A Page in My Travels: 10/11/07

Everywhere I go in Jerusalem, I see 18- and 19-year-olds with assault rifles, or whatever you would call them. Maybe M-16s... And let's be honest, some of the people look like they're twelve. A friend of mine explained that the new army recruits are required to "babysit" their gun, to have it with them at all times, even if they're off duty. So it's not at all uncommon to see family walking around, or a group of friends together, all in street clothes, with one or two of them carrying really big guns strapped to their backs. Definitely adds a different flavor to the atmosphere. It's not really safe for girls to go out alone at night, or even small groups of girls without any guys, because we've been having trouble with suspicious persons on the road down to the Old City, looking like they are wanting to mug anyone who comes by. The other night a group of maybe 20 JUC men went out on a patrol around midnight, with bats and pole saws and just about any kind of "weapon" they could find, to make sure that the people there got the point that we don't want those people around. They all really enjoy their protector roles, I think. JUC's neighbors have also been kind of nasty, actually lighting a few garbage fires outside the classroom building. No damage was done, and we cleaned up the area to make sure they didn't have anything more to work with, but it's just another situation that the administrators have to deal with. My point in all of this is that the only time I feel unsafe in this country was with an American behind the wheel driving us to Beit Jala! My roommate Janell and I get a ride with JUC's director's uncle, who is probably a hundred years old, but he's the principal of the school where we volunteer on Tuesday mornings, and we both feel the same way about him--that he should not not not be driving! I'm not going to lie, I was just hanging on for dear life as we barrel down the hills and straddle any and all available lines and never ever have anything beside lots of acceleration and lots of braking. We're just grateful for the free ride, but if it were up to us we would rather drive ourselves!

So I just got back from a 3-day field study. We were focusing on the Shephelah (the foothills to the west of the Judean hill country), the Negev (a dry region to the south), and the area around the Dead Sea. We saw lots of really sweet places, like Masada, the Wadi Zin, Avedat, the Makhtesh Ramon, Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls, Essenes), En Gedi, and more. So fun. I feel like I'm growing my big-picture idea of what Israel is all about, how the land works and why things are the way that they are. It's really good. I'm getting more and more ideas of where I want to take my parents when they come to visit. I actually get to plan a part of our trip as my final project for my Physical Settings class (the class with all the field studies). I could say a lot more about our field study, but a picture is worth a thousand words, right? So here's a taste of what I'm doing.