The Onion Church (Annie)

This week has been a blast, because there isn't much homework or class so we have a lot of free time. I've been going out to the city a lot and also hanging out with my peeps here at the center. Yesterday we went to the Russian Orthodox Church or as we call it the Onion Church, for it's golden onion-shaped roofs. They're unmistakable from all around Jerusalem. I've been trying to go there for a while and the grounds were beautiful! We had to wear skirts and a scarf for respect. I also went to the Shuk, which is an open-air Jewish market in West Jerusalem. It has all sorts of food there, such as dried fruit and bread and pomegranates and gummies. We went on Thursday night, which is a bit different because it's the last day before Sabbath so they have challah bread there, which is a special bread that that Jews eat on the Sabbath, as well as all sorts of special yummy pastries. I got some challah bread and some dried strawberries (dried strawberries are SO GOOD. They're like candy.). I have the recipe for challah bread, so I'll make some when we get back. 

On Monday we went on a Kotel Tunnel Field trip, which are tunnels underneath the Muslim quarter of the Old City that border the western wall. It runs along the entire length of the western wall. Part of the wall is made of a HUGE stone, called the Western Stone, which one of the biggest building blocks in the world. It weights 570 tons and is 45 feet long, 9 feet high, and about 11 feet thick. The thing is HUGE, and they don't know how the original workers moved it, it's so massive. One of life's mysteries, I guess.

The weather has been getting colder here. Instead of 80's and 90's we are getting 60's and 70's, and we even have been getting a little rain! We also picked olives on Tuesday and Friday, so that we can press it and make olive oil! I'm pretty sure we're going to do that next week. It's going to be so fun. I've learned all about the process of making oil, so it will be really cool to actually make some. SO PSYCHED.

One week til Galilee! I can hardly believe it. Everyone says Galilee is one of the most amazing parts of the program so I am really looking forward to it! 

Passover! (Annie)

This post has been in the works for weeks, and I've decided it's definitely time that it sees the light of day.

A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to have an authentic Passover (Seder) dinner here at the JC! It's kind of funny because Passover isn't for another half of a year, but they have one here every semester anyway so that the students can experience it. Other than the date, though, it was all pretty legitimate.

Our Israel teacher, Ophir, set up and delegated the entire dinner and lead it tonight. He came with his little daughter and explained to us the significance of everything and read the words in Hebrew and, for some parts, Aramaic. We started off with a specially designed Seder plate that held romaine lettuce, an egg, parsley, etc. We ate these throughout the dinner and they all represent different things in the story of the Exodus. For example, bitter herbs represented the bitterness of the bondage of the Israelites under the Egyptians, the parsley represents springtime, and I never really figured out what the egg represented. We also read through a book provided for us that the Jews read through (in Hebrew) during the Seder meal each year. There is a certain order to and way to do everything, which is very typical of Jews, and it was pretty exciting to experience that. It took a long time to go through the entire dinner, but it was worth it!

Oh yeah, we also drank grape juice during the meal and afterwards Neil and Nicole and I got a little bit crazy and started picking up grape juice bottles from random tables and drinking them and pretending we were drunk...it was a BLAST!

Bethlehem Field Trip

Yesterday we went into West Bank to see Bethlehem. We won't get to go to Bethlehem again so we had to make the most of it. We saw the Church of the Nativity, a church that houses three different religions that have three different services and three different Christmases. It is traditionally held that this church is the is built over the cave where Christ was born. We waited in line for at least an hour and were finally able to get down below where you can stick your hand in through a hole where the cave is underneath while somebody takes a picture of you. Afterwards we went down into tunnels underneath the church and had a devotional and sang a few hymns. We were singing Christmas songs all day! It's the beginning of November and I love it! I'm definitely not one of those people who will only sing Christmas songs after Thanksgiving--I sing them all year long, because I love Christmas so much! So I don't mind that we're starting Christmas season early here, it just gives us more time to enjoy the holiday.

Waiting to get into the Church of the Nativity

Afterwards we went to the shepherd's fields by Bethlehem. There we sang more hymns and then had quiet time by ourselves, where I tried to imagine what it might've been like for the shepherds in the fields in the story of Christ's birth. We were sitting there, in the fields where shepherds are still watching their flocks to this day, between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, reading about the birth of our Savior. It was a surreal experience.

At the shepherd's fields

 We also went to the Herodion, which is a fortress that Herod built a few miles away from Jerusalem because he was intensely paranoid. At the bottom of the hill is a luxurious royal leisure complex and at the top is a fortress. Interestingly  Herod also had a mausoleum built here because he feared no one would take care of his funeral arrangements, so he took care of them himself. Someone later came and completely destroyed the mausoleum--Herod's subjects hated him. The palace and fortress are both enormous and a web of caves and cisterns dug into the hill. It was a lot of fun to explore.

Neil in front of the main tower in the Herodion

We also got to see a little bit of Bethlehem at the end of the day. We didn't have much time because it took so much time in the Church of the Nativity, but during the last ten minutes we practically sprinted around Bethlehem trying to absorb as much as we could at once. Bethlehem looks a lot like the Old City in Jerusalem which I found very interesting. It was a great run-through and hopefully some day I'll get to come back and see it again.

Funny picture of the day: Neil's food baby!

Jordan (Shawn)

So about Jordan. The first day we went to Mt. Nebo. I saw there how small of an area we are in because we could see where Jerusalem and Jericho were, while in Jordan. We went to a church in Madaba with an old mosaic and paintings. We then drove down to Petra. In Petra I climbed up like three mountains which was fun. It is a very dry mountainous sandstone desert. There are MANY tombs carved into these mountains and canyons. Very picturesque. I also rode a camel which was very exciting. I dared my friend, Machenzie, to kiss it which she did. (She also put a tarantula in Neil's bed. She sure is a good friend). I then tried to kiss the camel but was rejected. It growled at me. It apparently only had room for Machenzie in its life. 

   The next day we were in Amman, there and later Jerash. Jersash is very restored which made it pretty fun. That night in Amman I went out with Neil, Annie, and a friend, Hailey, to go talk to people. I used my missionary skills to get us into a Filipino house (there were a lot of them in Jordan) where we talked and they gave us food. We then got into a Jordanian house which was a little more difficult because they did not speak English. They served us coffee, and we spent the next half hour or so teaching them English words while we taught them Arabic words. The sixty year old man held my hand for a while. Apparently that is a Jordanian thing.

Our second night in Jordan I then took out a couple more girls and Annie to get into a house. We got into another Filipino house and talked with them about why they were in Jordan. We had a good time talking with them. They didn't like Jordanians too much. Later that night Neil's friend, David who is studying Arabic in Amman with BYU picked us up and took us to one of the market places. A very nice guy. The next day we packed up and went to the river Jordan and had a devotional there. We then spent many hours at the border waiting to go through. After that we returned to the Jerusalem center where I did homework.

     Interesting things about Jordan. A pretty varied group of people. You have some people who dress Western style. You also have a lot of conservative people who dress Arab style. I saw quite a few ladies in black who had their faces completely covered. The guys where what looks like a dress with a handkerchief for a hat. What  I thought was super cool were the Bedouin. There are a lot of them out in the countryside, or better said, desert. They live in tents made out of goat and camel hair. It's crazy. They are just out in the desert with sand and goats living in tents. It was pretty fun. Thanks mom,

   -Shawn

Jordan (Annie)

Jordan in brief: a small, oddly-shaped country dominated by desert landscapes and awesome rocks. And it looks a lot like Nevada and southern Utah. I'll admit that to the world (coughcoughEthancough). But really, it was amazing how similar it sometimes is here to the landscapes back home. It always surprises me.

We started out our lovely trip with a trip to Mount Nebo, which is near where Moses and Elijah were translated. Unfortunately we could not see much, as it was very smoggy, but if we had been able to see we would've seen the Dead Sea, Jericho, and the mountains across the valley in the Holy Land. Then we went to Madaba and saw a mosaic map that is the earliest known depiction of the Holy Land. It was REALLY cool, because looking at the map you were able to see a little bit how the map-makers viewed the Holy Land in regards to what they thought was important, what cities they chose to include and the pictures they depicted. Unfortunately a lot of the map was damaged, so there are big chunks of it missing, but we can see a lot of ancient Israel in the rest. It was really intriguing.

That was it for Day One of our Jordan trip. Day Two was the most FANTASTIC DAY EVER! In other words, Petra! Petra in short is a city built by the Nabateans, a trading tribe in ancient times. Petra is located in red-rock slot canyons in the middle of the Jordanian desert. It looks a lot like St. George. Alison and Ethan would LOVE Petra. It was beautiful. The treasury is the first things you see when you walk out of the canyon. It is amazing, but it doesn't even compare to the massive monastery carved into the stone an hour's hike away. The monastery was amazing! The thing was huge. Definitely worth the hike up there. Next Neil, Shawn, Nicole and I hiked up to the high place, which is where the Nabateans sacrificed people on an altar up there. The altar itself wasn't that special, but the hike up was GORGEOUS! The steps were carved into the mountainside, and every time you turned a corner there was another spectacular view. It felt so good to hike--it's been a while since I have done that! At various points during the day all of us rode camels. Camels are smelly and dirty and covered in flies but it is fun to ride them because you are very high in the air and just lurch around up there while people laugh at you down below. After a solid eight hours of walking and hiking around Petra we headed out of Petra, but I definitely want to come again someday. It was a ton of fun.

In front of the Treasury

First glimpse of the Treasury through the slot canyon.

After Petra we drove up to Amman, the capitol of Jordan. After we got to the hotel Shawn was itching to get out, so he, Neil, our friend Hailey and I all headed out into the city to see if we could meet anybody, and we did! We met a pair of women from the Philippines who are working in Jordan, and they invited us into our home, fed us, and were happy to talk to us! After we visited with them we left and headed down the road, where a Jordanian family was chilling on their porch. Although we don't speak Arabic and they didn't speak English, we started talking with each other and then they invited us into their home as well, where Shawn showed off his surprising charisma and charmed his way into their hearts. Shawn is really funny! We learned a bit of Arabic and Shawn played thumb wars with the grandpa of the family, Ali. By the end of the night the family had decided to adopt Shawn and informed us that we could leave him there and go.


Day Three, Halloween! We celebrated Halloween a few days before (more on that to come) but that was fine. What we got was much better than candy. We went first to the citadel, which was a city of ruins in the middle of Amman. There was a little museum attached to it that had a lot of really amazing artifacts in it, including a human figurine dating back to 6500 B.C. It is the first known figurine of a human--at least I think that's what Stratford said. Then somebody said, "But Professor Stratford, that's before Adam and Eve!" And Stratford replied, "This was when God was practicing making humans." Then my lovely friend Alyssa said, "Good thing it was practice." SO GOOD! I love everybody here.

Next we went to the Jabbok River, and then Jerash, which is a large ancient Greco-Roman city. It included two theaters, a temple to Artemis, a temple to Zeus, and a lot of columns. It was just like Hercules! Not that I base my real-life experiences off of Disney movies or anything...

Next up was the Royal Automobile Museum, where we saw cars. They were very shiny. I'm not a car person, so I couldn't tell you much more than that. This museum was wasted on me.

This is a Ferrari

That night we went out and met another Philippine woman, and we talked with her and her roommates for a little while and now we are Facebook friends! Who would have ever thought?

Day Four: Last day! So sad. First we saw a Roman theater and Odeon, which basically were a large theater and a small one. Theaters are always fun because of all the exciting acoustic things you can do in them. Next we went to Bethany beyond Jordan, where Jesus Christ was baptized. We went to a platform on the side of the Jordan River and dipped our feet in. It was incredible to see it, and fortunately we'll see the River Jordan again in a few weeks when we go to Jordan. We had a devotional here and said our last farewell to the beautiful country of Jordan.

We then headed to the border, which ultimately took four hours to get through. This was because we had to sit for hours while they searched every one of our bags. And then they lost one and it took another hour to find it. Finally, at long last, we got home.

 "It was like a mix of every wonderful thing I've ever seen in my life." -Hannah Perry, a student here.

Mackenzie found this spider and put it on Neil's bed. Neil was delighted.

Catching Up

The Reeds in reeds! 

I've missed quite a few things as time has progressed because I've been so busy, so I'm going to do my best to catch up. Today will be a little bit chaotic as I try to go over everything! But it will be fun, not to worry.

Last Friday we did Arab night! This is the context of the picture of Shawn that Alison put up a few days ago. We did Passover (more to come on that) one night and then we did Arab night about a month later! We got to dress up in all of our Arab attire, which mostly consisted of scarves and genie pants for the women and kafiyas for men. Some of the students actually rented clothes for the night and genuinely looked like Arabs. My friend Rachel Pullan wore a dress and headscarf and everything and when she walked in I was shocked! She could've been one of the women we see on the streets of Jerusalem! It was really cool. We ate traditional Arab dishes, took pictures and learned an Arab dance. But the BEST part was before, where we got to hear the call to prayer by men who recite it from the mosques in Jerusalem! They came to to the center and recited a passage for us, and we had a copy of the passage they were reciting, a transliteration, and a translation so that we actually knew what they were saying (for once). One of the men who came had memorized the Koran by the time he was nine! It's amazing! They also showed us how they pray and answered questions that we had about the call to prayer and Islam in general. That's one of the things I love about Jerusalem--five times a day you hear the call to prayer ring out from at least three different mosques across the city and it is stunning. I'll miss it when I leave the Holy Land.

On Monday we went on a field trip to Neot Kedumin, which is a Biblical landscape reserve where you can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste the Bible (as our tour guide informed us)! Our tour guide was insisted that the Bible cannot be learned in a classroom, but rather outside in the landscape it is set in. While I don't that a Biblical reserve is the only place one can learn about the Bible, it certainly was extremely enlightening about a lot of the cultural and social backgrounds of the Bible. We saw what the landscape most likely looked like throughout the park--hilly, lots of trees, brown grass. Apparently the Holy Land was covered with thick forest originally but was cut down for construction and the like. We were able to "touch" and certainly "smell" the Bible when we herded sheep. We divided into groups and herded them, and my group was a bit pathetic. We couldn't for the life of us get them to move anywhere, and I'm sure everyone watching was laughing their heads off. I was laughing my head off, too, because it was so ridiculous how bad we were at sheep-herding. I suppose we "heard" the Bible with the birds and animals and everything. There were a couple of horses that were wandering around this field, and the guide informed us that the horses had wandered into the reserve within the last month and they didn't know who the horses belonged too. It was amusing because as the horses walked around there was this lone sheep that followed them around and grazed with them. It was their little sheep friend! Then for lunch we made pita bread and lentil soup and herbal tea! I have to admit this was my favorite part. We built a fire and made the dough for the pitas, then cooked them over the fire. I was red-faced within minutes, because it was so hot! As if it's not hot enough already here in the Holy Land (though the weather has cooled off significantly since we've been here). Our pitas didn't look anything like the ones you get at the pita factory but I think they were tastier, which might have had something to do with the fact that we put date honey in ours. Date honey, for the record, is super tasty!  Love that.

We also saw an olive press and the boys showed off their manliness for us:

We also got to see a Torah scroll up close for the first time. Our guides took us to see a scribe who was working on a copy of the Torah and we got to see the process of making one. Writing a Torah takes years so the actual scrolls are really expensive, and they're big! I'm so glad we got to see one!

Now I'm going to go back in time a little bit (a month or so) to the road to from Jerusalem to Jericho. Now, most of us know this road from the Good Samaritan story that Jesus tells in the New Testament. I've heard the story a thousand times, watched the cartoons the Church made about it, and studied it often. But the story came alive when I saw the valley. The landscape was a desert--desolate, rocky, with no plants or trees or anything. And it was hot and when I looked down on the road I could see places where thieves could hide. The road is abandoned now, obviously, as other roads have been built. But I think it would be really cool to do a trek-like trip on it, where we walk from Jerusalem to Jericho just to see what it is like. It's too bad they don't do treks here!

Slowly and steadily I will get caught up! And maybe I'll even get Shawn and Neil to post something on the blog--we can always do with another post on fruit and badgers. Or when Shawn just tells it like it is. One of the things I love about Shawn is his bluntness--well, most of the time anyway.

I hear it snowed back at home in Salt Lake! I love it here, but one of the things I am so excited for is the snow! It doesn't snow in Jerusalem and if it does it lasts a few hours before it's gone. It snowed last year here. What I'm waiting for is rain! We need to harvest the olives! We need a good rainstorm soon!

Neil: Rabies Day 2012

          Each day has the potential to be awesome. So does each dog. I have discovered, however, in my interactions with both dogs and days (including the dog days of summer) that they both have the potential to become infused with infectious enthusiasm--or just an infectious disease.

           Such was today. I first discovered World Rabies Day when a friend of a friend who had a dog bite incident in Honduras—the friend of mine, not her friend who wasn't in Honduras, mind you, and she didn't bite the dog first, it was an old fashioned Western Saloon standoff—this is getting confusing.

          Scratch that. Take Two. A dear friend of mine was bitten by a dog in Honduras last summer, and she knew I had a thing for rabies, if not the actual virus (The jury is still out on this one.) She told me of a wondrous day where all things Rabies were celebrated. World Rabies Day...the words simply slide off the teeth like infected saliva...If you're still reading, I salute you. Your attention span suggests you don't have it, either. WRD is actually an awareness holiday to let people know about the importance of continuing to vaccinate animals worldwide, as 55,000 fatalities occur every year because of rabies.

        Last year on September 28, I celebrated WRD at BYU in grand fashion, strapping a coonskin cap to my head and taping a sign to my chest that stated “ 'Tis World Rabies Day!” I then proceeded to run around campus all day with the goal to share the joy, sharing actual statistics with people who took me seriously and advising all others to “catch the spirit of the season, not the disease.” Hundreds were educated that day, and I like to think that someone eyed the bushes in their front yard suspiciously that night, convinced a rabid foe lay hungrily wait.

        I thought not any Rabies Day could top that first momentous celebration of life and the prevention of its loss by infected furry friends. I thought wrong.

         5:30 AM I awoke as happy as most people are on Christmas, or as happy as Scrooge is on December 26^th. I stepped outside to exclaim with joy as I saw the Great Rabid Bat in the Sky (brings rabies-themed gifts to all the uninfected good girls and boys, but it's got a low budget and can't usually bring more than dead bugs to people, so next time you find a dead dragonfly on the porch, feel honored) had deigned to visit my doorstep. It was adorned with crepe paper, snarling mammals and a sign that said “Happy World Rabies Day!” I knew it was to be a truly awesome day. A similar sign had been taped up to the banister in the main stairway to share the message with all. Breakfast was good. I was just exclaiming my joy on this lovely holiday to some people at my table when they casually mentioned that maybe Lizzie of our group was rabid, too. I laughed at this seemingly irrelevant comment when suddenly I felt a sharp pressure on my right shoulder and turned to find Lizzie's teeth in retreat from my freshly wounded arm.

          “Bah!” I exclaimed. I then teared up. What a beautiful holiday greeting! I thanked her and Lizzie smiled back. She has beautiful teeth and a great smile. More so when they aren't sunken into my deltoid. I reached out to give her a hug. As she came in, her shoulder came within easy reach of my canines. I instantly seized my chance and bit the unsuspecting Lizzie in one fluid motion. Rabies had struck again.

I set this as the background on the Center computers as a friendly reminder.

         The day continued in glory. Trying to share the love, I changed the background of each of the computers in the lab with the attached picture, once again advising them to “catch the spirit of the season, not the disease.” Shawn took this sublime message to heart and mouth. A shocked gasp and then laughter met Shawn as he walked into Old Testament, jowls covered in rabid foam—er, shaving cream. During the class, our teacher would take a comment or question from Shawn and momentarily lose concentration before returning to the subject at hand.

          When it came time for our next class, Studies of the Ancient Near East, I felt inspired. Shawn, Nicole Hawkes, and I all smeared our jaws with shaving cream to get in the festive mood. When our professor saw we were already entering the advanced stages of the disease, he could only shake his head in disbelief and tell us of the cause of the Egyptian New Kingdom's fall. No, it wasn't rabies.

         In the evening, we had dinner. I watched people flagrantly defy the spirit of the day by feeding stray cats, but my rage was placated by the awesome fried bananas at the salad bar. Later on, we had a “Pin the Eye on the 'Coon” contest (I had an Evil Eye magnet from Turkey) and a tropical fruit party. This, because if I knew I had rabies and only had a little while to eat and live, I'd be eating tropical fruit. We chose persimmons and passionfruit.

          Yet the best part was still to come. Through the wonderful mechanism of social action known as Peer Pressure, four rabid fans of the Day-- Mackenzie, Nicole, Shawn, and I slathered some shaving cream 'round the jaws and set off to visit Lizzie again. We found her cuddling and watching a movie in the theater-like forum, but even PDA couldn't save her now. I set the bite to the arm, and for a moment the day's festivities seemed to be over. BUT THEN--

          Andrew, who is charismatic, hilarious, and tall, sees the deed take place. Without hesitation, he leaps to his feet and sprinted out of the room. At that moment, our predator instincts kick in as our eyes hungrily follow our departing prey. We give chase, howling and snarling as we rushed through the narrow halls leading out of the forum. We were fast, but Andrew was faster. He ran so fast that the girl sitting on the couch outside conveniently “couldn't remember” which way he went. There was no sign of him. How could this happen? Howling with mock rage, we sought him out across the different levels and hiding places of the center, seeking our prey. During the chase, we took a consolation prize—virtually every human being in the center that unluckily stumbled across our path. Surprised and disbelieving, few withstood our pack of frothy jaws for long. It was lucky so many people were in their rooms by this point (Annie included) for we showed little mercy. The entire laundry room fell, as did the stairwells. Nicole and Shawn went for my roommate Jacob, who was having his hair cut at the time. Bad idea—the man's arms were covered with loose hair which went straight into their mouths. Few joined us after they'd been bit. I figured as much, the infection usually took about 9 days to set in.

          We kept searching, but we never did find Andrew. All this time, he had hidden in a room we'd simply overlooked in our frenzy. He had recruited people loyal his cause to hide him. They never did tell us his location, and he was saved from certain infection. Over fifteen minutes he waited in the dark for the chance to escape to his room, which finally presented itself when we overran the laundry room.

        By the time our biting rampage was over, maybe more than fifteen people had “perished,” and we considered that the Ghosts of Rabies Past, Present and Future had been appeased, if such things existed. And so we called it a night, and anxiously began anew the countdown to the next World Rabies Day, just a mere 364 days away.