"Y'all are some bad mother fuckers, yes you are."

Nathan and I demolished our presentation on Wednesday--everything went super smooth, and Tomer even got to come and watch.  After the presentation, Sheldon shook my hand and said "top-rate," which was pretty cool.  After classes, I went to the Mohammed house alone because Cera was sick.  It was probably one of the best times I've ever had there--I played a memory game with them with new drawings about things in the kitchen.  While talking to the kids, Musa (the father) said my name and I turned around to see a table full of food.  He insisted that I eat before teaching the kids.  Dinner consisted of rice, chicken, and soup, which were all delicious. Zara, the mother, cooked everything, and told me that they were all traditional Sudanese foods.  There's some aspect of  Darfuri and Sudanese culture that demands both that hosts be highly hospitable, and that guests partake heartily in their hospitality.  Musa kept indulging me to eat more, even though I told him I was very full--I think it may be insulting to them not to finish something they offer you--when we go to the family center, Adam is always diligent about our drinking the juice he gives us after the lesson.  If we don't finish all of the juice, he asks us "what happened?"  It's very interesting, and I honestly can't say whether it's a cultural thing or just an anomaly in the group of people I've worked with (although the time that Yossein fed Nathan, Cera, Emilie and I dinner, he also insisted that we finish everything...).  As we ate, Musa and I discussed America and many other things--he told me that the Muslim holiday of Hajj is coming up this weekend.  I told he and Zara that I was familiar with it, and he began to describe to me how many Muslims were making pilgrimage to Mecca this weekend to see the kaaba, the holiest site in Islam.  As we continued to talk about it, I said that they circled around the cube 7 times, and Zara was taken aback, saying "oh, you really do know what Hajj is!"  It was pretty cool.

After that, I went to the family center and taught the Darfuri adults some English.  Almost no other volunteers showed up (I attribute this to Laura's being in charge, and Cera's debilitation), so they just had to talk in larger groups than they usually do.  It's a shame, really, because it was one of the last times we are going to be able to work with them.  In any case, on Wednesday, I worked with a weaker group than I normally do: up until then, I had only worked with the pre-intermediate group, who I always feel like know what I'm teaching them already but are too afraid to admit to it.  This time, though, I worked with the beginner group, so I had to kind of take them by the hand and show them the answers to the questions in the book.  We read together about Buenos Aires, Havana, and Seville, and then answered questions about each city.  It was more tedious yet also more satisfying to work with the beginner's class, because I felt that I was a bigger help.

In any case, I returned home that night, went for a run, and went to bed.  I woke up late Thursday and went to Sharet Elementary School to work with the kids once again.  I've started to see more and more of my kids around Bat Yam--a week or two ago, I saw one on the bus whose name I did not remember, and that was kind of embarrassing as he called me out ("Hi Ittai!").  Then, after volunteering on Thursday, Ephy and I went to the mall to make international student IDs (that say we are born in 1989), and I saw one of my favorite kids there, Or.  I also saw another kid with him whose name I do not recall :\ I would feel worse about not remembering some kids names, but, in the course of two weeks, I probably work with 30 or 40 kids, each for only 45 minutes or so.  And throughout the months they have changed the kids on me quite often, which makes it even harder.  Anywho, after Ephy and I got our IDs, I went to Ulpan and we had our Hebrew final.  I thought I was going to do pretty bad on it, and there were a lot of words in the reading section that I didn't know (and ended up asking our teacher about, I'm glad she translated many of them for me), but in the end I think I probably did fairly well (especially considering that the teacher, Hana, was standing over my shoulder for the last third of the test and going "mmm-hmmm" and helping me).  It's interesting, I'm not used to needing help with academia at all, but I just don't know as much written Hebrew as the rest of my class--indeed, I was the last person to finish the test.  I hope that, by the end of Arad, I am as good as most of the people in there.  We'll see.

After class I went to the Hangar and got an awesome winter jacket that Roie had bought earlier that day; it makes him look like a Russian mobster.  I then returned home and Ephy and I went over to Thanksgiving dinner at Eli Cohen 24 (also known as Simon's/Nathan's/BenJirik's/Scott's/Ohad's/Aaron's apartment [although Aaron was out of town for the weekend and Ohad was at a scout thing]).  It was pretty fantastic, we had turkey legs that Ephy and I cooked at our apartment as well as mashed potatoes, yams, cauliflower, stuffing, banana cake, and apple pie.  At the end I felt both full and American (two things that I think usually go together anyway :P).

Then I went over to Marissa and Karin's apartment, where we hung out for a while before watching Donnie Darko.  I left in the middle because I wanted to wake  up early on Friday to do the stair race at Azrieli towers.  Scott, Jake, I, and others had planned to take a 140 bus to Azrieli at 7:15 in the morning, seeing as the race started at 9 and the bus only comes once an hour or so.  Unfortunately, I woke up at 7:00 and told myself I could just sleep for a couple more minutes and then leave--I ended up sleeping in until about 1:30 or so.  Shortly after I awoke, I went for a run, and by the time I'd showered and cleaned up a bit, my cousin Gil came and picked me up.  We went to King George Street to buy tickets for the show last night, the Tabac Weekender.  Ben brought this up to me a couple weeks ago because we both like Saul Williams, and I was astounded that he was even in Tel Aviv.

In any case, Gil and I then went to his family's apartment and had a nice dinner before we picked Ben up at Shuk HaCarmel and headed to the show.  Saul was phenomenal--he is easily my favorite slam poet, and much of the slam poetry I've written has been heavily inspired by him.  I heard him recite quite a few poems that he's done at the National Slam Poetry competition, as well as a couple that I heard when he came to University of Kentucky a couple of years ago.  All in all, it was pretty phenomenal, although I don't know how much Gil enjoyed it.  After he finished, Ben and I came up to him and talked to him for a bit--Ben is from Poughkeepsie, where Saul also grew up.  Saul kind of smiled and laughed when Ben told him this; I always feel like he's just too wiped out to really comprehend anything after he performs.  We got a picture with him:



I mean, seriously, look at him.  He looks like he just gave birth, or is about to die, or something.  I would say he just doesn't photograph well, but I got plenty of great shots of him during the performance:


The only thing I didn't like about the performance was Saul's insistence to take breaks between poems and talk about what's going on over here as if he's actually knowledgeable.  He was making very liberal and somewhat ignorant comments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...at one point, in one of his poems, he asked "where my niggas at?" and then said "...would that be in the West Bank?"  Trying to equate the Palestinian situation to the situation of African Americans, at any point in America's history, is not only very one-sided but also quite ignorant and generally incorrect.  The first comment he made about his venue was something along the lines of "I never thought I'd be performing in Israel...y'all are some bad mother fuckers, yes you are."  Essentially, he talked about the situation as if it was as simple as deciding to make peace right now, as if Israel has not tried, and as if he was educated about it--which he clearly is not.  Something interesting he did say, though, that I kind of agreed with, is that Israel and America are kind of like boyfriend and girlfriend.  He said our peoples shared a certain cultural kinship that is also, unfortunately, often rooted in misdeed.  Anyway, aside from his political commentary, the show was excellent.

Then, this morning, Gil drove me over to Saba and Safta Bruno and Clara's place, and we ate lunch.  Now I am relaxing before returning to Bat Yam--tonight is Simon and I's final weigh-in for our competition, I need to go for a long run as soon as I get back.  The loser has to pay for the winner's dinner tonight at Papagaio.  Regardless of the outcome of the contest, tonight should be an excellent night.  I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving, and an even better week!  I'm sure I would love to hear from you sometime, feel free to contact me via any means!  Take it easy! :D