The day after the war

It seems that the war has finally ended today, I even gambled and ventured to Haifa, to visit the company I am going to work for, to discuss the terms of the contract, all went well, and I hope to sign the contract on Wednesday. Anyway the truce held, and no missiles landed in Haifa, life was already going back to normal, and in a few days everybody will back to the city, and the traffic jams will be back too.

A few notes, last week I visited the local church of the first time, there was a memorial for the mother of a friend of mine, who died six month ago, the church is a few hundred years old, and the interior is very beautiful. Then we went to visit him at his house, where I got to sit next to his uncle, Zahi Aramali, a footballing prodigy, in my town, the Arabic community and Israel in General, he started his career in the local team, took them from the fourth league to the second league almost single handily, then he move to Macabi Haifa , were he won three championships, was twice top scorer in the league, once chosen as best player (and top scorer at the same time), and also once awarded the most fair player in the league award, for his sportsmanship, he was never sent off in during his years in the first league. Unfortunately the local team is in a bad state now, they were demoted to the fifth league last month and they might even break up completely, and start again from the bottom, I asked him about what he thinks about the what is happening to the local team, he replied that things don't look good, but declined to comment any further on the situation, he probably does it enough for the local media.

Another a few unpleasant stories, one was from the brother of my friend, who applied for a job to a company called Matrix, he first had a technical interview there, which he passed, then he was invited to a second interview, were the discussion focused soley on his political views, what does he think about working with Jewish people? what does he think about what is going on in Gaza, and so on, he did not get the job. I had applied for tens of jobs myself, and was not invited to one interview, no body even replied to me. The second incident happened today, I went with uncle to the Carmel beach in Haifa, a lovely beach with nice cafes and restaurant, after having lunch in one of the cafes, we headed home, my uncle is a taxi driver, and he was with his taxi, some people waved us near the entrance to the train station, we stopped for them, picked them up, but then the women asked what station was the taxi from , my uncle hesitated, but I answered her straight, that we are from Shefa-Amr, she asked him to stop, and they stepped down from the taxi, muttering all kinds of insinuations , then when other people wanted to take the taxi, they dissuaded them as well, one guy was even already in the car, when they called him and warned him, I was seething , I wanted to go out and confront them, but I did not, I though it was not worth it, now I am not sure maybe I should have , anyway we waited for ten minutes no one wanted to get into the cap, they preferred waiting in the sun, as no taxis were arriving, we gave up and left.

I don't know if these two stories is an indication of a further rise in racism in Israel, fueled by the recent escalations between the Palestinians and the Israel, and between now between Lebanon and Israel, but after living two years in the US, three in the Netherlands, and traveling the whole of the south America, I believe I live in the most racist country in the world.

The War Goes On

Almost a month is gone, and the war goes on , there are no signals that it is going to end soon, life is still crippled here, in the north of Israel, and I have grown very weary of the situation, although one positive development appeared on my horizons, it looks like I got a job, and I hope to start working soon, I will go back to work as a freelancer with same company I worked for almost 10 years, Sagantec. Since the war started I wanted to have a photo to put on my blog , a photo to show the war, or some aspect of it, some effect, some detail, finally I got the photo shown above, from a friend of mine (Thanks Suhil), who got from a friend , this photo of the beach of Haifa, taken just after a barrage of rockets , who's a several rockets that fill just short of the shore, and were swallowed by the sea, the only trace left of them are those columns of smoke.

More War and Dahab

The war goes on, last my mother decided to take a risk and go to work, some missles fell too close for comfort and she stayed at home for the rest of the week, one missle fell near in the open fields near my town, about 2km from here. We got fed up with just staying at home all the time, and we decided to take a break for a few days, and we went on a vecation, me, my brother Ahmad and my brother in law Sobhi.

We decided to go to Dahab, far enought south to be out of the missles reach, it is also a cheap place with great diving sites. Dahab lies in the Sina peninsula in Egypet, a barren desert , with scorched landscapes, the only bearable place there is the sea side, , Dahab is one of them. We took the night bus from Haifa to Eilat, four buses left at midnight, apparently we are not the only people eager to flee south, but when we arrived to Eilat, we were of the few that continued to the border crossing in Taba, the others being a couple Arab guys as well, apparently Jewish people are not welcome at the moment in Sina, it was not always like this, the sea resort of Dahab used to be crowded with Israeli tourists, looking for a cheap beach vecation, world class diving sites or just to smoke some marijuana.


We stayed in a cheap place, close to the beach promenade, and booked some dives for the next day, Ahmad and Sobhi opted for the Advanced Open Water course, since I already did that course, I just decided to join them for the interesting dives. My first dive was a simple and not so interesting one, a good reintroduction to diving, as I had not dived since March, the next one was a night dive which was very interesting dive, but for all the wrong reasons. We were a group of seven Bob the instructor, the three of us, a Spanish couple, and Nicolas who came to help Bob, anyway the plan was that Bob my brother be diving mates, me and sobhi, and the Spanish couple, Nicolas watching our rare, and making sure no body stayes behind. Things started on the wrong foot, my brother had an larger air tank, because of his high air consumption, but the tank was cumbersome and awkward, and he was not comfortable with it. After a few excersises for the students in the group, we headed for our route, Bob lead the group, but my brother was not next to him, but Bob was moving on, urging the group to follow, I followed him, not understanding why he is not looking for my brother who is his dive mate, but I looked around every once in a while to see, that My Brother and Sobhi are following, so in practice I was diving with Bob, and Ahmad and Sobhi together, but it was difficult to keep track of where everybody all the time, and often I was not aware that i was hitting the reef, at some point Bob turned around, and urged us to follow, I hesitated, since I did not see my brother and Sobhi, but Bob was knocking on his tank to get people attention, and in order to get them to follow him, anyway in the end Nicolas came to me, and asked me to follow Bob, I did, but could not stop worrying about my brother, Bob was supposed to be watching over him but he was not, after following Bob for a while, the explenaion dawned on me, the missing peace of the puzzle fell in place, finally I understood what was going on, Bob thought I was my brother, and that is why he moved on unworried, I can't blame him either, I had trouble figuring out who was who in the darkness of the night, anyway the second I grasped this fact, I decided this was going to stop, my brother is out there alone, and so was Sobhi who I was supposed to be his mate, I doubled back, they only thing I could see in the dark , was a light from far away, as I got closer it turned out to be the Spanish couple, I continued past them, signaling to them to continue, a while later I met my brother, I asked him with signals if everything was ok, he signaled that it was, but immediatly signaled that he was going up to the surfice, apparently he was out of air, and was just waiting for someone to tell him he was ending the dive, ok my brother was going up, what was I going to do ? well I could not see anybody around , so basicly I was lost in diving terms, and we had decided that in the dive briefing that the dive ends when one diver goes to the surfice, the two facts pointed to the same course of action, to go up to the surfice as well, I did, and shortly after everbody else came up as well.


It was not a dive I enjoyed, I was just stressed and worried the whole time, especially for my brother, I am still wondering whether I should have taken action earlier in the dive, Bob said afterward, that it was one of the most chaotic dives he ever had, anyway I think the key to the whole chaos, was the inability to see who was who in the dark, paying more attention to the gear of the other people before the dive, could have helped, and maybe the use of some kind of clear identifying tags. There was also a good reason why my brother was struggling in the dive, when using a larger tanks, one needs to carry less weights, and Bob overlooked that fact. Anyway the next day we went to two more dives, the Canyon and the Blue hole, considered two of the top diving sites in the red sea, and indeed they were spectacular, with colored coral reefs, and diverse fish, the water is so clear there, that at a depth of 28 meters you can turn your face up, and clearly see the surfice of the water and the sun in the sky. Despite the events of the night dive, we were pleased and happy with Bob, he is great instructor and great guy, and mishaps can always happen, especialy if your a big group doing a night dive. Later we had a dinner with Bob, it turnes out that he bought the dive center, Octupos, a few months ago, and he is going to bring his family from the Netherlands to live there with him, Bob himself is Canadian.


While in Dahab, we made a promise to ourselves : No news, we he held true to it, and it was a good decision, taking the depressing events from back home off our minds. The town was not so crowded with tourists, before the terroist bombing of a supermarket last year (see the photo above), the city was bussling with tourists, from Italy ,England, Australia and other countries, the tourists are coming back but the numbers are not what they used to be. Dahab has many restaurants, and they serve delicious fresh sea food, at reasonable prices, and when we did not feel like eating sea food, there are dirt cheap popular restaurants, selling traditional vegetarian egyptian dishes. There was one interesting incident going to the blue whole, we were asked to fill some forms for the police, and we were told to write we were Palestenians, not Israelis, Bob told us, that the police gives a hard to time to Israelis and Americans, the police decided to stop us anyway, but for only a minute, our native Arabic tongue probably helped.

All in all a good vecation, but eventually we are back to the not so pleasant situation here in the north of Israel, I hope this war ends soon.