There are so many times throughout the day that I want to share things with you all here – my gratitude for being here, a description of Karmiel and interaction with people here, what our apartment is like and where it’s located, how the kids are making friends, the price of food and local shopping, getting furniture, and so much more, but unfortunately I have time limitations!  Eventually I’ll hopefully get to it all.  🙂

But I’ll share something about my day today – not something unique or unusual, just part of a regular day in Israel.

In the morning I took ds3 with me to the high school to pay for the girls high school tuition (it was nice because he got to see them since they happened to be on a break, and dd15 walked him through the school), then headed home before going out to get fruits and veggies.  Then headed home again for a short time before going out to another store for more groceries, which took a long time due to some shopping confusion and a receipt that needed to be straightened out (got store credit in the end- remember, pay attention to your receipts to be sure you’re being charged correctly!), as well as meeting someone there (who invited us for Shabbos lunch) and shmoozing for a long time.

When I finally headed out to the bus stop to the next store, it was almost 8 pm and I wasn’t sure how frequently the buses were running. So I asked the man on the bench next to me if he knew when the next bus was expected.  He told me a few buses passed there and it should be just a few minutes, then asked me if I was new in Karmiel.  I told him we moved here exactly two weeks ago from the US, and he asked me where I was from.  Rather than answer, I asked him why he was asking, if he knew anyone there.  He said he had lived in NY for six years, and when I commented that his English must be pretty good, he said his vocabulary is mostly real estate related (we were speaking in Hebrew).

I asked him why he came back, and he explained to me that he went there to join his older brother, who started the business which was very successful; then the brother became religious, got married and moved back to Israel so he stayed on by himself.  I was curious what made him come back if it was a thriving business, so he told me it was a long and sad story, but basically he got involved with drugs and lost everything.

I asked him how he got clean, and he told me he went to a rehab.  He asked me if I ever heard of NA (Narcotics Anonymous), that it was supposed to be good but never tried it.  I told him it’s an incredible program that changes peoples’ lives; life can be hard and a person who physically detoxes but doesn’t learn to think about life differently will be very likely to go back to using.  I explained the focus is on a Higher Power, not from a religious perspective but a spiritual perspective; that a person needs to turn to help from that Power rather than depending on himself.

Then he asked if we were olim (new immigrants) and if the government bought us an apartment!  I told him the government doesn’t buy olim new apartments, though last week I met an Arab family from Lebanon when I was looking at the bunk bed they were selling (I was surprised when they opened the door since I thought I was going to the home of a Jewish family, but they welcomed me in and dh and I sat in their living room watching the news in Arabic while we waited) who told me they were selling the apartment they were living in – and they got it totally free from the Israeli government.  The father’s Hebrew wasn’t very fluent and though I tried to clarify why he got a free apartment (and car), it was something about the Lebanese terrorist organization Hizbollah blowing up his home and taking his truck and car because he worked in Israel; this terrorist group keeps lists of people who work in Israel and then their lives are in danger.  I wasn’t clear on the dateline, since he told me something about 1982, something about 2000, and that he had to keep it for three years without selling it, and it’s now been three years, so that was kind of confusing, but as I said, there was a bit of a language barrier since I don’t speak Arabic (just a very few words that I learned years ago when I was a doula for some Arab women in the Israeli hospital where I trained, but ‘girl’, ‘boy’, and ‘push’ don’t do much in regular conversation :)).  He told me he’s going to use the money to buy a bigger house.  If he goes to a local Arab village to live, he can buy himself a very, very nice home with the proceeds of a local apartment!

Then the bus came so this man and I ended our conversation, and I went to another store to get more vegetables!  I knew our family ate a huge quantity of food, but until I moved here, I really didn’t realize how much.  When you have a car, you don’t think about the quantities as much since you just plop it in the car, but when you’re taking it home on the bus, there’s a much higher level of awareness!  For the first week and a half, we were literally going to the store once or twice a day, and the fridge and cupboard was usually empty.  I’m really not used to that at all.  I have been doing a LOT of shlepping and a few times detailed all that was involved to my family so they could appreciate my heroic efforts to keep them all fed!

Bit by bit I’ll get stocked up and not feel like we’re living on the edge of starvation 🙂 (just joking, in case that’s not obvious!); this week is already much better than last week.  I had already gotten so much shopping done today I thought I’d just get a small amount of a few things at this other store to top everything off, but a small amount for us is six large heavy grocery bags and having taken this amount of groceries home on the bus several times, I knew what was involved and wasn’t thrilled about doing it all again!

While I was waiting for the bus, a woman stopped at the bus stop and offered me a ride.  She said she had just finished shopping at the same store I had been at, her car’s empty and it’s a shame not to share it with someone if we’re going in the same direction!  I often tell the kids (and myself) that my needs are always met, and this is one more example of that – it wasn’t even a need, really, more like a want that was filled.

We had a nice talk during our ride; she’s been living here twenty years and shared with me some of the ways Karmiel has changed during that time.  Since her oldest is the same age as mine, we ended up discussing maternal concerns of a son going into the army, particularly because he wants to be in a combat unit (which my son has adamantly told me he really doesn’t want to do – not the army, but the combat unit).  She said my ds might not have a choice about what part of the army he serves in, but he still has some time until we have to deal with that, so we’ll see what ends up happening at that point.   She insisted on dropping me off in front of my apartment building, though I told her it was fine to drop me at the corner of a main street close by and I could walk from there.

I appreciate all the opportunities I have in Karmiel to interact with people as people, despite living in a country where religious differences often loom very large.  Though it was a physically draining day, it was filled with interesting interactions from start to finish (I left out the group of Arab teenagers that I chastised for pushing an old man aside to get onto a bus)!

Oh, and one more thing – later in the evening there was a knock at the door, and I opened it to find two children of a neighbor there with three grocery bags at their feet.  They said someone had passed on groceries to their family, but they had so much that their mother thought that we could use it – wasn’t that thoughtful?  She was right, we will definitely be able to put them to use!  I really appreciate how it’s easier to help people here and to receive help from others.  In the US, there’s more of an emphasis on being independent; here in Israel, there’s not a fear that if you help someone in whatever way that you’re giving them the impression that they are needy, or that if you accept help you’re incapable of providing for yourself.

Avivah