Al Quds can be your home away from home (or Haifa)

Yes, it's not the best time of year (historically speaking) to be here. It's looking like a real war up North and then, there's Gaza too. Yesterday, after class, I walked down Salah a-Din craving e-mail and news but something was off, everything was closed or in the process of closing. I'm racking my brain... Are there 'normally' curfews in E. Jerusalem? Could this be the first? Is there going to be a raid? Is it a holiday? Should I be scared? I ask a pre-teenager (usually a good source of information) but God Bless America... he doesn't understand English and my lousy Fusha is of no help. Hebrew would have worked but after weighing the options between ignorance and 'out-ing' myself, I chose ignorance. I eventually found out through a Palestinian waiter and a few Italians that there was a general strike in E. Jerusalem in protest of the recent deaths in Lebanon and Gaza. For the first time, I really felt it, or at least, I began to, in the upper part of my throat, back of my mouth. I picked up some bread with zaatar and grapes for lunch and booked back to the hostel, cancelled my plans for the afternoon, and headed to the bubble known as the Jerusalem Hotel . There we (Karin, my roommate from Italy, and I) sat and worked on our homework while others (foreigners and high society locals) ate, drank and smoked (nargiles).

The whole day was spent in there. We met a family of 3 (one woman and her two sons) who hired a taxi to get them out of Haifa. They almost stayed with us in the convent but the 9:30 curfew (of the chaste type, not the political) was too much to bear for them. One of our teachers (Sausa) came to meet us too and she made chit chat with the woman (who was incidentally, an actress in Circus Palestina) while giving us a private lesson. We also learned from the post-higherschooler Haifan that his father was the singer Kamal Sleiman. I watched the younger of the two kids play football (soccer) on his gameboy as he sat in front of a giant piece of chocolate cake. We learned some colloquial Arabic (shu, adesh, meen...). We talked politics. And all the while, I knew that there were bombs falling on all sides of the border(s). But don't worry about me, if the cultured evacuees are coming my way, that means I'm in the good spot.

And now... a quick report from Arabic class:
Back when I was learning Hebrew, I remember from week one, khefetz khashud (suspicious object). As we wrap up week one of Arabic I've learned the words ikhtihaf (kidnapped), infijar (explosion) and kanun (violin). See... and people wonder why we can't all get along.