The week of Ultimate Peace stuff (www.ultimatepeace.org) was CRAZY, and it was one minute to the next all day every day, then out at night with the crew, which is a great group of folks, and an average of about 4 hours of sleep per night. The coaching was good, first day with Israelis, then the big day with both Israelis and Palestinians. It went well, but there needed to be more translators, because the fact that the kids didn’t speak the same language (one hebrew, one arabic) was frustrating for the kids, let alone for me trying to wrangle them and teach them ultimate. Thankfully my co-coach spoke both hebrew and arabic, and fun was had. It was a long day, and there ought to be much reflection and feedback so that the next iteration of this can go more smoothly and hopefully have something like a positive lasting impact.
The next two days were a hat tournament (teams split up at “random”), which was great fun despite the lack of rest. My team won, which was fun, and the weather was awesome, and has been this whole time.
After the tournament, we spent a day going out to the Palestinian kids’ towns to follow up, coach more, hang out. I went with a group to Jericho, and en route me and Dave Morgenroth sang our own version of Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho, which was awesome. Working with the kids in their home town was great. They were kind of all over the place, and really wanted to run off with the frisbees, but the coaches there helped a bit, and our group actually was playing something very much like ultimate. It was super fun playing with kids who were into it. One kid was clearly a soccer player and would take a “dive” any time another kid even came close to fouling him. Considering you call your own fouls in ultimate, this was hilarious.
That was Sunday. Monday we took our rental cars to Jerusalem, and I got to drive which was fun because everyone drives aggressively here, which I dig. Got into Jerusalem, dropped stuff at our little hotel, and headed out for a brief tour of the Church of the Holy Spectrum or something like that, saw the old town which is tourist shops now, and had a good explanatory view of some of the important things. Then we went to the Wailing Wall which was kind of a trip. An old rabbi looking guy put t’fillin on me (the black leather wrapping stuff with scrolls of prayers in it that I’d worn twice before – once for practice before my bar mitzvah, once at my bar mitzvah). He suggested I pray for the people I love and ask G-d to let me live to my potential, etc. I went to the wall a second time armed with religion, and it made the experience a whole lot more meaningful. To the point even that I cried, more than I have in a looong time, at the Wailing Wall. Isn’t that something. Then as the guy was removing the T’fillin from me we got to talking, and basically he’s a radical Zionist who wouldn’t really hear anything about how education might actually change the behavior of Arabs – this after he quoted me statistics on how Jews are better because of education. Back-ass-wards. Ah well.
We ate a good dinner that night as a group, then the next day, which was yesterday, we set off in the morning for Masada. Masada is an old castle/palace built a couple thousand years ago, where at one point a bunch of sieged Jews killed themselves rather than be taken as slaves to the Romans. I’ve never been one to be soo interested in ruins, but it had a great view and I liked all the little models that showed what things used to look like. The highlight was probably running up the damn thing with Moses, Loriana and Dave Barkan. That was a good workout. After wandering around Masada for a while, we walked down, then headed to the dead sea.
The Dead Sea is crazy! First of all, the mud there is supposed to be super healing, so we (at this point a group of 12 maybe) caked each other in it, and had some good slippery mud time. Then we got in the sea, which if you had some flippers or something, you could probably walk on yourself. It is in fact super floaty. And goddamn salty, as I had to be led to the fresh water spout to rinse out my eyes twice. Much fun playing there.
Then we got in to Jerusalem in the evening, and as my posse was convening for dinner, I cut loose and got a ride from a friend of a friend to the bus station, came back to Tel Aviv to stay at a friend’s here that I met during the Ultimate Peace thang, and today we’re heading to some of her family’s place on a kibbutz up North for Pesach (Passover), and then possibly to somebody’s house near the beach that is currently unoccupied. Sometimes things fall into place.
The last 8-10 days have seemed like a month. It continues now, more like a vacation than ever having cut loose from the group. The people are amazing, but group traveling can be a pain.
Okay, gotta pack a bag for the excursion Northward. I guess there’s some sort of Sun Festival in Sfvat, which I’ve heard is beautiful.
We out!
