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...