, but we need a team name. Any ideas?

The ladies waiting for the van to pick us up from the
museum. Hannah, Emily, Crystay, Christa and Kayla.

After dinner, I went to welcome the Sabbath at a synagogue. It was such a cool experience. We got there a bit early, so Dr. Ophir—our Israel instructor—could give us the details of what would be happening. He told us to spread out and find someone to sit by that wasn’t our classmates so we could have someone there to help us find our place in the prayer books. I did what he said, and went and sat down by a girl who look to be a little bit older than me. She was so kind. Her name was Netta, and she had the most beautiful rich voice. They sing a lot at their services, and the person leading gets through an absurd amount of words in as short of a time as possible. It’s pretty amazing. We did a lot of standing and sitting, and I listened to all their beautiful music. Their worship songs are solemn and almost mournful, and everyone will harmonize whenever they want. It was beautiful. Netta kept me mostly on track in my book, but I didn’t want to bother her too much, so a large portion of the 3 separate services we did—they have three a day, evening, morning and afternoon, and the Saturday evening one is combined with the Friday afternoon and the welcoming the Sabbath, for a total of about an hour—was spent reading the psalms they sang and just listening. I felt the spirit there, listening to Netta sing with such emotion in her voice. I wished I could have gotten to know her better, but I’m hoping she will come to one of the music concerts we have at the center and I’ll run into her there.

Saturday—today—we performed in choir in sacrament meeting, and I received my call!!! Primary worker-AKA nursery. It was the best. There is only one official member, but we also have visitors children. So just Teo and James, two adorable little boys. I taught my lesson on how we should love others, we drew pictures of the people we love, took a walk outside, and had a snack. The rest of today has been spent reading and wandering around and packing. Everyone is being really loud outside, and I don’t particularly feel like braving the noise to do anything. I played Apples to Apples for about an hour and a half, and we made it interesting by making people defend their choices each round. J I’m ready for Egypt.

I called mom and dad this morning, and I heard that video calling over Facebook works really well. Maybe we can try that? Let’s give a shot next time. I won’t have a cell phone or internet connection while in Egypt, but I get back Friday afternoon, so I will shoot off another email that afternoon or after church on Saturday. I love, love, love all of you!