Before the weekend, I took a night walk around the city with my camera, trying to capture some of the contrasts in dark and gold. PICTURES
The next day I awoke to a phone call by one of my Dutch Israeli relatives, and since I didn't have a plan for my day off, I jumped on a bus up to Kiryat Ono, a Tel Aviv suburb. There I found Fien and Shimon, who discussed with me their lifestyle in the neighborhood and the difficulties of efforts they and their family has made to promote co-existence. They also shared their warm hospitality, offering fruits of their garden, including some enormous oranges, as well as a palmello they bought recently. I ended the day wandering around the outskirts of the town, on a walk with Shimon. Where there were once endless orange groves, there are now neglected dunes and future sights of mile-high apartment complexes. PICTURES
Thursday I took Ari and Zoe, two students, to explore some local hot spots, the Ethiopian Church Compound and Mea Shearim. Both the Church and the neighborhood are a next-door to each other, yet both are insular environments. PICTURES
I made it a priority to see Fien and Shimon, because I was fortunate enough to find two students, Zach and Emily, who hadn't made plans for the weekend yet, and were interested in trying something new: a hike up north!
Using the expert resources of the Kivunim Israel programmer Batya, and the Civ teacher Josh, we plotted an easy trail up north, with magnificent views and convenient access by bus. We landed on Har (or Mt.) Tabor.
After purchasing some basic food from the Shuk, including challah, hummus, chewy bars and marzipan rugalach, we took a bus to Afula, and from there took another bus further north, and from a junction we walked to a nearby agricultural school where we could sleep for the night.
Following a short nap, we ordered a plain pizza to be delivered to the school for dinner. An hour+ later, a pizza with olives was delivered. We gave it back, and then ordered two plain pizzas, since the pie looked too small for three people. When the next order of pizzas finally arrived, we devoured the first slices, and quickly realized that the pizzas were perhaps the most cardboard-like food in the region.
At 9:15pm we were about to go to sleep, but Zach realized it would be worthwhile to find out about the details of the group's upcoming first international trip to Greece and Bulgaria. With an early departure, these two kiddos would effectively be hiking up a mountain on Saturday, staying up all night and then arriving in Athens for a full day of touring. The next time they would be going to sleep, they will have seen the Acropolis. Anyway, Zach read the very lengthy itinerary of the trip, from his Blackberry, for TWO AND A HALF HOURS. After discussing the details, we decided we better call it a night.
The next morning, we woke up at 7:30, grabbed a quick breakfast and headed into a forest with Mt. Tabor in our sights. After climbing a fence, we found a trail, but we weren't really sure which way to take it, because neither direction headed towards the mountain. After some trial and error, and asking some groups of bikers, we finally found the Israel Path, a national trail that covers the length of the country. Following this route, we passed a family of camels, entered an Arab village called Shibli, where we chatted with the kids and where Zach worked on his Arabic, and arrived at "Tabor Terminal," where a large Indian group of pilgrims was shopping.
From there, we started the ascent, and boy was it steep. All of us fell on multiple occasions, and since we were deep in a forest, we couldn't tell how close we were to the peak of the mountain until we finally saw a steeple. About two minutes later, it was noon, so the bells further confirmed our proximity. Meanwhile, down below us stretched the colorful farmlands of the Lower Galilee, and the hills of Nazareth.
Once at the top, we enjoyed our feast and slowed the pace, since the church and monastery had closed for the day before we made it to the top. It was around this time that Zach was overcome by his dream of fulfilling the last line of the Wikipedia article about Mt. Tabor...hang-gliding! Parked at the top of the descending trail, with Emily and myself nearby, he proceeded to dial the Israel 411 number (144) at least three times. With each call, he asked the Hebrew-speaker about hang-gliding, and when the operator responded with confusion, he passed me the phone, whereby I explained in Hebrew what sky-diving was, because I didn't know the difference! Each time he got a different phone number of a company, wrote it on a different part of his body, and then dialed the number to find that it was out of use. With growing impatience, he called up Ruben, another counselor, who was just about to take a nap. Ruben surfed the web for a company, and got Zach the number. Unfortunately the number took him to a voicemail. This that Zach left as a message:
"Hey, this is Zachary. I'm calling from Mount Tabor (thankfully he didn't refer to it by its Christian name, the Mountain of Transfiguration, because nobody has any idea what that refers to, and would probably expect a Harry Potter reference). I should actually clarify, I'm sitting on the mountain right now. I'm interested in hang-gliding, but I won't to be in the country for the next ten days. Please give me a call. Thanks. Bye."
Who would accuse him of prank calling?
We continued down the Israel trail to the foot of the mountain, suffering more slips and spills, until we arrived back at Shibli, and meandered our way through the town until we got to the main road. The day of hysterics and hiking concluded, as we grabbed the first bus to Afula, and waited for Shabbat to end so we could return to Jerusalem and the sleepless night that lay ahead. PICTURES
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