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...