During the day while dad worked mom and I drove 50
miles North to town called Beersheva. It
was a small town and boasted having one of “Jacobs’s wells”. The town had not changed in 2000 years and
was still used as a major Bedouin trade route stop. On Wednesdays, you could go to the South end
of town and go to the Bedouin market and purchase everything from camel rugs, dish
soap, fruits and nuts, monkey’s to Hashish for smokin’.
The main entrance had the best beggar / actor in
town. If you got there early enough, you
could watch this billion year old looking guy walks in and gets set up. He would find his corner by the path and roll
out his dirty mat. Then he would take
out a dirty towel or sheet, lay down, make a pillow out of straw, cover up to
his neck, stick one bony hand out, start shaking, and start moaning…let the
festivities begin.
Tourists who didn’t know better, would of course
take pity on this poor old feeble geezer and give him money. He would always have an empty hand until a
coin feel in it. Then as quick as a
wink, he would slip his hand underneath the sheet, into a coin bag, and back
out it would come for the next coin. At
the end of the day, the act would stop, he’d get up real quick, roll things up
and almost skip down the street…he was good.
The next page has pictures of some typical Bedouin people at the market.
Well, mom and I ended up getting an apartment in Beersheva about a mile from the market. 8 Sokolov was the address or shomonie Sokolov. It was a nice 2-bedroom place with marble floors and columns on the second floor above an acupuncturist. It had a nice balcony with a nice view of the parking lot and Dumpster. The back windows overlooked a small courtyard and the back windows of other apartments in the complex. Everything in this place was tile or marble now that I think about it. The beds were nothing more than a fold down piece of wood on a wall with a mat placed on top. The bathroom was small but the shower was huge…like a converted walk in closet. The bathroom also had a bidet. Mom made a planter out of it. It
sure was easy to water the plant.
Some of the local vendors at the market in Beersheva
There was a small market down on the corner where we
would buy our foodstuff. We could get
everything we needed except for milk.
The milk eluded me for a month. I
had cereal in the house but no milk. I
needed milk…show me the milk. One day
during our market trip, I decided to get an ice cream if they had some. I looked around the store and found one of
those horizontal solid lid freezers with ice cream pictures stuck to the
top. Ah Ha!!…Ice cream. I opened the lid and sitting on the right was
the ice cream. On the left however were
several bags of unmarked white liquid.
The sign above however was marked as “MILK”. The sweet nectar had been found! I think I actually screamed like a
schoolgirl. The word milk had a picture
of a goat below it but what the heck huh.
Mom and I made our way around town and eventually
got to riding the local bus. Ah yes…the
local bus. 10 Shekels will get you where
you wanna go. 50 Sheckel would get you
to Jerusalem. We did the local area
quite a bit and we went to Jerusalem only when dad could go on the
weekends. We drove the car though.
I soon started making a few friends over at the
Canadian compound, which was a couple of miles away. Mom and dad could never understand why anyone
would want to travel all the way to another country so they could live with
people of their own nationality again.
Anyway, I made friends with some kids who knew kids who knew kids. One of the kids (Vern) introduced me to an
Israeli kid named Shimon. He became my
best friend. His family would invite me
over quite a bit for dinner or just messing around. I kept learning the language and became
better at it. When you live in the
country and no one speaks English, it’s easier to learn his or her language…you
have to in order to get around.
This is Rohama, Me, and Shimon
They showed me around a lot of interesting areas
to. This is the first place that I went
to a movie and had to read the sub titles at the bottom of a screen. I was introduced to the local cuisine,
drinks, and entertainment as well. The
funnest times are when we would start at Jaffa gate, climb to the top of the wall, and
walk the entire perimeter of the city.
There are 7 gates so we had to go down at these areas but it was
fun. Jaffa gate had the best bagels in
town. Check the picture of the standard
sizes you could get. They aren’t your
basic lenders bagels pal. 1 Shekel per
bagel and they also gave you a black and red spice rolled up in a small
newspaper to sprinkle on top when you eat em.
On our way home, we would sometimes stop off in
Nazareth to mess around or take a detour over to Bethlehem.
During the 50 mile trip back to Beersheva, The system
is set up that if a soldier sits next to you on the bus, it is the persons duty
to take that soldiers gear such as rifle, grenade belt, pack, Etc., and hold it
for him, or at least store it under your seat so they could nap on the way. Shimon liked American goodies and I in turn
liked Israeli goodies. When a soldier
would sit next to Shimon, he would snag the insignias from the soldier’s hat or
shirt and give them to me. I would get
insignias from home for him later on. Ah
yes…we were dorks.
Anyway…the weeks went
by and my aunt Anna Mae came over for a visit.
She was pretty fun to mess around with.
We took her all over the place and also headed up North to stay at a
Kibbutz by the Sea of Galilee. A Kibbutz
is like a small hotel that does farming as well. You can sign up for a free stay if you go and
work in the fields for awhile to earn your keep. We stayed a couple of days and had a good
time. I got up early the first morning
and walked out a ways by the dock and snapped this photo of the sea complete
with fishing boat. The right pic is my aunt and I with some bagels from Jaffa Gate.
No comments:
Post a Comment