Let me think about what has happened since we last met together.
I met this GREAT girl from our neighborhood, Raghad. She is
16, lives across the street, and probably the best thing that has happened to
me since I got to Jerusalem. Sarah Bradshaw is the one that connected us, so I
have her to thank for that! About two weeks ago (9/30), I started talking to
Raghad on Facebook, and we decided to get a game of soccer together. So a group
of us from the center met her, two of her friends, and a guy from the branch.
We walked down to this dirt field near the bottom of the Mount of Olives, and
played, it was honestly one of the best days ive had here! I am absolutely not
athletic, so I volunteered to be goalie. Aka stand around and do nothing. Side note:
when we first met up with Raghad, I I noticed two little kids were watching us.
Probably Halle’s age, so 7-9ish. One kid was wearing real fancy shoes, so I
said “Hey homie, I love your fancy shoes!” He was so embarrassed, said thank
you. I kept trying to talk with him, but he was embarrassed, and we needed to
start walking. But he was a cutie. So as I’m glancing around the city, being a “goalie”
I noticed the two kids! They had followed us all the way down to this dirt
field. So I yelled to them “You! Fancy shoes!! Come play!” Immediately, they
pop down from the highway, ran down the hill, and stood right by me! So Abed,
fancy shoes, was my “co-goalie” and Ahmed, his spazzy little friend, would side
tackle people as a defender. It was so hysterical.
We also had Arab culture night. We ate a delicious feast, dressed up, had dancing, it was great. I had a different outfit on but someone told me I looked like Ellen Degeneres as a Shepard, which was very flattering since Ellen dresses very trendy but not totally the look I was going for. So I put on a dress I found, that looked cute but smelled like unidentifiable BO. Tasty. Luckily, the scarf is mine :)
Last week we were on a fieldtrip looking at some caves, when
I basically died. Not really, but part of me did I think. From what I’ve been
told, our fieldtrip was covering the story of David and Goliath, a few other
locations and some caves. I walked into a cave with a friend, turned to walk
out and started up the steps. I guess I thought I had walked far enough to
stand up, so with the full force of my life I stood straight up, into the
celiing of this cave. Immediately, I blacked out and fell back down onto the
steps. It wasn’t far, and I pass out or bleed, but it didn’t feel awesome. I
immediately got a headache, felt like barfing, and my left eye was blurry. I
was also super dizzy. But I didn’t want to be a fusser, and I didn’t want to
miss the fieldtrip, so I kept going. I really don’t remember much, but luckily
I have 81 people here to remind me of how I felt haha. I eventually asked to
stay on the bus, I guess. And when we got back around 4pm I went right to
sleep. I did not wake up until around 7am Wedneaday, aka 2 days later. There is
a doctor here at the center, and he would come in every few hours and pry my
eyes open and check my pupils he claims, but I was pretty out of it. The center
rescheduled my midterms for me because I was having some wicked headaches,
which luckily have gone away. I still didn’t do well on my midterms because my
short term memory isn’t what it should be, but whatever. They kept saying “you
have a migraine?” and I quickly said “this is NOT a migraine excuse me. This is
a HEADACHE from bonking my head.” People just love to throw around the migraine
word. Fools. So between shingles, which are mostly healed, and a concussion, I
am not having the best of luck. But I haven’t had to visit an ER so I’m
counting my blessings on that. And I only missed one day of class, which is
pretty awesome considering how big my goose egg is.
Yesterday, we went on a fieldtrip to the Holocaust museum
here. I went to the museum they have in Washington DC last spring, and they are
actually very different. The one in DC focuses a lot on the terrible things
that happened in the Concentration Camps, but here in Israel they focused way
more on the politics that lead up to the Holocaust, the life of Jews in the
Ghettos, and what happened after liberation. They talked about the
Concentration Camps, but they did not want to focus on the place all of their
loved ones went to die. It was a very touching, memorable experience. There is
a children’s memorial I will never forget. It is a dark room, with a candle lit
for each child killed, over 1.5 million, and the walls are mirrors. And as you
walk in there is a narrator that reads a child’s name, where they are from, and
their age. When we slowly started walking out, everyone was emotional. Our
group just sat outside the memorial weeping for probably five minutes. It was
also interesting to learn that Israelis didn’t really talk about the Holocaust
for a long time. It was something they didn’t want to remember, but it was also
something they didn’t want to be known for. Israelis were supposed to be
fighters, and they felt like a lot of the holocaust were people going like “lambs
to the slaughter,” that they didn’t fight. Israel also just had a terrible war,
1% of their population had been killed, so they felt like “tell me how bad it
is for you in Germany” kind of thing. Which I had NO idea about. It wasn’t until
the 60’s-70’s that they really started to talk about the Holocaust and the hero’s
that were involved.
I love it here. Except how often we are tested. This week I
have three midterms. We go to Egypt in about 2 weeks, and finals are right
before we leave in three of our classes. So pray for me and my forgetful mind.
C’s get degrees right? #senioritis
Katrina Williams
