What is Michael doing in Jerusalem anyway? (In which I attempt to be informative and end up just talking about food)

It has come to my attention that I haven't really gone into much in the way of basic, basic detail on blog, so those who arrive at this blog without the benefit of advance information might be a little confused.

Also: I've been living in Jerusalem for three weeks now, so it might behoove me to give you a little bit of an overview of what life is like for me right now -- before I slip back into a more scattered, anecdotal blogging style.

 So yeah! I live in Jerusalem, which is a couple layers of city on top of each other, the older layers of which are some of the oldest layers of city in the world.

The whole city is dense with cultures and histories and traditions and faiths, overlapping, intermixing and weaving together in tremendous and beautiful and also occasionally morally revolting and traumatizing ways. One way or another there's a lot of feels.

Then there's the politics. You can't turn a corner or buy a bag of chips without choking on it like abnormally thick, rancid, polarizing, volatile air.

A brief sample: I'm living in Jerusalem. Israel claims it as its capital, but the international community (by which I mean pretty much everybody, but also specifically the big guns at the U.N., including Amurkah.) puts their consulates in Tel Aviv, and when they put "Jerusalem" on official documents, like under "birthplace" on passports, they just leave off the comma and specific country.

To be specific, I'm living in East Jerusalem. But where is East Jerusalem? Well Israel says it's Israel. And they treat it like it's Israel, but everybody else puts their hands over their ears and kind of ignores that.

But that's cause they've got their eyes set on very particular solutions to this whole massive trainwreck of a geopolitical struggle and taking their hands off their ears for too long might endanger those idealized plans and this is all tongue-in-cheek and neither-here-nor-there so we're-just-going-to-put-politics-Palestine-and-Israel-all-away-for-now. But yeah, I'm in a fairly awkward, confusing position, geographically speaking.

So I'm living in Jerusalem.

It's sort of a city in a desert, except there's a bunch of pine trees and grass and various other temperate plants because a lot of people wanted to make it look European. (Cigarettes and capris would've been much more effective and much less intrusive to the indigenous ecosystem)

I live in a neighborhood called Beit Hanina, and I attend church at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City. It's part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land, which is the primary representative of the spunky, self-confident global minority that is Palestinian Lutherans.

I'm working at an odd preschool-daycare sort of hybrid run by the ELCJHL, and I play with children, and there's a lot of interesting adventures and quirks to get into there, but we'll get into that later. Needless to say, silliness, tears, etc. etc., lots of weird and fascinating language difficulties and opportunities, many different smells (few pleasant), etc.etc.etc. whatever.

Food! Food is good. I'm currently living on a diet consisting mostly of cheap Hospital lunches, invites to occasional local bbqs, and leftover Bible Study pastries.

Only sort of. But I'm eating a monstrous amount of yogurt, hummus, and fresh produce. That's about it. Vegetables, oil, and milk fat. (With live cultures!) 

Also for the last week I've been having the most incredible inexplicable cravings for dark chocolate and coconut. I've been rapidly burning through some funny imported Polish coconut cookies but I'm never satisfied. I usually trust that my body knows what it's doing better than I do, so I sort of just follow its lead, but this might be one of those times where I have to step in and demand that it put down the Dr. Gerard Kubanki Kokosowe. (now with Podluzne kruche ciasteczko wypelnione kremem śmietankowym i wiórkami kokosowymi!)

Here be pictures.

rice and lentils and onions (mujuddara) and what is probably yogurt or tahini sauce.  (R-L cause that's how they do here)

Cucumbers and tomatoes and various other things diced up, and probably drowned in parsley (tabbouleh!)

shakshouka and coffee! Egg, tomato stuff with various other vegetables mixed in, anddddd parsley.

Did I mention I work on the Mount of Olives and can go chill out here in the mornings, only minutes from my workplace? No I don't think I did. Hey look, the sovereign nation of Jordan! (The hazy, faint mountains in the distance) And now we return to your regularly scheduled food programming.

Most meals outside of my flat consist of many little plates like this. It's a little overwhelming. Also this is just the appetizer round. It's called "salads" and it's an opportunity to stuff your face with hummus and arugula. 

And after salads... Meat! And potatoes! And more vegetables! And more meat! And usually someone will complain to the waiter at this point about the woefully insufficient supply of hummus thus far received. Then more hummus will be delivered, and there is generally much rejoicing. (If you don't eat all the hummus and/or complain about there not being enough, you're probably not adequately fulfilling your social obligations.)

Oh parsley. You're like that friend I thought I sort of knew cause you were always kind of hanging out on the fringes with our pals back in high school, all ground up and somewhere in that ubiquitous "generic spices" category, but now I get to know you and see you in your element, as an individual, on your own terms, and wow you taste funny.






Also the lemonade here is made with mint. I don't think I'm ever coming back. (Kidding! I'm kidding! Don't deport me!)

Flashes of Coffee, Cats, and Assertive Hospitality: First Impressions of the Holy Land

The hour spent taxi-ing from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after our flight is the longest hour I've ever experienced. I want to sleep and I have to sleep but I already slept for maybe half of the 11 hour flight and if I sleep much more I know I'll be awake all night.

I blink repeatedly to keep my eyes open, telling my body it's not time to sleep yet and trying to keep hushed the shouts of "LIES!" it keeps throwing back at me. I want so bad to be able to look out the window and calmly observe the middle eastern landscape, but I keep stumbling violently into dreams and I can't tell what's real -- all I know is I'm uncomfortable. I feel more cramped than I actually am because my body blindly, angrily somehow still thinks it's on a plane.

We get out of the shuttle at the front of our East Jerusalem neighborhood, send our bags ahead in a friend's van, and begin the trek to the flat. First lucid observation outside of the airport: There are a lot of cats. Cats of varying breeds and levels of healthiness swarm like squirrels through the alleys and dumpsters and into the streets. They're the only creature I've ever experienced that can "not care" in an intensely threatening manner. Lots of cats in Jerusalem. Huh.

This lone cat subsided from creepy staring long enough for us to take an artsy shadow shot. Thanks! You can go back to licking yourself.

Beginnings are weird. Of relationships, of experiences, of adventures -- no matter what exactly is being "begun," the beginning seems to do the same sort of thing. In the long-term it doesn't look like it amounts to much: first impressions fade, you settle in, you might barely remember how it all started -- but beginnings set the tone and lay the defining groundwork for the structure and dynamic that is to come.



It was my first day in my flat, in my new space, my first step out of structured orientation and into independence. I'd moved in and then left again to go explore -- and when I say explore, I mean stumble around aimlessly and nervously trying to cobble together Arabic phrases in my head and find my way to the store and back. After an hour of anxiously and awkwardly finding my way to a store and buying an Arabic version of "The Giving Tree" ("Shajara il-Kareem"), I was on my way back home, struggling with the overwhelmingness of everything.

I was excited to be out on my own (not including my host-brother-uncle type character who wasn't here yet at that point), but all of my confidence and overflowing energy was suddenly nowhere to be found. I was so eager to finally climb out of the nest and get away from the small family of birds I'd spent a month of orientation with that I didn't even notice that there was apparently no ground there, just a lot of open air and a terrifying sense of height.

But then I see a coffeeshop in the distance. My last hope at comfort and stability: coffee. I plan to regroup and recenter myself with a nice, hot cup of the local bean water, which is similar enough to my experiences with bean water in America that it's familiar and a little bit nostalgic.

I walk in and start throwing around coffee-buying-related-Arabic-phrases like nobody's business. I'm on home turf now, I tell myself.

But wait! I'm fascinated by the sights and smells of the coffeeshop and its long bank of piles of beans and various coffee-related machines and contraptions that I don't understand -- but the cashier's blank looks and blunt English responses tell me two things: 1) I have some things to learn about coffee here. 2) Also Arabic. I've got a ways to go there.

And 3). This is not a place you go to buy a cup of coffee. I seem to be buying a half-kilo of Arabic coffee. Whoops.

But then we start talking. He's caught on to my feverish commitment to speaking Arabic as much as possible, so he tries every phrase in Arabic now before switching to English (after I pathetically repeat, "shu?" "shu?" "shu?" (What?) for lack of a better phrase with which to say "I'm sorry, come again? I have no clue what you just said but I want to.")

He affirms me and my attempts to speak language, I tell him I'm living in the area for the year and volunteering with the local Lutheran church, HE KNOWS THE PEOPLE I'M STAYING WITH, we converse, he pontificates about the local culture and what my year ahead has in store for me, HE DECLARES HIMSELF MY FRIEND; Inside my head I'm freaking out, one little positive social encounter and I'm overjoyed, words have happened successfully between me and people AND SOME OF THEM WERE IN ARABIC.

I'm flipping out on the inside but on the outside I'm still going through the motions of a commercial transaction. I pay, I take the coffee, and I go ahead and leave, closing our conversation in the process and making abundant promises to stop by in the future and check in.

As I leave with an absurd grin on my face, the last 10 minutes a big happy blur, I realized I closed that conversation a little abruptly and totally could have lingered a bit. Was that awkward? Yes. But he didn't mind. He was just going about his day and making mine in the process. (Leaving out names and exact places so he won't be overly associated with my making a fool of myself.)

Also I got the wrong kind of coffee. If I put this in my coffee-maker I'll get a cup of mud and a disgusting coffee-maker. Whoops.



One week later? I'm moved in for good and settling in, finally finishing blog. Also I have the right kind of coffee now. Everything is as it should be.

New Beginnings and an End to Waiting

It's been less like stasis and more like a sort of limbo, a weird, indefinite holding pattern of weeks on end, shuffling our feet, twiddling our thumbs and pacing through Detroit and Chicago as we wait for the powers that be in the Israeli consulate to give us a thumbs up.

We go to YAGM orientation and then the rest of the YAGMs leave. We tearily say goodbye as they disperse across the globe, and then we lie around Chicago and go to a museum and our sentimental feels start to get a little puzzled.

The other YAGMs who got their visas late start to abandon us too, but it's okay! We drive to Michigan! Things are happening and we're going places! We watch some movies and it's interesting and there's a whole bunch of band geeks and Jesuit retirees and everything's hunky-dory.

Then the band kids leave us too. We tearily say goodbye as they tromp off to start the school year, disturbed and perturbed by the clingy, sobbing young adults from Chicago. The cafeteria starts to empty, the schedule begins to loosen, and all of us start showing up to every meal 5-20 minutes late. Pretty soon even the employees there start disappearing, and we're left pining for a weekend retreat group to come ask us to be quiet or simply a staff person to come refill our coffee and nag us about the mugs and spoons we keep squirreling away from the dining hall.

But then we see the light at the end of the tunnel, albeit shrouded in a murky haze of visa uncertainty and regional conflict. We drag our things back to Chicago and try to keep our heads up, but the doubt and abandonment issues of recent weeks cast a pall of uncertain futility over our efforts to remain something vaguely resembling "positive."

Then commence two days of chaos. We drive and walk and public transport our way back and forth to and from Trader Joe's, the Israeli Consulate, and the ELCA Churchwide office countless times. We face sudden interrogation at every turn from embassy security officers, grocery store staffers, and well-meaning receptionists.

"Are you having a pleasant browse?" "So how's the visa situation?" "Are you carrying with you a weapon or anything that may resemble a weapon?" As we slump over our cart in the frozen food aisle and wait for the latest stressful 7-way phone conversation interchange to end -- as an ELCA staffer passes us in the hallway on their way to another productive and fulfilling work venture through which they meet a purpose and feel validated -- as a deep, hushed, and strongly-accented voice shoots rapid-fire questions at us over a phone and ushers us up to the 31st floor of a building with messily transliterated name tags.

Through last minute sprints across town, through reschedule after reschedule and visa delay after visa delay after desperately awaited cross-country overnight package after desperately awaited cross-country overnight package, our long period of waiting in limbo began to come to an end.

An end arose in sight, but we were too doubtful, too beaten down by past betrayals and past hurts to hold too firmly to hope. Monday. 5:30 p.m.ish. With a slightly-better-than-decent chance of all visas and flights appearing in the right place and time.

We've spent nearly a month on orientating, and now we're finally being retrieved from the dirty cryogenic chamber in the ELCA's basement. But we feel loved! And validated! And ready (more or less)! My body's just afraid to get too excited for fear of disappointment.






(Pictures will be added after arrival overseas in order to make more clear any weird, unexplained portions of this.)

Stepping Stones to Community While We Float in Limbo (i.e. Michigan)

The upside of getting your visas delayed? You have two whole extra weeks to spend exclusively with your fellow travelers in tight community. And the downside? You have two whole extra weeks to spend exclusively with your fellow travelers in tight community.

But in the end it's net-positive! (And I'm not just saying that because some of my four fellow volunteers and two country coordinators will likely end up reading this.)

Living in community is not an unproductive venture. Something important and valuable happens when you live in a tight space with a small group of people -- with only the hustle and bustle of the retired Jesuits all around to distract you from each others' irritating little personality quirks.

Living in community (initially) is one of those vaguely painful and somewhat uncomfortable processes (like starting at a new school or dental surgery under anesthesia) where you commit yourself to going through some awkwardness, swelling and irritation, and then you come out the other side good as new (except perhaps with numb chipmunk cheeks or a little syringe for cleaning the food gunk out of your mouth for the next few weeks.)

(Speaking of the dentist, I've continued working steadily on my Arabic, and I think I can honestly say that I've never made weirder noises in my life. Doing a lot of gargling and spitting. A'yup.)

You fake it until you make it, essentially. You create community by acting as if it's already there (assuming nothing goes seriously wrong to disrupt and derail your dental surgery in progress). And just like any good medical procedure, there's a standard sort of process to it. (I work at camp, so this is something we work on and watch in action and theorize about on a weekly basis.)

We arrived at YAGM (Young Adults in Global Mission) orientation only vaguely familiar with each other, like those people you did that group project with that once in Spanish 250. So for that first week we were on our best behavior (the 5 of us but also the other 60ish YAGM volunteers). We had fun, got to know each other, and engaged in friendly shenanigans, but we didn't totally relax. We thought before we spoke, watched our manners, and generally kept our quirks at bay.

In the school of thought I come from, we call that pseudo-community: We feel like close friends that are really there for each other, but we don't really actually know each other yet. As soon as pressure appears and you sort of have to work as a team or even make a decision together, the facade starts to show some cracks. You've come together as a community like cold marshmallows, gently fitting together and rubbing up against each other with no real pressure or friction, but without any real cohesion or strength to resist outside forces.

The YAGM community at the end of the first week of orientation was not your ordinary pseudo-community, but you can only do so much in a week. The YAGM authorities not only broke the ice for us but proceeded to shove us into the lake, forcing us to get to know each other at a serious level instead of dwelling at the surface and standoffishly chatting about our preferences in pets and toothpastes. It was a bit cold under there but it had to be done.

The crazy-stressful experience of the impending life adventures and challenges and the sense of foreboding that comes with that helped to start bonding our marshallows together a little more thoroughly, and the shared vision and mission gave our marshmallows the will and momentum to stay firmly together -- but it will be up to the rest of the year to come to turn that gooey mass into a rock hard, sticky safety net of emotional support and compassionate conviction.

So we had an impressive amount of collective marshmallow cushion to rest on as a community by the end of that first week, but the true comfort of community hadn't begun to set in quite yet. (So maybe orientation heated us up to melt us together, but I didn't finish drying?)

The YAGM team headed to Jerusalem, meeting with our lovely Arabic tutor, Sally.

Whatever. It's a complicated process, different people progress at different rates, and the stages tend to melt into each other like soft, cylindrical spongy confections made from sugar, gelatin, and egg white. But by the time us Jerusalem peeps started getting our quality time as a small gorup after everyone else left, the "best behavior" was fading fast. I felt myself relaxing and letting the quirks fly. (Mostly a lot of mumbling, random falsetto, giggling, weird non sequiturs, and picking corn kernels off other people's plates.)

And that's a good sign. Comfort and genuine behavior is important in a community! But it also means your little cloud of personality can start getting in other people's way, and you sometimes find that other people's collected masses of condensated quirks tick you off a little bit. Interpersonal cloud conflict is going to happen in any attempted community, but for it to really work, you've got learn how to work around those barriers of personal eccentricities. And if you're really a high-functioning community, you'll find out how to harness them.

So us Jerusalem YAGMers have had a valuable two weeks to learn how to actually function as a team, but also to start learning how to tolerate, appreciate, and love each other fully. Yay!

God's peace and goodbye for now!


Michael