to celebrate the end of five straight weeks of second semester exams, five of my 33 favorite classmates and i took a three day trip to the ancient nabeatan city of petra, in jordan! it was a really enjoyable time. we hiked for an entire day around the expansive site, which includes much more than the infamous treasury (of indiana jones fame). the place is huge, and the rugged mountainous vistas from such locales as “the end of the world” unbelievable! we also went to little petra the next day before heading home through aqaba and eilat on the red sea.
petrapetrathe end of the world, petrafriends in petrafriends in petra
petrapetra
petra
petrapetra, jordanpetra, jordan
on the way home we learned that in eilat israel you can discreetly sneak into the hilton’s glamorous pool area, which turned out to be quite relaxing!
during one rocket day i decided to head up to nablus, one of the largest palestinian cities in the west bank. it is quite a trip from my home in beer sheva – a bus to jerusalem, another through the checkpoint to ramallah, and yet another to nablus. nablus is a really interesting place. i spent a few sweaty hours climbing mount gerizim which overlooks nablus, home of most of the last remaining samaritans of biblical fame. quasi-jews, they believe that the true site of the original temple was on mt. gerizim as opposed to in jerusalem. every year they hold a big ritual/sacrifice thing there. they even have their own ancient language. it is a small community of about 800, and until very recently they strictly disallowed intermarriage with anyone else, so unfortunately they have all kinds of rare genetic diseases. from the mountain one looks down on the balata refugee camp, the most populous in the west bank, where 30 000 people live in an area of 0.25 square kilometers.
in nablus i also went to beer yakoub/jacob’s well, the place where jesus met the woman at the well, and ate the local delicacy – kunafa, which is made from soft goat cheese, butter and honey and comes in flourescent orange and green varieties. unfortunately, nablus has a reputation for being a very hostile place for anyone suspected of being israeli. i was approached by some young guys who tried speaking a few hebrew phrases to me to see if i knew it. that day i didn’t know a word of hebrew – slightly less than what i’d know on a normal day. rumor has it that if they find out you speak hebrew, they’ll lynch you right there on the street 🙁
my first tear of medical school is complete, and it was a good one! thankfully i passed all my exams, and now we’re into the second year – systems! this means we will now study just one subject at a time and have an exam every three or so weeks. we recently finished hematology, and now we’re into endocrinology!
a few happenings of the last semester:
-holidays: purim (think jewish halloween), hag b’omer (collect scraps of wood all year so that they can be thrown into a huge bonfire that can be partied around), holocaust remembrance and israeli independence day (minutes of silence during which everything in israel stops, including all traffic on the freeways, followed by a huge party with epic fireworks right outside my apartment), ben-gurion university student day (live music all night; pool party all day)
israeli independence day, beer sheva
-a disaster management module that was quite interesting
-ran the dead sea half marathon with a number of my classmates; the lowest race on earth!! 1:37; i was happy with that. afterward we got to swim in the extremely salty dead sea water, which felt great on some our freshly chaffed nipples – you can imagine the yelps!
great day for the lowest race on earth!
stretching for the dead sea half marathon
dead sea half marathoners
dead sea half marathon
dead sea half marathon
swimming in the dead sea
-had the opportunity to go to two christian “student conferences” that involved jewish as well as arab believers. really good times and great to meet some people outside of beer sheva.
-msih prom: bringing the american high school experience to israel.
-some unplanned school-free rocket days (they come from gaza). after one, we made some young israeli friends hanging out in a bomb shelter. they took us to where one of the rockets had hit that day – it decimated a school. good reminder that it is important to hide when that siren goes off.
rocket damage, beer sheva
-perhaps the most profound three hour conversation of the semester was with an american college student who had just finished three months of nonviolently documenting abuses of the occupation with christian peacemaker teams in hebron, palestine. check out some of his documentation of what’s going down in hebron here: http://www.cpt.org/underattack. the occupation is so messed up, yet so intractable – so seemingly impossible to do anything about. but this guy found a way to really put himself out there in a politically poignant yet very Christ-like manner, and i found it nothing short of inspirational.
on my return from the us over winter break i had a 12 hour layover in frankfurt, so i took a couple trains to heidelburg to see the castle and the christmas market!
four months later, i think its about time for a post!
what’s gone on since the last time:
– so very much studying. it is, after all, what medical school is all about!
courses this semester include: pathology, pharmacology, physiology, epidemiology, microbiology (continued), hebrew and a dash of anthropology and history taking.
– a couple amazing thanksgiving potlucks around that time
– the cinematic event of the year: the beer sheva premiere of “twilight: breaking dawn part one!”
– a retreat to the sea of galilee with some of the other christian students at msih! we did some hiking and went to capernum and the mount of beatitudes
galilee retreat
galilee retreat
– unexpectedly frequent homemade korean cuisine fests!
– some ups and downs in the ol’ personal life
– got to go back to the usa to visit my family for christmas! houston, texas and new orleans, lousiana! i wont elaborate because traditionally this blog is only about stuff that goes down in the eastern hemisphere, but i will say that it was really nice to see my family again and there were numerous trips to walmart!
– watched the superbowl live at the local shanti bar until it finished at 5am! then got some breakfast, and went to eight hours of class the next day. gotta get ready for those 36 hour days in residency!
beer sheva
my friend yossi
birthday
pushing to get on the bus
a communal shabbat dinner, beer sheva
my friend diana decided to move away
some theater in beer sheva
– went to jaffa (which is the historical area / rapidly gentrifying part of tel aviv) one friday to visit a clinic run by physicians for human rights – israel (phr-i). they are an ngo run completely by volunteers that provides free medical care for the migrant worker/non-jewish immigrant/refugee population in israel. there have been tens of thousands of refugees coming to israel in recent years from places like sudan and eritrea, but these people are not covered but israel’s universal healthcare coverage, have no mechanism for becoming citizens as they’re not jewish, and typically can’t legally work. its a huge, intractable problem for the government, and really sad on a personal level. these people risk their lives journeying across north africa in the hopes of making it to the “free western world” – many of them end up in protracted slavery in the sinai or even having their organs harvested at the hands of the human smugglers on which they depend. then, even if they make it across the border into israel without getting shot, they can’t work, so many end up sleeping in a park in tel aviv indefinitely. phr-i also does mobile clinics in the west bank and gaza, where people are also definitely not privy to government funded universal healthcare. i think that phr-i is amazing, especially considering it is fueled entirely by volunteer health professionals!
– last week was special: all our classes were devoted to issues relating to cardiovascular health and atherosclerosis. we also, for the first time since my class has been here, did everything that week with our colleagues at the israeli medical school. it was great to meet some new friends, especially considering that sometimes our classes are in the same buildings! we made posters in groups and presented them outdoors in the february warmth that only beer sheva can provide. i can tell you all about statins now. we also had fun stuff like yoga and zumba classes! zumba is my new favorite sport! turns out my default dancing technique has always been zumba inspired – i just didn’t know what to call it until now!
– the biggest highlight of the year so far has definitely been once-a-week clinical days. in small groups we get to go to various wards in the hospital or clinics in surrounding towns and learn how to interview patients. the language barrier can definitely be a challenge but that’s just the way it is. this week i to went to a bedouin family’s house in the nearby settlement of tel sheva. they even made us a huge lunch, which we ate from communal plates while lounging on their floor!
the bedouin are an interesting people group. traditionally they were pastoral nomads who wandered around the deserts of the middle east. with the creation of secure borders between modern nation-states like israel, however, they found themselves hemmed in. at the creation of the state of israel 60 years ago there were 10 000 bedouin in the negev desert around beer sheva – today there are 100 000. that’s a steep growth curve! they also have a tendency for consanguinous marriage (ie. with their cousins) which inevitably leads to high prevalence of rare genetic defects. indeed, beer sheva’s own soroka hospital (where our classes are) is internationally famous in genetics circles. most of the children at soroka are bedouin and most of the elderly are russian. maybe that is a phenomenon for another blog entry. anyway, the bedouin live in towns and villages that spot the desert surrounding beer sheva. some were set up by the government, while others are “unrecognized.” the government likes to periodically bulldoze homes in unrecognized villages to remind everybody who is in charge. i went to a lecture (in an underground bomb shelter) the other night by a bedouin guy who is getting a law degree in part so he can work to protect his unrecognized village. he was a good guy. i’m sure the guys who operate the bulldozers are too, its just too bad they can’t be using them to do something productive.
documentation of destruction of bedouin villages in the negev
i flew home from armenia on a brand new low cost carrier called flydubai, which is super inepensive! the first few hours of my layover in dubai were spent waiting in line with hundreds of afghani tribesmen who were on their way to mecca for the hajj. when i finally got out of the airport, i took the amazing metro system to the tallest building in the world, the burj khalifa. i learned that if you took all the iron re-bar used in its construction and laid it end to end, it would reach a quarter of the way around the globe! on my way back to the airport i chanced upon the emirati equivalent of a walmart, and, realizing that everything was significantly cheaper than in israel, indulged in some shopping. managed to make it back to the airport just in time!
mohammed bin rashid al maktoum, dubai
i flew back to amman because it was way cheaper than into israel. after a night in a super sketch hostel, i spent a day getting back to israel. five hours at the allenby bridge border crossing. overall though, an amazing break: i almost forgot i was a medical student! but it is good to be back 🙂
i arrived into yerevan, armenia overland from tbilisi, georgia. my friend brad has an armenian friend named veronika that he put me in touch with. and thank goodness, as when i arrived in at my hostel there was no one to be found. apparently no one ever stays there. it took about 15 calls in armenian, and finally someone got in touch with the guy who was supposed to be running the hostel. turns out it was quite luxurious, and i was the only person there! veronika was super nice, and she even took a day off work to show me around the city! we went out to a town called etchmiadzin, where the oldest church in armenia is, from the furth century. armenia is the oldest christian country in the world! and to this day their brand of christianity has its own independent flair. we then went to a museum devoted to the armenian filmmaker and artist sergei parajanov, whose work was heavily censored by the soviets. and we ate some really tasty armenian food. i was amazed at how cultured the place is. there is cutting edge art absolutely everywhere, and everyone is intently concerned with looking really, really good. as a group, they seem to hold themselves to a very high standard.
etchmiadzin, armenia – christian since the 200s AD
veronica showing me around yerevan
yerevan
yerevan
that evening i went to the armenian genocide memorial, which is on the crest of a hill overlooking yerevan. unfortunately the museum was closed by the time i got there, but there is an eternal flame and some evocative architecture that is very poignant. the armenian genocide occurred during the late 1910’s: 1.5 million armenians were killed by the ottoman empire. this cause has been furthered by armenia’s huge diaspora in the west. to this day turkey refuses to call it a genocide, resulting in a very antagonistic relationship between armenia and turkey. the border is completely sealed shut.
armenia and azerbaijan, its neighbor on the other side, also unfortunately don’t get along. i learned a lot about this from veronika, who is working to encourage dialogue between youth of the two countries. there was a big war in the early 1990’s, after which the ethnically armenian region of nagorno-karabakh declared its own (still internationally unrecognized) independence from azerbaijan. the tensions and the complexities are one of the reasons that i really wanted to visit this part of the world, so it was great to hang out with someone who could explain it all. armenia = super interesting place, i’d highly recommend anyone to go there. as a parting gift, on my last day i finally got to see mount ararat, which towers over yerevan. it is where noah’s ark is believed to have run aground.
arriving at the tbilisi airport at 3 am was fun! i caught a ride into the city with a bunch of elderly men on a very typical soviet era minibus that was spewing smoke and stalled out every time it stopped. georgia is so interesting: it really is the modern buffer between east and west. you may remember that they had a huge war with russia in 2008 over a little territory called south ossetia, which almost ignited another cold war. to this day russia essentially controls south ossetia, which has declared its own independence, as well as another breakaway independent region called abkhazia. in the meantime, georgia is trying to join nato. and i had no idea until i got there, but there is another completely autonomous entity (thanks to a “strongman”) called adjara. such a fractious and complicated region, which makes it super interesting to this guy! i would describe the georgian people for you (mom), but generalizing is wrong. i can say, however, that they generally subsist off bread, beer, perogies and pie.
i spent two days in tbilisi: climbing mountains, exploring castles, marveling at countless georgian orthodox churches, not speaking a word of english, eating huge pierogi-like kinkhali, breathing way too much second hand smoke, riding the <20 cent/ride metro system, feasting my eyes upon soviet era monuments, entering dilapidated, abandoned communist government buildings, etc! the highlight was definitely renting a scooter for three hours on my last day. i scooted all around tbilisi (a city of 1.4 million), and up and over a mountain to some little towns in the countryside. it was the definition of catharsis for me.
tbilisi
tbilisi
tbilisi
tbilisi
kinkhali, tbilisi
tbilisi
tbilisi
tbilisi
georgian script
tbilisi
tbilisi
tbilisi
tbilisi
tbilisi
tbilisi
all too soon, the time came to move on to armenia. i was going to take the night train, but it only goes every second night. so i showed up at the mini-bus station at 8 am to catch a minibus, which are supposed to leave “frequently” for yerevan, armenia, six hours away. well, these things wait until they’re full before they leave. by 2 pm, there were still only two people waiting, and i was starting to get anxious. so i started the long process of bartering without language to pay for the rest of the seats so we could get on the road. thank goodness for cell phone keypads so at least we can get the numbers straight! after an hour of unintelligible “discussion” and a little too much compromise on my part, we finally got on the road. it turned out that the guy who was driving the thing had spent his morning consuming alcohol; we were all over the road. one minute we’d be four inches behind the semi in front of us, the next he’d be getting a call on his mobile and forget to keep driving, and we’d coast to a stop, honking traffic piling up behind us. unless he unwittingly had us drifting off into the ditch, which happened a few too many times. an hour out of tbilisi we stopped, and waited for another hour while they brought one more passenger. probably a good thing for his blood alcohol level. at the georgian/armenian border we stopped for a 1.5 hour dinner break, so the driver could smoke another pack and pound back a few more beers. the other guy in the van insisted on buying me dinner; that was really nice of him!
i had a short layover in riga, latvia. but it was just long enough to find my way into the city and ascend the steeple of the tallest church in town before the sun went down. and buy some delectable latvian pastries. and wander around at night for a while. it was freezing! and everyone was watching hockey as a pastime! it reminded me of my canadian home. the baltics have really done well for themselves post-communism. downtown riga is nothing short of glamorous!
i spent three days in budapest, mostly to hang out with a great friend and former college roommate named brad. i feel like we have so many memories from college, everything from weekly wings nights to road trips to maine to wonderful liturgical church services to apples to apples at “family” game nights to lamenting the methods used by certain women to break up with us to wine tasting in the santa ynez valley to an infamous box of stool that just wouldn’t disappear to fish tacos in tijuana to vague recollections of him leaving at 2 am in the mornings for his job sorting lobsta in glosta, just to name a few. it was great to catch up. he is pursuing a master’s degree at a very interesting graduate-only institution called central european university that is entirely in english and is a remarkable melting pot of students from every corner of the world. after a couple days i had already hung out with people from over one dozen different countries, including a disproportionately large number of romanians. we went to all kinds of little hungarian restaurants that the tourists don’t know about and it was amazing. and inexpensive. oh and also he was kind enough to show me to a few different shopping malls – they have some seriously amazing malls in budapest! one day we went to a traditional hungarian bath house! i stayed immersed in it’s waters the entire day. it was a good time! speaking of budapest – hey dad! – remember that time we were there on christmas eve a few years ago?! that was also a good time.
