S and the Pollard Protestors

I am beginning to lose count of the number of times I have worked on Secretary of State visits, but I think this was my 8th. At least this time, I got to do something other serve as site officer for whereever the meeting with President Abbas was. This time, I was S/ES liaison, meaning that the site officers and line officers used me as the point of contact for dealing with issues, putting out fires, etc.

The work was a lot more interesting because I got to see what the line was like and whether I think that would be an interesting job to bid on. Looks like the job would be fun but exhausting. Liaison work was tiring enough, because there are only two liaisons, one each from the Consulate and Embassy, and the office has to be manned 24 hours a day. That meant 12 hours a day for the whole visit, and this time she arrived Saturday evening and left this morning. Needless to say, I am very tired.

Last night we got a bit of excitement when some Jonathan Pollard protesters made it to the Secretary's floor, where we all were (except her. She was at a meeting). (Have to wonder how they knew the floor she was on and how they got up there, given all the Israel security around...hmmmm). They didn't get near her room, but they got near enough that we heard them yelling "Free Pollard Now" and "We want Pollard home." Jonathan Pollard, by the way, is an American who spied on the US for Israel. That has made him a national hero here, and people argue he should be released because he was just giving one of America's allies info it would have eventually been given anyway. Plus, they are convinced he did it for ideological reasons because he is Jewish. The truth is he didn't "give" Israel anything, he sold it, and only after Russia turned him down. That's not ideology or zionism or anything else. That is greed. And he belongs just where he is, in jail. Which, by the way, is now where some of the protesters are as well.

Drivers here are really bad

You might remember how I said that people here, because they live in a place where they could die at any moment, really live in the present. So basically, they attend to their needs regardless of the needs of anyone else. It's all about them. So like I have said before, if they need to stop at the 24 hour store and there is no parking, they will stop in the middle of the road. Because it is all about them. And the police won't write a ticket generally, because that would be too much trouble and it is all about them.

When I first heard about the Ha'aretz story below, I assumed the woman was arrested for driving recklessly while having sex in the fast lane. But no. She had stopped in the middle of the fast last. Because it was all about her.


Woman ticketed for having sex with passenger on highway fast lane

By Reuters

Police investigating why a car was blocking traffic in the fast lane of a major highway on Sunday found a couple inside having sex.

A police spokesman said the female driver and her male passenger gave in to their passions without pulling over to the side of the road, causing congestion and leaving other motorists having to swerve to dodge their stationary vehicle.

A patrolman gave the woman a ticket for holding up traffic.

Excavations in the Old City

You have probably heard about this on the news. Now you can watch it online!

Mughrabi Gate excavations webcam

I think a camera on the protestors would be an interesting addition.

Singing Happy Birthday

I went to a friend's last night to celebrate his birthday. We sang happy birthday for him...but being foreign service geeks, we couldn't possibly do it just in English. By the time we finished, we had sung for him in English, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, Danish, Georgian (no, not a soutern drawl, that was when I sang in English), Greek and Russian. I think would could have rummaged up a few more, but at that point, he just wanted his cake!

We finally got some sunshine today. It has been pretty rainy lately. This shot is from about Sunday three weeks ago and is the only rainbow I have seen here.

Clashes in the Old City

If it hasn't been overridden by the death of Anna Nicole Smith, I am sure you probably saw stories on the news about the protests in the Old City. Basically, the Israelis are excavating near the Haram a-Sharif/Temple Mount, and that is a particularly sensitive area for all people here. So as you saw on the news, some 200 Israeli police went into the compund at the Al Aqsa Mosque and there was lots of stone and tear-gas canister throwing. There were no serious injuries and it didn't spread significantly outside of the Old City. I did see about 150 protesters outside the gate yesterday, but they were peaceful, and today while I was out, we came on some Palestinian kids burning garbage and wielding stones. They didn't throw them, maybe because our driver was Palestinian.

Anyway, I mostly wanted to let everyone know that I am safe and everything is quiet here.

Ein Gedi

One of the things I like best about Israel is the country's national park system.

Today M, three friends from work and I drove down to Ein Gedi, an oasis on the Dead Sea with some great hiking trails and some cool archaeological sites. The park is about 400 meters below sea level and has two rivers and four springs on it, as well as a nature reserve. We saw Ibex (sort of like a gazelle) and Rock Hyrax, which look like a beaver without a tale, plus a variety of birds. There is a spectacular water-fall, especially for the desert.





The nicest archaeological site in the park is that of a 3rd century AD Synagogue with beautiful mosaic floors. The mosaics include inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic. The inscriptions include the geneaology from Adam to Japeth, lists of donors to the synagogue, and a curse on anyone who reveals the city's secrets to strangers.

Yay Police!

I got good news last night. the Israeli police caught the guys who robbed us at knife point last month, and they both plead guilty. Woo hoo!

Frustrations

We are having some frustrations with the department. My orders are set, so I will definitely be coming back to DC. In fact, I even know the date.

M, on the other hand, is not bidding on critical needs position, so the department put off allowing those positions to be filled until they got enough bidders for Iraq. But the position she bid on said she was the BLC (Bureau's Leading Cadidate), so we were pretty confident. Then a cable came out saying that they had gotten enough bidders for everything but FS-2 positions (FS-2 is a rank...Mary is an FS-3, just below that). They said they would start "open season" for everyone but people ranked FS-2. For those who were ranked FS-2, they were creating lists of people with regional experience and language skills and they would ask those people to "volunteer." If there weren't enough "volunteers," they would move to forcing people to go. And they said they would target "fair share" bidders first, that is, people who have been at relatively cushy posts for 6 years or more.

So open season started the 23rd and M immediately got an email from the position she applied for offering a "handshake" (official job offer). If she accepted, they would send it to human resources, who would get everything done so she could start the job. M immediately accepted.

Not so fast. Her Career Development Officer (CDO) sends an email saying he can not register the handshake because she has been put on one of those lists for a job in Baghdad because of her regional experience and her language skills. Never mind that she is not ranked at a FS-2 and they promised to let people get jobs except FS-2s. Never mind that she is not a "fair share" bidder. In fact, far from being at a cushy post for the past 6 years, she has spent the last five at hardship/danger posts.

She has sent a letter to AFSA (our "union"), who had agreed to the whole postponing of open season (it was supposed to start in November) and this new opening of the season for everyone but the FS-2s because they were told this would keep the department from having "directed assignments" (forcing people to go). But from the tone of the email to Mary, they are not doing what they told AFSA they'd do and they are threatening to direct people to Baghdad. She also sent an email to the position she bid on telling her she had no intention of "volunteering," and they responded that they wanted her and were holding the job. So we'll see what happens. Her CDO said he was reasonably confident that they would not force her to go and that she would have an answer in a week or two. In the meantime, we wait...and we are NOT happy about it.

US Embassy in Athens

If you read the news today or where near a television, you heard that the US Embassy in Athens was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade. I have friends who have served there or will serve there soon...I am really glad no one was hurt.

So many among my friends and family were worried about me coming to Jerusalem, but really, there is no safe place in the world. What bugs me is that practically everyone, regardless on their views on the war, supports our troops. And I agree with them completely. But people are only reminded when these attacks happen that those of us in the State Department also but our lives on the line to serve our country but without the added benefit of being armed. And people will that forget within days after the attack, within hours if no one was hurt.

Back in J'lem

All good things come to an end, and so I am sad to report that our vacation has ended. We are back in Jerusalem.

It was good to get back...the plane ride was one of the most turbulent I have been on but I mostly slept through it (waking periodically as I bounced about!).

We got in last night at about 6, and I made it less than 15 hours before I had to use my car horn again! Sigh. Southern drivers are so polite!

It is nice being back because the cats clearly missed us. What I especially like is how the cats are SOOOO nice to me as a means to punish M for leaving. It is the only time they really like me better than they like her! Of course, I'd have slept better if they hadn't spent the entire night sleeping ON me to make sure I didn't leave again!

I Love America!

I love how polite people are, and how Christmas-y everything is. The stores are big (a little intimidatingly big actually) and so are the roads. Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream is just as good as I remembered it! So are Outback steaks and cheese fries! And there are movies without intermissions!

This is just what I needed!

Okay, now I REALLY need a vacation

Okay, let me start off by saying we are all okay and no one got hurt.

There is a course you take before you go overseas with the Foreign Service called Security Overseas Seminar. In it, they tell you that a really high percentage of foreign service officers are the victims of crime at some point in their careers, something like 85% if I recall correctly. Like everyone else in the room, I thought, well, hopefully I will be in the lucky 15%. But as you probably already know, my apartment here was robbed two months after I arrived at post. So I had already done my part to contribute to the percentage. And I hoped that would be the end of it.

Yesterday, M and I, along with two other friends from the consulate, decided to do the ramparts walk in the Old City. That is where you walk around the top of the Old City walls. The views are great and we all took some great pictures. We were all talking about what a beautiful day it was, how much fun we were having and how Jerusalem overall is a pretty easy place to live. That is probably what jinxed us.

We walked up the stairs to a wide part of the rampart (maybe 20 feet wide by 40 feet long....most of it was only a few feet wide). In hindsite, all of us looked up at the two Palestinian teenagers and thought it was odd that they were up there. But all of us dismissed it...true we were on a remote part of the walk, but we were barely a few steps from Lion's gate, the end of the tour, where the police stand. And we knew most of the Old City is covered by cameras, so few crimes more serious than pickpocketing ever occur there.

I was in the lead and the first guy, by the stairs up onto that part of the rampart, asked me in English "what clock," pointing to his wrist. I told him it was almost 1. He said thank you in Hebrew, then stammered a bit and said "you're welcome" in English. I continued on across, figuring this wasn't a place to dally and plus I was hungry and ready to go get lunch. And I as I walked past the second guy, who was standing near the stairs going down on the other side, he said, "wait wait." I looked at him and he said, "give money." I thought he was begging and I said no. Then he pulled out his knife and said "give money." This made me mad, and I said no again. Then he pointed to my camera (a little canon elph) and said "give camera." And I yelled no and put it in my pocket. What I didn't see was that the first boy, the one I had told the time, was clearly the leader (the guy demanding money from me was clearly nervous) and was angry at my defiance. M said he lunged towards me with his knife, a switchblade. She yelled, "Give him the f**king money." This stopped the first guy, and I reached in my pocket and pulled the first bill off the money in my pocket, a 100 shekel bill (a little less than $25 dollars) and handed it to him. M told him I had her money and I told him that was all we had.

In the meantime, our two friends pulled out their wallets. One handed them everything she had, $150 and 120 shekels. The other pulled out a 20 shekel bill and when they demanded more she gave them another 20 shekels (she had about 800 shekels on her). They kept demanding more, but Mary yelled "that's enough." And since some more tourists were coming, the two ran off. In retrospect, I think the one friend giving them so much money was what kept them from continuing to demand more or from hurting us. I don't think the one who asked me for the money and my camera would have hurt us. He was clearly nervous. But the other seemed more dangerous.

We went straight downstairs and reported it to the police, who ran into the city and grabbed every Arab kid they could find in a red shirt (none the right one). One poor group of boys got brought to us twice. Our security came down and sat with us while were inviewed in the police station. It took hours. We didn't get out until nearly 5.

I am hopeful they will catch the guys because of all the cameras. Plus, the police seemed really concerned about the boys having weapons and attacking diplomats.

So like I said, now I REALLY need a vacation!

Church of the Ark

Last Friday, December 1, I went to the settlement of Shilo. While I was there, they showed me a Byzantine Church they are excavating on the Tell by the settlement. The Tell is the site of the Biblical town of Shilo, for which the settlement is named.

Today there was an article in The Telegraph about the church. The mosaics are amazing. They showed me the inscriptions they refer to in the article, including a new on they had just uncovered Thursday evening. They read: May the Lord Jesus Christ Keep Watch over the Inhabitants of Shilo and may he bless Antonius the Bishop, Germanius the priest and Zorys the mosaic maker." Off to the side is a baptismal font with the inscription they uncovered Thursday. There is an additional inscription by a bench that says "This seat was made by Zoyrs the mosaic maker."



Inscription calling for the protection of the residents of Shilo

There are actually two levels of mosaics. Apparently the older church was built in an area of bad drainage. So they covered it up (which preserved the mosaics really well) and build a new one slightly overlapping the old. There is a mosque on top of all of that which is 1100 years old. I took some pictures, which I will download later.

Getting to see cool archaeological sites while working is awesome! Some days, I really like my job! :)

Christmas dinner for Bethlehem University

Last night, we went to a fundraiser dinner for the Bethlehem University scholarship fund. A really good cause and I hope they made lots of money for the students.

We had a blast. Dinner was pretty good but the company was excellent. We were at a table with a number of our good friends from the consulate. There was a musician who performed dance music periodically (priests probably shouldn't dance) and did sound effects for the door prize drawings and the raffle, which was the best part of the evening. Everyone on our side of the table won something except one friend, and we told him that was God's retribution for him trying to stack the odds in his favor when he drew a ticket (the tickets came in different colors and he picked one the color of his tickets on purpose). We won dinners to Askidiniya (one of my favorite restaurants here) and the American Colony (I don't like it as much but the garden you sit in is nice). We bought 200 shekels (about $40) worth of raffle tickets, so we made out pretty well. Of course, the emcee (I think he was a university official)did even better. His wife won a plane ticket to Brussels, which he gave back, and then he one a piece of art, which he kept (aside from that sounding rigged, I think he is seriously in the dog house for giving back his wife's trip but keeping his prize!).

M and I are thinking of donating a scholarship to the University. The students there are pretty devoted...you have to be to go to school in this climate. Many of them have to walk hours and past numerous checkpoints just to get to school, and they stay on campus until they absolutely have to leave. The Christian population in general is in pretty dire straits in Bethlehem. They used to be the majority there, but with the economic and security situation, they are only about 20 percent of the population in Bethlehem now. Tourism, their only real industry, has virtually dried up, and much of their agricultural lands have been seized by the Israelis for the wall and a nearby settlement.

Guess What I Did?

Were you watching the news? Yep, that makes number 6. Six times that I have worked as a site officer when the Secretary came to visit.

At least this time, I got to go to a different place. We had the meeting at the Intercontinental in Jericho. The Intercon is a really nice hotel, and we had the meetings with the First Lady there back in May of 2005. The staff is really nice and helpful, and the hotel would be a great place to stay if we were allowed there without security. The grounds are immaculate, the rooms large and comfortable, and the pool is amazing. There was a casino there, but it has long since been shut down since the Intifada pretty much dried up the tourist crowd.

The best part of today was getting to body block two cameramen who were trying to get out of the door to get one last shot of the Secretary. I jumped in front of him and grabbed the door handle, forcing the door closed. Then I got a hotel security guy to hold it closed. I got another security guy to hold a second door closed...boy were the press folks peeved!

Cease Fire

Depending on who you talk to, the cease fire in Gaza is a real chance for peace, an opportunity for Hamas to re-arm, or likely to amount to nothing. The cease fire may spread to the West Bank, or the violence in the West Bank may spread back to Gaza. Honestly, I am not optimistic, if only because I have been optimistic before, only to have it dashed.

Who knows?

People seem to think that the Palestinians speak with one voice, but nothing could be further from the truth. Most ideas people have about this place are wrong. There is no one Israeli voice nor one Palestinian voice. Israelis aren't just defending themselves against Palestinian suicide bombers in the home God promised them, though some are, and Palestinians aren't all innocent victims of Israeli oppression, though lots are. Some Palestinians are suicide bombers, but even all suicide bomers aren't the same. Some Palestinians are reasonable and peace-loving, and some are unreasonable and hate Jews. Some Israelis are Palestinian hating and some aren't. There are lots of shades of grey. Mostly its shades of grey.

Anyway, they still haven't gotten buy-in for the cease fire from all the Palestinian groups in Gaza (I think the news said Islamic Jihad claimed credit for the last two qassams), which seems to lessen the chances of the cease fire lasting for long. But Olmert is talking again about land for peace, the first time he has really talked about evacuating settlements since before the Lebanon War. So maybe there is hope...I wish I were more optimistic.

Meanwhile, I am just counting down until my R&R.

Happy Turkey Day!

I just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! We had an excellent dinner with 20 or so friends from the consulate with turkey, dressing and all the fixings! There was even pumpkin pie!

A few things I am thankful for:

* A wonderful partner
* Awesome family and friends
* My grandmother's health
* My furry and feathered children
* and that I get to come home for Christmas!

Softball Diplomacy

Yesterday, a group of us from the consulate met at one of the local sports fields on the east side for a little softball. We didn't have enough people there to really play, so we were mostly just taking turns batting.

After we had been playing for a few minutes, some Palestinian teenagers starting hanging around, first one, then two, and ultimately about six. With a bit of coaxing, we convinced them to join us. None of them had ever played softball, so we had to show them how to hold the bat, where to run, etc. And with me and my handful of words in Arabic being the only ability to communicate, it was challenging! But we were able to communicate none the less, and one turned out to be a great hitter while another did pretty well as a pitcher.

We all played together for about an hour, when several of the guys had to leave for work. I yelled "fursa saideh" to them, which is Arabic for "nice to meet you," and one turned around and asked how to say that in English. I told him, and he called out "nice to meet you" to everyone. It was a lot of fun playing with them, and I think we sent away five young men with good feelings towards Americans.

It made me feel particularly good since Thursday and Friday at work had demonstrated to me just how accustomed we get to awful things. I had to take two groups, one each day, on a tour of the Jerusalem part of the separation barrier. It is pretty depressing to see how it splits families, dividing Palestinian neighborhoods in half. The first day, two separate places near one checkpoint had been closed off since just 5 pm the day before. Both the UN-employee who was driving us and I knew to have our badges on in case we passed a checkpoint or police...it has become ingrained in us. But the guy we were showing around had to fumble for his badge, because in his three months in country, all in Tel Aviv, he had never come across a checkpoint. And both days, we went to Augusta Victoria hospital, a Lutheran Hospital on the Mount of Olives that serves Palestinians. It has a great but depressing view of two checkpoints, one of which is only for foot traffic and one which is only for Israelis (of the 12 routes into Jerusalem, only four are open to Palestinians and one of those is the pedestrian one) as well as the barrier and the ever-expanding settlements.

While at the hospital on Thursday, a doctor came up while we were there to speak to our guide. She told him she was doing a UN film on Palestinian access to health-care (or more accurately, lack of access) and he said he had a kid she could talk about. The child, maybe seven-years old, has leukemia and was running around the hospital alone. I said, "Parents couldn't get permits, huh?" And he said yes, so they had sent the child through the checkpoint alone, where he went from taxi to taxi until he found one to take him to the hospital. He didn't know who to ask for at the hospital, only that this was where he should go.

When I got back to work, I told my co-workers about the little boy with leukemia who was wandering around the hospital alone, and my co-workers, without being told more, said "Parents couldn't get permits?"

...but I was in Cairo!

So more than a month back, when we saw that this past weekend was both a long weekend AND the weekend of the Marine Ball (no offense to the Marines...some of our guys are good friends, but ball gowns are not my thing and we went last year), we decided to go to Cairo. I can't remember ever NOT wanting to see the pyramids.

We flew over on Thursday night after work. The flight is only about an hour from Ben Gurion Airport. A friend at work, Heather, told us she had a friend in Cairo from when she lived there and he drove a taxi for a living. We called Ali first thing Friday morning and hired him for the day to take us around. Let me tell you, that was a great decision! We drove down first to Dahshur, home of the Red and Bent Pyramids. These are the third largest pyramids in Egypt, after the ones at Giza. The Bent Pyramid was one of the first attempts at the kind of pyramid we know today, built by the 4th dynasty Pharoah Sneferu (2613-2589 BC). But the angle was too steep and the pyramid became unstable, so his engineers had to reduce the slope, hence the name. Not satisfied, Sneferu tried again, this time creating the Red Pyramid using the angle his engineers had used at the top portion of the Bent pyramid. It is the first true pyramid. Sneferu's son, Khufu (aka Cheops) is the builder of the first, and largest, true pyramid at Giza.




The Bent Pyramid

We actually went inside the Red Pyramid because we had been advised that the big pyramids would be just as empty inside but would be more crowded. We got hit up for bakshish, a sort of tip, usually one Egyptian pound (about 20 cents) for the first time there, and by none other than the tourist police. We paid again to the old guy who took us down into the pyramid. You have to back down the ramp to go in, and while the ceilings inside are amazing, the smell is well, I guess there aren't toilets around.

Our next stop was Saqqara, home of the Step Pyramid of Djoser. The Step Pyramid is the first pyramid and was built by Imhotep in six mastabas for the 3rd dynasty Pharoah Djoser. It was here, in the pyramid of Titi, that we got the "Fish Tour," our new descriptor for all bad tours. A guy wanting bakshish followed us around the tomb, pointing to the wall carvings and saying "fish" when he saw a fish. Accurate, but not so very helpful. I think he knew maybe 6 words in English. He would point to an empty pedestal and say, "Baby statue. Not here. Egyptian Museum Cairo." We ultimately gave him a pound to go away.



Me at the Step Pyramid

From there we headed to Giza. A friend had recommended we ride camels around the back side of the pyramids, and after coaxing M a bit, we decided to do it. Ali, our taxi driver, took us to a reputable camel stable and we got an hour ride around the pyramids. It was a great way to see the pyramids, away from the traffic and vendors. But boy does that make you sore! Our camel driver said that this is how you really learn to walk like an Egyptian!

On Saturday we went to the Egyptian museum. Ali had warned us about people on the streets luring you with with how they love America and their brother was in America and blah blah. And still we almost fell for it, with a "doctor" (read: perfume shop owner) telling us the museum didn't open until noon and trying to get us to come to his shop. At the last minute, we escaped and continued to the museum. The Egyptian Museum is every bit as incredible as it is billed, and though we opted not to pay the extra 100 pounds to see the mummies, we did get to see some amazing stuff. We even saw Tutankamen's burial mask, which is extraordinary. That night, we headed back to Giza for the sound and light show. In our defense, we already knew it was hokey before we went, but some kitsch you just gotta do. So we went. The talking sphinx was a riot, and at least now I know that the three biggest pyramids there were built by father (Cheops or Kufru-2589-2566), son (Khafre) and grandson Menkaure). Khafre also built the sphinx, and the face on it is his. His is the most recognizable of the three pyramids, with some of the limestone exterior at the top. It is actually smaller than the Great Pyramid in deference to his father, but it looks bigger. The real highlight of the show, however, is the end, when Egyptians dressed in the kind of "ancient Egyptian" costume you'd have worn as a kid at Halloween played the Road to Tiperary on bagpipes as an exit march.

Sunday we went to Old Cairo and visited Salah Eddin's Citadel. Built in 1176, it has amazing views of the city and two really beautiful mosques, the Mohammed Ali mosque and the Mohammed Nasser mosque. Since this was an organized tour, our Muslim guide also took us to the Hanging Church (named for its location) and the grotto where, according to the guide, Muslims and Christians hid Mary and the baby Jesus when they came to Egpyt. I'll leave it to you to figure out what is wrong with that picture. She also took us to a synagogue that she said was no longer used because there were no Jews in Cairo. Of course, she also said Christians were 50% of the population. It is more like less than 10%. And she wrapped up the tour with a trip to a perfume factory. I left with a headache but no bottled scents.



Me and M on camels at Giza

No, I Wasn't at the Rally...

There was a Gay Pride rally here on Friday. It was supposed to be a parade, but the Haredi (the ultra-Orthodox) responding with a week straight of nightly riots, as well as threats to harm the marchers. So it was decided to have a rally instead. It made the international news, so in case any of you were worried, I never even had to think about whether I should or wanted to go. We had long since planned to take the long weekend and go to Cairo. I'll write more on that later, but let me just tell you that Mary didn't come anywhere close to falling off that camel no mater what she says.

Also, in other news, I got a job offer in DC. Looks like I am heading back to INR Watch! The Op Center, my first choice, decided not to offer jobs to any second-tour officers which took me out of the running. But this does mean that come May, I will be back in the states for at least 14 months, maybe more. Woo hoo! Outback, can I do call ahead reservations now?