Wednesday, August 13, 2008

(Is)REAL TALK

I'll keep this short and sweet for now, since I have to bounce in a few. This blog comes from the lovely land of Israel, where the skies are blue, the historical sites are numerous, and the falafel is BOMB. And I'm officially eliminating that word from my colloquial vocabulary. eeeeek

My time here has, already, forced me to grow in places I didn't know demanded growth, let alone, existed. I've met some really neat people, a few who I think are soul mates, seen the essentials, with the full intention of going back 34 more times, visited the Western Wall and the Old City, and learned the alphabet, geography, greetings, time, and food in Hebrew. Nutsos!

At the risk of sounding like a white, naive 22 year old, the middle east never ceases to fascinate me  with all of the contradictions that can literally be found in every crevice. Amidst all of that, however, is this incredible community who seem to cling to this ground, and they live their lives unabashedly willing to face whatever terror comes their way. Mind you, I went into this with the very biased perspective that Israel is wrong on almost every front. I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but the conversations and experiences that have happened only in a short week have me all bumfuzzled. All I can articulately say, at this point, is that existence in this place is not the way that anyone is meant to live, by any means, and it is both heart breaking and understandable and universal, and it's amazing that it's felt from the sidewalks to the children to the classroom.

More later, I gotta go haggle with my people. Peeeeaaaccceeee

Lindsey

3 comments:

Nic Rouleau said...

I'm so glad you seem to be enjoying it so far!! And I'm so glad you're blogging. MORE MORE MOREEEEEE!!

Peace prance.

Love,
Tant

The Penniless Traveler said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Penniless Traveler said...

Lindsey, I read this entry and it captures exactly how I felt when I was in Israel and the West Bank. Having you world turned upside down and your seemingly god-given truths muddled is truly one of the best things about traveling/studying abroad. I am so excited for your amazing adventure! Keep updating!
--Melanie