No Foreign Lands

The Athenian School’s first required meeting for faculty is next Thursday. The long sweep of my sabbatical and summer break is about to be broken. Now I am in a redwood forest at Bullfrog Pond campground, 90 miles north of San Francisco. A one-lane road heads from the 2,000-year-old trees on the valley floor up to the ridge and campground. As I drove here yesterday, I wondered how I would escape should a fire hit. I imagined myself in the middle of the pond, breathing through a straw, the surrounding woods aflame.

I feel at home here. My daughter and I went on a week-long camping trip to Bullfrog Pond every year when she was young. We first came here when she was 15-months old. We stayed in the campsite next to where I’m currently perched. I picked that site because it’s relatively flat and my daughter was still learning to walk. Each night I would put a bottle of milk in a bowl of ice outside the tent. When she woke up hungry in the middle of the night, I could get her bottle without leaving my sleeping bag.

We came back every year until she was 13–at that age she took control of her summer holidays and began heading to a camp in New Hampshire–but we had many adventures here. Kaia as a mud-monster emerging from the primordial pond. Kaia as Grania, the swashbuckling Irish pirate queen. Walking around the pond picking warm blackberries or sitting in a field of mint savoring the luscious smell.

The camping trips were partly an opportunity for Kaia to take on challenges. The first years, the challenges were physical. She would scamper up downed redwood trees and walk along the spine of these fallen giants. Then the challenges became social, as she wanted to make friends with other children staying at the campground.

If I see my daughter struggling in an area, the first question I ask myself was whether I struggle there. With one exception, the answer has always been yes. My approach to helping her was not to try and get her to do anything different, but to move myself. Because I was doing it for her, I was willing to take on things where I would have settled if it had just been for me. So, nearly 20 years ago, I found myself striding into the campsites of other families, feeling very uncomfortable, my daughter following shyly behind me, a big smile on my face as I introduced ourselves and tried to make friends. It worked. Quickly she was off making friends on her own and doing it much better me.

One of the joys of Bullfrog Pond is watching the sun set. Once during our first stay here, Kaia and I spent two hours sitting high on the ridge watching as the day went from complete sunlight to full darkness. Last night there were several groups of people watching the sun drop over the hills to the west. The sky above and to the west was completely clear. Turning to the north, however, we could see the smoke from one of the fires that is currently ravaging northern California. At sunset, the smoke was a beautiful pink, but also an eerie and foreboding red. The comparison that came to my mind was seeing the burning of Atlanta in 1864.

There is no threat of rain, so I didn’t put the fly on my tent. The entire top of the tent is mesh and I can lie on my sleeping pad and look at the trees and sky. When I woke this morning, the sky was not blue. The winds have shifted and the grey smoke from the fires is now overhead. A faint sun strains to reach the earth. It is a bit like the light of a solar eclipse, but with a grey sky and an acrid smell.

It is 7:45 in the morning, but the campground is so silent that it is spooky. I can see tents, but no one is astir. Perhaps there was a call to evacuate that I missed. There is no breeze, and so the trees stand still. Except for the sound of an occasional bird or bug, the silence is complete.

Sitting here in the smoke-filtered light, I wonder if this forest will have burned before I next return. Should I be saying good-bye to this home? Will the squawking blue jays be here when I next return? Will the redwood trees, designed to withstand fire, survive the inferno to come?

After the sun set last night, I walked down to the pond. There is no water in its basin. In our many years of visiting, there was always a pond. Tonight, there were 12 deer on the exposed pond floor, munching on grass. There is a new online reservation system for the campground at Bullfrog Pond and I read some of the reviews last week. Visitors said to bring ear plugs because the bullfrogs were so loud. They are silent now too.

For the ancient Greeks, death was the thing. Their gods are just like us, but they are immortal. The only way humans could achieve immortality was by being remembered for heroic deeds. The Greek plays and literature usually were about life and death. Patroclus, Hector and Achilles. Agamemnon, Hecuba and Medea. Our species has made a mess of this beautiful planet. Would outsiders call the drama of humanity a tragedy?

The book I am currently reading is James McBride’s Kill ‘Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul. It is, in many ways, a sad tale, a story of how racism and greed damaged a man and his legacy. But it is also a saga of beauty and virtue and hard work and caring. It is on values like these that I proceed. There is a Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco next month and a march the Saturday before. I am working with a group of students to organize a delegation to the march. I hope this will make a difference, even if, to borrow from Brecht, ‘it will not shorten the age of exploitation.’

London. I awoke this morning  to the sound of the bells at St. Paul’s Cathedral. There is a hostel in the building that once housed the boys’ choir of St. Paul’s. I love staying here because it is a couple of blocks from the Millennium Bridge and the Thames. I walk out on the bridge last thing before going to bed every night and then again first thing every morning.

Tomorrow morning, I am off to Heathrow and the flight back to San Francisco. I left California almost four months ago. This long sojourn is nearby over.

About half-way through my journey my wife asked over the phone: ‘how has going on this trip changed you?’ I froze. Not only did I not have an answer, I hadn’t even asked myself the question. I thought I must be  pretty shallow—or arrogant. I wasn’t going to find myself, but to find the world.

I did come up with a quick rejoinder to Lisa. “You’ll be with me in South Africa in a few weeks. When you see me, please tell me how I’ve changed.” But the question lingered.

St. Paul’s is in the old Roman city of Londinium, which today is the heart of London’s business and financial district. (Interestingly, Amman is the site of the Roman city of Philadelphia and at the other side of the empire.) As I walked this morning, the sidewalks were thick with people in suits and business attire heading to their workplaces. I wandered down a car-free lane where every other business seemed to be a coffee shop—and, gratefully, none were Starbucks.

I often begin my blog postings with a description of where I am at that moment. And the most remarkable thing about my trip is the string of ‘I am heres.’ It has been incredible. Johannesburg. Vryburg. Haertzenburg. The Iron Crown. Sandton. Lusaka. Bauleni. Nelspruit. White River. Zwelisha Township. Masoyi Township. Karongwe Game Reserve. Selati Game Reserve. Soweto. Royal Natal National Park. Mtamta. Coffee Bay. Lubanzi. Bulungula. Jeffrey’s Bay. Wilderness. Cape Town. Cape of Good Hope. West Coast National Park. Cederberg Wilderness Area. Franschhoek. Lion’s Head. London. Amman. Petra. Wadi Rum. Aqaba. The Red Sea. Jerusalem. Ramallah. Hebron. Qalandiya. Bath.

Now I’m on a train to Felsted, northeast of London, my last stop before flying home tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends back in California, to enjoying the many pleasures of where I live–the amazing food, incredible natural beauty and great art. But the truth is I would happily keep going. Leave London tomorrow for, say, India to visit friends and schools and help with some community projects.

But this trip is ending and I don’t spend much time speculating on might-have-been.

I am incredibly fortunate to have been able to do this. There were so many things that had to line up for this to be possible: work giving me a sabbatical, the presence of people at work capable of filling in for me, the health of myself and my wife and my daughter and our mothers, family finances. I am fortunate and grateful.

I return to California in time for the start of my summer vacation, so the transition shouldn’t be too painful. My sabbatical doesn’t end when I land in San Francisco, just the being-out-of-the-USA part. But I can’t help but think about my life when I’m back at work and going about my daily rituals. I have a great job running the community service and international programs at the Athenian School, but it’s not as exciting as this trip. My brain gets stuffed with thinking about the myriad details of the many work projects I’m jugging. I get caught up in the culture of work and busyness. Maybe I’ll be able to shift that some. Maybe not.

During this trip and during the year we lived in Tanzania, I often found myself thinking about how to share the experience with people who weren’t there. That kind of reflection is very different than thinking about how to manage some work challenge According to Plato, Socrates said ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ And for him this was not some bromide about the power of reflection, but a life-or-death question.

I am alive. At 61, nearer the end of my life than the beginning. My future health is unknown. In a couple of years, a trip like this might be beyond my physical capacity.

And so I watch the lush green English countryside roll by the train window. I feel the gentle rocking of the smooth ride on the tracks. I hear the clink and buzz of the wheels.

Onward. To enjoy this beautiful day. To connect with people. To make the world a better place in some small way.

The unexamined world is not worth living in.

Sitting in Rukba’s ice cream parlor. Most of the female customers are wearing head scarves. It is mid-day on Thursday and many people walk  by, shopping, getting lunch, going somewhere.

I am in Ramallah, but what do I put as the country?  Ramallah, The West Bank? Ramallah, Palestine? Ramallah, The Occupied Territories? Ramallah, Israel? Whichever choice I make has political implications.

While in Jerusalem, I took a political tour that looked at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The guide pointed out Jewish Israeli settlements in the Muslim section of the Old City. They were easy to identify, because they fly the Israeli flag prominently. It is illegal to fly the Palestinian flag in Israel, so there are no countervailing visuals.

(The Old City of Jerusalem was not part of Israel before the Six Day War in 1967, so it is part of the occupied territories—though a part Israel clearly never wants to relinquish. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs publishes maps that show the settlements, checkpoints and such in the Occupied Territories. On this map, all of the construction in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City is listed as a Jewish settlement.)

As we wandered around the Muslim section of Old Jerusalem, we ran into a group of eight Israeli men, apparently being trained to usher Jewish settlers to and from their homes in the Muslim section. Outside the Old City, we passed a bus that shuttles settlers to and from their homes in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. The bus had metal screens over all the windows to try and prevent thrown rocks from breaking them.

As part of the tour, we visited the store at the Western Wall. Inside there are books with acetate overlays of a Jewish Third Temple on the spot where the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest site to Muslims, currently sits. You can also buy puzzles of the Third Temple or t-shirts calling for its construction. Just in the last few days Israel has approved more archeological tunneling under the Dome of the Rock

There are ten new neighborhoods for Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem and none for Palestinians. This means that Palestinians face a severe housing shortage. Palestinians are generally not able to develop new housing even on land they own. The land gets zoned for non-residential uses. We visited one site where Palestinians submitted a plan for a new neighborhood on Palestinian-owned land. The government subsequently announced that the land would become part of a national park .

***

It’s the next day. Late Friday afternoon in Amman. The ruins of the Nymphaeum of the Roman city of Philadelphia are across the street. I am sitting on the shady stoop of a closed shop. Other men sit nearby. The surrounding streets are the central market area of Amman and thick with vendors. Fresh fruits and vegetables. Nuts. Arab sweets. Used clothing from the USA.I am relieved to be in Jordan and out of the Occupied Territories. It’s similar to the relief of being in Zambia after spending time in South Africa. To be in a land that is not defined by a conflict between well-to-do European-heritage settlers with the poor indigenous people of color who have largely been pushed off the land. (And yes, Jewish immigrants to Israel are not all European heritage.)

But it’s also more than that. Israel celebrates its independence day on May 14, in three days. That is also the day that the USA is moving its consulate to Jerusalem over Palestinian and many nation’s objections. The next day is Nakba Day, the day Palestinians commemorate the displacement of hundreds of thousands of them from their homes by the Jewish state. Ramadan starts the next day. And two days ago Trump—at Israel’s behest—pulled the USA out of the deal with Iran to limit its nuclear development. Yesterday, Israel launched massive air strikes in Syria attacking Iranian military positions there.

Meanwhile, in the Gaza Ghetto, they are having a March to Return every Friday, demonstrating for their right to return to the homes they lost. 42 Palestinians participating in these marches have already been killed by the Israeli security forces and thousands injured. The protests are climaxing on Nakba day. History is being made.

I took three tours focused on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: the one in Jerusalem was led by a Jewish Israeli, the ones in Hebron and Qalandiya led by Palestinians. One theme that came up repeatedly was Jewish Israelis trying, successfully in many cases, to get homes from Palestinians by saying to the courts that the house was once owned by Jews. Because Palestinians tend to have less money than Jewish Israelis, they are often challenged to fight these cases in the courts. In Hebron we saw a house decked out in the Israeli flag, where the Israeli courts had recently ruled in favor of the Palestinian—but so recently they hadn’t had the chance to reclaim the property and remove the Israeli flags.

You may have already noticed the irony of Israelis saying they have the right to reclaim a house that was once owned by Jews over a hundred years ago, but Palestinians do not have the right to return to their home—or even to the area—where they once lived.

Walking back to my hostel after visiting the Israel Museum, I came upon a bus full of American teenagers walking down the sidewalk. They were  all wearing the same orange lanyard. I looked and the organization name on the lanyard was ‘Birthright Israel.’ If you’re a Jew living anywhere in the world, you have a ‘birthright’ to live in the land of Israel. But the Palestinians who were displaced from this land–or still live here–do not have these same rights.

Yesterday evening when I left the Area D hostel to find dinner, I ran into a right of return event on the corner. There was a group of young people from some scouting organization standing in lines. A few young people in front held flags and most played the drums. I didn’t stay for the speeches, which were in Arabic. There was no intense political atmosphere around the event. It seemed a family event. The scouting leaders and mothers were wandering about taking pictures.

The essential information is communicated by flags two girls were holding. At the top is the Palestinian flag, which is the same as the flag of the Great Arab Revolt of 1917. (Jordan’s flag is identical, except with a star added.) Below the Palestinian flag is the outline of Palestine and a key and the word ‘Return’ in English and Arabic.

The key has become a symbol for the return movement. When Palestinians fled or were forced to flee their homes during the war in 1948, they assumed that they would be able to return when the fighting stopped. Only the Israelis wouldn’t allow them to return (in violation of international law). So now all they left is the key.

***

Now I’m sitting on the rooftop garden of my hotel in Amman. It is almost directly across the street from the well-preserved amphitheater of the Roman city of Philadelphia. There is a big square in front of the amphitheater. Hundreds of Jordanians are out, chatting with friends, kicking a ball, dancing.

Both of my Palestinian guides had close friends or relatives killed by the Israeli security forces. Abud lost an uncle and two cousins. His uncle’s house was broken into at night by the IDF and he was killed in his bed. Then they looked at his ID and realized they had killed the wrong person. The Israeli soldier was jailed for a week, but then released. “Mistakes happen.” Mohammad and his friend were university students going through a checkpoint. He said they were sitting down doing nothing when an Israeli guard ‘lost it’ and shot his friend in the neck, killing him.

On the visit to Hebron, one of the largest cities in the West Bank, we visited the center of the city and the old market. The area is now deserted, closed by the Israeli military since the second Intifada. There are 800 Israeli settlers living in the heart of Hebron, the Israeli government won’t make them leave, and so huge sections of historic Hebron are abandoned. It was interesting to listen to Abud talk about old Hebron and express his longing for the city of his youth. It reminded me of the reminisces of Jews talking about the homes they lost in the Holocaust.

About 2,500 members of the Israeli security forces protect the 800 Jewish Israelis living in Hebron. Israeli settlers are allowed to carry guns. It felt very strange to be walking through the Jewish neighborhood and have a man walk within feet of me in t-shirt and gym shorts carrying a submachine gun.

A couple of minutes later, a bus pulled up and a stream of Israeli soldiers got off. They were apparently returning form the big settlement on the outskirts of Hebron where the Jewish Israelis shop. Almost everyone on the bus was a solder carrying a sub-machine gun, along with their shopping bags.

The Israeli government does have a plaque giving an explanation. The plaque acknowledges that the military forced the businesses in the central business district to close, but says it was forced by the terrorist activities of the second Intifada. The plaque implies that it’s not a big deal that the market is closed, saying that are other bustling business districts nearby that the Palestinians can use. I think this gets to the heart of the Israeli’s viewpoint in general. “There are other Arab countries nearby. Why don’t the Palestinians just move there and leave this land to us?”

The poor treatment of Palestinians is not accidental or an error. It must be official policy. If we treat them poorly enough, hopefully eventually they’ll move on. And Israel certainly doesn’t want the Palestinian refugees in other nearby countries, like Jordan, to return to Palestine because conditions for Palestinians had improved so much.

What seems interesting to me is that most Jews moved away from the land of Israel in 70 CE. While some Jews have always lived here, it was a small percentage of the population and the area was never under Jewish control from 70 until 1948. The area was under Muslim control from about 680 to 1948—except for about 90 years of Crusader control in the 1200s. Yet the Jews maintained such a deep connection to the land that now, 2,000 years later, they have reclaimed it as a national home. Why is it so difficult for people who nurtured a 2,000 year love for a land to understand the love of the land by another people who were forced off it in the last generation or two and who still live nearby?

I am catching a flight at noon tomorrow from Amman to London. It took me over six hours today to travel from Ramallah to Amman, which is a distance of only 69 kilometers or 43 miles. Because today is a Friday, the border with Jordan closes at 1:30 pm. I left the hostel before 7:00 am to catch a bus to Jerusalem. The bus station, actually the open parking lot where the buses park, is across the street from my hostel. When I arrived mid-afternoon a few days ago, the lot was jammed. This morning, it was completely empty. Eventually one small bus arrived and waited for passengers. It wasn’t the number for the bus to Jerusalem and so I kept waiting. Eventually I went over and asked if that bus was going to Jerusalem. They said that there was no through bus to Jerusalem today. I would need to take this bus to the Qalandiya checkpoint, walk through the checkpoint, and then pick up a bus to Jerusalem on the other side. We sat for a while waiting for more people to fill the bus and eventually headed off for Qalandiya.

Usually ‘internationals,’ as the Palestinians called us, get different treatment than the locals, particularly with regard to freedom of movement. For example, on a through bus to Jerusalem an international would generally get to stay on the bus and the member of the Israeli security forces would come on board to check their ID. The Palestinians exit the bus and go through the checkpoint.

On this occasion, I was there with the locals. All of the signs were in Arabic and so I joined the crowd of over 100 people lined up trying to get through the first set of tall metal turnstiles. The tunstiles were usually locked and the Palestinians were waiting for the tunstile for their line to unlock and a few to squeeze through.

Standing in line I talked with a Palestinian man who works in Jerusalem. He bemoaned the hour plus each day he spends going through the checkpoint to get to his job. ‘I have no problem with Jews. They are wonderful people and I have many Jewish friends. It’s the Israeli government I have a problem with. And I have problems with Arab governments too.’

After about 20 minutes, I managed to squeeze myself, my suitcase, backpack and halvah through the first gate. Having gotten through the first gate, we went through three sets of metal cages before you were finally out on the other side. We were now in another section with lines before four other gates. I choose gate 1, which was the shortest line. But after standing there for 10-15 minutes, we realized our line hadn’t moved at all and others had. I headed off to another line.

As I stood between the first turnstile and the second, they would unlock the second turnstile long enough for a few people to go though and then lock it again. On the other side of this was an airport style metal detector for bags and the member of the IDF who checked IDs.

I was behind a large group of Palestinian women. They weren’t good at taking turns. When the gate was unlocked, two would always try to squeeze through. Instead of the turnstile turning, they would argue and get stuck.

When the group of women had all passed through, I finally got into the fourth area where your ID was checked. I don’t even think the Israeli security guard even glanced at my ID. He looked at me and with a little wave of his hands indicated that I could go through.

It took me 75 minutes to get through the checkpoint and over six hours to travel the 69 kilometers/42 miles from Ramallah to Amman. Antler reason to be relieved to be in Amman.

Going through the checkpoint felt debilitating to me, like we were some kind of animal. I got a little claustrophobic. The only Israeli we saw that whole time was the one moment when we showed someone our ID through the bullet-proof glass. Otherwise it was hundreds of unhappy Palestinians waiting, pushing, shouting, trying to get to work or a doctor’s appointment or, in my case, a bus to the King Hussein Bridge.

No one I talked with had a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I think part of the solution will need to be pressure from the outside on Israel. It’s clear that in the case of South Africa, pressure from outside the country played a key role in getting whites to the bargaining table and willing to allow full legal rights for all South Africans. The Israeli-Palestinian situation is not identical, of course. One of the biggest difference is the need to be clearly opposed to the oppression of Jews while also pushing for freedom and equality for Palestinians.

Two years ago I was at an international conference at King’s Academy. One of the King’s Academy students was a Palestinian whose grandfather has the key to their house in what is now Israel. One dinner our group had an hour long conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One thing the Palestinian girl said was: “I understand that Jews need a safe place to liv, but why did they have to take our homes?”

I visited the Qalandiya refugee camp with a Palestinian guide and one other man. Matthew from Britain. In my almost four months traveling I have yet to experience anyone saying anything negative about the United States. I tried to apologize for Trump to Mohammad and he said it wasn’t necessary. Matthew, however, reported that he had experienced several instances of Palestinians reacting negatively when he told Palestinians he was from the UK. It’s because of the Balfour Declaration and several of them specifically referenced this to him. The declaration reads: His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

Many Palestinians blame Britain for the lose of their land and homes, but no one seems to remember or act on the part about the rights of non-Jewish communities.

This long blog posting will just end without a neat turn of phrase or summation, which seems fitting.

In the bar/lounge/common area of Abraham’s Hostel in Jerusalem. The hostel says Abraham was the ‘first backpacker.’ This is my fourth evening here and this floor has always been packed with people in the evening. Live music the last two nights.

What a unique city with a fascinating history. Just the names get this Catholic school boy all excited. Jerusalem. Garden of Gethsemane. Mount of Olives. Herod’s Gate. Tower of David.

I traveled here from Jordan on a Friday. The border closes at 1:00 on Friday afternoons because both Jews and Muslims start their religious celebrations later on Friday. I was at the border before 9:00 am in case something went wrong.

The bridge across the Jordan River is called the King Hussein Bridge. It’s also named the Allenby Bridge. Take your pick. King Hussein was a Muslim monarch of Jordan. General Allenby was the British commander who took Jerusalem in World War I and ended Muslim rule of the city for the first time since the Crusades. Before you’ve even arrived in Jerusalem you learn a central fact about this area: there seem to always be two completely different perspectives and stories. Competing all the way down to having different names. As if you’re not talking about the same thing.

Surprisingly, the Jordanian side of the border crossing was more challenging for me than the Israeli. There were no signs or written explanations of the process and where English speakers seemed to be everywhere in Jordan, suddenly they disappeared at the border. The basic process is you go to the Jordan exit terminal, take a shuttle bus five kilometers to the Israeli side, and go through immigration and customs to enter Israel. I got through the whole process in two hours. I talked to other people who took six. I was afraid the Israelis would ask lots of questions, but they asked almost none.

Once through, I took a bus to Jerusalem. There were a number of Arabs on my bus. Most of them got off at bus stops before we reached Damascus Gate. I arrived at Old City of Jerusalem to learn no cab would take me to my hostel. Turns out there was a bike race in Jerusalem that day and the road was blocked. With the help of Google Maps and after a 30-minute uphill walk, I arrived at Abraham’s

I spent the next two days wandering Jerusalem. Waling through the narrow streets of the Old City, hiking the ramparts, visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Mount of Olives. Most of my time was spent in the Old City. The Christian pilgrims were very visible, but it was clear that the residents were mostly Jewish or Muslim.

It is great to be in a place where people are so proudly and visibly Jewish. Many men wear distinctive Jewish head wear. There is the simple charmulke, which comes in many colors. There is the black top hat, sometimes looking like an undersized black sombrero and other times with a hint of Indiana Jones. And most outrageous of all is the shtreimel, a huge Jewish fur hat!  And yes, many men here wear the shtreimel.

Jewish women get into the act too. Married orthodox women are supposed to cover their hair. Wearing a wig fulfills this requirement, so wearing wigs is big here among Jewish women.

I enjoyed watching a Jewish family play tag or Jewish boys do hip hop dancing on a sidewalk, seeing Jewish men ride their children on a bike or Jewish women chat with each other. I saw Jewish men sitting around reading the Bible—or even reading while they walked.

Another visible Jewish presence is the police and Israeli Defense Forces. I saw over 50 members of the Israeli police or military on patrol just today. When on patrol in the Old City they often travel in pairs. There are many women in the security forces and these pairs are often a man and a woman. They sometimes looked like a young couple.

The soldiers remind me of high school students. Most of them are just a year or two older than my students. Looking at the young soldiers, I found myself thinking that they were on some experiential education program. And perhaps they are. I wonder what they learn in three years of mandatory military service, often patrolling Muslim neighborhoods.

In my wanderings, the security forces seem to be primarily in the Muslim section of the city, which makes them feel a bit like an occupying army. There are two main gates to the Old City that people use: Damascus and Jaffa. Damascus is the main gate that Muslims use. It has three Israeli security stations at the gate. Jewish Israelis would generally not use Damascus Gate and would use Jaffa, the next gate over around the corner. No visible security presence there.

This morning I got up early and headed down to the Western Wall in hopes of getting to Al-Aqsa (also known as the Temple Mount). It is only open to non-Muslims a few hours a day a few days a week. There is a ramp that goes up over the women’s area at the Western Wall to a gate into Al Aqsa. I learned from a sign on the inside that this is the Moroccan Gate. There was a North African Muslim community adjacent to Al-Aqsa at this gate. After Israel captured the Old City in the 1967 war and before the fighting had even ended (which is fast, since it was a six-day war), the 600 residents of the neighborhood were given two hours to get out and all their homes were destroyed. This is what created the large open plaza in front of the Western Wall, the destruction of a Muslim neighborhood.

As I walked up the ramp, ahead of me I heard clapping and singing. A group of Jewish Israelis was going to visit the Al-Aqsa. Jews are not allowed to pray on the Mount and this group’s visit was a provocation. Several members of the Israeli Defense Forces led the group to keep them safe. The group’s members were not boisterous once they were actually inside. They slowly circled the Dome of the Rock and didn’t even go close to that shrine.

I hung out at Al-Aqsa for several hours. I walked around the Dome of the Rock three times, enjoying its architecture and glittering gold top. Most Muslim streets in the Old City lead to Al-Aqsa. There are eight gates to Al-Aqsa with guards at each. Muslims are allowed in, but others are turned away. Just the day before I had stood on the other side of the Cotton Merchants gate unable to cross though.

There were not many people at Al-Aqsa this day and it felt like a big park. And almost nothing else inside the Old City even felt like a little park. As I wandered, some Muslims came in to relax, chat with friends, enjoying the setting—and perhaps being in a Muslim-controlled space. I sat in the same general area and hung out. One girl brought me a sweet to share.

I heard ringing bells from Christian churches from across the city. In my mind, church bells have had a familiar soothing feel. In contrast, hearing the Muslim call to prayer seemed exotic and somehow intrusive. Sitting in Al Aqsa, I heard things differently. Christian church bells are just another form of call to prayer—and they can sound intrusive too.

Archeology is big here in Jerusalem and not just for scholars. You can take a tour of the ruins of the City of David, which is highly rated on TripAdvisor. There’s a separate tour of the tunnels under the Western Wall. The Israel Museum has a huge archeological exhibit tracing the history of Jerusalem through the ages. There is an unstated political message to all these tours—Jews have a long deep connection to this place. It largely ended in 70 CE when the Romans defeated the Jews and destroyed the Second Temple and the city of Jerusalem.

This afternoon I visited Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust Museum. Visiting it is a profound experience. The basic story, I knew. What I found most moving were the images of the people who were killed and the many filmed interviews with survivors.

I went online to Yad Vashem’s database at the end. I have family members who were killed in the Holocaust in Pinsk. I looked up in the database for ‘Friedman’ and ‘Pinsk’ and got 776 matches, with 13 spelling the last name the same way as my family. Over 128,733 Jews were murdered by the Nazis in Pinsk alone.

While there were a few references to the other groups targeted by the Nazis, I was surprised how little attention they got. From what I saw at the museum, you’d have no idea that 5-6 million non-Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis.

When I went to the Neuengamme Concentration Camp outside Hamburg they had a chart documenting the different symbols that people in the camps had to wear (e.g. yellow stars for Jews, pink triangles for homosexuals, etc.). I could not find this information at Yad Vashem. The museum has a display of concentration camp uniforms. It includes a uniform with a red triangle, but its significance was not explained. (A red triangle meant you were a political prisoner.)

The other thing that struck me at Yad Vashem was that on the maps and placards, Palestine—which is the name that was used at the time—was always referred to as the ‘Land of Israel.’ And there’s no green line or West Bank in these maps, but all of Palestine was listed as ‘Land of Israel.’ This seemed a little presumptuous, since Israel the state didn’t exist until 1948. Britain’s refusal to allow Jewish immigration to Palestine post-WWII seemed almost nonsensical; how could you prevent Jews from coming to the ‘land of Israel?’

The holocaust museum building is a long upside-down concrete V, with a little light coming in from the top and a string of galleries on alternating sides. The ends are open and so as you finish, you walk out towards the light. You leave the building to find yourself on a balcony overlooking a beautiful valley. It’s as if this is what you get for the Holocaust, this beautiful land.

The whole museum began to feel like an exercise in national myth making: Israel exists because of the Holocaust. I thought perhaps I was being too critical and reading too much into things.

As I walked back towards the train station, I came upon a map of the grounds around the museum. There were 30 different places. Some are memorials to Jewish soldiers fighting in different armies in World War II. Some are monuments to Israeli soldiers that died in the 1967 war or the Yom Kippur war. Then I noticed that one of the sites nearby is the grave of Theodor Herzl. Theodor Herzl is the father of modern Zionism. And then I remembered the name of the tram stop: Mount Herzl.

I wasn’t reading too much into it at all. They built Yad Vashem on Mount Herzl and near the grave of the founder of Zionism. The museum was designed to convey the message that the Holocaust proves that Zionism is right.

Ironically, an interesting neighborhood that I had read was worth a visit was nearby:  Ein Karem. “Far too many people leave Jerusalem without even a glimpse of Ein Karem, this picturesque neighborhood with terraced hills and churches of yore.” (Jerusalem Walking Tours website). I walked there after visiting Yad Vashem. I hiked down a long valley to the cute neighborhood. It has many old Arab houses, some sprouting Israeli flags. In 1945, Ein Karem had a population of 2,510 Muslims, 670 Christians and, apparently, zero Jews. In other words, the view from the museum porch at Yad Vashem is of a largely Muslim village that has become a Jewish suburb of Jerusalem.

Jews need to be able to live in peace and security and be able to practice their religion. But there’s one problem with Zionism: there were already people living on this land, people who aren’t Jewish, and they’re still here.

I took a political tour of Jerusalem that focused on the conflict between Jews and Muslims. The guide said one thing that I found very interesting. “Palestine and Israel are different names for the same place.” What’s your choice?

Sitting at a restaurant in Jerusalem on Saturday evening. I had to walk and walk to find a place open on the Sabbath. Even the ATM machines seem to be keeping the Sabbath. Just one of many distinctive aspects to this unique city.

My last stop in Jordan before coming here was a visit to King’s Academy, a Round Square school in Madaba. Jordan’s King Abdullah II went to high school in the USA, at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. He wanted to create a similar school in the Middle East. The school is ten years old and I think they have succeeded.

I heard people at King’s describe it as an American school and an AP school. The students, who come from all over the Middle East, have Apple computers and warm connections with their teachers, many of whom are from the USA. The dining hall has many national flags. The two at the center: Jordan and USA. The king goes camping with the senior class each year. Perhaps the most un-American thing about the school is that it was started by a ruling monarch.

They have recreated a New England boarding school all the way down to the grass. King’s Academy probably has more lawn than anywhere in Jordan! When they bring students from other schools to King’s for academic enrichment, the young people just want to roll and play on all that green grass.

I was at King’s for their annual International Night, which is put on by the 11th grade Arabic classes. There were presentations about different countries. I thought the countries presented said a lot: Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, USA, Circassian, Turkey, India, Italy, and Mexico. (Circassians are a mostly Muslim people from Russia, some of whom started Amman when they moved from Russia to the ruins of the Roman city of Philadelphia in the 1880s. Interestingly, Wikipedia reports that Circassians have served as the royal guard for all four Jordanian kings.)

The most notable absence in the list of countries, though unsurprising, is Israel. The only reference to Israel in my three days at Kings was someone referencing Israeli war plans flying over the school and making sonic booms. I described my next stop as ‘Jerusalem and the West Bank’ or ‘Jerusalem and Ramallah.’ They translated that to ‘Palestine.’ My marvelous host, Gertrude, said I should tell the driver from King’s that I was going to the ‘Palestine border’ to make sure I didn’t end up at the airport or Amman.

The highlight of the international night was the debka dancing at the end. 40 students are in the King’s Academy debka group. The debka is an Arabic folk dance. There are apparently many debka-like dances in Israel.

 

Sitting on the public beach in Aqaba. It’s evening. The sun will set soon, behind Egypt and Israel, which are nearby and visible around the corner, on the other side of the Red Sea. On this side, less than 20 kilometers south, is the Saudi border.

Jordanian families are out enjoying the evening. The local women all wearing dresses to their ankles and head scarves, a few in full burqa. Some of the men wear long thobes to their ankles, but most males are wearing Western-style clothes.

Suddenly, the loudspeaker from the mosque on the other side of the street sings out the call to prayer. A group of four female tourists arrive, Japanese perhaps. They stand in front of me getting close to the local families, taking pictures of the families and then selfies with the families in the background. There is a warm dry breeze off the sea.

What a treat to be here, in this place, with these people, enjoying life at this moment. Being on this trip makes it easy to connect with the miracle of being alive because my days are so astounding. I spent most of the last two days snorkeling in the Red Sea. I saw astonishing coral reefs and fish in bright yellows and blues and oranges. I lack the words to describe this undersea world–or the waterproof camera to document it.

So often in our lives, in my life, things run in a familiar groove. The people that I interact with most days at work or home or my cohousing community are familiar. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, in a region of incredible beauty, cultural diversity and artistic wonder. Amidst the raft of daily chores and work duties, the sense of wonder usually gets lost.

Being abroad makes clear how much the United States is a work-oriented culture. We are busy with work, pre-occupied with work. At least I am usually am. Here—and in Tanzania on a year-long leave-of-absence a decade ago—rather than thinking about the daily work challenges, I think about other things, like the words to share my experiences with others.

I won’t make a grand commitment to bring this ‘travelers mind’ back to Oakland. I will settle for watching Jordanian boys in jeans do flips in the Red Sea and looking at the women wearing long black dresses and stylish scarves talking with each other, with seeing a young man walk by eating from a can of Pringles or glancing up at the huge flag of the Great Arab Revolt of 1917 on one of the world’s largest flagpoles.

Tomorrow is May 1. I catch a bus back to Amman and then onto Madaba to visit Kings Academy. I am not going on to Egypt or Saudi Arabia. I am turning back.

Night slowly falls. The street lights of the Israeli city across the Red Sea shine in rows along the black hills. A boy shouts as he jumps off the pier and into the water. Two women walk into the water holding a child’s hand wearing, it seems, all their clothes. (I sometimes think I look like them, with my long sleeves and protective head gear, hiding from the sun.)

The sound of the water lapping the shore becomes audible as people drift away and back to their daily lives. Then a new family arrives to set up their blanket in the sand. Another little wave crashes into the land and another and another…

And I hear.

It’s my second and final day in Wadi Rum. No rain today. There was a beautiful sunset over the desert. Tonight, the mountains and sand glow under a full moon. I woke up yesterday in Wadi Musa, the town outside Petra. Wadi Musa translates as ‘Valley of Moses’ and supposedly this is the place where Moses struck a rock to bring out water. Me and a bus full of 20 somethings with their backpacks took the two-hour ride down to Wadi Rum. Khaled, who runs the camp I was staying in–there are apparently 60 Bedouin camps in Wadi Rum–was waiting in the village.

I had said I wanted to hike and he said the tour starts here. He pointed out a tree and some bushes up the side of a mountain. ‘That’s Lawrence’s Spring. Head that way and you’ll find the path. We’ll be waiting for you here.’ Lawrence is T.E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia. So I headed off on my own across the desert to the rocky path up to the spring. Fortunately, there was another group on the path, which made it easier to find.

Coming down, a boy driving a truck said Khaled’s name and pointed to the back for me. This was Omar, Khaled’s 17-year-old nephew. The back had two metal benches and a tarp over the top. Off we went across the sand. We arrived at a spot with a dozen similar-looking trucks and lots of people. He said, “Lawrence’s Spring” and pointed up the mountain. And so it went.

We spent the day driving around to different spots. An arch or a sand dune or a rock outcropping. And up I went. I somehow tweaked my right knee with all the hiking in Petra–I didn’t feel comfortable using metal-tipped hiking poles on the archeological site—and so I was a little slow up and down some of them.

Omar doesn’t speak much English but did make a delicious lunch. Gathering wood from small dead bushes, he built a fire to cook up some tomato and bean stew. Add baba ghanoush, Greek salad, pita bread, fruit and you have a desert feast.

There was a large crowd back at the camp for dinner, but I seemed to be the only person there by myself. I did have a little chat with a woman who worked in Amman with Syrian refugees, especially ones without legal papers. I asked how many Syrian refugees there are in Jordan. She said there are 750,000 legally-registered Syrian refugees in Jordan. I asked for an estimate of how many undocumented Syrian refugees there are in Jordan. She went stone silent. Obviously, she knows an estimate. This is precisely the group that she is working with, but the topic is so sensitive that she wouldn’t say.

After a very cold night in the dessert, the skies were completely clear this morning. Today my guide was Eid Sabah, Omar’s father. We headed off to a remote part of Wadi Rum that isn’t on the standard tourist route. I went for a three-hour walk on the desert floor. Eid Sabah would point me in a direction and then drive past me in the car 20 minutes later. When I caught up with him, he’d point again, and we’d repeat the process.

It was sunny, but not hot. There was something very calming about walking along the desert sand, through the beautiful rock formations. I was reminded that humans are designed for walking long distances. I felt I could have walked for days.

Lunch was another feast. Grilled chicken, tomatoes and onions as the hot dishes. Pita bread, fruit, yogurt, baba ganoush as the cold ones.

Turns out Eid Sabah has ten children. The oldest is 21 and the youngest is 2. He asked how many I have. One.

For my final hike, he took me to a spring that was about an hour walk from camp. In the side of the mountain, down five stone steps in a cave, was a pool. I sat there looking down at the cool water and out into the bright light of the valley.

Walking across the valleys of sand, I fell in love with various rock outcroppings. One stood like a beached ship, it’s prow pointed up the valley towards me. One round rock formation made me think of the Jetsons and the old Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Another reminded me of a cathedral with its soaring folds of rock.

Arriving back at camp, I grabbed the pot of tea and a couple of glasses. There was one woman sitting on the ledge above camp reading. We instantly took to chatting and talked for most of the next four hours. What a delight.

I told her about my sabbatical and she said enthusiastically to tell her all about it as she loves hearing about travel adventures. So I went on for quite a while. After 20-30 minutes of talking about my travels, I decided it was time to switch to her, but we talked about the fact that almost no one in California will get to hear as much about my trip as she just did. I think that people are just too busy and so don’t have the time to sit and listen and talk. Tamara and I talked non-stop for four hours and yes, it’s rare to have that time with people at home. When people ask what it’s like where I’m from I sometimes say “Busy. We have a cultural pattern of busyness.”

Tamara is from Trinidad and works as a librarian for the United Nations. She is currently based in New York but has previously been posted in Addis Ababa. She needs to move to another United Nations site soon and is trying to decide where she’s going next: Santiago, Beirut, Bangkok, Zurich?

She loves to travel: ‘Everywhere in the world is interesting.’ She just was in Beirut for work and loved it there. I appreciated her upbeat attitude and the obvious joy she takes to living.

After saying good night, we walked out into the light of the full moon. I headed off into the desert sand. I told Tamara that I could happily travel for a year. Take the ferry from Aqaba to Egypt. It has been such a treat to be outside of the details of work, to be connecting with interesting people from around the world, to be soaking in the beauty of amazing places on the planet.

I don’t know that I have the ability to bring this mindset to my daily life. Perhaps I can be more adventurous when I travel. And I would like to bring some of Tamara’s enthusiasm and openness to my relationships.

In Wadi Rum. The guests at Khaled’s camp were sitting on the rocks above the camp sipping tea, playing volleyball in the sand, waiting for the sunset. Then the wind picked up and a rainstorm arrived, my fourth in 40 hours in Jordan. And yes, I am in the middle of a desert. I was up at 5:15 am to catch a bus from Amman to here and spent the day in a land of legend climbing on rocks and sand dunes, but that is the sound of rain on the top of the dining tent.

South Africa. England. Jordan. Such fascinating places and striking transitions. My flight from London to Amman was scheduled to land at 11:15 pm. Since I wouldn’t be getting to the hotel until after midnight, there was a mix-up about which night I needed a bed in Amman. I talked with Ashraf, the proprietor of 7Boys Hotel near to the JETT bus station. He thought I was coming the next night and was all full up on the night I needed. He offered to find me a room in another hotel. I had also booked an airport pickup through 7Boys and Ashraf also offered to arrange transport from the airport to the new hotel and to the JETT station in the morning. I declined, but said I’d call if I got desperate. I figured out that I didn’t have a room in Amman right before it was time to head to Heathrow. After checking into my flight, I found a quiet corner and did some frantic searching. I found another hotel in central Amman, made sure its reception desk was staffed 24 hours a day, and booked a room.

The first time I arrived in Amman had been two years ago. I was heading to an international conference with a group of Athenian students. We landed in Amman to find two people waiting to give us a ride—the transport I had arranged and a bus from the school hosting the conference. The school folks had thought perhaps I hadn’t arranged transport?

As I walked out of customs at the Queen Alia airport in Amman this week, I recalled the earlier arrival decided I should look up just to make sure there wasn’t someone standing there holding a sign with my name on it. Sure enough, there was. A room had opened at 7Boys Hotel and Ashraf sent a car to pick me up.

On the 30-minute drive to the hotel, the driver and I talked about the changes in Jordan since I had last visited. He said that there are 1.2 million Syrian refugees in Jordan. The country’s population is now 9 million. It was noticeably lower just three years ago. Jordan has welcomed waves of refugees. Palestinians displaced by the creation of Israel in 1947 and then another wave that lost their homes after the Six Day War in 1967. Iraqis. Syrian. Even I could tell that there had been a lot of construction in Amman since I was last there 2 ½ years ago.

I didn’t get to sleep until after 1:00 am that night, but was up at 5:30 am to catch the 6:30 am bus to Petra. I thought the bus left at 7:00 am. I ran down the street in a light rain and just barely made it. Five hours later—twelve hours after arriving in the country—I was in Petra!

The land at Petra is beautiful with the gorgeous rocks and canyons and sky. Then add hundreds of 2,000-year-old ruins, mostly carved into the rock walls, but some free-standing buildings and their remains.

I accepted a ‘free’ horse ride for the first 400 meters from the parking lot to the entrance to the Siq. This was probably a mistake, as I then had to listen to his sales pitch for a longer ride that I would pay for. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. Perhaps he thought I was a tough bargainer. His price kept dropping each time I walked away.

The Siq is a long narrow canyon. The first glimpse of the Treasury as you walk down the Siq is still thrilling the second time.

On my first day in Petra I hiked to the High Place of Sacrifice. There is a ceremonial route up with various tombs and sites along the way. At the top is a sacrificial altar, with a basin for collecting the animals’ blood and a blood drainage system off the basin. I had read about such places—and maybe seen them depicted in movies—but I don’t think I’d ever been at one before. It reminded me a little of Machu Picture, a stunning place of ritual high in the mountains.

Part of what’s amazing about Petra is that you can pretty much go anywhere—hiking in any direction, scrambling over rocks. Or, as I saw two tourists do, you could use the Place of High Sacrifice altar as your picnic table.

There is only the one main entrance and exit to Petra, which includes hiking through the Siq. It’s about three kilometers from the central basin to the parking lot—uphill on the way out. I was heading to the mouth of the canyon when it started to rain—and rain hard. It was cool out and there was even hail. I huddled with some other tourists under a small cave. I waited there for a while and then walked on. A few feet further on I was told to come into a shop because the path ahead was closed because of the threat of flooding. After waiting there a while, I headed on with some others. We passed the theatre and entered the canyon on the way to the Treasury. The canyon floor had turned into a creek. When we got to the large opening in front of the Treasury, we were stopped. Hiking up the Siq was not allowed due to the threat of flash floods. Generally, you’re not allowed into the Treasury and have to stand in the opening and look; but there were people inside now, keeping out of the rain.

The people running Petra started bringing little pick-up trucks—yes, just like bakkies—down the Siq. As many people as possible clambered into the back and the truck drove up the stream flowing down the Siq to get them out. There were 3-4 trucks ferrying people out. After the second round left, they announced that the threat of flooding was past and that hiking out the Siq was allowed. I knew that my feet would be soaked by the time I was done, but how often do you get to hike out of Petra when the Siq has turned into a creek? How fun!

The next day I did another climb, this time to get a view looking down at the Treasury. It was remarkable looking at how the Nabataean people had cut the stairway into the mountain. I tried to imagine what their lives might be like.

Behind the main temple in the center of the town there is a theatre. Archeologists think that this was not primarily a religious setting but a civic meeting place. I sat on one of the benches, wondering what their discussions might have been about. There are many Hellenistic elements to the architecture at Petra and I work at a school named Athenian, so I couldn’t help but imagine democratic discussions.

I saw a keffiyeh head scarf in earth and terra cotta, the colors of my school–think of an ancient Athenian vase–and stopped to buy it. The Bedouin who used to live in Petra, now are allowed to sell horse rides and trinkets at the site. As you walk through the ruins you are regularly exhorted to stop and look at someone’s wares. The proprieter of this stall was reclining as he waited for a customer. Nomadic people carrying tents and carpets, chairs are not a big part of the local culture. For example, the room I’m in here at this camp in Wadi Rum, which is the main eating space, has no chairs. Carpets on the floors and walls.  Pads to sit on and lean against. Tables with short legs, ½ meter off the ground. But no chairs. I thought of Passover and the question about reclining.

This man and I had a long talk. He asked, of course, where I was from. He said that the United States had done a lot of good—for Petra, for the local schools, for Jordan. We may have a ‘bad President,’ to use his term, but that is not the people’s fault and the US still does good despite Trump. He said: “In Jordan, everyone is equal. We may all be poor, but we’re rich in other ways.” And despite all of the immigration into Jordan, I hadn’t seen any shantytowns or electric fences around homes. And despite being neighbors to Syria—which the US, UK and France bombed last week—I think I’m safer here than in South Africa.

I asked my four taxi drivers in Wadi Musa where they are from. They’re not only all from Jordan, they’re all from Wadi Musa! One said his family has lived here for over 1,000 years. An older man said when he was a boy there were only three or four automobiles in town. People got around by donkey, camel or horse.

In Petra, there are donkeys, camels and horses that tourists can pay to get in and out of the site. The visitors, like me, mostly ride them timidly. But the locals also ride them. I saw two large Arab men going down the main colonnaded street of Petra on donkeys. They looked huge on the little donkey, except that it worked just fine. I thought of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey.

The rain has left us. A fire glows in the hearth. A group of French tourists chatter across the tent. Three young men pass the hookah pipe around. Two Arab men wearing long white thobes and the traditional red Jordanian keffiyer lounge on cushions by the fire and sip tea.

We’re not in Kansas anymore—or in the Western Cape.

Cape Town’s most popular nickname is Mother City. The etymology of the word metropolis is that it’s from Greek and means ‘mother city.’ Cape Town was the epicenter for European expansion in southern Africa, so to call Cape Town mother city has a colonial tinge to it. I don’t know if there were black African cities in southern Africa before Europeans arrived.

South Africa has regions named Transkei and Transvaal. Kei and Vaal are rivers in South Africa. If the name of the region comes from crossing the river (trans), it would have to be clear what direction you were coming from. You guessed it. It’s crossing the river coming from Cape Town.

I traveled from Cape Town to London. I felt very comfortable in London for the two days I was there. Visiting dear friends. The first city outside the USA I ever visited and the one I’ve been to the most. Double-decker buses. Distinctive red phone booths. The Tube. The Thames. St. Paul’s Cathedral. Trafalgar Square. I felt right at home. You know, home where mom lives.

I’m not aware of London being called Mother City, but it seems to fit. For English-speaking people and English colonialism, London is the mother city. It’s the city of Shakespeare (whose birthday happened while I was in London) and Dickens and Woolf. It’s the city of the British monarchs and the Beatles and is the epicenter of Englilsh history.

Interestingly, London is a colonial city. It was founded by the Romans and the Roman walls defined the boundaries of the City of London into the medieval era. (The reason that the Globe and other theatres were located on the south bank of the Thames is because that is outside of the city and so not ruled by the city’s anti-theatre ordinances.)  So maybe Rome is the original mother city.

Cape Town. London. Rome. Maybe they all should be called Imperial City.

In a few days, after spending almost ten weeks here, I will leave South Africa. I am not in any position to offer a comprehensive assessment, but some whole-country reflection seems called for.

South Africa is a beautiful place and South Africans are beautiful people. Almost everyone I met has been gracious and hospitable, more so than in the USA where people’s work-related busyness often gets in the way. The diversity of cultures and languages is stunning and I didn’t even scratch the surface. This is an gorgeous place and South Africans, both black and white, love the land.

The country’s unique history is well-known, but it is fascinating being here and seeing its effects. Most stunning to me was how apartheid era housing laws still seem to provide the basic blueprint for where most people reside.

South African history was made while I was here, most importantly the resignation of Jacob Zuma soon after I arrived. This event colored my whole experience of South Africa because most people—not everyone—is feeling optimistic given that Zuma is no longer the country’s president. The tenor of my time here would have been quite different if Zuma was still president. Zuma was even in court for the first time last week facing 16 of the 700+ charges against him, further demonstrating the change.

Winne Madikzela Mandela, the mother of South Africa, also died last week. Lisa and I walked by her house in Soweto when we were there three weeks ago. While I haven’t run into any Zuma supporters, people have different perspectives on Winnie.

Crime is a problem and I received regular reminders from people here to be careful careful careful. But crime is a problem in many places and it’s hardly an unexpected issue in a country with such a high level of economic inequality. What was surprising to me is the degree to which it is not just crime against property, but often includes physical attacks. There is a strain of violence here that extends beyond crime. I think of the neighbors who burned down the orphanage near White River or the Vyborg politician who threatened to beat up his son’s teacher.

Immigration and emigration are big issues. South Africa attracts people, both black and white, from many other countries, especially from southern Africa and from Europe. I often asked my Uber drivers where they were from and only one of them said South Africa. There are lots of people here from Zimbabwe—or Zim, as it’s often called. Several white people who I’ve asked where they’re from, including one just today, said ‘Rhodesia.’ (Robert Mugabe’s resignation in late November after 37 years in power was a hopeful thing that happened regionally soon before I arrived.) And then there are those white South Africans fleeing to places like Canada and Australia.

There are still some things I don’t understand. Why do so many people smoke cigarettes? What’s up with white South African men wearing shorts all the time? And I still don’t fully understand the coloured identify in present-day South Africa.

Here is a final—hopeful—story. Yesterday I visited the Solms-Delta vineyard in Franschhoek. Ella Solms came on exchange to the Athenian School two years ago and hosted a student from my school. A few years ago a trust was created and 45% of the vineyard is owned by the workers at the vineyard.

After buying some wine to give as gifts yesterday, I went to buy a soda for myself. I ended up chatting with the assistant winemaker for about 30 minutes and heard much of her life’s story. She feels a great affection for the USA because she spent two months in Virginia as part of a black empowerment program. She is the descendant of slaves. Her last name is February. Many slaves coming into Cape Town were given the last name of the month they arrived, so there are people in the region with last names from January to December.  She said that she works at Solms Delta because they give opportunities to local people that no one else would—such as training her to be assistant winemaker.

Thank you, South Africa. I won’t be gone for long. It looks like I’ll be back in 11 months with a group of Athenian students.