two years

last year, i was pretty much a wreck. i functioned and i like to think that i fooled a lot of people into thinking that i was doing great with this whole life transition thing. but the truth is, i was not. between november 5 and november 17, all of my thoughts were consumed by what we were doing a year ago that day. i would spend hours every day looking at pictures from our time in palestine, facebook stalking our old friends, not talking to people about all this, and just being really sad. looking back at my blog, you can see that i was really obsessed with the whole "moving on" theme from matthias' birthday through the end of the year.

and i think it was good for me. not the whole bottling-it-up-and-not-talking-about-it or facebook-picture-stalking things, but it's good to process, good to mourn, and good to move on. i definitely could have found more healthy ways to mourn, but it was important for me to process everything that had happened a year before.

yesterday was november 17. the day we left palestine. and i didn't even realize that until in the evening when someone asked me how long we had been back in the US. i had quite a full day - we had a big thanksgiving dinner for teen mops, so i was busy decorating, cooking, making sure all the details were taken care of. i had to take matthias to the doctor in the morning to make sure he doesn't have asthma (he doesn't). i spent the evening at teen mops, hanging out with teen moms and my other mentor friends, making sure everyone got enough food and had a great time.

thoughts of sadness, thoughts of missing palestine, thoughts of wishing for our old life - these thoughts didn't consume me. when i realized that it was november 17, i had a twinge of sadness, a moment of thinking back. but that's all it was. thinking back. which i think is appropriate. we've been here two years. and i finally really feel like we are here. or at least i am.

it's taken me a long time to get here. almost two years, in fact. and it feels good. it feels good that i can look back over by past blog posts and not burst into tears, but really be happy remembering our time in palestine. it feels good to have friends that we can have over, have playdates with, have birthday parties with - friends that i actually really like instead of thinking of how i miss our old friend. it feels good to have a church that jason and i are both excited about instead of thinking about how great our "not-church" group was in palestine. it feels good to be involved in groups that we love, both the work and the people involved, instead of thinking of how awesome paidia was.

so all this to say, i still do miss palestine. i will always miss it. i will always be sad that we had to leave in the way we did, that we had to leave our great friends, that we had to leave the place both our kids were born, that we had to leave the work we were doing. but i also am finally able to say that i am here. and i like being here. and thoughts of being there don't ruin my ability to be here. which i think is pretty good for me. 

it's official now

no, it's not what you might be thinking. quite the opposite in fact.

jason and i have known for a while (like since the second we found out i was pregnant with matthias) that we are quite overwhelmed happy with our two kids. our family of four feels complete.

but. i have held onto all of our baby stuff. you know, just in case. even though the possibilties of "just in case" are one in a million. (and now we all know what my blog will be about next month...let's just all knock on wood real quick).

this weekend, matthias got a "big boy bed". his crib is gone. he does not fit into his pack n play. i have not used the baby carrier since he was six months. we don't use cloth diapers anymore. and the boxes and boxes of baby clothes are all packed up. all of our baby stuff has either been donated or is for sale. we officially are done with the baby stage of our lives.

it was a little more sad that i thought it would be. mainly because i didn't think it would be sad at all. but it was bittersweet going through it all, sorting through the clothes and the baby toys and bottles that have been in our attic since we moved here. i'm still very sure that we don't want a bigger family, at least at this point in our lives. but it's still kinda sad that we're done with babies. and now that all the stuff is gone, it's for real.

two great things did come of all this sorting, though. first, matthias found about eight shirts of mine that were in a suitcase of baby clothes. for some reason, when we came back from palestine, i packed the shirts in with their clothes and then promptly put that suitcase in the attic. for two years. i knew i had lost one of the shirts, which i was super sad about because it's really cute and it was brand new, but the others i had completely forgotten about. so fun day! i was so excited when matthias pulled them out that he got super excited and started just pulling out any piece of clothing and waiting for me to praise him for it.

secondly, i re-discovered some of the great clothes we got for the kids while we were in palestine. ahh, the wonderfulness of english writing on clothes in a foreign country. for your viewing pleasure....

what is an official dog anyway?

i'm not sure if this should be for a girl or boy. or what size. or if it is long pants or not. all sorts of fun things to figure out. 

the best thing about these clothes is hiba actually wore them. 

maybe they are going for "beauty"? i'm not sure.

quite possibly the scariest dog/cat i have ever seen. definitely not an official dog. 

i don't think anyone would dispute whose pony this is....

is it just me, or does that look like drops of blood coming out of the elephant's trunk? but again, hiba really wore this. several times.

i know about "sweet 16", but i didn't know sweet 15 was a thing. on second thought, i don't think it is. 

and my favorite. hiba wore this sweatshirt all the time. and why wouldn't she? i will send it to anyone who can tell me what the pink word behind the picture is supposed to be. you know you want this....

letting go...

a little reverb catch-up.....

What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

i almost laughed out loud when i read this prompt. not because it's funny or anything, but because i feel like i've blogged a lot about this and wanted to sort of get away from this subject, hence the reason i started the reverb project.

so what did i let go of? the years in palestine. i haven't completely let go of them, but i think i'm finally at a place where i can say that i am moving on. i've taken off the rose-colored glasses, i'm not wishing every day that we lived in palestine, i'm finally making friends, planting my flag here and establishing a real life instead of wishing for what i had.

it's taken quite a while. and i'm not there yet. i miss my friends, i miss the simplicity of life, i miss jason's work hours, i miss friday lunches, i miss our monday night kenistish, but i'm letting go and moving on. i've stopped looking for the exact replica of all of these things and decided to be happy and invest in what i am finding here.

and what i'm finding, once i've been willing to let go, is a church that we love, a great group of moms that i get to be a part of, happy hours with friends, opportunities to volunteer in the community, and a place that i can call home and be happy with.

it's funny that when you hold on to something, it keeps you from really enjoying anything. because if you are trying to hold on, it probably means it is past and you can't really enjoy it. but it keeps you from finding new things, from enjoying the moment.

as my wise little brother once said, "you just can't hold on to anything". he was talking about when you stretch your quad, but little did he know how profound he was being. :-)

beautifully different

Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up.

a lot of times i think that i'm pretty different than a lot of people around me. it's hard to put a finger on exactly what it is or describe it without sounding smug. i think it boils down to having a wide worldview, having compassion and desire - and the ability - to see the world through the eyes of others, especially through the eyes of hurting people.

some of this comes from living in a different country for a significant amount of time. although it is possible to live somewhere foreign and not become good at having your worldview widened, it is difficult. you just learn to see things differently. you learn to adjust to new situations, learn new cultures, see all sides to the story, and most of all you learn to appreciate differences. you learn that your way might be good for you, but maybe it's not the best way. you learn to appreciate and love new ideas, different ideas than you have always known.

and for me specifically, living in palestine helped me to see through the eyes of those who are hurting. every day, i had to deal with living in an occupied territory. every day i saw the effects of that occupation - on kids, on adults, on daily life, on political views, on peoples' view of God. and while i know i never had to deal with it even to a fraction of the extent that palestinians deal with it, living in palestine gave me new eyes.

so how does that all translate to now? i think it gives me empathy for those who hurt. i have a desire to help and love those who others might not want to. i have a need to help people find their voice. i have the ability to see beyond the daily grind and think about the big picture of life and how and where i fit into that. i hope that others can see this about me and that it brings a little bit of joy and light into their world.

then and now

things i did today:

*woke up in my house as my heater was going

*ate cold cereal for breakfast

*went to a brunch for a moms group i am in

*experienced fall weather

*went to one grocery store to buy a turkey, asian food, potato chips, and bananas

*had friends over for dinner

*went to bed with the assurance that tomorrow i'll live in the same place that i did today

things i didn't do today:

*eat fresh made pita and hummus for breakfast

*pack up the last of my stuff that i just have to have, while trying to give away anything i can't fit in my suitcases

*decide that i do in fact want more stuff than will just fit in seven suitcases and throw together an unknown number of boxes to be shipped to us (although i'm fairly certain the number of boxes packed is at least one more than the number we got....)

*say goodbye to the life i'd known for three years

*hug and wave goodbye to some of the best friends i could ever ask for

*take one last look at the place my kids were born

*miraculously fit seven suitcases, a double stroller, two car seats, a diaper bag, a huge purse, two kids and three adults into one vehicle to drive to the border

*made it through israeli customs without having to take my clothes off

*leave palestine

and then we realized...

it was a cold night. one of the coldest so far that year. and of course, our heaters didn't work. the landlord promised he would fix them soon. i said we should call up saleem asap to see if we could borrow the propane heater that he had since he never used it, it was actually ours at one point, and the landlord never fixed anything nearly as quickly as he said he would. but instead, i settled for my fuzzy blanket that jason had gotten me for christmas our year at the house of hope. he knew how much i loved fuzzy blankets, and since he got me one it meant i didn't have to somehow have all of my fuzzy blankets shipped over from the US - which was what my plan was.

so anyway, it was cold. i snuggled up in my brown fuzzy blanket on our uncomfortable couch, probably watching some re-run of boston legal, listening to hiba not sleep in her room and praying that matthias would actually stay asleep in his. it started like most other november nights that we'd had in palestine.

i don't remember who brought it up, but somehow jason and i got to talking about our rejection letter. the one from the ominous, all-powerful committee at the ministry of interior that kindly informed us that our request for visas was denied and we had two weeks to leave. by now we were down to 11 days. our plan was to ignore it. we had tickets bought for the end of december, weren't planning on coming back anytime soon, so who cares what the committee said. we'd stay. they might fine us, they might black-list us, but whatever. who cares, right?

but then we started talking. and thinking. and realizing. we realized that our plan was kinda dumb. jason is more qualified to work in palestine than anywhere else in the world. our lives, our kids lives, some of our best friends were formed there. and five years (our potential black-list time) is a long time. heck, three years is a long time. that's how long we'd been there. we realized that putting ourselves in the position of not being able to return was not really an option.

so we started to talk. and pray. and think. and pray some more. and in a couple hours our normal november night had been turned upside down. we were leaving in 11 days. we had plane tickets to change, baby furniture to sell, clothes to pack, books to ship, a car to sell (or push off a cliff....). but most of all, we had a life to wrap-up, a chapter to close. and we had 11 days.

but on the good side, we could tell our landlord he didn't have to fix our heaters and soon i'd be back to all the fuzzy blankets i could ever want. a lot sooner that i wanted.

there was the time...

i feel like i binge blog. right now, i have a lot to write about, but am having trouble putting it down on paper. or on the computer screen, i guess.

but the main thing tonight is i miss palestine. more specifically, i miss our friends. i miss the community we had there. it really was something else.

sure, there were the times when there were parties on our patio till 3 a.m. the summer after hiba was born and all i wanted to do was sleep instead of listen to people laughing and talking right outside my window. and there were the times when everyone would come over till the wee hours of the morning and make my kitchen dirty and leave their dishes for me to wash and then never take them back to their own house. or the times when andrew would steal my coffee mugs.

but there were also the times when we would play catan for hours on end. or the times we would watch movies with funny subtitles and bad quality. or the times when we'd have sushi parties or saleem would make hotwings. and the times when we would bbq on the deck and sit around and eat and drink for hours, talking about everything and nothing.

there was the time when rachel dropped everything she was doing to distract me from the fact that my husband was detained by the israeli army. she made some phone calls with me and then came over to my house and we taught hiba how to clap.

there was the christmas when we were all so homesick that we had a million different parties and dinners and breakfasts and gift exchanges and acted as fill-in families for each other.

there was hiba's first birthday party, which was filled with some of her best friends in the world - all people who were at least twenty years older than her, but loved her like family.

there was the time when hiba was born and munther snuck food into the hospital for me, tons of people brought us dinner and showered us with gifts.

there was the time when matthias was born and rachel and audra took care of hiba, and again friends brought us food and helped us out.

tonight, jason had to take matthias to the hospital. turns out he has croup. he's fine now - that's not the point of this post. the point is that it was 11 at night and i didn't know who to call. we do have friends here that i would call and take hiba to if i really needed to. but we don't have the sense of community that we had in palestine, where if i called one of our friends, they would drop what they were doing and come to our house, no matter what time. and we all lived so close that it would be a matter of minutes.

i know we have good friends here and i know that friendships take time. i'm thankful for the friends we have.

but tonight, i miss palestine. i miss the culture of closeness that was forced on us, that we had to adapt to, that we were made to live with whether we liked it or not. and by the end, i liked it. and i miss it.

The Beginning of the End

matthias's birthday marks for me the beginning of the end of our time in palestine. we didn't really know it at the time, but his birth definitely was the beginning of two months of craziness. this is what happened between his birthday and november 16:

-matthias was born. spent two nights in the hospital and then went home. we had a wonderful friend who came for like two weeks to help out with hiba. she ended up cleaning our house, doing dishes and laundry. it was great, especially since i didn't realize how much i needed that rest.

-paidia's annual carnival. three nights. i was the volunteer coordinator and the carnival was run by volunteers. organizing, transporting, helping 30+ international and local volunteers each night. oh yeah, and matthias was less than a week old.

-plans were made and preparations were made to build the high ropes course. this means jason was working quite a bit. in addition to matthias being a few weeks old, hiba was around too. i'm so thankful for her daycare and the ladies there and so glad she liked it.

-ben, the ropes course guy, came to help build it. he stayed with us for a week and a half. matthias was a few weeks old at this point.

-my mom came to visit. yay! it was wonderful.

-ben left, jason continued to work on the leadership center and ropes course.

-we had a visa appointment. they sent our applications to "the committee". we were pretty much convinced we would get the visas and if we didn't, we'd stay anyway. this was the end of october. they said they'd let us know within two weeks.

-november 2 - got a call from the wonderful ministry of the interior. our applications were back and we could come get the results. they couldn't tell us over the phone. i already had plans all day, so i thought i'd just go the next day since we were gonna stay either way.

-november 3 - we got the news that our visas were denied and we had until november 16 to leave. sure runied that day. we were still planning on staying.

-november 5 - we decided to leave. it was probably the hardest decision of our life. also, since we waited a few days to decide, it meant we had 11 days to pack up, sell stuff, change plane tickets, figure out what we were doing when we got back to the US....all that fun stuff. oh yeah, matthias is just over a month old.

the next 11 days were crazy. looking back, they were actually pretty fun. we both worked a lot, jason with paidia and me with getting ready to go. we hung out with friends every night till the wee hours of the morning. we played tons of games of catan with rachel, saleem, and munther. we had bbqs with anyone who wanted to come over. i had my last friday lunch with the girls. jason played his last day of friday basketball. we had three going away parties (we're pretty awesome like that). we really savored every moment that we had.

but, because it was so crazy, i didn't really have time to process what was going on. or energy to, for that matter. there were so many big things that happened in the next two months that it's easy to think back and know exactly what i was doing each day a year ago. so this year, it's nice to be in a place to look back and remember, to process leaving, to grieve what i lost, to see what i gained, and love what we did.

i think it will be a long two months. maybe harder than last year. because this time around i know the end. ignorance is bliss. and those two months were crazy bliss. i know i probably look back through rose-colored glasses - i mean, it was crazy. and we were all tired and worn out. it was hard and by the end, i was glad to be done. but it was exciting stuff that we were doing. we were around wonderful people that we loved and who loved us. and those last 11 days sure were fun. it wasn't perfect and i sure wouldn't want to actually do it over again. but for now, i'll savor the memories as i think back to the beginning of the end.

happy birthday, zuus!

one year ago today started out like any other day. i walked hiba to day care, picked sara up to show her around bethlehem, went to a staff meeting, did a little work, went back home, made sure there were freezer meals ready - you know, every day stuff.

then i went to my dr.'s appointment, where he checked out matthias, who was looking good. plenty big, great heart beat, some small contractions here or there. so i told him i wanted to go ahead and have them break my water to put me into labor. he tried to talk me in to coming back the next morning, since it was already like 5 p.m. but i was pretty set on not being pregnant any more and hiba was at rachel's for the night, so he did not change my mind. plus, the paida carnival was like five days away and since i was the volunteer coordinator for it, the sooner i had the baby, the better.

so, i checked into the hospital, ate dinner, and headed up to the labor and delivery room. i got all settled in, they broke my water and said they'd come

back and check my progress in two hours to see if i needed any drugs or anything. that was at 6:30 p.m.

8 p.m. on the dot, matthias edward pollack made his way into the world. one and half hours of the worst pain of my entire life (admitedly, i haven't had a very painful life or anything, but GEEZ it was intense...), our little boy joined us.

now he's one. he's walking, starting to talk, laughing, joking, blowing kisses, throwing fits. how time flies. happy birthday, zuzu!

moving on....

so, some big changes in our life. well, really just one - we're leaving palestine on nov. 16. yes, like in eleven days.

we had an appointment to extend our visas through december last week. we really weren't worried about it and figured that since we have a one-way ticket to leave in two months, they would give us the extension. well, we were denied. and they gave us two weeks to leave. so, we either have to overstay our visa or leave by nov. 16.

the problem with overstaying our visa is that when we leave, we would probably get blacklisted and not allowed into israel/palestine for at least five years. before we actually got denied, we had said we were just going to stay no matter what. but when we actually had the decision to make and thought through the actual consequences, we realized that we should probably leave. so after a night of prayer and talking it through, we've decided that leaving is the right thing to do.

so, in less than two weeks we'll be back in the US. it's a very bitter-sweet decision. on the one hand, we only had another six weeks after that anyway, so it's not so hard to say good-bye. plus we're going back to family and friends and the comforts of living in our home country. but on the other hand, we have a very short time to say good-bye to our friends and "family" here, people who we have spent the last three years of our life with, the place where we have started our family. not to mention all the stuff we have to do in order to actually leave in less than two weeks.

we'll try to keep everyone updated as we make decisions. we're looking forward to finding out what is next for us....

Happy Halloween!

people don't really celebrate halloween here, but there were enough americans around to make it a fun day. first, we dressed up hiba and matthias and went to rachel's to make carmel apples.

hiba was a ballerina.

matthias was a pumpkin....

...who was a little happier in his daddy's arms than in a chair.

making carmel apples at rachel's.

matthias missing all the excitement.

then we stopped by erich and candice's for a while. hiba and opal were dressed the same, so we tried to get a few pictures - they weren't so interested though.

we had fun eating the carmel apples and playing.

later, jason and i went to a halloween party. he dressed up as the mayor of beit sahour and i went as our friend andrew. my costume was pretty good, although the clothes had been recently washed and didn't smell bad, so it wasn't exactly like andrew. :-P jason's costume was a huge hit at the party, as most of our friends like the mayor just as much as we do.

where does the time go?

so it's only been two and half weeks since my last post (which is actually kind of a long time), but so much has happened in that time. really, i feel like we've had matthias forever, although he's only a month old. time flies when you're having fun, right? so here is the run-down of the last couple of weeks....

-paidia built a ropes course. the first one in palestine. it's pretty awesome. we had a contractor come over from the US for a week to help build it. when he got here, of course everything went wrong and things weren't ready, so in the end they had three days to build it. and they got it done. you can see pictures and videos on paidia's website.

-my mom came to visit. she was actually here for the ropes course building, which was excellent since jason worked at least 12 hours each day that week. i had so much fun having her here. she played with hiba, taught her song, held matthias, made us dinners, cleaned my house....it was great. it made me really excited to be moving closer to family. and i know that when we live there the novelty of seeing us will wear off and i won't get my house cleaned and meals cooked all the time, but hiba and matthias will get to know their grandparents and aunts and uncles and that is exciting.

-hiba started talking. and doesn't really stop. ever. she babbles a lot, but also learns new words every day. she knows a lot of food words (her favorite category), lots of her toys, some animals, names, body parts, and random words she hears. she only speaks in english, but the people at daycare insist that she understands arabic too. and she seems to when jason or saleem talk to her. she seems so grown up now, between having a new baby around and having her talking all the time.

-matthias turned one month. he's a growing boy! literally - he weighs 5.6 kilos, which is 12.3 pounds. he is huge. he has started smiling every once in a while, but still mostly sleeps and eats. i think he is much more of a home body than hiba ever was, because he is on a perfect schedule if we're home all day, but not so great if we're not. it's fun to see already how he is going to be different than hiba.

-we bought our plane tickets. we are coming back to the US on december 30. now that it's official, it's weird that we're leaving. i'm excited and sad, but i still feel like it is time for us to leave here. we're flying out of amman instead of tel aviv, which could be a fun adventure. or it could be the worst idea ever, since it means more border crossings and a hotel with two kids. we'll see.

my next post will be filled with cute pictures and maybe video clips of my adorable kids. i know you're all holding your breath....

culturally incompetent

it's tradition here for women to stay in bed (or at least at home) for 40 days after giving birth. since families all live close to each other or together, the woman's mother or mother-in-law does the shopping, cooking, takes the baby to appointments, etc. the woman basically does nothing except rest and take care of the new baby.

this is what i have done since matthias was born:

-worked at paidia's carnival for two nights when matthias was less than a week old....he came with me.

-taken matthias to drs. apointments and blood tests by myself - walked to one, drove to two

-walked hiba to/from daycare while carrying matthias in a baby bjorn - a crazy concept here

-went grocery shopping a couple of times...usually with matthias in his bjorn

-cooked meals and cleaned the house

people here think i'm crazy.

but, my mom will be here in less than a week, so i'll take advantage of that and sleep some and let her cook. :-) too bad she's not staying for 40 days.

The Drama of the Mechanics Continues...

so we finally gave in and switched mechanics. only, ziad doesn't really know this. i mean, we never told him that we're taking our car somewhere else, we just stopped taking it to him. this is a tricky situation, since we don't really want to hurt his feelings or anything, but he just doesn't do his job, at least with our car.

so last week, we took our car to our new mechanic to get some little stuff fixed. we know we'll need to sell it in december, plus we have to get our yearly check done in october, and we figure if we start trying to fix all the little stuff now, it'll be in good shape by the time we need it to be. anyway, jason took the car and when he got to the garage, musa was there. musa works with ziad. this is not good.

musa acted kinda strange and wouldn't really tell jason what he was doing at the new garage. but musa is always a little strange, so we figured that word would get back to ziad and it would all blow up. however, when i went back the next morning to pick up the car, musa was there again. our new mechanic came over to me and told me "musa....he doesn't work here, ok? don't say he works here." and then it became clear. apparently musa has two jobs - one that ziad doesn't know about. so he has two jobs, we have two mechanics and neither of us can tell ziad, so it's all good.

celebrate good times, come on!

so, last week we went to visit the family of a boy who hangs out with jason a lot. his name is eyoub and he comes by our house from time to time, hangs out at the tower, etc. so we went to see his family. well, it turns out his sister was getting married this weekend, so we got invited to the wedding.

here, there is always a henna party the night before the wedding and then a party the night of the wedding as well. we were invited to both, but only ended up going to the henna. it was at their house, and as they are a pretty traditional muslim family, the men and women were separate the whole time. so, rachel and i were inside with the ladies, and jason was outside with the guys.

jason had seen eyoub earlier in the day and he said the party started at 4. so we decided to show up at 5:30. which was a good call by us, because we were still some of the only ones there. when we got there, eyoubs family (like cousins, aunts, etc.) were there and so we danced and hung out. shireen, his sister who was getting married, didn't come until about 6:30 and her fiance's family didn't come until about 7:30. my camera died right before the groom's family showed up, but here are some pictures of shireen and her family.

my favorite part of the evening was when they began playing "yeah!" by usher and made me and rachel dance by ourselves in the middle of a big circle. and not just kinda sway back and forth - they wanted to see some good american booty shakin' - which was pretty awesome with my huge stomach. and this didn't just happen once, but twice, once with just the bride's family and once when the groom's family came.

i really enjoyed going to this wedding because it made me change my thinking a bit about arrange muslim marriages, at least here. my first thought was "holy cow, she is 16. that is way too young and it's so sad that she's throwing her life away and having to get married". but as i saw her at the henna, she looked so happy. genuinely happy, excited about getting married. in this culture, there wouldn't be much for her to do if she didn't get married now - she'd help around the house and wait for a husband. and while i don't think that is right, it is what it is, so if she is really happy about marriage, even if she's young and it was arranged for her, then it's probably a better thing that i once thought it was. she was really cute when the groom came in and they danced together. she was absolutely glowing when he gave her the gold jewelry. i think they'll be pretty great together.

lodging, touring, AND also dental treatment

this is from a resort by our house. i was looking at the site today because we want to go swim there tomorrow. but apparently, we can do more than just swim.

http://www.goldenparkresort.com/dental.html

While you are staying at our hotel, you can take the opportunity and do a check up on your teeth, we have fully equipped clinic that will assure you with a healthy efficient treatment. This treatment will be as well less expensive than in any other countries like the United States and Europe.

The good thing about this service is that you can save money. we can provide you with a package deal that includes lodging, touring and also dental treatment.

Please feel free to send us your panoramic x-ray and we will send you a free of charge report.

the swine flu

so we're mostly settled in our new house now. i haven't taken our "after" pictures yet, because there are a few finishing touches that i still need to do and there's no wal-mart to run to, so it's taking longer than i want it to. but hopefully tomorrow and thursday i'll finish things up, take pictures, and post them so you can see the wonderfulness that is our new house.

in other news, the swine flu has hit beit sahour. well, maybe. it's hard to tell what's real and what's made up, because the news really only travels through word of mouth - which is pretty unreliable - and in arabic, so word of mouth in a second language is a little sketchy. but the rumors are that a couple families in beit sahour have it, some kids have it, and some kids spread it at a summer camp. so for today, all of the summer camps in bethlehem, beit sahour, and beit jala are closed. we also just started putting hiba in daycare a couple mornings a week, but that's not happening this week either. hopefully we won't get the swine flu. i'm not too worried about it - i think stories get exaggerated a lot here. but that's the exciting news of the week.

it's been surprisingly cool the last few days. when i say cool, i mean like 85 degrees or so, but the evenings have been great. and 85 sure is better than 100, so i'll take it. it's still too hot to do anything productive during the day (at least in my opinion), but at least i don't drown in a pool of my own sweat just sitting on the couch.

that's about it right now. i'll try to think of some good stories to share and maybe one day i'll get the house done. we'll see. this afternoon i'm going to sit in front of the fan, so that probably won't bring about good stories or house pictures, but i'll feel good. :-)

whew!

so, it's been kind of a whirlwind since we've been back. here is what has happened in the last 12 days....

-we finished packing up our old apartment.

-jason, saleem, and rachel (along with some other volunteers) ran a one-day camp for over 100 kids from Bethlehem

-jason, saleem, and rachel worked at a summer camp in ramallah

-we moved into our new apartment

-we un-decorated our new apartment

-we have attempted to decorate our new apartment

-we (meaning mostly me and rachel) consolidated all of our landlords' things into a couple closets, including, but not limited to, clothes, blankets, pillows, decorations, marriage licenses ... you know, things like that.

-we (mostly me and hiba) unpacked our things and cleaned our new apartment

-jason and rachel spent a couple of days gathering tools and such to get ready for this week

-paidia welcomed a group of 10 volunteers who are here for about 10 days and are currently helping to finish the climbing tower

-i totally re-arranged the group's itinerary as soon as they got here since they were delayed by about 24 hours getting here and are leaving about a day earlier than we originally thought

i think that's all. i mean, apart from normal life things. i'm hoping to put up pictures of our new apartment in the next couple of days...i know you are all dying to see what it looks like. but for now, i'm going to sit on the couch, watch a movie, and probably fall asleep.

just like normal

so today i had four things on my list to do - check the mail, get rachel a sim card, get jason's phone fixed, and get rachel a cell phone. no big deal right? i mean, that should all take an hour tops. riiiight.

so rachel, hiba, and i got in the car to run the errands. first we went to the cell phone store in bethlehem that had been recommended to us. only it was closed, because it's sunday and the owners are christian. so then we drove around looking for other cell phone stores, but apparently all the people who sell phones in bethlehem are christian. so no luck on that.

next we headed to the post office, which is in jerusalem. traffic wasn't too bad, so it only took about 30 minutes. i think i hit every red light on the way there because whoever is in charge of the stoplights don't know how to time them. the post office was actually relatively successful - in and out, we actually had mail, and rachel could just wait in the car so i didn't have to find a parking spot.

by this time, hiba was hot and cranky so we decided to find somewhere to eat. we found a little cafe in the mall outside the old city that actually had places to eat inside and enjoyed a meal of pesto ravioli, salad, and bread. hiba also had cheerios. so again, successful, except that it just added an extra hour to our trip.

so then we packed back into the car and headed out to find the orange cell phone store to get rachel a sim card and see why jason's phone isn't working. after driving around for about an hour in the hot, hot car with hiba alternating between crying and dozing off to sleep, i am convinced that this store doesn't exist. so we came home.

so after four hours we checked the mail, did not get a phone, did not get a sim card, did not get jason's phone fixed, but we did have a pretty good lunch.

home again, home again, jiggity jig

well, we made it. it was actually not quite as bad as i thought that it would be, although at one point on the long plane ride, i'm pretty sure i told jason that it was "the worst plane ride of my entire life". looking back, that might have been a bit dramatic. 

the traveling part wasn't too bad. only one of our bags was 1 lb. over at the airport, so we just stuffed more things in our carry-on (when i say we, i mean jason - wasn't gonna carry anything extra). then all of our planes were delayed, by at least an hour. i realized that i hate the newark airport and want to spend as little time there as possible. they have no luggage carts to rent, which is a problem when you have two people trying to carry two backpacks, a baby, two computers, and a diaper bag. they also don't have any place to eat in between a food court and $30/plate steak house, like a chili's or something. this is also a problem when you're trying to kill four hours without walking around with two backpacks, a baby, two computers, and a diaper bags. one of the funniest parts was when we were waiting to get into the "secure tel aviv gate", we started the line like twenty minutes before it was even going to open and immediately everyone joined us. israelis like to be first, so it was kind of funny. then they changed the gate, so all of us in the front were stuck in the back, so the joke was on us. luckily, jason had a luggage cart (we found one stashed in a corner eventually...we still have no idea where it came from) and was nice and pushy so we got in fast. we don't just like to be first - we had a reason. we wanted to change our seats so we could get a bassinet for hiba, which we did. so on the long flight we gave hiba some magic syrup (benedryl) and she slept like a baby for six or seven hours. it was wonderful. the reason the plane ride was so terrible is because my morning sickness (or all-day sickness as i like to call it) decided to kick in, so i promptly threw up pretty much everything i tried to eat. let me just say that airplane food is just as bad coming up as it is going down.

(also, for those of you who don't know, yes all-day sickness is from pregnancy. surprise!) 

so then we got to israel, went to passport control, scoped out the lines, found a fastish moving line with a guy working (male security workers are way nicer than females) so we picked it. when we got to him, hiba started laying on her charm and he didn't even look at mine or jason's passports, he just stamped them for three months. then he opened hiba's and noticed that she was born here - and then realized, oh yeah, i'm supposed to ask them questions. so he looked at me and said "do you live here?". ummmmm, yeah....so, we got pulled aside, questioned a little bit about what we do, blah blah blah, and they ended up giving hiba a 1 month visa because we're hoping to get volunteer extensions next week. so, she has to leave in a month if we don't get them, but jason and i are good for three months. if all else fails, we'll pack her bag, stick a note on her, send her to jordan and hope she makes it back to us. she's a smart kid. 

and now for my favorite story of the day....

remember ziad and his chickens and all the problems with our radiator? well, we let this guy, ron, borrow our car while we were in the US. he ended up having to get some stuff fixed (because like i've said before, it breaks every other day and the normal fix is pepper in the radiator which doesn't really fix anything...). so he took it to his mechanic and ron told us all the things he fixed and the he said: "and there was something very strange when we opened the hood. the radiator. it was there, but not in the right place. so my mechanic moved it". now, i don't know a lot about cars, but perhaps leaking and broken hoses can be attributed to the radiator not being in the right place. also, again - i'm going out on a limb here, it's my understanding that mechanics should know things about cars. like when the radiator goes. anyway, we may be firing ziad and his chickens if further problems arise.