the Dead Sea

After arriving in town in Jericho, we stopped to get a little brunch at the diner we were dropped off in front of. By stopped to get brunch, I mean that one of the guys we were riding with immediately invited us inside and we followed without any real discretion. It was a spacious place and served delicious food, some of the best hummus and falafel I've had yet in Palestine. After that we caught a cab to the hostel in Jericho, which had a  a beautiful sitting room. We were shown to our wing and quickly changed into our bathing suits and called a cab to the Dead Sea. To get to the Dead Sea we had to leave Palestine and cross over into Israel since Israel has decided that the Dead Sea should be theirs exclusively. We had to pay for access to the beach which reminded me of a private beach at some Caribbean resort. It was a little spendy (about 12-15 dollars) but hey, you only get so many times to hang out at THE CRAZIEST SEA IN THE WORLD! I know that everyone knows that the Dead Sea is salty, but it is one of those things that must be experienced to be understood completely. When yo float in the Dead Sea you actually are mostly floating on top of it since it is 30% solids mixed in finely with the water in addition to the salty content. And it's salty, very very very salty. So salty that you can't put your face in the water, unless you didn't read the warning like me and instead got ththe worst burning sensation I've ever experienced in my retinas. It's so salty that my nasal passages got  all chapped from the water and my lips were chapped like I ate ten bags of Tim's sea salt and vinegar. I don't think I have the literary skill to properly describe the water there, but it was cool to say the least.

Next up was a thorough coating of Dead Sea mud all over since it's apparently a must due the "magical" property of the mud. The floor of the sea is odd, in one spot you can be standing on sand, take two steps and cut your toe on a giant piece of salt and take two more and sink knee-deep in mud. The mud is in layers there of varying colors between shades of grey (or is it gray?) and pitch black. Charline, Danny, Scott and I all slathered ourselves in the mud throughout the day as we wandered between the water and and our chairs. We looked something like this in the water:

or this:

Here's some other shots of the Dead Sea. Jordan is across the Dead Sea here:

Quick side note, while I hate to sound like an asshole, the beach was covered with some really unattractive people

The Journey to Jericho

With the weekend approaching last week, Danny, Scott and I were trying to decide what would be the best way to entertain ourselves. Nick was going to Tel Aviv because he loves the beaches there, but we decided it would be more rewarding/fulfilling to check out the Dead Sea in the remaining few weeks of nice weather and figured we should go sooner rather than later. There is a new girl working with the international office too, Charline, who is from France and we invited her along as well. With our bags packed a desire to see more of the west bank, we all headed out early on Friday morning to catch the service taxi (8-person vans that handle commutes between major cities in Palestine). I’m not sure how long the drive is, but I’d say it was around or at least an hour. Somewhere towards the middle of the trip I encountered my first checkpoint that was actively stopping vehicle and we all had to get our passports out and hand them over.

As one Israeli looked over our passports, three others (all armed with assault rifles and very non-uniformily uniformed) peered in the windows at us. I’ve always been okay around guns, and around the military and I don’t mind being the center of attention but this made me really uncomfortable. I think it has to do with the fact that unlike the US military and other militaries I have been around and interacted with, I think the Israeli military is pretty unprofessional in appearance and behavior. They just look like thugs that raided the army surplus store and have pretty nice guns and are essentially the ruling deities of all actions in the west bank. I’ve always had a problem with authority but known my place and the proper channels to deal with discrepancies. The situation here though leaves me feeling powerless and without recourse for what is frequently very unprofessional behavior directed at everyone, including internationals.

Alas, we got back under way without issue and were once again rolling through the hills of the West Bank. The hills here are beautiful because they almost remind me of the mountainous central Washington area. They are covered in rocks and olive trees that seem to be in complete disarray until you realize that these rocks form mountainside terraces that have been here for God knows how long for the olive trees that are the heart of rural Palestine. It’s so beautifully simple, rustic and ancient looking all at once, while leaving me to marvel about the sheer amount of effort that must have gone into constructing this landscape by hand. I have to say though that the most striking physical feature I have seen yet in Palestine, and arguably in my life was the Jordan Valley. After rolling through these hills until I was comfortably adjusted to them, suddenly we rounded a corner to see the hills immediately fal away into deep, expansive valley that stretched nearly as far as the eye can see without a single bump or dip to the valley floor. It was like a poster separating two stacks of books if that gives any proper reference. The Dead Sea glittered in the distance as we crossed through Israeli military controlled land on our approach to Jericho.

My first experience with dental care in Palestine

Last week I seemed to have dislodged a filling but didn’t notice any immediate discomfort so I just carried on with my normal affairs. Over the course of the weekend however I began to notice a large amount of sensitivity on the tooth (upper right pre-molar) and some tenderness in above my gum line. I remember as I child I had gotten an abcessed baby tooth and recognized that it seemed like a similar sensation. I was alarmed to say the least, stuck in a developing country with no concept of my dental care and to be quite honest, without the resources necessary for emergency dental surgery. As somebody who already deals with anxiety issues, I was pretty worked up and in a fair amount of pain by the time work started on Sunday.

I asked steve about what I should do and we got sidetracked discussing the disparity between dental care between the US, the UK, and Palestine. The kind of work I needed was most likely a root canal and a crown, which in the states would run me upwards of 5,000 dollars since I don’t have dental insurance. In England, the same treatment would cost me about 400 dollars because of their national dental coverage. I think it’s absurd that people place so much importance on the issue of national healthcare in America considering dental care is just as vital to the health of the country and how it is completely ignored in all discussions. When I asked about my dental care options in Palestine Steve told me that I am completely covered by the university (along with healthcare) and that there was a university dentist with an office on campus that could see me immediately.

I want to just stop there and point out how incredible this is. Not only am I, as an intern, receiving full benefits but the university retains its own dentist to insure that I have easy access to care at work. I’ve never heard of such a simple and practical solution to taking care of employees and simultaneously investing in the health of the community. It really highlights how broken American health care truly is when you consider that I am in the dentist chair within five minutes of wanting care in the Global South.

I wandered over to the dental office and I will admit, we are not talking about first class facilities. I think my favorite part was that the mirror on the counter had some of the corners broken off and the chair had a distinctly yellow tinge to it that can only be a product of the 80’s…or maybe the 70’s. All the same the dentist was a friendly lady who got me into the chair immediately and within two minutes had my face numb and was ready to go to work. I’ll avoid all the details of the work since no one likes to hear about that business. Within twenty minutes I had my first of three appointments done. No paperwork, no appointments, no wait, no hassle. I’m not saying there are no trade offs to getting care in a developing country, but they seem like ones that I would happily exchange for the situation I came from to the situation I have now. In America I don’t know what I could have done or would have done- I don’t have exactly an emergency dental care nest egg. In Palestine, I got the care I needed, but more importantly than that I found a culture of compassion in health and dental care and that is greater than any technological advancement I could ask for.

Rafat and Arara (post one of at least two)

This is the sun setting over Arara, a mountain near the village of Rafat. We hiked up to it with our friends from Rafat and it amazes me how raw the beauty is here. Rough rocks sprout out from the red earth, the same rocks that have roman foundations carved out of them from thousands of years ago. All the plants here are thorny and lash at the legs, but it is still simply amazing what can grow in such a sparse landscape. Arara has an old volcanic crater near the top, which is odd considering nearly everything made from stone here is some kind of limestone. It's beautiful though watching the sun set over the white rocks as we hiked back down the mountain.

These are the olive trees around the village of Rafat. The village has I think around 2,000 people in it and it is absolutely beautiful. The people we so kind and generous that I still have an entire blog to write about it. Possibly tomorrow so stay tuned. It's amazing how beautifully simple village life is and how the Olive trees are the cornerstone of their lives. Everything revolves around the olives and the harvest, which is in the next few weeks here. I live the village and I want to go back soon

These were ancient ruins actually in the city of Rafat, just blending in with the surrounding homes. It's amazing how little the architecture can change here over the course of thousands of years and how long these stones have stood here.