Random briefings of the week

Lets talk about my Hebrew...its certainly been improving. In fact, this week someone thought I was Israeli for about 10 seconds, thats a new record! I was going for a jog (which consisted mostly of me walking, but its sounds much better if I say "jog"), and a car pulled up next to me and asked me for directions. In Israel, when you ask for directions, you don't say "Ayfoh Rechov Ben Yehudah?" (Where is Ben Yehudah Street?). In an effort to make the Hebrew language even more concise, you drop the "Ayfoh" and just say a street name with an inflection, i.e. "Ben Yehudah?" I therefore had no idea the woman asking was American, all she did was say a street name. I started to tell her in Hebrew what streets to take to her destination, and about 2 sentences in, she said, "Oh, you're American...we can just speak in English." While I was honestly a bit relieved, I was a little disappointed. I thought I had her fooled. But for now, even if she thought I was Israeli for 2 sentences worth, I decided that thats deserving enough to give myself a pat on the back...or a cookie when I finish my walk.
I was reminded however that my Hebrew had not improved enough in school recently. I was teaching a first grade class and one of the students, Michal, came in late. I stopped the lesson for a second to give her a hug hello and ask her if everything was ok, she said yes and went to sit in her seat. The next morning, I saw Michal's mother in school and she thanked me for hugging Michal yesturday morning when she came into class late. I wanted to say, " Ayn Ba'ayah" (No problem!), but instead what came out was, "Lo Norah" - "not so bad!" Essentially I was telling this mother that it wasn't so bad to hug her child. The mother winced, and so did I, and once again, I'm hoping she's forgotten about it by now...

This week was Rosh Chodesh Adar. We had a big "mesibah" or party in school on Rosh Chodesh. The whole school said Hallel together and then we had singing and dancing, including all the appropriate Purim songs. When I told this to my mother she asked, "Did all your students know the words?" I said "Mom, thats like asking a 7 year old American if they know the words to The Wheels on the Bus!" These kids were raised on these songs, and its so natural to them. They actually know the words and understand them. The mesibah was a lot of fun, and now everyone is getting very excited about Purim. From now until Purim, every day there is a separate theme for dressing up. One day is stripes, one day is polka dits, one day is pajamas, etc. I'm a little nervous, because the first dress up day is tomorrow, its officially topsey turvey day, but I don't know if teachers partake! I wasn't in school today and I forgot to ask 2 days ago... my gut says to dress up, oy vey! we'll see how creative I can be at 7 Am tomorrow morning.

Today I went to my courses in the Michlalah. They have a lunch room there that serves hot breakfast and lunch, as well as coffee and tea. The lady who works there told us that we don't have to pay for hot water, if we want to bring a tea bag or hot cocoa packet from home (well, she didn't say hot cocoa packet because such things don't exist here, but thanks to the Fruchter family visits, I've got enough hot cocoa packets to last me a while. ) For the past couple of weeks I've been buying a coffee there in the morning for 5 shekel and then maybe taking some hot water later for a tea or hot cocoa. This morning I decided that 5 shekel is a lot for an instant cofee, especially when I can just bring it from home. So I added to my Mary Poppins-bag-of-snacks a hot cup and some coffee grains. When I got to school I went in to the lunch room with my cup of coffee grains and filled it up with hot water, and then I walked over to the milk and sugar counter and started to lift the pitcher of milk. The man who runs the place, a tall, large Israeli man in his sixties came over to me and started yelling at me, in a very demeaning way, implying that I was stealing his milk, because I wasn't planning on paying for it. He cared so much about this milk it was as if he milked the cow himself and brought it from his kibbutz or something. He didn't quit yelling at me, and kept repeating the same thing over and over again. I got the idea, I wanted to say, but I didn't think he would have liked that very much. So I waited till he was done and then asked him how much would it cost if I just payed for some milk, and he said a half a shekel. So I forked over the coin politely, and was terrified to enter the lunchroom for the rest of the day. What did I learn from this experience, you might ask. Hmmm. Its time to get used to black coffee.