A Tale of Two Sisters: Chapter 4: Where does the time go??

Hello, wonderful people! Long time no...update?

Sarah here...There's so much to say, it's really hard to know where to begin. So I'll start by saying thank you to all of you who sent me so much love last Tuesday for my birthday. I could feel it! :-)It was a really perfect birthday - Mir and I made breakfast together before work and class, I got some really sweet gifts and notes from friends here and lots and lots of birthday hugs, and I opened the mysterious package that arrived a few days ago and it turned out to be a copy of "Rise Up Singing" - an amazing song book with chords and words to every folk song ever - from Julie (I love you!!!). What better inspiration to get better at the banjo?? Mir also gave me an awesome gift (see right)....

How did she know??
Anyway, the highlight of the birthday came around 10pm, when I went to look for a friend who had said she wanted to talk to me. Instead, I found myself being led to the zula (our awesome chill-out space behind the campus made from mud with a palm-frond roof and a fire pit), which was glowing with firelight and love and full of the sounds of singing, clapping, and drumming. A

s I walked in everyone

starting singing and playing happy birthday (on drums, harmonica, guitar, etc...), and then we had an amazing night of s'more-making and music and dancing around the fire, and there was even HOME-MADE APPLE PIE AND ICE CREAM!! I'm guessing most of you know how happy all of that made me... I love the people here so much.

I never wrote about the field trip we went on a few weeks ago...or I guess a month ago by now, but it was really intense. The theme was environmental justice, and we visited many disturbing and moving sites. We sat in Bedouin tents in several recognized and unrecognized Bedouin villages and heard the people of these shanty-towns tell their stories of being forced by modernity and the Israeli government to quit their nomadic tribal lifestyles, and describe the terrible situation of their culture and quality of life as a group. We saw towns that were within meters of the only hazardous material disposal site and chemical production facility in Israel. We talked to very right-wing owners of single-family farms in the middle of the desert. We also stayed for two nights in Beit Jallah, a Palestinian town that is technically not within the separation wall. These pictures were taken from the roof of the hostel we stayed in...

And a few more pictures from random adventures on our trip:
The steep ascent of the climb to the ridge of Machtesh Ramon - a "crater" caused by erosion...

Worth the view from the top...

Hazzem and I - victory pose. (Arik! Get off the phone!)

This man lives in one of the 7 recognized Bedouin villages in Israel. It was created by the Israeli government, and then many tribes were forced to live in it, with no regard for their culture or livlihood. Now he's building himself and his family a house from mudbrick...

The tent that we had tea in with a Bedouin man and, immediately in the background, the chemical and waste disposal plant that is the cause of ridiculously high cancer rates in their unrecognized shanty-town...

We also went to a really interesting peace conference in East Jerusalem with representatives of many prestigious institutions and lots of important Middle Eastern government officials. Some of it was inspiring, and some of it was nothing new, but overall it was amazing to be at the heart of such intense issues. On Wednesday night of the trip we had "Thanksgiving dinner" (even though Thanksgiving was the next day) at one of our professor's house. He lives in East Jerusalem and his family - who mostly only spoke Arabic - cooked us an enormous and amazing Thanksgiving dinner. There were several turkeys and, of course, pita, hummus, and the usual Middle Eastern salads and spreads. It was an interesting and fantastic combination. We ate on the roof of their apartment building looking out over the lit-up city of Jerusalem. We all left the trip overwhelmed by intensity, but glad to have had such eye-opening experiences.

Now it's back to the world of academics where things are getting rather intense - it's insane to realize how many research papers I'm expected to complete in the next few weeks, but I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

Mom and dad are coming to visit in less than two weeks!! It was a last minute decision, and it's really exciting since I wasn't expecting to see them until the summer.
Mir will (hopefully) update soon on her side of things. They're generally intense, what with the coming and going of close friends from the kibbutz, but good overall (at least that's my interpretation).
But here's a sneak peak....