ToewsTravels – Page 30 – every country or bust!

sri lanka 2013: part 1 – the south coast

my goal: to go to sri lanka and rent a scooter and drive around aimlessly and occasionally helmetless by myself for a week to decompress from a summer of incessant and dehumanizing board exam studying!

and it was achieved!

i arrived in sri lanka in the middle of the night, and made my way to to the beachside town of negombo. a unique thing about being a tourist in sri lanka is that you can stay in “guesthouses,” ie. rooms in people’s glorified houses. the hosts happily make you meals on demand and help with whatever you may need. my need was to find a scooter for the next week, and my nice grandmotherly host quickly found the man for the job, a guy named anton who runs negombo’s premier scooter rental enterprise – “cockney rebels east riders.” if anyone reading this ever needs a scooter in sri lanka this is your man! i promised i’d promote him. it was an excellent scooter. i devised a way to squeeze my backpack into the scooter where one’s legs should probably be, and set off on a week of cathartic scooting! i headed south into the chaotic traffic of sri lanka’s capital colombo where i quickly became profoundly lost and had countless brushes with road accident death in the first few hours alone.

i was putting off deciding which direction to go in, but eventually decided on south. south of colombo i spent two nights in the beach town of hikkaduwa. after requisite ocean-swimming wake ups, massive and cheap full english breakfasts were leisurely enjoyed on the beach each morning, with copious sri lanka coffee and tea (tea is the country’s claim to fame). during the intervening day i scooted down the coast to galle, the centerpiece of which is a picturesque moss-covered walled fort from the british colonial era. in it there are many old churches, a famous lighthouse, and some of the best rice and curry at a place called “mamas” where i made friends with some french people. sri lankan rice and curry is a plate of rice with about three to eight different bowls of different curried things – all mixed together and eaten with one’s right hand. near galle is one of the most idyllic beach towns imaginable called unawatuna. better than hikkaduwa. i scooted up an obscure mountain path for a few hours and found a bunch of buddhist temples.

sri lanka is mostly buddhist. there are also some christians, which is great, and some hindus and muslims as well. most of the country speaks singhalese, while those in the far north speak tamil. the country is impressively on the mend after the end of a terrible three decade-long civil war that just ended in 2009. the war was between the government and the secessionist tamil tigers in the north of the island, who desired to create an independent state called tamil eelam. for decades they maintained complete control of the north of the country, which was was separated from the south by a militarized front. a friend of mine from college and probable future president of sri lanka, prashan, started an excellent ngo called “sri lanka unites” to bring youth from disparate ethnic and religious backgrounds together in unity after the war. he also had been the host of a nationally-syndicated talk show in sri lanka and chills with foreign dignitaries when they visit, making him probably the most important person i know. unfortunately we weren’t able to meet up when i was there as he had just moved back to the united states to attend grad school. next time.

i then continued scooting around the south coast to an even more impossibly idyllic town called tangalle, where i stayed at a guesthouse called frangipane. it was around this time that it finally hit me that the sweet water of freshly opened (via machete) king coconuts was readily available from vendors along the side of the road for next to no cost, and i started stopping very frequently to indulge. i also began preferring to ride the scooter helmetless, as the traffic was finally less frenetic. in the tranquil town i went on some shirtless long runs (and i thought people stared elsewhere), and chatted with a local english-speaking dentist over a dinner of hoppers, the local ten cent foodstuff that consist of a egg inside something like a crepe! the south coast of sri lanka was one of the hardest hit areas of the 2004 tsunami; over 35,000 people lost their lives here 🙁

near tangalle i found a unique cave-temple complex called mulkigara on the side of a mountain with lots of monkeys. the scooter made all the difference as i never would have found or been able to get to all this cool stuff without it. the next big town was hambatota, which is seeing massive infrastructure development of late, not so subtly because it is the hometown of current sri lankan president mahina rajapaksa. the largest port in the country is being constructed there, and a brand new international airport, the country’s second, has just opened. it currently handles only two flights a day which is a little underwhelming, but maybe there will be more in the future. there are also hundreds of kilometers of brand new six lane expressways replete with state-of-the-art interchanges and flyovers around hambatota and the new airport, all of which are essentially unused as it is a relatively sparsely populated corner of the country. it was fascinating to scoot around on these roads and be the only traffic for miles. safe to say that all that money probably could have been put to better use elsewhere in the country.

the journey continues in the next post.

this year’s class video!

beer in palestine

the other weekend a group of friends and i made a long awaited pilgrimage of sorts to palestine’s only brewery! taybeh beer is brewed in taybeh, near ramallah. taybeh happens to be the only 100% christian town in the west bank. the friendly koury family runs the place. after leaving palestine and making it big in america, they were filled with optimism after the signing of the oslo peace accords in the early 90s, and decided to return to their homeland to start its first brewery. alas, retrospectively their political optimism may have been misplaced, but they’re not giving up.

mr. koury learned how to brew beer from americans who did it “in their bathtubs.” now his daughter is taking over the business. peaceful and pragmatic resistance, they like to call it. we got a personal tour of the brewery, and heard about the plethora of struggles presented by the occupation. things like only having access to running water two days each week, though the surrounding illegal israeli settlements get all the water they want 24/7. and the bureaucratic challenges in exporting palestinian product through israeli borders and ports, which is the only way to get anything out of the west bank. a popular beer from palestine clearly does not help israel’s rightist leadership propagate their preferred and disturbed narrative – which is that the west bank is economically stagnant and would be even worse off than it is without israeli “help,” and that pretty much everyone in the west bank is a fundamentalist islamist.

of course, a brewery in the west bank does face some resistance from the muslim majority in palestine, who aren’t exactly big beer fans. but the koury’s are adamant that the israeli occupation poses much bigger obstacles than does the muslim majority in the west bank, a sentiment shared by every palestinian christian i’ve ever spoken to. actually, there are significant numbers of relatively secular muslims who do enjoy the beer, and the palestinian authority even promotes the brewery as a tourist destination. it is also predictably popular among the international crowd – the one and only tony blair visited just a few days before us! due to the challenges of exporting beyond israel, most of the beer is sold in upscale establishments in tel aviv where it is purchased by leftist israelis who support the palestinian cause. we got to sample some product and chat about hops and occupation and boston, which is where the kourys lived in america before returning to palestine.

then we went to peter’s place, an atmospheric restaurant positioned at the highest point on the west bank. one can look out over amman, jerusalem and the dead sea as the sun is setting. and the food was amazing, it took us about five hours to eat! a must visit place if you ever find yourself in the area. taybeh also has an ancient church called st. georges that was built by the byzantines in the fifth century and rebuilt by crusaders in the twelfth. it is said that Christ spent some time there after raising lazarus from the dead. fascinatingly, this church is one of the few in the world where blood sacrifices continue on a regular basis. it is a syncretistic ritual that has its roots in ancient canaanite and pagan religions. they slaughter a sheep in the church and wipe the blood on the walls with their hands. 70-80 lambs per year, apparently.

we then hung out in ramallah for a while before heading back to israel. a day in the west bank never disappoints! a few weeks later we returned to partake in taybeh’s oktoberfest!

summer is for studying…

this summer was devoted to studying for the usmle step one board exam. 14 hours/day, every day for a little over six weeks. for focus’ sake, i felt the need to go back to the temperate climate, easy conveniences and loving parents in canada. my parents had recently moved to a new town in southern alberta. i studied at the local community college, where for most of the time, i was the only person there other than the security guards. i almost went insane, but am quite proud of myself for sticking it out. even when i was driving home from the college and running i was listening to audio pathology lectures. it was very nice to be at home with my parents even though the only time i was able to spend with them was a few minutes for dinner each night. special thanks to my mother for cooking and even doing my laundry for me so i could maximize time for studying! enjoying the conveniences of canada was also spendid, things like $6 footlongs at subway. go ahead and laugh, but see if you’re still laughing after trying to find yourself a satisfying meal in israel for $6. its impossible. and driving a car again- that was amazing!

southern alberta experienced the worst flooding in its history this summer. one day i joined some folks from our local church to do some serious sandbagging to attempt to save portions of the town. it was nice teamwork. we were even working alongside the canadian military who were sent to help with the effort! attending the church my parents go to there was a highlight of the summer. its an exciting place with lots of little kids running around and a pastor who one couldn’t help but respect even after just a couple weeks. the one and only church here in beer sheva – well, my comments are probably best left off the world wide web. lets just say that i love going to church when its the right kind of church. my family also flew down to tennessee for one day to attend my cousin’s wedding. it was a great time.

i’m glad the summer of studying is over. it is a right of passage of sorts for medical students, but not really my style. on the way back to israel i had an all day long layover in athens, greece, where i chillaxed on an amazing beach! now we’re spending our time in the wards of the hospital instead of listening to lectures – a nice change!

west bank adventures

i made it up to the west bank a few times in the spring. one day, a group of classmates and i visited the city of hebron. we went to the local hospital where we were able to chat with some palestinian medical students and get a tour of the facilities. we also walked around the old city that is hemmed in by ideological jewish settlements. we wandered through the alleyways where the settlers throw garbage and sometimes even acid and alcohol down on the palestinians below. we looked out over the infamous shuhada street, or “apartheid” street, so named because palestinians are not permitted to use it despite the fact that it used to be the main thoroughfare through the city. interestingly, even israel’s supreme court recently ruled that palestinians should be able to use the road, but the military disagrees and defies the law by continuing to restrict access. the settlers really wield disproportionate control of the situation, even in open defiance of supreme court rulings. its all extremely sad. it was really encouraging to see some of my classmates make the decision to go see the reality of what is happening in palestine, some of them for the first time. we also visited a glass blowing factory in hebron, where they make all manner of glass things by hand with the help of a huge furnace. if you’re interested in learning more about the situation in hebron, my friend michael mcray just published a poignant book about 3 months he spent there volunteering as an advocate for nonviolence with an organization called christian peacemaker teams. the book is called “letters from apartheid street: a christian peacemaker in occupied palestine.” you won’t regret reading it!

netting to protect passageways of the old city of hebron from refuse thrown down from settlements above

barricade in the h2 (israeli occupied) section, hebron

another day i headed up to bethlehem to visit my friend dr dave, director of the middle east studies program, and the intern at the program, chris, a friend from college. i got to sit in on an interesting lecture, and then we went to a nice lady’s house in bethlehem with some of the students at the program for their cooking class. we made a nice dessert called basboosa. while there, some protests erupted at checkpoint 300, the main checkpoint through the separation barrier between bethlehem and jerusalem. we watched as tires burned in the streets and tear gas wafted into the air and found its way into our nostrils. the protests were triggered by the suspicious death of a palestinian prisoner in an israeli prison. a major source of contention is that all palestinians in the west bank are effectively under israeli military marshal law. thus, they can be arrested at any time without any reason and held indefinitely without trial, a policy called “administrative detention.” thousands are being held in israeli prisons, including many minors. of course, many are truly terrorists and deserve to be incarcerated. but many others are there simply because the israeli government doesn’t like them or the things that they say, and some are never even given a reason for their detainment. huge problems. guantanamo bay disgusts me in the same sort of way. anyway, it is fascinating to live in such a charged region of the world. ambivalence with regard to these issues isn’t a very palatable option when the tear gas is wafting into your nose and making you cry.

long weekend in america!

one weekend in march i was lucky enough to fly half way around the world to attend the amsa (american medical student’s association) annual convention in washington dc! big thanks to the amsa chapter at my school and to my university for almost all of the funding! flew there through both zurich and london – the more flights the more free food and movies, eh!

the convention was quite interesting. we heard from the real-life dr. patch adams! turns out he didn’t even want that robin williams movie made about him, and he doesn’t like it. he’s also a pyjamas-in-public, self-described communist who did quite a bit of ranting about capitalism. he’s worked his entire professional life for free. he did have some very practical and apt thoughts on how physicians can better relate to patients. we also heard from recently retired johns hopkins neurosurgeon, author, and recently potential presidential hopeful dr. ben carson.

for me, the best talk was from another johns hopkins neurosurgeon, dr. alfredo quinones-hinojosa. from rural mexico, he entered the united states undocumented as a child and started picking vegetables. long story short, he ended up becoming a prominent neurosurgeon, and a down-to earth one at that. proof that citizenship or a certain background isn’t a prerequisite for living the american dream. when someone suggested that he change his last name because it was hard for americans to pronounce, he changed it by hyphenating and enlongating it in honor of his mother, and as a symbolic flippage of the proverbial bird to those who would want where he came from to hold him back. love it! cnn did a nice piece on him too which can be read here.

almost got to see every medical student’s favorite pathologist and bodybuilder dr. edward goljan, but alas he got sick at the last minute. a cool thing about the conference was that it overlapped with a conference of the international medical student’s association, so we got to meet a bunch of medical students from all over the world! for example, we were hanging out at a party and met the israeli and the lebanese medical student contingents, and we all started dancing together! where else does that happen!?! it warmed my heart. i also got to hang out with my sister maria for a day, which was so nice. also a great day at the zoo with my friend sylvie, with whom i had been skyping quite a bit. and a big thank you to my friend joel who let me stay at his house!

on keeping my mouth shut

there are many things i’d like to rant about. they’d make this blog juicier. alas, not here, not now.

the rest of second year

just from this blog, it would seem that my life is just one holiday after the next. actually, i spend almost all my time studying. m2 as it is called (the second year of medical school) was a lot more interesting than the first, but also significantly more academically demanding. instead of semesters, the courses were divided into “systems,” each lasting two to five weeks and culminating in a final exam. these fascinating systems had titles like hematology, endocrinology, pulmonology, cardiology, gastroenterology, nephrology, musculo-skeletal, reproduction, neurology and neuroanatomy, interspersed with anatomy of the thorax, abdomen, head and neck, limbs, etc. i especially loved the anatomy, as we got to spend our afternoons (and some eerie solitary all nighters too) in the cadaver lab – truly a remarkable place! throughout the year we also had twice weekly sessions on the hospital wards in which we learned various physical exam skills and how to perform a medical interview in hebrew. the hebrew was, and continues to be, rather rough for me. i put in some serious effort though, especially toward the end, and managed to pass the clinical osce (practical exam) at the end of the year in hebrew! overall though it was a great year! i truly love studying medicine, and though sitting around with your face in a book isn’t always the funnest thing one can imagine doing, i wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.

some random other things that happened:

-did some zumba! epic sport! lots of hebrew commands that can be tuned out; just dance! at the first session i was the only male there, with about 60 ladies. at one point our chain-smoking leader makes an announcement in hebrew, and everyone turns towards me and applauds. weird, right? after i learned that it was because i, a male, showed up to a zumba class! lol, a truly special memory!

-during the jewish holiday of purim, we had a customary costume party. before that, my conservative jewish friend read the megillah, or story of esther, in hebrew. a custom during this reading is to make noise with noisemakers and air horns and incessantly boo whenever the name haman is mentioned, because he wanted to eliminate the jewish race. his name is mentioned probably at least 100 times in the story, so lots of booing.

-a new shopping mall opened in beer sheva – the largest mall in israel! some may know that i am obsessed with malls, so needless to say i was living with eager anticipation. it is an amazing place! it even has an h&m, which is probably the most epic thing to have ever happened to beer sheva. one more reason to visit!

-i ran the dead sea half marathon for the second time, with a good group of classmates.

-some of my friends organized an excellent ted event at ben-gurion university, tedxbgu. there were a few very interesting speakers. my personal favorite was a blind arab-israeli lawyer named abbas abbas. no one, not even his family or doctors, believed he could amount to anything in life because he was blind and had other disabilities. on top of this, success for arabs in israel doesn’t exactly come easy. against all odds, he was able to graduate with a law degree from hebrew university and founded an organization that seeks to defend the rights of disabled arabs in israel. he was so enthusiastic that he kept shuffling further backwards without realizing it, and was soon speaking from the back corner of the stage. no matter. it was so inspirational on so many levels to see this blind arab commanding the attention of an auditorium full of israelis. doesn’t happen as much as it should, but it did that day. i probably cried a little.

-my roommate and i had two fourth year students from our program live in our apartment for a number of months, minsoo and david. david taught himself a few languages while here, and also self-taught himself how to play the oud, a classic arab instrument. i like to think i played at a least a small part in convincing him to perform a song in arabic at their class’s graduation ceremony, and he absolutely nailed it!

medical school for international health class of 2013 graduation

south lebanon and the hezbollah museum

one day in beirut i headed to the hills of south lebanon to visit an infamous new hezbollah museum. hezbollah’s paramilitary branch is considered a terrorist organization by much of the world, and they consider destruction of the state of israel to be their primary objective. let me obviously and emphatically disclaim that i do not support this objective and that i think any group that employs terrorism is terrible, even when/if if they do have valid reason to be upset with their situation. this said, i thought it would be fascinating to visit their brand new, 60 million us$ museum, which was funded by iran.

the “tour” starts with a 13 minute movie about the “resistance” in south lebanon, overlayed with emotionally-stirring war movie type music. israel occupied south lebanon from the mid 80’s through 2000, with another another war in 2006. the climax of the film comes when hassan nasrallah, the bearded fundamentalist cleric who leads hezbollah, has his fist in the air and looses control of both the volume and resonance of his voice when describing how the group can hit ben-gurion airport in tel aviv with their missiles at any moment’s notice. such passion.

i was then given a tour by another bearded cleric, dressed in camouflage, who spoke perfect american english. he showed me the museum’s centerpiece, “the abyss,” meant to symbolically represent the future of israel as they see it going down. bizarre and surreal. a huge hole in the ground is filled with captured israeli tanks and helicopters that were shot down in the 2006 war. israel also used cluster bombs during that and other wars, which were on prominent display. these bombs are illegal according to international law, as they are designed to inflict maximal civilian casualties. in no way defensible, but at least israel’s prime objective isn’t to wipe south lebanon from the face of the earth.

the facility also included trenches and bunkers used by paramilitary fighters in their resistance, including the founding leader of hezbollah before he was assassinated by israel. they have published a schematic of the power structure and leadership of all the branches of the israeli military, previously classified information which they claim to have discovered covertly, and which israel was apparently very angry about when they found out. they also have maps of israel with the quantity and types of military aircraft at each israeli air force base, for example, and schematics of their rockets hitting these targets. throughout the place were stationed, symbolically and anything but subtly, many rocket shaped gold-plated receptacles for monetary donations to the cause. i’ll bet that this will be one of the first places taken out in the next of the long string of israel-hezbollah wars.

israeli war spoils, hezbollah museum, south lebanon

hassan nasrallah, leader of hezbollah, south lebanon

the museum was far up in the mountains, and the clerics/tour guides didn’t have any cell phones to call for a taxi, so i started what turned out to be a four hour hike down the mountain to the nearest highway. it would seem that the whole of south lebanon is covered in posters of recent martyrs for the hezbollah cause. a guy gave me a ride on his moped for a while, and eventually an extremely elderly and seemingly senile but unbelievably hospitable couple gave me a ride in the their rusted out, sputtering mercedes benz. we crawled along at two kilometers per hour as the man mumbled along to his classical arabic oud music while the woman kindly and slowly spoke words to me which i was unfortunately completely unable to comprehend.

i spent that evening in the south lebanese city of sidon/saida, where i found an abandoned and locked up crusader castle out in the ocean, connected to land only by a causeway. i snuck into the premises, and chanced upon a group of three teenage boys who showed me all around inside the castle. on the roof, looking out over saida, one of them broke out in arabic song (with some akon mixed in there too), and the four of us vigorously danced away all our problems. it was really nice, just like the whole trip 🙂 hopefully one day in the future the typical citizens of israel and lebanon will legally be able to visit each other’s beautiful countries. until then, i feel especially honored that i’m able to experience both!

a study break in beirut :)

i spent about five days of my passover break in the “paris of the middle east” – beirut, lebanon – and it was an excellent time! lebanon is an enigma in so many ways. 40% christian, 60% muslim (both sunni and shi’ite, as well as druze and every other imaginable muslim sect). in beirut, bearded islamic fundamentalists rub shoulders with some of the most hedonistic party-goers that exist anywhere. sometimes they’re even the same people. there are seemingly more luxury german cars in lebanon than there are in germany, and recently more syrian refugees than can be counted. bullet-riddled buildings destroyed by decades of brutal civil war stand next to truly glamorous shopping malls.

first things first, you must realize that getting to lebanon from israel requires some determination, more than one passport and some thorough planning (read about my route in the previous post). you also have to hide any evidence of anything israeli or hebrew, or you will be immediately deported. i found a great place to hide the passport with evidence of israel (good guess but no it was not in an orifice of my body, although that would have made a great story for the grandkids!) it was also a challenge to never use any hebrew words while i was there. i managed right until the very end when i accidentally said “toda” (thank you in hebrew) to the taxi driver who gave me a ride to the airport. he gave me a look that said “i know exactly what language that just was,” so i quickly ran into the airport! people know their basic hebrew from the movies. anyway, due to the extremely charged ongoing history of animosity between lebanon and israel, i felt that i had no choice but to lie to everyone in lebanon about where i currently live. once you start, your lies have to become increasingly complex. it messed with my mind a little; didn’t feel right. but also a fun challenge sometimes – to make up as crazy a life story as possible and still have it come off as believable 🙂

i stayed at a near-perfect hostel (hot showers would have upgraded it to perfect) called saifi urban gardens in a trendy and rapidly gentrifying area of beirut called gemmayze. everyone was extremely friendly. the vernacular is arabic, but most of the older generation also speak french, and most younger people also speak english, many with perfect american flair!

here are just a few of the friendly folks i met. all bros, i know. i guess the ladies must not be quite as friendly.

-ralph is an oral surgeon who divides his work between beirut and kuwait. the only reason he works in kuwait is so he can afford to satiate the significant material demands of his lebanese wife.

-azhar is a recent medical graduate from aleppo, syria who, due to the ongoing civil war there, is unfortunately now an unemployed refugee staying in the hostel. he was also preparing for a united states medical licensing exam, a fact over which we bonded.

-muhammad was my roommate in the hostel, a software engineer from england and an aspiring photojournalist. he kindly introduced me to what must have been dozens of his beiruti friends. the prime time for meeting new people in beirut is between the hours of midnight and 5am.

-zaki is a palestinian-iraqi who grew up in baghdad. we talked about the present state of affairs in iraq and he told me he could totally arrange for me to come hang out in baghdad any time! i must say it is super tempting 🙂

-rami was going to visit his grandmother in baalbek, a town in lebanon’s isolated and ultra-conservative beqaa valley the next day. after what turned into a deeply philosophical discussion, he genuinely invited me to come with him and hang out for a few days. if only i had more time.

-leo was a french journalist, in lebanon to cover the influx of syrian refugees. he was intrigued by the fact that i had survived walking through the south beirut palestinian refugee camps of sabra and shatila wearing shorts and socks that didn’t match.

-i met saleh on a bus in south lebanon. we discussed topics such as who our heroes are in life. he said hassan nasrallah, the leader of hezbollah. i said Jesus 🙂

the sights to see in beirut include the pigeon rocks, which are huge islands of rock sticking out of the mediterranean; martyr’s square, in which stands a statue pierced with countless bullet holes and missing appendages thanks to years of civil war; and the 20-something story bombed out shell of what was once a holiday inn in downtown beirut. also, the beautifully green and tranquil downtown campus of the american university of beirut, an english-only institution known as one of the best universities in the middle east. i even happened to meet a few medical students who go there!

bombed-out former holiday inn, downtown beirut

one day i went to the south beirut palestinian refugee camps of sabra and shatila. these “camps” have an unfortunate place in history due to a massacre of over 3000 innocents that occurred there in 1982 by the “christian” phalangist fighters, with the implicit support and assistance of the israeli military (former prime minister of israel ariel sharon was defense minister at the time, and was forced to resign over the incident, before later becoming prime minister – only in israel). the camps were created by palestinian refugees when they were forced from their homeland when the state of israel was created. though they have been in lebanon for over 60 years, unfortunately these folks are still prohibited from becoming citizens of lebanon, and as such are barred from such careers as medicine and the law. thus, i would suggest that the oft used argument that these people shouldn’t be considered refugees anymore because they’ve been where they’re at for such a long time doesn’t really hold up. the conditions in the camps are really terrible, with some of the highest population density anywhere in the world and very poor sanitary conditions – for example, only recently getting adequate sewage disposal. i had been told that it was a dangerous place, but i decided to check it out anyway. it did end up striking me as a little sketchy. the streets were rife with militia-type guys with guns, and i definitely felt like everyone was glaring at me. absolutely huge posters of yasser arafat (former leader of the palestinian liberation organization) and sheikh ahmed yassin (quadriplegic former spiritual leader of hamas before he was assassinated by israel) adorned the streets. i was tempted to take some pictures, but opted not to as there are many a story of people being apprehended at gunpoint for doing just that in these camps. i love me a little tourism adrenaline!