Walls

Israel is very much the ‘land of walls’, but we found an alternative in Safed, a small town in the Galilean hills. Because of the complicated history in this part of the world, the town of Safed, like many places in Israel, has alternative names: Zefat, Tsfat, Zfat, Safad, Safes, Safet, Tzfat, etc. During the British mandate there was conflict between the Jewish and Arab communities. Safed is built on the side of a steep hill and so the British built steps to keep the communities apart. The steps are about 5 metres wide and were presumably policed – not as depressing and disruptive as a wall. Unfortunately peace was never established between the two communities. After the 1948 war Safed became completely Jewish, with the steps acting as a reminder of its previous neighbours. P

Questions

Over the weekend we watched ‘The Power of One’, a thought provoking film about life in South Africa at the beginning of the last century. One of the main characters, ‘Doc’, explained to his pupil that the answers to many questions could be found in nature. Like us, one of Doc’s hobbies was growing cacti, the climate in South Africa is obviously similar to that in Israel. Whilst thinking about Doc’s advice I remembered the most common question we are asked: Why have you left the UK to live in Nazareth? The question is asked because it is more common for people in our community to migrate in the opposite direction. I later noticed that one of our cacti was flowering, and because of this rare event (the flowers only last for a day or two) I took a photograph. When I saw the result of the photograph it gave the appearance of light coming from the inside of the flower, it was not, it was reflecting the sun. P

Visa

We have recently been living week to week as we waited for our visa paperwork to be processed. We have finally been granted a 6 month visa until February 2010, this is only renewable once and then its back to reapplying! We have to submit an application if we want to leave the country, so we will be holidaying in Is - not that we're complaining - we haven't seen much of the country because it's been too hot and there is plenty of variety and winter sun.

We're now thankfully in a position where we can plan ahead, start some projects, and strengthen the relationships we have already started. We can also justify a few 'luxuries' at home, such as a set of dishes. P