Jerusalem? Never Heard of it.

I'm having an existential crisis...I seem to be nowhere.


Jerusalem? Never heard of it

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Something always gets lost in translation, but usually not an entire city.

"Jerusalem. There is no such city!" the Jerusalem municipality said in the English-language version of a sightseeing brochure it had published originally in Hebrew.

The correct translation: "Jerusalem. There is no city like it!"
Carrying a photograph of the brochure, Israel's Ma'ariv newspaper said on Wednesday tens of thousands of flyers had been distributed before city hall realised its mistake.

False Alarm

It is never a good sign when you hear lots of sirens, lots of cars honking or helicopters. Today, we had all three.

I decided to go to Post 1 today for lunch and got a co-worker to tag along. Once we got out into the traffic, she remembered: "Oh yeah. I got an email that the IDF thinks a suicide bomber got into Jerusalem in a white van. That explains all the cops checking all the cars."

There was a vehicle in front of us at that moment that was sort of a small white van. A soldier was checking it. I remarked that it would be bad if that was the white van they referred to.

It had all calmed down by the time we finished lunch, and none of the news outlets have any word of arrests. So I imagine it was a false alarm. It did mean it took me an hour and a half to get to lunch and back, so I wasn't able to do as many visa interviews. Darn!

A Pet Peeve

Terrorists attacked the U.S. Embassy in Damascus earlier today. They apparently detonated a car bomb and had a shootout with local guards. All but one of the terrorists were killed in the attack.

Warning: here comes a soapbox. I am not sure if I have jumped on this soapbox here before or if I only leap up around other folks at the consulate and in my head. But what annoys me is the way the media refers to non-Americans at embassies and consulates. They make a big deal about no American diplomats being killed. And for that, I am really grateful. But they refer to one or two Syrian guards being killed. I have seen this repeatedly, and they never make it clear whether those folks are our guards or not. This matters. These are folks who probably put more at risk than we do to serve America. They run the risk of being targeted for "collaborating" with us and they have to stay here long after we leave. In fact, we can't always evacuate them in an emergency. These are colleagues and friends, and I can tell you that there are an awful lot of our FSNs who I am far closer to than some of the other Americans here.

They serve our country too. And I wish the media would make that clear. Which is not to diminish the loss of those folks in the armies of those countries in which we serve. But they are serving their country, and our local staff is serving ours. I wish the media would acknowledge that. We depend on these folks literally with our lives.

A Moment of Silence

We all stopped today at 3:46 pm (8:46 am DC time) for a moment of silence to remember the victims of 9/11. The flag at the Consulate flew at half mast.

Earthquake!

This morning I woke up to what I thought was the cats being naughty. I heard a noise that sounded like something large had fallen. I got up, looked around, and found the cats, looking innocent. I figured I would find the disaster zone later, and went back to bed.

Later, I called a friend from work, who asked if I had felt the earthquake. She and two other co-workers who live in her apartment building (which is just up the street from our place) felt it. That's when I realized that the cats weren't just looking innocent. For a change, they had, in fact, really been innocent. Apparently an earthquake measuring 4.4 on the richter scale hit the northern Jordan valley. We live in the hills above the central Jordan valley. Apparently it was felt as far away as Tel Aviv.

Such earthquakes are not unusual here and in fact, several measuring 3.2 have hit recently. This is the first one I have felt. M, of course, slept through it!

Bidding Makes Me Cranky

I got a response from my CDO (Career Development or Destruction Officer, depending on your point of view) telling me I would not be allowed to bid on the Russian OR German language positions. This despite the fact that the head of the German department told me my score in German qualified me for a top off. But my CDO says no, meaning I now have to go put only English-language positions on my list becuase you can't bid on the country you are currently serving in. And Hebrew doesn't get you very far in terms of posts other than Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. So I have to replace 10 of my 20 bids with English-language positions, including 5 of my top 10.

Now SOME English-language posts are okay, but she also tells me those will be gone by the time they get to my name. She says "maybe" the straight consular position in London, but even that is iffy (and I don't want another straight consular position anyway).

As I look over the bid list, there are some pretty crappy places I am now going to have to bid on. I *can* bid on Auckland, Sydney and Canberra, but the quarantine period for pets there is about 6 months. I can put Doha or Dubai on there, but if I do, that is where I will go. And of course, there is always Baghdad or Islamabad. Basically there are no good choices that I have a chance of getting except the DC positions. Which are highly bid and highly competative.

I think I need to look at USAJOBS again. Cranky cranky.

Submitted my Bid List

This morning I submitted my bid list. Clicking the submit button was a bit nerve-wracking, especially since I am doing it so early (it isn't due until September 22). But I was advised to send it in early because I am bidding on the DC positions. So here is the top 10 as submitted:

1. DC - Operations Center
2. DC - INR Watch
3. LUXEMBOURG- Public Diplomacy (PD)
4. BERLIN - Political (POL)
5. VIENNA - POL-ECON
6. KIEV - PD
7. THE HAGUE - ECON
8. GENEVA - Management Officer
9. MOSCOW - Staff Asst./POL
10. OTTAWA - CON (consular)/POL

Ottawa moving up to 10 is the only change. I have misgivings about it given that the Ambassador there is someone folks from SC would be very familiar with. but I decided that it would be worth the risk, given Ottawa's proximity to DC. And I am hoping it is a moot point and that I will get the Op Center.

I Scuba'd

We went back to Taba, Egypt this past weekend for the long Labor Day weekend. In fact, we took Friday off and went with a friend from work for four days. It was fabulous!

The weekend was almost cancelled because of a rumor that the Israeli government had issued a warning for all Israelis to get out of the Sinai because of an impending terrorist attack. What we ultimately learned was that the Israeli government had said there was the possibility of suitcase bombers attacking VIPs in Sharm Al-Shaiq (which was not where we were headed) and of Israeli tourists being kidnapped at Red Sea resorts (we aren't Israelis, but note to self, don't speak Hebrew when on vacation at Red Sea resorts!). An Israeli NGO then reissued a warning from May for all Israelis to get out. So the warning was NOT a new warning from the government of Israel, but the rumor of the warning to get out of the Sinai spread like wildfire through the consulate. About half of the consulate was supposed to go down for the weekend, but almost all cancelled because of these rumors. We weighed the danger, took into consideration that the Embassy in Cairo did not think there was a new threat, and went anyway. And it was perfectly safe there (like I said before, they have a massive hill they have built around the hotel we stay in, so it would be hard to get to our hotel anyway), and fortunately for us but not for the resort, not crowded at all. And ironically, the only incident over the weekend happened when a gunman opened fire on some tourists in Amman, Jordan (nowhere near the Sinai or the Red Sea, and not aimed at Israelis). Like M says, living here is a crap shoot.

Anyway, on the way down to Taba, we stopped at the sign for "Lot's Wife," the 200 ft pillar at Mt. Sodom that is supposed to be the pillar of salt she turned into when she turned around an looked back at the destruction of Sodom an Gomorrah. Now if that is her, that was a BIG WOMAN!

At the resort, M and I snorkled some more, and this time we saw lion fish and an octopus! They are really cool creatures, and I watched for a while as a sea urchin battled the octopus for a crevice under a rock that both wanted. Ultimately they shared.

Yesterday I attempted unsuccessfully to kayak in a one-person sit-atop. Let's just say I don't have the center of gravity for it! Regular kayaks, yes. One-person sit-atops, apparently no. I did manage the two-person sit-atop with M. After a bit, I gave up and M and our friend took a paddle-boat out about half-way to Saudi Arabia while I went to do my discovery dive. Basically, a discovery dive is where you have a scuba instructor putting you into all the gear and taking you into relatively shallow water to see how you would like Scuba diving. It was amazing! The instructor said he "starves" for a student like me because I was comfortable, curious and unafraid. We even went deeper than we were supposed to (9m when we were supposed to only go to 6 or 7 meters) because I saw an eel I wanted to check out in a small crevice on the sea floor. Some friends were getting certified while I was down there, and one snapped a picture of me. I'll upload it as soon as she sends it to me. And I definitely plan to go back and get certified.



Me, M and Lot's wife at Mt. Sodom. Lot's wife is the narrowest pillar formation on top of the mountain, almost directly above my head.



Me on my discovery dive...really, it's me.

By this time next year, I could be in...

So here are my top ten choices on my personal bid list as it stands at the moment:

1. DC - Operations Center
2. DC - INR Watch
3. LUXEMBOURG- Public Diplomacy (PD)
4. BERLIN - Political (POL)
5. VIENNA - POL-ECON
6. KIEV - PD
7. THE HAGUE - ECON
8. GENEVA - Management Officer
9. MOSCOW - Staff Asst./POL
10. BERN - GSO

Rounding out the top twenty (we are required to submit 20 bids) are other positions in Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Vancouver, Ottawa, London and Dublin (that's for you, Cat). If any of these slots get knocked off, I have some back up bids in Australia and New Zealand, but they aren't top on my list because of the quarantines they have on pets.

Of course, my primary goal is to come back to DC, and the top two jobs are the only DC jobs I am allowed to bid on as an Entry Level Officer. But if I can't come back to DC, some nice comfy post in Europe or Canada would be nice. So we'll see what happens.

A Bad Month for Pets

One of my co-workers went in today to get the mid-level bid list (which got posted yesterday after the end of our workday), and one of the guards told him to call me because "Mama Cat" was sick.

Jerusalem, like most places with large muslim populations, has tons of street cats. The Prophet Mohammed allowed cats to be around him even when he prayed, something considered quite an honor, because they were clean. That coupled with the belief that spaying and neutering is "unnatural" (I have argued with our staff that the street cat situation is unnatural because these are the descendants of pets and not wild animals), and you get a city that is overrun with street cats. They are in every dumpster, at every restaurant, in every alley.

We have a few street cats that hang out at the consulate because we put out food and water for them. Three of them are regulars who will let us pet them and have "names," or at least what we call them. "Mama Cat," by far the sweetest and most affectionate, is the mother of the other two, "Handsome" and "Little Girl." Mama Cat got sick a couple weeks ago, and I thought we would lose her. She disappeared for a couple weeks and when she returned, she was emaciated. She could barely walk. I put soft food and water by her head, and she would eat and drink, and slowly she improved. But since then, she has started looking pregnant, not an uncommon appearance for street cats, but Mama Cat was spayed.

So I suspect a serious problem. I went by today to check on her and she was under a truck breathing hard and crying occasionally. She looked awful. The vets are all closed today for Shabbatt, but if she is no better tomorrow, I will take her in. But honestly, I don't expect her to make it through the night.



Mama Cat in the Consulate garden

Suicide bombers and traffic

Before the AC fiasco yesterday, I took M to work. We both thought it was a holiday of some sort because there was NO traffic. The trip that normally takes 20-30 minutes took more like 5.

I discovered last night that the reason was because the Israelis had intelligence that a suicide bomber was going to attempt to get into Jerusalem. So they shut down the whole West Bank. So nobody could get into Jerusalem, hence no suicide bomber, but also no commuters going to work.

I feel bad for our local staff, most of whom are Palestinian. Our senior FSN didn't get in until 10:30 because of the closures, and she is the one that usually intimidates the border police so much that they let her through! (She's not a big woman, and not much taller than me, but she has such a force of personality that they don't dare bother her. She is fearless, and when they yell, she yells right back! I just love her!)

Meanwhile back at the war

The ceasefire is still holding, despite an IDF raid on the Bekaa Valley town of Boudai on what it said was Iranian weapons being smuggled by Syrian guerrillas to Hezbollah. I don't know much about it, because, as I mentioned earlier, I was at the beach.

There is word today that Turkey denied access to its airspace to Iranian and Syrian airplanes flying to Lebanon. This is a good thing if it keeps weapons shipments out of Hezbollah hands. Even so, the IDF is predicting the fighting could flare back up in a few weeks. And still the Lebanese army is not at the border.

So who knows what will happen? I heard a helicopter this morning and looked up, expecting to see one of the ones that searches for suicide bombers and their accomplices when there has been an incident in town. But this looked like an IDF gunship of sorts. It is the first time I have seen one here.

hmm, I wonder if they have vacancies at Taba for this weekend. :)

My Dad Rocks!

I was actually able to get out of town this weekend. As I might have mentioned, the key to maintaining your sanity in Jerusalem is to get out early and often! And this weekend, we made it to Taba, just across the border in Egypt.

If the name Taba sounds familiar to you, it is because that is the resort terrorists blew up a couple years ago. We stayed at the Hilton Nelson Village, which is next to what was blown up but was not damaged in the attack. Security there is pretty tight now, and they have basically erected a small mountain around the back side of the resport and no cars are allowed near the front side. So we felt perfectly safe.

I have to say that crossing the border there is a bit different than our experience crossing into Jordan at the Allenby Crossing. While Jordan and Egypt both have peace treaties with Israel, Jordan does not officially recognize the crossing at the West Bank as a border with Israel. So you go through the Israeli side, which is very efficient and straight forward, then you drive through a long DMZ before hitting the Jordanian side. That side you could basically drive right past, but hey, since you decided to stop, let's have tea while we stamp your passport.

At Taba, the border gates are right next to each other. There is a space of about one car-length between the gates, basically so you can have your car checked by the side you are crossing into. The border guards chat with each other easily, and interestingly enough, in English as a common language, wandering back and forth across the line. And the Egyptian side is more organized than the Jordanian side at Taba, though as a diplomat you still get escorted through (often, but not always, guided to the head of any lines) and you have the feeling tea could be offered at any moment (have I mentioned how much I just love Arab hospitality? And I can't tell you how many times I heard "Diplomat from America? I LOVE America!" As "the consul" (vice consul actually) I got really good treatment because they know consuls give visas!).

Anyway, back to Nelson Village. The resort is right on the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea. Now this is why I had to mention that my dad rocks. The water immediately in front of the resort is full of coral reefs. A while back, my dad got me a snorkle and mask because I had said it was something I was interested in doing. I had never had a chance to give it a test run until this weekend. It fit great and according to a friend who went with us (who snorkles a lot and is a certified scuba diver) it is a really good quality mask (Thanks Dad!!). It was awesome, and made snorkling an amazing experience! The fish we got to see were incredible. The colors were stunning! I can't wait to go back and do it again. I may even get an underwater digital camer to take some shots.

I did take some pictures of the hotel and of the fish coming right to the edge of the water.

A word to the wise though. Always use sunscreen...you lose track of how long you have been in the water watching the fish and can get a really nasty sunburn that hurts like h*ll. Don't ask how I know that.



This is the view from our hotel room.



These are the fish that come right up to the edge.



Even the camel thought it was hot!

Life here...

...is weird. My boss told me once that he liked 3-year tours because it gave you time to deal with culture shock. Those who have lived overseas know that Culture Shock is a very real thing. My boss said that with a three year tour, for the first year, you're stupid. The second year, they're stupid, and the third year, it all sort of sorts out.

I don't think it works that way here. I hit culture shock within two months after I got here. After my apartment was robbed, I hated them all. Since then, I have noticed a cyclical pattern of ups and downs regarding being here. One of our local guards asked me the other day, now that I have been here a year and a half, how do I like Israel? (we don't consider Jerusalem to be in Israel because that is a final status issue for negotiation between Palestinians and Israelis, and when you have lived here you can see why we have that policy. Parts of Jerusalem are definitely Israel, but parts are definitely not. And parts like the Old City, well, it depends on where you are in there and the direction of the wind. But I digress).

Anyway, the guard asked me that and I told her I was having a good Jerusalem week, so I was content to be here. And she said that even for people who are born here and live here their whole lives, they go through these cycles of thinking Jerusalem is incredible to Jerusalem is awful. So I guess my cycling is normal.

Just last night, I was content to be here. I pretty much have been for a couple of weeks, but last night, I was even content to be in my present job for the next 9 months (some visa days are worse than others). But today, I am feeling a bit homesick. I really miss the states. Living overseas teaches you how American you are, and how you probably like everything we do better than practically anything anyone else does. I really hope I get to come back to DC next tour. I miss my condo in Arlington and I miss the beaches in SC. So I am putting them both in this entry so I can look at them!



Folly Beach, SC in April



Arlington, VA in January

Beggars

Yesterday as I was leaving the office, mouth full of falafel that one of the local staff had just handed me, I was thinking about how this place is not a good place for weight loss. Eating is a communal activity, and the FSNs (Foreign Service Nationals, our locally-hired staff) bring in some sort of food almost every day. Usually it consists of falafel, kike (a local bread), pita, hummus and labeneh (a yogurt dip or sorts). On Fridays, we have a full breakfast and stand around in the file room eating and laughing together.

Yesterday wasn't falafel from a full breakfast, but just one of the random servings of falafel that crops up around the office with an FSN standing nearby telling you to help yourself. Good thing these folks are our friends...they could poison us easily!

So I got in my car to head to Post 2 still eating my falafel, when I saw the people begging at the intersection. Palestinians are proud people, so you seldom see begging. And when you do, it is usually the random kids tap tap tapping on your car window trying to get a few shekels for "cleaning" your windshield or for selling you packs of tissues or other items you don't need. We are discouraged from giving money to these kids, because most of them are essentially being pimped out by an older boy or man who takes almost all of the money they get. So you shake your finger at them, a sign here that the discussion is over.

The beggars yesterday were different. The woman is an observant muslim woman in a black dress that covers everything from her wrists to her ankles and a white hijjab covering her hair. I imagine her husband is dead, in prison, or has abandoned her, because I can not fathom the pride of the husband of an observant woman letting her beg. She is carrying a child of maybe two. He was an infant when I got here. With her is her older son, a boy of maybe 6 or 7 with horrific scars on his face that look as though he has been badly burned. I have given to them in the past, but yesterday I didn't have any coins. Then I noticed as they walked away that the older boy is much thinner than he used to be. Painfully thin. They had walked to the next car by the time I noticed, or I would have given them something. Anything.

Suddenly my falafel didn't taste as good.

Canaan Dogs

I saw a Canaan Dog at Independence Park today while I was waiting for M to come out of Post 1.

Canaan dogs are indigenous to this area, and there is evidence of them from ancient times. I saw a special on tv a while back about a woman who is trying to increase the genetic diversity in the ones that are being bred by breeders by going to some of the Bedouin camps and borrowing the males they use to herd their sheep.

There are still wild packs of them around, but because they were domesticated once and have sort of remained near people, especially the Bedouin, they are only semi-feral. The pack in the picture below lives near my house. They bark when you come by, but they neither run at you nor away.

We Made it to Day 3

The cease fire is still holding after three days. The port of Haifa has finally resumed normal operations as a result. This may not seem like such a big thing to folks not here, but it is a very important thing for those at the consulate, especially all the new arrivals and those who will be arriving soon. All our HHE goes through that port.

For those not in the foreign service, HHE is acronym-speak for Household Effects, or, in English, all your "stuff." You get two deliveries of "stuff" when you come to post, your UAB (unaccompanied baggage) and your HHE. Your unaccompanied baggage is about 250 lbs of all the things you think you will need immediately minus the weight of the packing material. So maybe 225 lbs of "stuff." You are supposed to receive it within a couple weeks of arriving at post. Mine included lots of clothes that I discovered I would not use here, plus my tv and stereo, some dishes and pots (like I cook...I was here for over a month before I realized I didn't know how to turn on my stove!). Your HHE is the rest of your stuff, and usually there is a lot of it. There are usually two categories of things in there: the stuff you didn't realize you needed immediately until after your UAB arrived and the stuff you could throw away and never miss.

Getting your HHE can be like Christmas, especially if you packed out a long time before you get it. One of my friends here can attest to that, as it was 9 months between when she packed out at her last post, Djibouti (which she assures me that the fun of making your family say that name is not worth actually serving there) and when she got her HHE this week. M was in Baku a good 6 or 7 months before she got hers (she was there 4 months before she got her UAB, the stuff you need immediately!).

The stuff in your HHE is often sentimental and makes your apartment feel like your place (particularly since it goes with the government-issued furniture that looks exactly like what you had at your last post). Receiving it is lots of fun, plus you get a couple admin days to stay home and unpack it all. So imagine how distressing it is to think that all your stuff is either sitting on a ship that can't come into port (daily increasing the likelihood that the ship will either sink, throw your stuff overboard, or leave and deposit your stuff in a unknown and undocumented port, never to be located again) or worse, is actually IN the port waiting to be aired out by a qassam rocket.

So Haifa being back open in really good thing!

Day 2 of the Cease Fire

I find it interesting that only minor news outlets are really talking about the Fox reporter and camerman who were kidnapped in Gaza.

Monday night, American reporter Steve Centanni, 60, and New Zealand cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, were apparently seized by masked gunmen near the Palestinian security services headquarters. I saw the story about it on either ynetnews.com or jpost.com, I don't remember which, Monday evening, and shortly after that, they said something about it on Fox. But now it is not on Fox, not on any of the Israeli news sites. If you google it, you find minor news outlets reporting that the PA has condemned the kindnapping and are negotiating for the journalists' release. But nothing in the bigger news outlets. Interesting.

There continues to be fighting in Gaza and the West Bank. There was apparently four bombs thrown at IDF forces in Jenin last night, and a house in Gaza was destroyed, injuring some people inside. And the Israelis arrested 108 Palestinians yesterday for being in Israel without a work permit. Some of those were probably our visa applicants...they regularly pick folks out of our line to check their papers.

And Sharon is getting worse. I know it sounds awful, but I really hope for the sake of my weekend that he at least makes it until Monday. I really need to get out of town!

24 hours and counting

The cease fire has held for almost 25 hours now. The IDF is now withdrawing from Lebanon. There has been some gunfire between the IDF and Hezbollah fighters, but nothing serious.

It is not the same in Gaza, where some more qassams were fired and two journalists from Fox were kidnapped last night. The journalists should be okay though...usually the Palestinians serve their captives tea and then let them go!

And in even better news, I may actually be able to get out of town this weekend! Now THAT would be a miracle!

That was fast

A Hezbollah gunman attempted to open fire on the IDF, who returned fire and hit him. But the cease fire is still holding over the big guns.

From what I hear, some of the Lebanese who evacuated the south of their country are heading back. I hope for everyone's sake that they get to stay.