Merry Christmas...

... to the ones that are observing it. For me there is no Christmas feeling what so ever and I guess that I am myself to blame and not only that I live in a mainly Jewish country. However, there have been too many other things occupying my time, so not even a slight Christmas baking have happened yet.

The primary thing is that I suddenly found myself with a job! I will translate a documentary script about Israel's war history, from English to Swedish, and I get some good money for it. I already started and it is also an interesting story, so double joy!

I will be back with more serious blogging after this ordeal... ;)

My Avatar

After being inspired by the movie

I played around a little bit with my old Photoshop skills...

Première of "Avatar"

On Wednesday I went to the cinema in Tel Aviv together with Yoram to see James Cameron's "Avatar". In case you want an experience full of surprises and unpredictability, then this is nothing for you, but if you enjoy beautifully produced science fiction, then you are up for a treat.

The theme is classic, an educational story about an energy conglomerate who wants to exploit the planet Pandora for an extremely valuable mineral called unobtainium, all on the expense of its native inhabitants. Pandora is inhabited by a humanoid species, the Na'vi, who by first glance seem primitive, but who really lives in a highly evolved symbiosis with a huge planetary network which connects the spiritual consciousness of all life. The rest of the ingredients are self-evident. Protagonist meets Na'vi girl, falls in love, gets enlightened about real values and morals and ends up fighting the exploiters, who are backed up by a military force, including a fierce colonel who serves as the main antagonist in the final battle between good and evil. The message is of course of high importance, to cherish the wonders of nature instead of ruthlessly exploit limited resources, but it feels like this theme has become a bit devalued and I wonder how many people really sucked the message in and brought it home to incorporate it in their principal attitude towards life.

The strength of the movie was no doubt the animations. All Pandora creatures were very well-made and there was no evident boundary between actors and animations. What in daylight seemed like an Earth-like forest, was during the night revealing itself as a colourful fluorescing fairyland that would make any trance party organiser green with envy. The movie was filmed with newly developed stereoscopic cameras that simulate human sight, and you get the 3D effect using polarizing glasses. However, I am stereoblind from birth and therefore not able to enjoy the 3D effects. I can experience occasional sensations of depth when I watch it, but it is very limited. Yoram, though, claimed that the 3D effects were quite amazing.

For the science fiction fans this is a must, but if you want a lot out of the story it is a pretty weak movie, but no one can take away that it is amazingly beautiful!

Our aikidogs

It has been raining almost constantly during the whole weekend, which makes long walks with the dogs less attractive. The fields also become extremely muddy so we try to avoid them during wet periods. Not that I am lazy with cleaning and drying dogs, we simply do not have any convenient way to clean them from the mud outside, or inside for that matter. I guess that is the disadvantage with being apartment dogs for the time being. Therefore I have tried to arrange as much nice indoor activities as possible, like searching for hidden treats, some clicker training and nice bones to work on.

Saturday we had an aikido marathon here in Tivon, 6 hours aikido, 6 teachers, non stop. The dogs came with us since we decided that Barak is not ready yet for 6 hours alone with Goshen at home. We tied them up nicely in the gym hall and after a while both settled down. Then of course people don't use their common sense and went up and talked to Barak when he was tied. That goes well at first, but when you turn your back he might either charge at you barking or try to nibble you a bit. Yoram got frantic after Barak's first barking outburst, but I calmed him down, moved the dog to a corner and all was fine.

Unless you are well acquainted with dog psychology and behaviour it is strongly inadvisable to walk up to an unknown dog that is tied. This dog is in a very vulnerable position with nowhere to escape and if the dog is the least insecure and unstable, this can lead to defensive aggression. For the exact same reason you should avoid unfamiliar dogs greeting each other tied down or on too short leashes since this also limits the freedom of expression for the dogs. Most cases of dog aggression occurs in dogs that are on the leash.

Barak is not an aggressive dog, but he will try to dominate anyone he feels is weak. This involves nibbling, pushing and intimidating. Real aggression involves real bites, not nibbles, but of course ignorant people will not tell the difference. Barak is still not completely stable in his new pack and therefore still takes matters in his own hands sometimes, but I can see more and more that he seeks guidance in us for how to act in different situations, which is very promising.

Discipline and longing

Some disobedience is self-regulating. We don't want dogs in the kitchen when we make food, for natural reasons, and this is something Goshen has no problem with whatsoever. She just goes to her bed and rests. Barak, on the other hand, who is not even used to living indoors with a family, is very interested in what is going on in the kitchen, and very persistent about it. We have a long and narrow kitchen with the entrance door in one short end, and just by the door we have the fridge, positioned in a way that when opening the door, it blocks the entrance to the kitchen. Barak knows that he should stay at least outside the kitchen opening, but the discussion is never-ending. He tries to enter the kitchen all the time and when we open the fridge door he has to back away. The other day he really tried to stick his head past the fridge door with the consequence that he suddenly found himself with the head stuck between the fridge door and the other wall. The moment of terror of being stuck was stronger than the actual impact of the door, so without any damage done, he is now backing up rapidly when we open the fridge door. Let us see how long it will last.

I think he ate a sock this morning. It was one of the socks I wore yesterday, and I had them beside my bed during the night. This morning Yoram was up early and then the dogs come to life and run around. Goshen almost never go in to the bedroom, while Barak still tries to claim all rooms. I tried to sleep but got several wake-up calls from a big spongy Shepherd's nose (and tongue) and at that time he must have snatched one of the socks. When I got up I could not find it anywhere and I also cleaned the house today without finding any sock. Either it comes out the natural way (hopefully), or we get a case of digestive system blocking that demands surgery... *sigh*

I have started to notice that Barak can be quite a challenge for Goshen sometimes, and although she efficiently tells him off most of the time, he is after all much stronger than her and very persistent. Today he was bugging her a lot at one point which led to a small fight. I pulled him off and put him to the ground to show him that this was not acceptable behaviour. I could see than Goshen was a bit intimidated by the event, so from now on she will receive more support from us humans. I am against messing too much with the dogs social life since I believe that human interventions sometimes cause more trouble than assistance, but in this case I can see that my tolerance level needs to be adjusted.

We have a child-free weekend with a 6-hours aikido marathon here in Tivon on Saturday, so I look forward to some nice quality time with my man and my dogs, which is well needed.

Today I received a package that was sent from my parents, with some things I needed from Sweden. When I saw my Mums handwriting I got a emotional. I miss my parents most of all and occasionally it comes over me like a storm and this was such a moment. We have always been used to having each other close and spending much time together, so this is the longest stretch without them ever. I comfort myself with my newly bought tickets for my Sweden trip in February. I will be there from the 1st of February until the last and I could not care less that it will be during the worst part of the winter, because I really need to see my loved ones.

Mr Nudnik is here to stay (and grow up)

One of his cute moments, cuddled up with Goshen...

Now we have had Barak in the family for a week and it is safe to say that we also have decided to keep him. He continues getting calmer, but at the same it gets clearer to us where we have to put the most effort in the training. He gets really excited about cats, and since Goshen also has a thing with cats, we notice that there is a risk of a synergistic effect if we don't watch out. Therefore we have started to also have Goshen on a leash a bit more often to correct her when she gets excited over cats.

Barak does occasionally run away, but returns when he has had enough. When I took them to the fields the other day he followed us nicely and I called him in to me on a regular basis and he was very attentive and obedient, but as soon as we headed towards home he took a tour around our houses and the trigger was of course the cats around there. A dog that has grown up with no leadership and therefore started doing this, will be quite a challenge to stop from doing it. He knows the "come" command, but when he is distracted he simply ignores it, since he already got the taste for independence. We can only hope that he will cool down and feel more and more like a part of the pack and therefore stay with it, and during the trips to the fields we simply have to put him back on the leash further away from home and hope that this will be enough.

The other day he showed some aggression towards the neighbours male Pekingese. However, both dogs were on a leash and probably very excited and that is not a good condition for dogs to meet. Yoram realised that mistake and is now more careful. I constantly try to snap Barak out of his unhealthy excitements when we are outdoors, but it is very difficult with his extremely strong mind. I will start taking him out alone more often to remove Goshen as a distraction.

The two dogs get along very well. If he is trying to bully her around, she will tell him off and we also correct him when he is too rude against her. She is still in charge though and she is the one that decides what bone to chew on and when it is time to exchange bones and so on. Many times I see them laying wrapped up together or kissing each other and that really makes my heart soften up and for a moment I forget the times when I want to dump him on route 6 for being a complete Nudnik...

Sherut full of baklava

In Israel there are several ways to travel if you don't have your own car. There are a few train lines, but as far as I have been told, they are neither reliable, nor cheap. Buses are the main form of public transportation and the network is well-covering. There are several bus companies that operate around the country, of which Egged is the largest one. As an alternative to the bus lines there are also share taxis, or sheruts, which are mini buses that can take up to 10 passengers. These sherut companies drive the same routes as the large buses, and apply the same route numbers, but are much more flexible when it comes to picking you up and dropping you off, and the flexibility often makes the journey faster that with the regular buses. The prices are about the same as on the big buses (a bit lower in my experience) and they also have more extended operating hours. Sherut taxis usually don't have fixed timetables and will normally leave when they fill up with passengers, but that never drew me late.

Friday afternoon I headed to Tel Aviv to have a work weekend with Miles and Deborah about "Aikido without borders" and I took a sherut from Tivon to Tel Aviv. We were only four passengers since the rest of the car was filled up with baklava and during the whole trip I had the amazing fragrance of the pastries in my nose.

I went to Miles dojo, which is in the middle of renovation and we hang out there, talked and drank some wine. When Deborah arrived we went out for some food. All of us were exhausted so we slept early to be fresh for the following day. We celebrated the new kitchen by making the first breakfast there and I could really get a feel for how the aikido community there is going to develop into something great.

Before we started working we went to an exhibition at the Cinematheque (Hebrew only link) organised by the Israeli Palestinian Bereaved Families for Peace. The exhibition "Neighbors - Women Creating Reconciliation", presented circles of discussions, listening and dialogue, as well as sale of homemade foods and personal handcraft works created by the women of the Forum. The talks were mostly given in Hebrew and Arabic and were therefore not yet accessible for me, but I bought some nice things and drank excellent coffee in the sales section. Talking to some of these women and hearing Jewish and Arab women calling each other sisters gave a sensation of hope in this for the most part cynic society.

In the afternoon we planned some promotional material for Miles when he is going to the US in a few weeks. He is going to make a few fund-raising events for "Aikido without borders" and we hope that we will get some nice contributions that would help us develop already existing projects, but also actualise new ideas. Of course we only reached half of what we needed to do, since we lack resources both when it comes to time and money, but hey, who said that philanthropic quests are fancy...

I had to go home, again with a sherut. When you travel away from Tel Aviv it is even more advisable to take a sherut since you do not have to enter the actual bus station building, through security checks and then also finding the right gate in this huge ugly complex. Instead all the sheruts gather on one side of the building and you just need to find the right car right on the street. In case you seem confused there are always a whole bunch of drivers who enthusiastically see to that you end up on the right bus. I know what an ice-breaker language courtesy is, so I used the little Arabic I know. Because of this, I ended up chit-chatting with the driver all the way home, who of course knew someone in Malmö (every other Arab knows someone or has a relative in Malmö). Considering the over-representation of Arabs among the sherut drivers, I can safely conclude that there must be a fair amount of (Arabophobic) Israeli citizens who never set their foot in a sherut. It's their loss.

When I came to the house I was greeted with more love from the kids than I have received in weeks altogether and I told Yoram that this thing with going away for a few days really has its benefits. However, he did not look like he agreed...

More doggy stuff

Our big baby is getting used to his new life. In only two days we have succeeded to remove a lot of his rude pushiness. He is still not as refined in his contact with humans as Goshen is, and he probably never will be. He is after all a male, and regardless of the age difference, the two gender-roles are so evident in these two dogs. Nevertheless, Goshen corrects him, like a true mother would do with her own pups.

On the first day he peed inside three times, of which two times was on the carpet. Luckily we have carpet cleaner, since Gal still pees in bed, so the carpet was saved. The dog, in contrary to the boy, quickly learned his lesson and has not peed inside after those initial mistakes.

He likes to pick up things like socks, shoes and other small things that are misplaced, so now we got an excellent opportunity to teach the kids that if they just drop their socks anywhere, the risk that they will end up ripped in pieces is major. Of course not everything can be secured in a house you live in, so we are constantly running around reclaiming things he has grabbed. This far, he has not yet ripped anything.

The command for "sit" he knew, but did not respect much. His previous owners were probably not consistent and possibly also tried to train it in very busy environments before he was ready for it. All new things need to be introduced in a quiet environment before moving to more distractions. Anything else is not fair to the dog, since he is bound to fail. That only creates frustration and bad energy in both dog and handler and should be avoided. I started already yesterday with some exercises in the living-room, where I used clicker and treats and he is taking it very well. I started asking him to come to me and sit down facing me and already he sits down basically every time we are standing face-to-face. The commando for "down" I could notice that he did not understand at all, so that needed to come completely from scratch. However, it took no more than 10 minutes with clicker and treat before he also did that, including having added the command. Of course we repeat continuously...

He does not walk well on a leash and is, mildly said, very strong! I use a regular chain collar that came with him, and still he is a challenge to walk. I really don't want to have a battle of strength and I try to lure him a lot and make turns as much as possible, but still there are moments where he is really pulling. I don't want to have to use a pinch collar to make him listen, so I have to figure out some good strategy with the walk on leash.

Yoram let him loose in the valley for a short moment this morning and it went well. A bit later I had him loose and at first all went well. I called him a few times, he came, and I let him go again, to make him realise that a recall does not always mean back to the leash. However, all of a sudden he took a tour, ran away up through the neighbours backyard and up on front side of the houses. I heard the small dogs around the house bark and then I understood where he was at. Goshen actually understood what had happened and spontaneously started to track him with her nose. What a dog she is! All and all, it was over in two minutes and he returned to me, and as you know it was really hard not being angry with him when he were back with us. Recall is a big challenge for us. Leaving the house is much better. He is still a bit excited, but does not jump and we are actually able to take ourselves and Goshen out before him. Goshen also gets her food before him. She sits down quietly by her self as I pour the food up in the bowls, while the boy is a bit anxious. After she is fed I ask him to sit, which he does, and that is perfectly sufficient in this stage. He is a great kisser and we are all falling for him...

The first day of the rest of his life

For those of you who are not that interested in dogs, I am afraid to say that I think that the near future will involve a lot of dog talk on the blog, since my life now primarily surrounds rehabilitating Barak. Anyhow, I will try to dilute it with some other subjects too now and then. But not now.

Barak behaved well during his first night in our house. He wandered about a bit a few times, but no peeing or pooing and no eating up non-edible or edible things. Yoram took both dogs for a pee pee ride first thing in the morning and then I got a chance to go out and hang the laundry in peace and quiet before Yoram and the kids left the house.

The first problem we had to start addressing is his extreme excitation when he expects to go out. As soon as we prepare for a walk, put on shoes, grab the collar and leash, he goes bananas and bounces at the door, runs around our legs and tries to push himself out before us. It is not at all nice having a 45 kg baby doing that and correcting him with the same energy only made him escalate. Yoram has less patience than me (and time), so this had to be my thing to fix. I decided to wait him out for the right state of mind.

I had treats available and I started by grabbing the collar from the shelf. When the chain rattled he started gearing up, upon which I just sat down again in the sofa with my computer. After he laid down and relaxed I tried to approach him, but if he rose in energy I went back to the sofa. After a while I could go to him while he was still laying down and play with the chain in my hand while rewarding him for staying calm. After I was able to put the chain on him while he was in a calm state, I did the same with the leash. Every moment of calm took him one step closer to the walk, while every moment of stress took him one step back.

This boy is not stupid and he soon understood the game. After almost two hours we could walk up to the door in a calm state. From that moment and on, I had another 45 minutes of asking him to sit down while I opened the door. If he rose and tried to get out, I closed the door in front of his nose.

The evidence! Barak laying down in front of the open door!

The picture shows him laying down with the door open, somewhat tense, but gizillion times better than before. I was now able to let Goshen out first (she was of course enthusiastically involved in the whole process), then me, and Barak last. He even walked out, and not bursted. This was one victory, but the whole process will most likely have to be repeated several times before he owns it.

The reward for being calm - The Walk!

During the long walk I continuously worked on having him walk nicely by my side and sitting down frequently, and by letting him out on the long training leash, I could train some recall. The recall will be one of the biggest challenges. He does not take much notice of his name since he is not used to any consistency, besides that he suffers from the typical 2-years-old inattentiveness. The walk was followed by some grooming. I applied anti-tick drops on both of them and then I cut Baraks claws. He is totally OK with being touched everywhere - only thing is a slight lack of patience, typical for a young dog. Anyhow, I rapidly finished all the front feet claws, since they are always the longest. The hind feet claws I save until tomorrow.

Barak has realised that in his new home he is not the one in charge and the effect this realisation has on him is enormous. It feels like he is getting calmer and calmer every hour and the sighs he lets out when he stretches out on the floor can be heard all the way to Haifa. When he hears sounds outside he is very attentive, but he looks at me for guidance and when I stay calm he lets it go and relaxes again. He is surrendered and happy, but still there is a long way to go to teach him good social manners.

Welcome Barak

Barak looking a bit confused in his new home,

while Goshen is sharing her calm energy

Today we welcomed a new member to our pack. Barak is a 2,5-years old German Shepherd male, who I anonymously mentioned in an earlier blog post. During his life he has not received the confident guidance a young dog like him needs, and therefore he has ended up in some unfortunate situations. I have met him briefly a few times before and he is generally quite rude in his approach to people, all out of lack of education. He also ran away from his former owner a few times, so we will have to work a lot on the recall, using a long training leash. He then recently happened to bite a neighbour, but the neighbour was trespassing on the property so Barak's action only mirrored a territorial behaviour, which is something that is bred into this dog. However, this behaviour has to be controlled and fine-tuned, as any character trait and in this case young Barak took decisions into his own hands, which is not fair to a dog.

He was brought to our house and I met him up outside. We started our relationship by taking a long walk, only him and me. He was more attentive than I expected and we did some contact exercises and I immediately started to expect him to listen to me and respect me. I noticed that he still has a lot of puppy behaviour, among other things he often sits down when he pees. He does not seem to have an issue with other dogs in general, which is a good sign. We passed some barking dogs, but he did not take notice or got provoked. We also met Lucy, a neighbours Pitbull, who always run around loose below the houses and Barak showed normal social behaviour with her. I am thinking about some appropriate well-behaved male to introduce him to when the time comes. However, he has a slight cat issue. A cat happened to just show up in a bush he passed and he charged at it, but I was fast enough to be able to correct him and he also took the correction well. The cat thing we will have to work on.

When we came home again I let Goshen out and we spent some greeting time outside before I took everybody inside. I let Barak enter last to show him that he is not the owner of the place. Goshen acted flawlessly and I was so proud of her. Barak was a bit confused and restless, but we just showed him how the pack can rest together by just being calm. He wandered about for a while but soon started to quiet down and find some rest. He peed on the floor once and then later on the carpet, but it was not out of defiance, but merely because he is not at all used to being indoor. Goshen even shared one of her bones with him, but it was still clear that she acted out of patience rather than submission. Her alpha role over him was never even questioned. It came natural and was self-evident. He tried to mount the sofa a few times, but took the correction well, as well as when we asked him to stay away from the table when me and Ziv had lunch.

Yoram came home a bit earlier from work and took both of the dogs for a longer run in the fields. It was clear when they came back that Goshen is in a much better shape, because it took forever before Barak stopped panting. Generally speaking, I represent most of the obedience training, while Yoram provides most of the serious exercise, but we both possess the calm-assertive energy and that is the most important thing of them all... Lucky Barak!

Both dogs tired after the run

Bracing morning aikido

In Israel it is very hot when it is hot, as well as it is very cold when it is cold. Our house is not insulated and during this season it is way colder indoors than outdoors, so I shuffle around in my sheep-skin shoes, big jumpers and shawls. You can probably imagine how getting up from the warm bed to visit the toilet in the middle of the night is no easy ride. Today we had an aikido date with Anati at 7.45 and on the way over to her house we measured 11 degrees, which is probably the lowest temperature I have experienced here so far. The night was clear which brings on very cool air. I told Yoram that I thought that we would probably practice inside, upon which he answered "Don't be so sure...". As we arrived, I realised that he was right and Anati had already placed the tatamis in front of the porch. I had not been out of bed for more than 10 minutes, and therefore still a bit shivery, but I did not complain for long. After some frisk warm-up (with socks on) the socks came off and we had the loveliest practice. The sun came up and the air was high and clean. That's life quality!

Your dog is a wolf on the inside

Goshen working on a raw recreational bone

Sorry for neglecting the blog for as much as three days. We have had the nicest weekend together, without the kids, which meant more real life and less cyberspace. On the Friday we went to Samir's butcher shop to fill up our stash of meat. We also brought a few recreational bones for Goshen and in the evening when the humans devoured entrecôte, Goshen got a raw bone.

As we enjoyed our meat, we were watching the deeply focused Goshen working on her bone and we started to discuss the diet of a dog. A dog is a sub-species of the wolf and the digestive system in a dog has not changed noticeably from its wild ancestor. A wolf is a predator, who eats muscle meat, some internal organs and bone, and it eats it raw. So, why do we not feed our dogs like that? Well, as with so many other things it is all about convenience and money. Convenience, because it is easier to scoop up a bowl of dry kibble to the dog every day and you don't have to handle fresh products. You don't need to think much. Money on the other hand, is not, as you might think, primarily about kibble being more cheap. As long as you develop a good relation to a butcher, you can feed your dog raw food to less than the price of any kibble. The money aspect is instead about the multi-billion dollar dog-food industry, which in many ways can be compared to the pharmaceutical industry - with its sometimes questionable objectives.

Commercial dog food primarily consists of grains and vegetable products, while the protein source might be animal by-products from what is referred to as 4D-meat, or dead, dying, diseased and disabled. I presume that I do not have to develop that further to get my point through. I will not argue that all commercial dog food is made from the lowest quality animal protein, but anything far away from a chunk of meat with a bone inside, cannot be considered natural food for a predator. Not only do the pet food industry seduce you with misleading advertising, they also take help from the one person most pet owners trust the most, their vet. Just as physicians are corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry, in the same way dog-food producers "buy off" the vets to promote their feed. And what would the vets do if all dogs were healthy enough to reduce the visits to the vet to merely going there to get a microchip when it is a puppy? See the pattern?

If you look at the poo from a dog that is kept on kibble, they drop huge piles, while a dog kept on raw animal food will leave tiny, dry pieces that most closely resembles dry fox poo. One who can do the math then realises that the bioavailability of many of the ingredients in the kibble leaves more to wish for.

Anyhow, we started to search for some information about raw dog food, and first we stumbled over BARF (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food or Bones And Raw Food). BARF promotes 60-80% raw meat and bones and 20-40% fruits and vegetables. They claim that dogs are omnivores and that they therefore need the vegetables and other supplements. This is based on the early domesticated dogs who scavenged whatever was available around the human camp, but according to me, this says more about the presence (or lack) of proper food than the dogs preferences. The BARF people also commonly mash the meat together with the vegetables and other supplements and serve the dog these "burgers", and as far as I know there is no one that grinds the meat for the wolfs in the wild. I realised that this strategy is more of a compromise than a complete return to basics and since I did not feel satisfied enough, I had to move on.

Then I discovered the prey model diet. Now things started to become interesting because this model actually tries to mimic the diet of a wild dog, including the proportions of the different parts of the prey animal, i.e. organs, muscle meat, bone, skin and blood, but also whole eggs and small amounts of fur, scales and feathers. In short-hand this means whole (or parts) of animals that the dog has to work on with its teeth, and the effect that this has on the teeth hygiene is self-evident. To get a balanced diet these raw-feeders try to supply a wide variety of prey animals to their dogs, and to feed fish on a regular basis to compensate for the reduced amount of omega-3 fatty acid in commercially raised grain-fed livestock. According to this theory, the only vegetable source a dog needs is a fresh lawn of green grass for the dog to take a few straws now and then to help remove indigestible bone fragments from the gastrointestinal tract. I found a few useful information sources about raw feeding, as well as some fascinating myth-busting and a very active mail group, so besides educating us more, we are about to see what kind of deal we can make with Samir. He breeds the animals himself, so with him there is an unbroken line from the live animal to the customer, which is very satisfying. He breeds beef cattle, lamb and chicken and if he agrees to provide us with both meaty bones and organs from the different animals, then we have everything covered except a fish of some kind once a week. Will we get from theory to practice..?

And just for your information, this post might appear very contradictory to the last post in where I presented a picture of Goshen chewing on a carrot. That whole thing was more of a joke than actual practice. We do not feed her vegetables (other than the vegetables in the commercial kibble she unfortunately still is on). She is after all a dog and not a rabbit.

Green is not mean

My green soup from yesterday,

with soup almonds and sprouts

I made the most delicious soup yesterday. Lots of different vegetables and big green beans boiled in a chicken broth, and the broccoli and parsley added in a late stage not to kill the chlorophyll. When it came to the kids, Yoram told me that I could be pretty bold with ingredients as long as the soup was homogenised properly, so that no signs of vegetables could be detected. This reminded me of all lost city-kids without any attachments to the natural sources of foods, who think that milk comes from the milk factory or that fish sticks are swimming around as fish sticks, and in this case, a soup that probably comes straight out from a machine.

However, I swallowed that thought and ran the soup through the blender to a thick and beautiful green soup and I added some cream towards the end to enhance the flavours (alas not a kosher soup ;). In Israel, it is common to eat soup with something called soup almonds, which are tiny mini-croutons that you sprinkle on top of the soup. The regular ones are of course made from white flour and hardly nutritious, but we found organic full-grain soup almonds that we served with the soup. Yoram and I also sprinkled broccoli and radish sprouts on our bowls.

We hoped that the soup almonds would be a good encourager for the kids to eat the soup. However, the kids promptly decided that a green soup is not edible, although it did not taste dominantly of any of the ingredients, rather not any different from any other mixed vegetable soup. The reason was simply the colour, which convinced me that these kids never ate a green vegetable in their whole life, which is very sad, since green vegetables contain many important phytochemicals.

White soup almonds are almost like candy, and after the meal Yoram said to me that he did not think that the full-grain ones were as tasty as the white ones, upon which I had to disagree. I loved these more natural ones. It also made me realise that taste preference is all about customs and routine, and that I have today shifted my own perception of taste into enjoying full and natural foods more than processed and refined foods. This also goes for children. If a child is brought up on natural and healthy foods, that is also what they will prefer. Kids normally eat what the parents eat. Simple as that. This does not mean that I promote strict absence of the other stuff. That would only make it more desirable, so it is important to allow a certain amount of indulgence. I rather promote a lot of education for the kids about the importance of a good diet. That is what I am slowly trying to implement on the ones I have at home, but it is a slow and bumpy road.

In the end, the kids refusal to eat the soup rendered me leftovers for today's lunch, but that is a small reward...

A curiosity worth mentioning is that the carnivore in the family is better at eating her vegetables than the omnivore kids. Goshen happily cleaned the soup pot after dinner.

Goshen chewing on a carrot

Our K9 friends are potential weapons

This is how it should look!

What is it with all these dog owners who think that you can just get a dog and let it grow up without attending doggy school? I frequently stress that also small dogs need leadership and obedience, but the importance become so much more obvious when we deal with larger breeds of working-type. Keeping an adult German Shepherd uneducated is like handling a Qassam rocket. You have no control over where it hits and it might just blow up in your own face. The education of the dog is equivalent to the control mechanisms of a high-precision weapon.

In our proximity someone owns an adult German Shepherd male, who has also been used as a stud. He is not the aggressive type, but he is very dominant, which of course has been strengthened by them letting him breed females. Unfortunately, human ignorance has deprived him of a true leader, which obliged him to take on this role himself. Consequently, his territorial behaviour has developed uncontrolled, which sadly enough caused him to bite a neighbour the other day. He had got his rabies shots, but after these kinds of incidences precaution indicates quarantine to secure absence of infection, so now he spends one week in a compound. The owner considers getting rid of the dog because he feels that he cannot handle him. No wonder, he is a strong 45-50 kg male that pushes and pulls you around with no respect whatsoever. With knowledge, patience and consistency I think he would be an easy fix, but through one poor decision, he can end up with some "dog trainer" who will try to fix him in a disrespectful way, by abuse and cruel methods. That will either break his spirit or make him worse. I pray that he will end up getting a fair chance to rehabilitate.

Returning to the smaller dogs, this whole neighbourhood is full of small, to mid-sized dogs (but also big ones) that show all kinds of undesirable behaviour, such as uncontrolled territorial aggression, but also general aggression towards both humans and other dogs. These dogs all run around loose and the owners neither care nor excuse themselves after incidents. Only in our house we have two trouble children. One Pekinese female, who is both dominant aggressive and extremely territorial. She has repeatedly attacked Goshen and tried to bite her hind legs, but her size fortunately prevents her from causing any greater damage, as well as Goshen nowadays is more cautious around this dog and deters her with determination. She is standing at their balcony all day long barking and I can tell you that a Pekinese territorial barking is not particularly pleasant in the ears after a long day. The owners are toothless in their authority and they could not control her if they ever wanted to. I just cannot understand how they stand living like that. Our next neighbours bought a male Chihuahua puppy some months ago, and of course they did all the mistakes in the book. He has grown into a confused and very stressed boy who has way too many duties around the house. Since the owners did not provide him with any clear guidelines, he is today (or at least he think he is) head responsible of both surveillance, house alarm and protection, as well as general organisation of the activities in their family. He is never off the leash and often in the arms of his owner which have prevented him from even becoming socialised with other dogs, but his dominant character is palpable. He is barking in canon with the Pekinese bitch and we live right in between. Imagine that.

I am so lucky to have a quiet, harmonious and kind dog. Or... maybe it does not have that much to do with luck at all, but instead something completely different and not at all by chance.

A small step...

Spaghetti Bolognese - Normal kids favourite

This Shabbat afternoon we drove to Karmiel to eat lunch with Yoram's mother, something we do almost every Shabbat when we have the kids. Karmiel is situated on the Northern edge of the Lower Galilee, and the climb up to Karmiel, to about 330 m above sea level, is a breath-taking ride. Every time we go there I am thinking that I would like to show you, but an image could never catch the scenery in an honourable way. See this as a prodding to come and visit.

We made Spaghetti Bolognese. I have never previously met any child that does not like Spaghetti Bolognese, until I came to the Shanir family. Until now we never tried serving it. Yoram simply told me that they won't eat, but today, for some reason, we were obviously ready for the new challenge, and to my surprise Yoram stayed firm not to make any substitute to the meat sauce for the kids. Gal promptly refused, but Ziv actually ate, after some serious encouragement from me, Yoram and Grandmother. In the end he actually took big spoons of the sauce, and hallelujah, he liked it! (Duh!) There were meat, carrots, pepper and tomatoes in it, all things he normally eat, so there was nothing to argue about. But... even the union pieces went down and then we had a big party of cheering and hugging and kissing him in reward. Gal only ate his dry spaghetti, and according to our preconditions, there were no dessert for him when the rest of us enjoyed it. The consistency lasted until we were supposed to leave, when Grandmother stuck a piece of chocolate to each kid. Yoram looked at me in resignation, while I thought to myself "If he was my kid..."

The sunset over Haifa bay on the way down was amazing. Another thing that cannot be caught on camera. The sun is huge and so much more majestic than further up North on the globe. This is were I belong.

Food - a child's best weapon

Cranberries - a real super food

I have dealt with the kids food preferences previously on this blog (or the lack thereof) and the struggle is ongoing, slow, but progressing. Ziv is no longer examining every piece of tomato, sweet pepper or carrot minutely before he takes a bite, and today he takes normal-sized bites from the sticks I cut for them, from initially spending 20 minutes getting a carrot stick down in millimetre bites. He has also taken our talks about the importance of nutrition when you are a growing boy to his heart, and many are the family meals spent discussing what is healthy and what is less healthy to eat. However, tomato/pepper/carrot is as far as it goes so far, and to get him to try other new things is equivalent to achieving world peace.

While Ziv actually eats the things he likes without too much encouragement, Gal is still often not even eating the things he do like, however, it is easier to get Gal to try new things. Several days we learned that Gal did not eat his lunch at the kindergarten, or he only ate the couscous, and not the chicken and the soup or whatever was served. If he was mine, I would never tolerate that from a kindergarten that is supposed to care for my kid, but honestly, if he was mine, I don't think they would have that problem anyway. Some days he did not eat the pita we sent with him for the morning meal either, later claiming that he does not like full-grain pita. That is complete crap and merely a power trip, since he has no problem eating full-grain pita during our evening meals together. The parents have surrendered once more and started sending him away with the terrible white buns that contains less nutrients that the paper they are wrapped in. And I count to 10...

However, the other day we enjoyed a small victory when we got him to taste the dried cranberries, claiming it is candy. He liked them a lot, and he also really likes walnuts, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, so from now on, he gets a small bag of nuts, seeds and cranberries with him for the morning meal in the kindergarten, and he actually eats it. I guess his small body is in total shock from the overflow of nutrients and antioxidants...

This and that...

ERG custom-made guitars

Yoram bought an acoustic 12-string Eko guitar from the late 60s through Yad2 a while ago. The guitar was not in mint condition, but needed some freshening up and adjustments, but he paid almost nothing when he bought it, so it was really a catch anyway. He went to a guy he knows who renovates guitars, but who also build custom-made ones. Today it was time to pick up the 12-string after its time spent in rehab and I joined him since we later were also buying wine in Zikhron Ya'akov. Ruslan (Mordechai) runs together with Eddie (Eduard) ERG Custom Guitars in Or Akiva, where they have their factory and showroom. Anyone who is a guitar freak should take a look at these guys work.

Ruslan showed off by playing on the 12-string and not only is it a great guitar, Ruslan is also a brilliant guitar player. Later he took us to the showroom and played a little on his favourite of their custom-made electric guitars, and walla, even an ignorant as me could sense the quality. The primary idea for Yoram was to fix and sell, but Ruslan told him that this guitar is too good to sell. They don't make them like this anymore, and although new guitars of today cost a fortune, the quality is not even near to this old gem, and people have not sense enough to pay for it. So... We now have a beautiful 40-years old 12-stringed lady joining the family.

Speaking of family, cats come and go in the neighbourhood and most of them are feral and very shy, and often plain aggressive. I love cats, and so does Yoram, which means that one of these days we will have a house cat that belongs to the family. The last few weeks one cat has spent much time just outside our house, which means that Goshen on several occasions has run after it immediately as she comes out of the house. Goshen is a good and obedient dog, but she has one weak spot that I have not completely succeeded to fix, and it is chasing cats, and if there is something that occasionally makes me crazy enough to consider both electronic shock collars and other terrible tools, then this is it. (You who know me well, also know that this would never happen.) We can basically pass any cat in the street or on the sidewalk without her charging after it, but when the cats show up very suddenly just in front of her nose, then I guess that the instincts just take over, which has been the case here. She would not know what to do with the cat if she came close enough to grab it and most of the time it is rather the cats that ambushes, chases and attacks the dog. Anyway, this cat is not completely wild, a bit careful, but curious, and above all extremely talkative. I really love cats that talk a lot, so we have had a few chats, the cat and me, and Yoram has talked to her too. Today we decided to try to bond a little bit more with her, in spite of Goshen's unfriendly behaviour, so we gave her some of Goshen's dog food. Let us see how far we can push it. I think that clearing Goshen's neurotic relation to cats would be easiest fixed if she would have to live with a young kitten, or an older cat that is used to dogs.

Not only am I trying to learn my Hebrew. The Arabic is also there poking for my attention and I guess that I will learn a lot from both languages ahead if I am lucky and hard-working, but now one of my most important Hebrew guinea pigs is lost. Ziv is 9 years old and has started to speak English to me instead of Hebrew, with a very funny Israeli accent and of course more enthusiasm than detail, which makes communication even harder than when we had only Hebrew. Inspiring though...

Sneaking under the wall

SOS Children's Village, Bethlehem

I have patiently waited for this day to come for almost five months now. Tonnes of other things came in between, our schedules did not fit and there were religious holidays to consider, but finally the day arrived, for me to join Miles to the West Bank for the first time. Aikido without borders, has its hands on several aikido projects in both Israel and in the Palestinian territories; in Yafo, Bir Nabala, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. My first trip went to the kids in the SOS Children's Village in Bethlehem.

We started off the day in the Old City of Jerusalem, where we walked the narrow alleys to check up on the aikidoka friends we have there. One we found in Hummus Abu Shukri on Via Dolorosa, one worked in his fathers souvenir shop and a third one has a gold shop. We started up with a big hummus meal followed by a cavalcade of Arab coffee and tea and baklava, back and forth, upside down and in all shapes. Although I asked for my coffee and tea without sugar most of the time, the amounts of sugar and caffeine in the end left me in a state of vibrating about 10 cm above the ground. These guys are all Arabs with blue ID cards, which enables them to move freely between the territories and they are therefore important linkage persons, just like me and Miles. I am merely in the cradle of understanding the complex rules and regulations, but we basically connect the Israeli citizens with the West Bank citizens, who are not allowed to visit each others territories.

After all the socialising and bonding in the shouk, we were picked up outside of the Jaffa Gate by Deborah and Amir, who drove us towards Bethlehem. Deborah has worked with Palestinian and Israeli human rights for many years now and she lives in Bethlehem. She is fluent in both Hebrew and Arabic and truly burns for her cause. We drove through the Tunnel Checkpoint and in that direction there are no controls so we just passed through. After the checkpoint we needed to cross the separation wall, and up until now, both Israeli and Palestinian traffic has been allowed on the main road. However, suddenly we exited this road and went down on a small dirt road and Deborah explained that there has been dug a tunnel under the wall, for Palestinian traffic, and that it now looked like that passage was finally open. I never understood if this was a legal construction or not, but even if it is, the resources had not been generous. We wobbled down on a slope and slipped under the wall in a hole that was merely large enough to let one vehicle pass and Deborah explained that now when this passage is open they can shut off Palestinian traffic from the main road.

We drove through the Dheisheh Refugee Camp and arrived in Bethlehem through the "back door". Amir knew the narrow streets of the old city as the back of his palm and all of a sudden we exited on Manger Square, where the Church of the Nativity stands, marking the birth place of Jesus. We came on a Sunday, which is a badly chosen day if you are an anxious Christian pilgrim. There were about 50 gizillion tourists there, safely funnelled by busses into this central Christian site. We entered the church, but saved the grotto for my next visit. If I will come on a Monday or a Tuesday, there will be no queue at all to go down and see the famous silver star. Not that I care much, really.

I was more enchanted by leaving the tourist bubble on the Manger Square and walk up the streets to the shouk. The first two blocks from the square still sold souvenirs, but deeper inside, it turned into the most vibrant food market. We bought some fruits and coffee and the coffee guy mixed different coffee beans with cardamon and grinded it as we waited. From this point our bags and everything in them smelled of coffee and cardamon all the way back to home.

We left the centre of Bethlehem and drove to the kids village. When we drove up in front of the main building all the kids surrounded the car. We all got out and the first thing Miles said to me was "Don't fall in love!". This turned out to be impossible. These kids come from under-privileged conditions and have quite diverse backgrounds, including poverty, abuse and loss of relatives, but in spite of their difficult lives it was clear to me what a great impact their new lives in the village has had on them. They are all loving, open and well-behaved children and had it not been for the fact that they live in the Palestinian territories, I could have written them a bright future.

The village consists of separate houses, with 7-10 boys and girls up to the age of 14. Every house has a house mother, an unmarried woman who has dedicated her life to these kids. Every house mother gets her own monthly stipend which enables her to put a personal touch on her "family". The kids invited us to one of the houses, where we had coffee (again!) and talked. One of the girls, 10-years old Rania, showed us her room, which she shared with one roommate, and she explained in brilliant English that she loved aikido, football and dancing and that she had had the privilege to go to Norway for a dancing event. Then she played some violin for us and after merely one months practice the repertoire was minimal, while the enthusiasm was greater.

We later gave an aikido practice with about 20 kids and we mixed playing games with actual aikido training and we had so much fun. There are a few grownup aikidokas, including Deborah, who give the kids aikido classes on a regular basis, but of course it is more fun when the "real" black-belt sensei's visit. We took turn teaching and made sure to connect to all the kids and we also had them showing off their skills two-and-two in front of everybody else. Me and Miles threw the kids around and they threw us. Some of them even took high ukemi, and as they threw us high ukemi one could really tell in realtime how they grew on the inside.

I drowned in attention, but I had two special girls hanging in my hakama constantly, Rania and Rend. As the class finished, Miles giggled and said that I probably had to bring them with me home, while he would bring his own favourite, Adam. We finished the class and after a long ceremony of goodbyes and promises to return soon we went for a meal at a restaurant close-by, where we shared a huge pizza of a quality that exceeded many of the fanciest pizza places I have ever visited. We dropped Deborah at her house and then drove back to Jerusalem. Now we passed the Tunnel Checkpoint once again and in this direction the control is more rigourous, however not one of the more high-security ones. We had Israeli plates on the car, and after a few questions about where we came from, the checkpoint guard asked to see our passports. When Miles said that he had his passport in the trunk of the car, I guess that the boy standing there with his gun felt that he had enough so he just waved us ahead without looking us showing him anything.

We arrived in Jerusalem and took the bus back to Tel Aviv. One the way back we contemplated the day and the fact that merely a few tens of kilometres apart, you have two completely different worlds, although these two worlds still have much more in common than their inhabitants think. At the same time as I felt extremely filled up with positive energies from the meetings I had had, coming back to Tel Aviv also involves laying aside the heavy emotional burden of being exposed to the whole situation in which people on the West Bank live. Also in Jerusalem the impact of the complicated situation is palpable, but in the Tel Aviv bubble people get on with their lives pretty much indifferent to what's going on just a short drive away. I felt aware and emotionally open to the situation already before I went, but now I came in personal touch with new perspectives, which widened my awareness even more, but I cannot say that things are getting easier to understand. On the contrary, the more I see and the more I learn, the more I realise that the answers are far-fetched.

One thing is clear, personal meetings on grass-root level, that nurtures friendships across community borders is an effective way to create bonds between people that will make them more motivated to strive for peace and unity, rather than resistance and segregation. Aikido has this effect on people, while at the same time it empowers the practitioners with self-confidence and inner harmony, and in a population where around 50% of the population is under 18 years old, one can understand the importance of focusing on the new generation, like we do in the children's village. Next aikido project we are discussing for Bethlehem is a women's group for the house mothers at the village, with me as the teacher, and I hope that we can set that idea off sailing as soon as possible.

I brought my camera and I planned to take tonnes of pictures, but when I arrived to Bethlehem I felt like an exploiting tourist schmuck to take up the camera, so unfortunately there are not much pictures from this trip. Maybe next time. We are planning to take some more pictures, as well as video clips, for making promotional material, since Aikido without borders is a fund-based organisation, whose future projects depend on willing benefactors. A website is under construction and it will be launched shortly.

Today I have contemplated over a comparison between the Bethlehem kids and the two spoilt Israeli brats I have at home, who takes everything for granted and never thank us for anything. At the same time as bad conditions can bring forward good things, good conditions can bring out very bad attitudes, and even though we live privileged lives, it is important to stay appreciative of the wonders of life, as well as educating our kids to do the same. Only that way, we can have compassion with the less fortunate.

Shahia tayebah!

Samir is a Bedouin Arab, who runs one of the best butcher shops in the country, in Ramat Tivon, just outside of Kiryat Tivon. He is well known and people come from far away to buy his meat. His famous kebab mix, which we buy in the form of meat balls, beats everything else and the recipe has not been changed for generations. Him and Yoram are good friends and yesterday we were invited to his house for dinner. His business is flourishing, no wonder, so they have a huge property, and in true Arab style, most of the family members lived on the property in separate houses, which constituted something like a small village within the village.

Samir and his family speaks only Arabic and Hebrew, which forced me to use my Hebrew more, and I even squeezed out the few Arabic phrases I have learned, explaining that almost one quarter of my home towns inhabitants are Arab speaking. Yoram was taught Arabic for five years in school when he was a kid, so he understands the essence from a conversation. The advantage of knowing both languages when you live here is self-evident, and if things continue to develop like this, I will have many good opportunities to learn both Hebrew and Arabic.

And what is an Arab without Arabian horses? A cheap cliché, I know, but Samir actually has pure-bred Arabian horses. He brought out two beautiful mares to show me, one chestnut and one grey. And what do you know..? He mostly does western riding with them, and cattle work, like cutting, on Ranch Alonim, also close by. I used to ride western horses on and off for years, and I even worked full time with educating reining horses in Germany during one period. So, things are slightly too good to be true once more since I was invited to come and ride as much as I please.

Then time for dinner. Since he is a butcher, and a Mideast guy, he basically put one ox and one lamb on the barbecue and as if that was not enough, we had tonnes of salads, rice, tahina, olives, pita and more. Then coffee, chocolates, tea and fruits. Samirs mother joined us and both me and Yoram were completely fascinated by this amazing woman. She is closing up to 70 years old and had about 10 kids or so, the last two ones where twins. She had the greatest personality, a wonderful sense of humour and we had so much fun. She has the most brilliant Hebrew although she was never taught in school, and she reminded us a lot of Yoram's grandmother, who I have told you about before, although she is not that mentally sharp anymore. All grannies here seems to be steel-grannies, more or less.

I think we rolled home and Yoram could hardly sleep all night because he was so full. As if that was not enough, this morning it was time to go to the next food karahana, in Tel Aviv. Today we had a farewell picnic in park HaYarkon, for Anna, Amir and their son Jonathan, since they are leaving for one year in California. Amir got a research project there which meant that the family moves. Anna is one of the Swedish girls I have got to know since I arrived here and I must say that it is a pity that she leaves now, just as we are getting tight. But hey, they will be back in a years time and then I will still be here. In the meantime I have the other nice girls to hang out with, and who I can bombard with all my questions and thoughts and emotions revolving moving here. Don't really know what I would do without that.

Tomorrow I am off for Bethlehem on the West Bank, together with Miles, to train some aikido. More about that when I will be back.

Karahana wedding, the Israeli way

Want some tisco tanzing..?

Yesterday I experienced my first Jewish wedding - or wait... - rock concert/fashion show/rave/gala première...

It was a modest gathering of merely 400 guests and the event was held at some huge party facility. We arrived to the outdoor reception and started off with the food. There were many different stations put out where chefs stood and prepared food. There were Italian, Mexican, sushi, grill, as well as Mideast stations, while waitresses were also walking around serving shot glasses with soups or other snacks. We filled up pretty nicely with the excellent food before we hit the bar. We drank Champagne, Scotch and red wine, generously in true Swedish style, while constantly more people gushed in. The groom Eran, is a colleague of Yoram's, so we did not expect to know any other people than the ones from their work. When we arrived we did not know a single soul, but after a while the other people from the office arrived and we joined up.

The chuppa was huge, more like a big white party tent, and it was lit up with disco lights in pink and purple, and I truly had a feeling that I was going to see something completely different than a wedding ceremony. The master of ceremony, the rabbi, was calling in his microphone for all the guests to come closer so we did. The groom came out and later the bride, in a marvellous white dress, with glitter and pearls and she looked like an extravagant salsa dancer (which they both are). People were screaming and whistling and the rabbi was talking and talking. As far as I could understand from his attitude and body language, he was a quite unorthodoxly funny rabbi, and this was also confirmed by the others who understood the Hebrew. To me he seemed to be both queer and on acid by his appearance, but I guess that it was just the holiness that shone through. The ceremony was executed and people screamed and whistled some more and made kululu, while two huge video cameras were perpetuating every move in the chuppa.

We were pretty full after all the appetisers and drinks, but then I realised that we had not even started yet. Now the dinner began. First we had to find our table, table no 41. Imagine over 40 tables with 8-10 seats per table and there you go. The fashion show was over and now we entered the Nobel price gala dinner. We started on the salads and bread on the table and the waiters came in with dish after dish and as we finished the wine bottles they delivered new ones. In the meantime the dance floor was full. People did not wait until after the meal, but ran back and forth, ate some and hit the dance floor again. Again video cameras followed the newlywed couple like in a Big Brother episode, while this time everything was displayed live on big screens, so that no one would miss anything while they were eating. When the couple had a chance to eat I don't know, since they were constantly carried around on the dance floor. The main course arrived somewhere around 11 pm and after that they served a whole range of different desserts. We were home at 1 am and today Yoram had to head off for work. I sympathised by cleaning the house for the weekend.

This kind of wedding is as far away from my ideal as I can possibly think of, but as a party it was awesome, and if that is what the couple is seeking then they truly succeeded. Everybody is invited, and I mean everybody. Your fathers colleagues girlfriends cousin and your boss' mistress' daughters classmate and your childhood friend's ex boyfriend's hairdresser and so on... I cannot escape thinking of the proverb "Everyone knows the monkey, but the monkey knows no one.". I did not even get the chance to say hello to the bride and I have never met her before either, so she has no idea who I am, but hey, thanks for a nice party! Mazal tov!

Rennet in Israel

Småländsk ostkaka

Can any of you readers residing in Israel tell me where I can find rennet (ostlöpe in Swedish and אנזים הגבנה in Hebrew)? I want to make Småländsk ostkaka and then you need rennet. In Sweden you buy it in the pharmacy. That is the first place I will try, but maybe someone can save me some effort by sharing some information...

And by the way, thank you Kala, for inspiring me!

Smaller worlds in one big world

My Hebrew study group mainly consists of middle-aged to senior ladies, almost exclusively of Russian origin. To say that we haven't clicked is an understatement. I can tell by their way to look at me, that they think that I belong to the worst liberal, morally degenerated, leftist and idealistic scum there is to find. In other words a serious threat to the Israeli nation. Their conservative and prejudice attitudes have shone through on several occasions, as we in the discussions have dealt with specific events like the gay pride in Jerusalem, or merely the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general, and Arabs in particular.

Yesterday a young couple joined the group. An Israeli Jewish girl came with her Spanish boyfriend, who she recently brought to Israel. When they explained that they live in Shfar'am (Shefa-Amr), I think that all of the Russian ladies collectively almost fell of their chairs. I have talked about Shfar'am previously on this blog, when I told you about the excellent mastic-flavoured ice cream you can get there. The population in Shfar'am is mostly Arab, but other than that the diverse population drawn from several different communities gives the city a relatively cosmopolitan and multicultural ambiance. This is of course something that does not exist in the narrow mind of these frightened ladies and they immediately threw questions on this poor couple on how they could live there with all the Arabs and what language they can use there and the one ignorant question after the other. The fact that they are unaware of that Israeli Arabs speak excellent Hebrew, since they actually go to school, made me aware of exactly how isolated some communities in this country actually are. Our Hebrew teacher, who is also a middle-aged woman, however has a more open mind than most of her students, and she kept on defending tolerance and openmindedness.

The couple defended their multicultural life-style and tolerance and I added to the presentation about Shfar'am by telling everybody about how you get the absolute best ice cream there and that we go there often for just that reason. The Hebrew lesson proceeded with other subjects and I looked forward to exchanging a few words with the couple after class. However, they suddenly left earlier and the girl just left a note to our teacher. After they had left us, the discussion took fire again. One of the ladies told a, for her, unbelievable story about some person who had chosen to live in a ethnically mixed community in Israel. They concluded that this must be some sort of naive peace-project, and that this couple probably lived in Shfar'am for the exact same reason. It never occurred to them that you don't need to have a higher philanthropic purpose to choose something else than an isolated monoculture of your own kind.

I still don't know if they simply left a bit earlier because they had a long drive home or if they thought that the Hebrew level was too high for her boyfriend, or... if they actually felt despised by landing in the middle of a group of redneck-type of people with terrible views. I pray that it was not the latter, and that they will return, because I could really use someone in this group that is reasonable enough to relate to in a normal way. It is worth mentioning that this group of ladies does not constitute a good representation for the general population in Kiryat Tivon. Most people here have an open mind and a tolerant attitude. Among other things, Tivon is a somewhat epicentre for the anthroposophic community in Israel, with Waldorf schools and kindergartens in every other corner.

On Friday we are invited to our friend Samir's home, for food and a nice chat and I hope to get to see his beautiful horses. I guess that the Russian ladies would never consider even going to his butcher shop to buy his meat, although it is the best and cheapest meat around. Why? Because he is Arab, and as far as they are concerned he most likely carries a suicide belt around his waist all day long...

How can we expect two entire nations to achieve peace when we cannot even reach out to each other on a personal level and dissolve boundaries by nurturing friendships across these imaginary borders. Now Assi will call me a hippie again, but honestly, without some idealism to balance up the cynicism, the battle is lost.

Goshen goes nuts

Pecan nuts on the tree

I have been to the pecan tree grove two days in a row now. Yesterday we went there the whole family, and although it was mostly me and Yoram who contributed to the amount of nuts we picked, we still had a huge pile when we arrived at home. The nuts mature during a period of a month or so, so we can come back on several occasions. At this point people had only picked the most obvious nuts that are visible from a distance to the tree, but I stepped in under the branches and was suddenly in the middle of a mass of nuts within arms length. Next step will be to start using sticks to hit the higher located nuts down to the ground, but that was not necessary at this point. We brought some aikido weapons, but they did not become handy. Under the trees the ground is in most places covered with hip-high dry weeds, with hooks and spikes, which made it less comfortable for the legs. I could have used long pants, but since it is still over 30 degrees warm, I preferred stung legs.

The pecan tree grove

Today I decided to go back, not only to pick more nuts, but also to take some pictures of the nature awakening after the hot and dry summer season. In Sweden things become greyer when the summer is over - here it becomes greener. There is an almost fluorescent shine over the protruding new grass and the new leaves on trees and bushes. From now on, until the spring time, is the most fascinating period for someone that is interested in botany and I will use all opportunities to experience some great flora all around.

The autumn in Israel is like the Swedish spring

Everything is coming to life again...

Today Goshen had a close encounter with a wasp while I picked nuts. I wonder what makes dogs much stupider than other animals, so that they don't understand all the stop signs nature has created for other creatures to understand that this little bugger wants to be left alone. She happily chased him around and tried to bite his head off. He ended up stuck in her fur on a place on her back where she could not reach, but where he could penetrate her fur enough to sting. This is when I realised the drama that was played up before me. She ran around and tried to bite her back until I called, located the wasp and removed him. Then she wanted to keep on chasing him. I think that she at some point got a bit stung on her nose, since she rubbed it ferociously in the ground, but it might as well have been the hooks from the weed that caused that. Anyway, luckily she was not stung in her tongue or equivalent, but this proved her somewhat bimbo mentality...

My new friend Mr Schizo

Germans and other tourists get a holy light in their eyes when they see a moose in Sweden. This Swede entered the same state when she literally stumbled over a chameleon...

I found him in the staircase. I was going down under the house to hang some laundry last evening, and on one footstep I felt something under my foot. Instinctively I did not step down properly and I only had my soft Shepherd's sheep-skin shoes on, so I guess that the actual physical impact on the poor guy was less than the emotional shock he probably experienced. First he was bright green, but I did not reach to get the camera to shoot that. When I lifted him away from the staircase he turned more grey...

I imagined a long photo session, where I'd put him on different-coloured backgrounds to make him change colour. I wanted a whole series of images of this amazing creature...

... but he hissed so harshly at me that I had to help him get back out into the bush, but not until I concluded that he was undamaged from the experience under my foot. Now Yoram has also promised to show me scorpions. He claims that you can find them under basically every rock.

Things are upside down

The short shock treatment with hundreds of millimetres of rain is over for this time. During the coldest evenings I think we measured 16 degrees here in Tivon. It was basically like a less good Swedish summer day. Today we are back on 27 degrees and for the weekend they promise around 33. However, the house has been successfully cooled down by the rainy week and I doubt that the indoor temperature will rise again before April. This is the Israeli winter in a nutshell. Freezing inside and mostly warm and comfy outside. It is quite a funny feeling to walk around in Shepherds sheep-skin shoes indoors and switch to flip-flops to go outside. Now I also have to remember to turn on the water-heater if I don't want a cold shower, which is something we never have to do during summer. Then the water is heated on the roof by the sun, for sissies that need it. Myself, I showered cold for three months to cool down.

As much as people here pray for rain, as poor are the resources to recover the water when it finally starts pouring down. Most of it is unfortunately going straight out into the Mediterranean or into inexpedient water streams. We try to be as conscious as possible and save water by using minimal amounts of kitchen utensils, closing the water when soaping dishes, as well as ourselves, and we even have a bucket in where we collect the cold water that comes from the shower before it gets warm. This water we then use in the kitchen, for Goshen and for rinsing dishes. Imagine if all people could direct some awareness to their water consumption.

OK:d for another 3 months

Today I went to Misrad Hapnim (Ministry of Interior) to extend my tourist visa (B2) for another three months. We have been completely busy lately with work, guests, trips and life in general, and of course we procrastinated this issue almost to its expiring date. Yesterday evening we worked intensely to acquire all necessary documents. In this case, I was merely going to extend a tourist visa, but still we filled out forms, wrote letters, copied ID's and printed pictures. To be quite honest, we were quite nervous this morning as Yoram drove me to Haifa. He could not join me either, since he had important meetings and this added to the tension, and this could also have been avoided with less procrastination. I entered the building through rigourous security procedures and found the right office. Normally I think you need to make an appointment also for a tourist visa extension, but that was of course another thing we had neglected. Luckily everything went fine. The lady was grumpy, as should be, but I think that I basically made her resign under the big pile of documents I handed over to her.

I also picked up some information on what documents are needed for a more permanent visa. To not make it too easy this information was only available in Hebrew. Yesterday I tried to call, but the automatic message with choices you have to make was only in Hebrew. The official website is also only in Hebrew. It is like taking a new kid at swimming school and throw him in to the deep water on the first day. Somewhat the wrong order of things.

In February I am going to visit Sweden and then I am going to acquire all the necessary documents for either a working permit visa (B1) or a partner visa (A5); like birth and marital status certificate, and excerpt from the criminal registry, both with apostille stamps.. What category of visa I will get, I cannot know. Different people I have talked to, tell different stories. In some places they just choose for you without asking, and others have applied specifically. No matter what, in addition to the legal documents, both visas require tonnes of proof of our relationship; pictures, letters, tickets, explanations, account excerpts, etc... As much as you can possible achieve. I guess, that if I start already now, I will make the next Misrad Hapnim lady drown in papers. At least I will not let her tell me that I lack something when I get there. But as far as I am told, she can destroy my day anyway, if she so pleases. Damn if you do, damn if you don't...

Aikido Tivon 10 years

The BBQ Master in action

Yesterday we celebrated that Aikido Tivon has been active for 10 years. Anati Miron started her dojo in 1999 and Yoram was with her from day one. We started off with a practice and then we all drove to Hadar's place in Kefar Barukh to have a BBQ. Yoram skipped class to start up the BBQ and when we all arrived the meat was already coming in masses from the grill. Yoram always takes upon this duty and I know exactly why. This simply brings him the most meat, straight off of the grill, exactly like he wants it, and for the same reason I always end up helping him. We also had help from Ishak and we grilled Samir's meatballs, lamb on skewers, chicken wings and the loveliest entrecôte. As if you needed more, there were also salad, grilled sweet potatoes, salsa, hummous, tahina, wine and chocolate cakes. We had a great time and everybody shared their own aikido stories - how they started in the first place, and what aikido means for them. Itzik's wife is a poet and she had written a beautiful poem about aikido and mounted it in a frame for Anati. It was in Hebrew of course, and I only got a brief translation. When I have a proper translation I will share it, since it was truly amazing.

Our eager BBQ aide

We came home very late to a feverish Katina stuck in bed. We are not sure what hit her, but something emptied her system and gave her a fever. I don't know what Israel's answer to Montezuma's revenge is, but something in that direction. Today she was slightly better and they succeeded to drive back to her sister's kibbutz, but I am not envying her for having to sit on an airplane tomorrow...

On tour with the Swedes

Thursday morning I met up with Katina and Ishak again to go in to Tel Aviv, or Holon to be more precise. We were going to the Children's Museum (מוזאון הילדים) to visit the exhibition "Dialogue in the Dark". You get to experience what it is like to be blind, by making a 75 minute tour in complete darkness. You are guided by a sight impaired guide and you pass different environments. You walk through a forest, with grass, gravel and trees, with a water fall and animal sounds. Then you take a boat trip, walk busy city streets and visit a market selling vegetables. You end up in a bar with a blind bartender and you get to order and buy drinks and snacks in the dark. Then you get to sit down and eat your stuff while talking to your guide, asking her questions about being blind. We were grouped with some other people and we were amazed how stupid the questions they had was. They had no idea that blind people enjoy just about the same things as seeing people, like travelling to new places, doing sports and so on. I almost felt ashamed on their behalf. However, other than those embarrassing people, the experience was very fascinating. The girl that guided us had a remarkable ability to orientate herself in the different rooms, without any blind stick (which we all had). She also had complete control over where every single person out of her group of ten were located in the room. She remembered all our names and put our hand on the wall or the rail if we were lost, and this ability to use her other senses to see was very impressive. I highly recommend a visit to this place if you want to get a deeper insight in the life of a sight impaired.

When Yoram came home on Thursday around lunch he took Goshen for a run in the field, unaware that Tivon had had one of the heaviest rain falls in all of Israel. Already down below the house he realised the level of muddiness, but then it was already too late and he proceeded. Goshen went bananas and ran like mad in puddles and mud, chasing crows and played, and when they came home she was muddy from top to toe. Some of it had already dried and Yoram had a good half hours work to get her fur clean. When I came home he said that her time is over, meaning no more off-road rides for this season. I guess that merely means that I will be the one with patience enough to let her run freely and clean her afterwards, but it sure will not happen every day. On the other hand, it will be dry periods during the winter too.

Already during the Thursday it had started to rain moderately, but the night to Friday was when the sky completely opened and the lightning struck again and again accompanied by heavy thunder. Katina wondered whether the Golan Heights can be roamed in rain and the answer was yes. They arrived here Friday morning and Friday we used to go to Daliyat al-Karmel for some shopping and Zikhron Ya'akov for some Tishbi wine. In the evening Yoram surprised us with delicious home-made burekas to the Shabbat dinner. So much better than the ones from the supermarket.

Yoram's home-made burekas

Saturday it was time for Golan Heights, or Ramat HaGolan. First we passed Tiberias and headed South. We stopped by kibbutz Kinneret. Katina volunteered there in 1979 and she had a very good friend there who she has not seen in 30 years. One of Yoram's best attributes is his social skills and although he does not know anyone in this kibbutz (normally he knows someone in every kibbutz and that is not a joke), he localised the guy within 10 minutes. The guy was probably as shocked as Katina was and we witnessed a happy meeting between the two. That was the mitzvah of the day for Yoram.

We climed up on the Ramat HaGolan from the South, passing Hamat Gader. I bathed in those pools in January, but this time there was no time for that. Instead we moved up on the plateau and showed them the view over Lake Kinneret from kibbutz Kfar Haruv. It was quite foggy, but the view from there is still amazing. We continued and stopped at Tel A Saki memorial site, so that Ishak could see some bunkers, trenches and old vehicles from the Yom Kippur war in 1973. A must when you roam Ramat HaGolan is a lunch at restaurant Nedal in Mas'ade. Here you get the best labaneh around, no doubt. After lunch topped with some kanafeh from the baklava bakery next to Nedal, we climbed Mount Hermon all the way up to the ski resort. There were of course no snow and not a human soul except a few lonely IDF soldiers, but it was nice to see the place anyhow. Yoram tried to get us further up on the road by bribing the soldiers with the left-over kanafeh, but although they were laughing about it, they still kept their duty.

Kanafeh (aka knafe) from Mas'ada

On the way home we passed Katzrin, the capital of Ramat HaGolan. The purpose was to drink some beer at the Golan Brewery. The brewery and the shop had closed for the day, but the pub was open, so we got our beer. Yoram started by asking for Carlsberg and the poor boy behind the bar was caught completely off guard before he understood that it was a joke. We got to taste the four different ones before we decided. It was one light pils, one wheat beer, one darker draught and one dark and strong Belgian-type. All were very tasty!

We came home late in the evening, exhausted. The temperature on Ramat HaGolan was about 14 degrees and on Mount Hermon it went down to 9 degrees. However, as we came back to Tivon, we were well over 20, and today it is about 25 again. The rains did not succeed to kill the warmth this time either...

Short notice from the run

We are housing Katina and Ishak for the weekend and our days are full of adventures. When all is over there will be a longer post about being temporarily blind, drowning in Israeli rain and thunder, as well as visits to the Druze's, Tishbi winery and the Golan Heights. Stay tuned!

Yes, he can eat by himself! Hallelujah!

Today I had both the kids for lunch by myself for the first time. Their mother needed to go to a meeting, it was her day with the kids, but she asked for our help. However, Yoram was at work so I took on the mission. Ziv eats with me often, but Gal has still not been alone with me any longer moments, and especially not during a meal. He is a picky eater. Both are, but Gal is like the king of picky eaters. Not only picky, but most of the time he does not even want to eat the food he likes. He effectively drives his father crazy and manipulates him to always end up hand-feeding him under occasionally dramatic forms. I was prepared to my teeth and had it all figured out. I would make it easy, but still a bit hard, sausages and pasta penne, which they like, but I was also determined that he would eat a carrot stick. Ziv eats his vegetables without too much fuss nowadays, but not Gal. He started by saying that he would not eat without daddy, upon which I told him quietly that daddy is at work and that he would eat now, with me and Ziv. I imagined sitting patiently by the table the whole afternoon if necessary and putting him alone to his room if he started creating a war. Much too my surprise he stuffed both sausages and then all the pasta I had put on his plate, on his own, with good manners, and without any fuss, accompanied by my wild praising and cheering. Only thing that needed a slight encouragement was the carrot stick, but as he understood that I meant business, he simply ate it. My problem now is how to get Yoram to actually believe me. His 4.5 year old can actually eat all by himself... There is still hope for humanity!

A salty story

Then it was time for my first encounter with the oily salt soup in the lowest place on Earth - The Dead Sea. Katina and her son Ishak from Sweden were my company and we started from Tivon around 8 in the morning. I read my Hebrew road map flawlessly and guided us past Afula and Beit She'an and further down through the Jordan valley, on road 90 straight through the West Bank. I had no clue how fast we would move down and I was very surprised when we suddenly were on the bypass road past Jericho. We had been sitting talking about this and that, watching the Jordan valley become progressively more desert-like, and the time had just passed very quickly, but I guess that I also had expected that it would be much longer than it really is. This is a phenomenon that a Swede living in Israel frequently encounter. In Sweden, driving Malmö-Stockholm with few or no breaks at all is done without blinking, and that is 200 km more than from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat - i.e. the whole of Israel, from North to South. There really are no long distances in this country and what sometimes makes a trip tedious is either heavy traffic or poor roads. Road 90 is however not burdened by heavy traffic ever since the First Intifada, when cars driving there was constantly bombarded with rocks. Thanking the stone bridage for the open road is maybe slightly cynical, but we glided down through the valley as a hot dog on a soaped hallway floor.

The classic Dead Sea floating picture

We decided to go to the Ein Gedi Spa. The entrance to all baths and muds, as well as a proper lunch, was only 100 ILS, which is less than 200 SEK. It proved to be very valuable. Since this spa was built, the water level has sunk dramatically, and today they have a small "chu chu train" that shuttles the guests from the main building down to the beach. The beach on this spot was not rocky, but rather only consisting of salt sand. However, as you went into the water, the bottom consisted of a hard mat of sharp salt crystals, so bathing shoes was necessary. Everybody who ever went into a salt lake know the surrealistic feeling of floating like a cork. You can relax completely and do nothing. If you try to turn around to do some breast-style swimming you will discover that your feet end up way too high above the water surface to be able to take you anywhere. Fascinating and fun! Just as pleasant as the floating is, as unpleasant is it if you happen to get the water in your eyes, nose or mouth. The salinity is fluctuating above 30% and 1 litre of sea water contains approximately 300 g of minerals and these concentrations are extremely painful to get into the wrong place.

The salt content in the Dead Sea water

After floating around for a while we found a mud hole down at the beach, where we took our first mud bath. This was not the "official" black mud, but rather a natural creek with a sandy greenish mud, also supposed to be beneficial. I dived down and completely indulged myself in the dirt, sliding around in the soft jelly, covering everything but my eyes and mouth. The minerals in the mud and the water is said to penetrate and detoxify the blood stream.

Not only the water and mud at this place are a health bomb. The air has a very low pollen and allergen content and the high atmospheric pressure at this great depth results in a high oxygen content of above 23%, which makes it highly beneficial for persons with respiratory disorders. The high air pressure also causes a reduced ultraviolet component of the solar radiation, which makes sunburn rather unusual and this allows sufferers from Psoriasis or other skin disorders to sunbathe for longer periods. The bromide content of the air also reduces blood pressure and relaxes the nervous system.

Two black mud aliens

When we returned up to the spa, we went to the black mud area and once again covered up. This mud was even finer and darker and was contained in huge jars. The place is filled with a constant laughter and people continuously assist each other taking pictures of their creations. Ishak took it one step further and simply jumped into the mud jar.

Ishak in the mud jar

We had lunch at the spa before we left for Masada. Nothing revolutionary, but generous considering the price. The restaurant reminds of a school dining hall and you go and pick up food yourself from a nice buffet. However, we ate outside in the garden which was a bit more scenic. Saturated with both minerals and food we headed off towards Masada. We arrived around 15 which gave us less than an hour on top since the last cart went down at 16. Anyhow, we felt quite satisfied with that. What disappointed me a bit though, was that we were not allowed to stay for the sunset. Only the sunrise is possible to watch from the top, so that will be saved for next visit.

We walked around and saw different chambers, bath tubs, old paintings and mosaic floors, but honestly, as far as I am concerned, I do not need to see every corner of the place to feel satisfied. A rock is still a rock, and a ruin a ruin. The place is also packed with tourists, of course, and this unfortunately withdraws most of the possibility of sensing some historic atmosphere. According to me, I feel safe to say that the view from Masada is what took my breath away, not so much the rock in itself. On the way down we visited the souvenir shop and was baffled by the prices. A Pashima shawl that you can get for 15 ILS in Daliyat al-Karmel, went here for 59 ILS. Amazing how stupid people are. After coming down from Masada we drove straight home. From Masada to Kiryat Tivon, including a short break, took about 3 hours. Not bad at all. Today I am sweating sulphur, but feel pure as a baby...

The Dead Sea valley seen from the Northern Palace on Masada

Dogs, ocean and travel planning

Bossy fascinated by the ocean

We spent another lazy Shabbat on the beach, this time with the kids, as well as both Goshen and Bossy. We decided to bring him since his day in his home probably had not presented any revolutionary activities any way. I think it was the first time he saw the ocean, but he followed Goshen straight into the water, no fuss what so ever. Within 2 minutes he also followed me out on for him deep water, without having Goshen as comfort. The water was not even that quiet, but quite wavy, and we all enjoyed watching his courage. Also Goshen was more confident in the waves after swimming a lot in the quiet water last week. The dogs had a lot of fun and so did we.

Katina is here and we have planned that I will go with her and her son Ishak down to Ein Gedi by the Dead Sea, and also visit Masada. She has a rental car and I will be the map reader. I have Yorams detailed road map over Israel - in Hebrew - but believe it or not, that is perfectly sufficient for me by now, and I enjoy every time that I recognise the different names of cities and villages. We will drive East, to Beit She'an valley and then follow road 90 down through Jordan valley since it is the most scenic route. This means that we drive straight down through the East part of the West Bank, passing Jericho, before we reach the Dead Sea. So, time to empty the camera and recharge the battery! This is a trip that I also plan to do with Yoram at some point, but this first trip will be an appetiser for something more extensive that we will do together. This time he will not join due to his work, but he surely knows more "smultronställen" (hidden favourite spots) than three happy-go-lucky "Lonely Planet" Swedes, so I do look forward to going with him. Now I will, with my 5 months BaEretz, try to act as a somewhat guide and translator and I feel pretty cocky actually...

Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast

I have been sharing my view on human rights organisations previously on this blog. Now even the founder of Human Rights Watch (HRW), Robert L. Bernstein, has seen enough of how the organisation has left its original mission to advocate open societies, basic freedoms and to support dissenters, and how they instead have lost their critical perspective in the Israeli-Arab conflict. In the New York Times he published an article in where he strongly criticises how they indirectly serve anti-Israeli forces through their biased reporting. No need for me to write more. Read the article.