Farewell Tour

46 days till departure

I’ve recently ramped up my social schedule in order to touch base with all my friends before leaving. There’s a priority on those with whom there’s been less contact in recent times. Everyone deserves a farewell in person. It also increases the likelihood that they’ll come to my farewell party on March 23. Dear Readers: please note the date in your calendar and consider yourself invited.

It already feels like I’m traveling, in a way. I didn’t bother with any errands or chores this weekend, except for a polio inoculation, and my second of three shots for Japanese encephalitis. I just hit the open road, also in a type of farewell bid to my beloved Mazda 6, helpfully provided by Attunity. My first stop was to Noa, who was part of my first group of friends when I first arrived in Tel Aviv seven years ago. We referred to ourselves as the Mishpukhe Kookoo, and we did nearly everything together, including a crazy trip to Sinai with five of us in Liora’s 1989 Peugeot 205, plus the dog Shelly, who found a new home among the Bedouins as a result. Fast forward to today, and Noa now has her own successful architectural practice as well as two adorable toddlers. A special bonus was seeing Yoni, Noa’s brother, with whom I traveled in Goa on my last trip to India.

From there, I went to spend Shabbat with my friends from Brazil, Tali and Avram, who, for inexplicable reasons of their own, now live in an illegal outpost in the West Bank settlement block of Gush Etzion. These are old friends of mine; we went to the same crazy Chabad synagogue on Sao Paulo’s Avenida August back in the mid 90s. And we’ve been close friends ever since. They are what I would call Modern Orthodox, with a strong emphasis on the modern.

In the event, I got stuck for two hours in a heinous traffic jam on the way, and nearly ran out of gas. As it turns out, they are changing the (bypass) road because of accelerated construction of the euphemistically named Security Barrier.

Folks on the extreme Left and Right are against the barrier. The Left hates it because it puts Palestinians in a pen, further exacerbated the hardships brought on by the IDF’s cantonization of the West Bank. The Right hates it because, with adjustments, this is going to be the border of a putative Palestinian state, if our neighbors can ever get their act together enough to put their house in order, sit down at the negotiating table, and make an updated version of the deal that the world community has been inching towards since 1947. A real state. Not the failed state that would be stillborn now if it came into being.

The vast and sensible majority in Israel realizes that the barrier has the dual advantages (for us) of effectively keeping out suicide bombers and drawing a border etched by extensive Supreme Court rulings.

Thank heavens for the Israeli Supreme Court. It is the last solid pillar of our democracy. That’s probably why the extreme Right vilifies it. It has been a reliable bulwark against a Halakic Republic. What’s more, it is responsible for some of the Western world’s most progressive rulings and precedents on all manner of issues. Whatever you think of Israel, you have to admire the Supreme Court. So it is reasonable that if anyone draws pre-negotiation borders, it should be this venerable institution.

Nevertheless, seeing that eight-meter high wall with its watchtowers snake across the landscape is daunting, to say the least.

Tali and Avram’s children are adorably affectionate, and we had good food and good conversation in the spirit of Beit Chabad na Augusta. I’ve always prided myself on the variety of ideologies and worldviews held by friends of mine, even and especially when they theoretically clash with my own deeply held opinions. My view is that I don’t care what your opinion is, as long as you have one. Peace comes when we see the human beings beyond the espoused lifestyles and opinions. True to form, we managed to get onto the topic of homosexuality and Judaism, and a spirited discussion ensued.

Tali’s basic argument was premised on the idea that sexual orientation is somehow volitional, i.e. you make a conscious choice. Even if it is difficult, and you’re confused or willfully sitting on the fence, so to speak, you should endeavor to marry and have children as per Jewish law and tradition. I emphasized that sexual orientation is in no way volitional. How could it be? Who in their right mind would choose to be gay? You face rejection from your family, friends and society, not to mention the task of resocializing yourself to accept a worldview that is fundamentally opposed to everything you were brought up to think and believe. Show me one person who would consciously make such a decision.

Rather, it exists in nature as part of the evolutionary process. As proof, it is far more prevalent in the animal kingdom than most people would care to realize. This was new to her, and so this morning, I did a quick search on Google, and netted the following sites of interest to support my claim, to wit:

• National Geographic
• BBC
• “Crime Against Nature”
• The Gay Animal Kingdom

In any case, it was a lovely weekend, full of fruitful discussions, joyful children, and good cooking all around. The primary motivation for this upcoming sojourn in India came back to me. When released from underneath the weight of responsibilities regarding home, career, finances, staying in shape, and other such burdens of the rat race, you have time not only to enjoy yourself, but to see your own true objectives more clearly. What are we here for anyway? Just to work and pay off the mortgage? I hardly think so.

Ultimately, my dream is to be on the perfect tropical island, without a financial care in the world, so I can enjoy the surroundings and fire off these cyber-rants to you, my beloved readers. My only hope is that you will enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing them.

To get from A to B is no trivial feat. Short of miraculously striking it rich, I have no choice but to slog it out in hi-tech to hopefully get to the point where I can do exactly what I’m going to do this coming year. Of course I’d like to do this forever. Wouldn’t we all? But my head says that it would be unwise to mortgage the quality of the aforesaid dream. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait another thirty years to have even just a taste of it.

This year will be the spiritual preparation for hitting the ground running and taking my hi-tech career to the next level to make that cold hard cash to reach that Ultimate Island sooner rather than later. Life is too short to do it any other way.

Fidel Castro: End of an Era for Cuba?

Fidel Castro, patriarch of the Cuban revolution, is on the ropes, likely to go the way of all flesh in the foreseeable future. He leaves quite a legacy.

On the plus side, illiteracy and destitution have long been eradicated. There’s a lot to be said for this feat, especially in a developing country. On the negative side, as with such regimes, if what you think does not dovetail with official ideological strictures, and you’re bold enough to say it out loud, things can get quite messy for you. All the same, Fidel, while certainly a dictator, is not a despot in the mould of Kim Jong Il, or the unmourned Saddam Hussein.

I had the opportunity to visit Cuba at another historical crossroads the island nation faced, in the fall of 1990. The Iron Curtain had fallen, leaving the Cuban regime intact, though without a sponsor. There was definitely the sense that the other shoe was about to drop.

Two years previously, I had visited the former German Democratic Republic. As a free-thinking youth, growing up in Jewish and conservative Thornhill towards the end of the Cold War, since everyone was down on Communism, it seemed only logical to see it first hand in order to decide for myself. While my reaction had much to do with my age and background, I was very much impressed with the welfare state, educational system and medical scheme. On this last point, even all medications were free. Of course the quality of consumer products was decidedly shoddy, and the inability to travel freely was a definite downer.

So I had a basis of comparison between Capitalism and Communism in the developed world. The following year, I spent my first sojourn in Brazil. Now I wanted to compare first hand these two systems in the developing world. This was my main motivation for visiting Cuba.

I met some other tourists of interest. An sprightly Irish woman, who had previously lived in Canada. A Hungarian fellow my age and a middle-aged German man, with both of whom I rented a car to go out and see a crocodile farm one particular day. I had to translate the whole episode from Spanish into German; but it was fun nonetheless. And of course there were the Cubans I came across.

Certainly there was widespread admiration for Fidel and the role he had played in the revolution and subsequent building of a new society. But they were poor. I was actually taken aback at how little they were monetized, at least in peso terms. At that time, the minimum salary was 100 pesos a month (a mere pittance) and the maximum (this was a novel concept for me) was 400-500. Nevertheless, like in other socialist economies, rent was heavily subsidized (bringing about an acute housing shortage), as were basic foodstuffs and transport (when you could find it). Cuba is said to have the best medical system in the developing world. Perhaps that has been eroded since that time, but at least children don’t die from malnutrition or preventable diseases like in other countries of a similar income level. In fact, Cuba has a rather disproportionate number of centenarians, prompting academic study on the subject.

In sum, the poor in Brazil are screwed when compared to the poor in Cuba, notwithstanding the fact that the former is by far a wealthier nation. In such developing countries, the poor can constitute up to 80% of the population, depending on how you slice and dice the numbers. This begs the utilitarian question of whether it is more important to feed, employ and educate society’s weaker strata, or to allow them to read dissident novelists.

It’s a pity that precious few countries have succeeded in combining the wealth-creating engine of Capitalism with a welfare state worthy of the name. Those who have are rich countries to begin with. Perhaps the real question should be how enough wealth can be created and budgeted for a generous welfare state, without severely diminishing the incentive to work and souring the overall business climate. I don’t profess to have the answers, but do verily believe that it is an ideal to strive for, especially in this age where globalization is diminishing the income distribution gap between countries, but increasing it within them.

Regarding Cuban foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel, Fidel could never really be considered an ally, even though all sorts of quiet deals have been made and executed over the years. In international forums, Cuban rhetoric has not been favorable to Israel. This has probably been exacerbated by the newish alliance with Venezuela. I’m not quite sure what to make of Hugo Chavez. I must admit a certain grudging admiration for someone who has stood up to U.S. foreign policy idiocies. And while not so soundly financed, I certainly have a high regard for the social programs he has instituted for Venezuela’s vast poor. More disturbingly, he has adopted a policy of forging alliances with basically anyone who hates America, which includes Israel’s ultimate nemesis these days, Iran. However, on the balance, Hugo Chavez is not reckless. The oil continues to flow and economic relations with the U.S., although strained by virtue of recent announcements of nationalizations, continue unbroken. On the whole, apart from the shrill rhetoric, Chavez is basically harmless and should simply be ignored, much like the class clown.

If the United States expects regime change before an end to their stupid, arrogant and simply wrong-headed policy toward Cuba, the Cuban people will go on languishing in their economic development, and American business will continue to miss the significant opportunities on offer on the island. Just what is so terrible about letting sovereign Cuba find its own way? There present absolutely no security threat whatsoever to the U.S. or its interests anywhere. There are full relations today with Vietnam, a country with whom the U.S. fought a terrible war. There should be with Cuba, too.

Fidel has left an overall positive legacy, worthy of much admiration and study. Yes, he is a doctrinaire micromanager. And he probably should have bowed out on his own several years back. Now the Cuban regime and people are set to plot the course of their future. It is safe to expect that there will be a new pragmatism. If the U.S. needs so badly to save face after nearly fifty years bullying, they can be allowed to wait for Fidel to meet his Maker. But immediately thereafter, Cuba must be brought in forthwith from the diplomatic and economic cold, whatever the new government decides. It is simply the right and logical thing to do.

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Inoculations

50 days till departure.

Preparations for my departure have begun in earnest. I’ve resigned my position at Attunity. I’ve notified my landlord. I’ve arranged for my stuff to be shipped to my sister’s place for safekeeping. And, this past Friday, I went to the tropical diseases clinic at Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center for inoculations.

At first blush, I thought that it would only be a question of whether or not to take malaria tablets. Conventional wisdom dictates that, in spite of the side effects of frightening nightmares, an ounce of prevention is still worth more than a pound of cure. Before I left for a year in Indonesia, back in 1994, I went to Toronto’s tropical diseases clinic and got immunized for everything under the sun, including rabies of all things.

And do you think it helped me?

Hah! I was sick as a dog. After my inoculation for typhoid, I got paratyphoid. I even remember the meal that gave it to me. It was at a street stall restaurant. I had deep fried cows’ lungs. I know that probably sounds revolting, but it was actually one of the tastier things I ate in that country. After incubation, I had a high fever, simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea, loss of appetite, accompanied by the standard aches and pains of such ailments. I lost 10 kg.

At risk of blowing my own sanctimonious horn, it is very much worth mentioning that I didn’t miss a single day of work at the Indonesia Australia Language Foundation. In retrospect, far scarier is the fact that none of the doctors could figure out what I had. I took traditional medicine. I took other regular medication. I even submitted to an HIV test. Until finally, after about three weeks of visits, some bright spark of a doctor at a very exclusive private clinic figured it out, and gave me the requisite antibiotics. And I got better. Well, mostly.

I never regained the weight. I had some liver damage. And diarrhea of varying degrees of severity accompanied me for most of the remainder of my Indonesia sojourn. When I went back to Canada, I went straight to the emergency ward. They offered me an appointment with the specialist in November (this was in August). So I explained that I had just returned from Indonesia, and then listed all the ailments I had suffered from over the course of that year of living dangerously. I got an appointment five days later.

It was interesting. The specialist stuck a tubular camera up my rear and I got to see it in real time on the monitor by the gurney. Each time he couldn’t push any further, he called on the nurse to “irrigate”. I won’t elaborate on that point. But one final element to the consultation that I remember was that the nurse was Indonesian. At that time, being FOB, I was able to banter away with her. She said my Indonesian was better than her own kids’.

That’s one thing about the Indonesian language. It never fails to impress people at parties. In actual fact, it is the easiest language I’ve ever come across. I had a basic level of fluency, up to and including reading the newspaper and simple novels. Not that I remember very much anymore. But people never fail to be flabbergasted to find out that I actually know (or rather knew) Bahasa Indonesia. If truth be told, they should be far more impressed by my Portuguese, which is flawless, and a sophisticated language on every level, if ever there was one.

In the event, the medication I was prescribed consisted only of three pills, which had to be released by the Ministry of Defense in Ottawa. Happily, I gained back all that weight. In recent years, I’ve gained some more.

But back to the clinic at Dizengoff Center. Wouldn’t you know it, I needed a booster for hepatitis A, another for hepatitis B (I was inoculated 20 years ago), typhoid (only good for three years as it turns out, and only with 80% effectiveness), meningitis, polio (go figure), and (you gotta love this one) Japanese encephalitis. What is that? Who’s ever had it? No travelers I’ve ever met.

I always have a nasty reaction to these injections. I had a tetanus booster last summer which made me sick for three days. Understandably, I was nervous. But guess what? Other than sore arms, nothing. The thing that hurt the most was the 400 shekel bill at the pharmacy for the malaria tablets (may as well go all the way) and antibiotics to keep on hand in the event of nasty tummy upsets.

I’ll conclude by mentioning that on my last trip to India, I caught nothing in terms of illness. Not even a minor tummy-ache. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I even had so much as a headache while I was there. I attribute this to Skye Frontier’s Rules of Eating in Dirty Countries:

1. Only drink bottled water with the seal intact. Use it to brush your teeth.
2. No ice in drinks.
3. Don’t eat on the street. I’ve been told that if you see it boiling or frying in front of you, it’s OK. Maybe for the person who suggested it.
4. Eat pineapple centers. Apparently this has preventive medicinal qualities.
5. Enjoy fruit with thick peels that require lots of work for waiters and other hotel staff.

It worked in India the last time. It worked in Thailand (although probably wasn’t necessary). By gosh, it even worked in Mexico, home of Montezuma’s Revenge.

Now let’s see what actually happens.

Getting Out

It is now a question of time before the U.S. exits the Iraq quagmire that it so incompetently created. Long before this happens, we should think about the ramifications of this now inevitable withdrawal.

Why did they invade in the first place? Revenge. Short-sightedness. The Bush Administration cynically capitalized on the shock and anxiety that resulted from the 9/11 attacks to simply settle an old and personal score.

Here in Israel, smelling an opportunity to exact direct vengeance for the Scud attacks of 1991, the government of Arik Sharon actively abetted the Administration’s efforts. But as true friends and allies, it should have been done differently. Untold damage was done to Israel’s reputation. While there will always be voices that blame the Jews and Israel for all the world’s ills, we should have pointed out what we knew even back then: that Iraq wasn’t the major threat in the region. To be sure, Saddam was rabble-rouser-in-chief. But it has been common knowledge for some time that the real danger comes from the Mullah regime in Iran. Perhaps we could have brought our influence to bear and saved political capital to face the truly existential menace. Of course no one was sorry to see Saddam go. However now we have a completely different geopolitical reality to deal with.

The fall of the Baath regime strengthened the Islamic Republic’s hand immeasurably. What’s more, after seeing governments toppled in two immediate neighbors, Afghanistan and Iraq, by a U.S. that was lashing out like a frightened rabid dog, they drew the conclusions that any empathetic mind would also come to. The mullah regime faced an existential danger on its doorstep and had to ramp up its political and military capabilities to stave it off.

Acting on this, Professor (yes, in Engineering) Ahmedinejad was groomed for and catapulted to the presidency. They almost certainly didn’t realize at the time that he would be like the golem run wild.

Ahmedinejad is a messianist. He believes that the Twelfth Imam is about to reappear in the context of cataclysmic events to bring about the Reign of God on Earth. I have a severe allergy to folks of this ideological ilk Furthermore, it is totally reasonable to group this evil professor with messianic Christians who keep looking at their watch wondering why the Rapture hasn’t yet occurred, as well as those jovially misleading types in Chabad Lubavitch. They will only bring us death, destruction, war and misery. Forget that their spiritually compelling arguments fire off extra special synapses in the portion of the brain that generates spiritual ecstasy. They’re wrong. They’re bad. They must not be allowed to wield political influence in such a way that it endangers the world.

Iran is well on its way to producing nuclear weapons. That doesn’t mean to say that they’ll use them. As a matter of fact, they probably won’t. It is safe to assume that for all their fiery rhetoric, they are still basically rational players on the international scene. Nevertheless, as we watch them take over effective influence in Iraq, as well as engender a Hizbollah-led coup in Lebanon, fund the monstrous Hamas, muse out loud about closing the Straits of Hormuz and stirring up sectarian tensions in other Middle Eastern states with Shiite minorities, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that once armed with nuclear weapons, the Islamic Republic’s ability to project its power and zealotry around the region will be pretty much untrammeled. Add to the mix Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and God knows who else racing to obtain nuclear capabilities of their own, and we have a foreboding scenario indeed.

What can be done? Basically nothing, if you think in terms of realpolitik. The American public doesn’t have the appetite for another military adventure in the Middle East, especially after the Bush Administration foolishly blew all its chips in Iraq, with Israel and some of the Anglo countries acting as cheerleaders. For all the mystique of the Israeli Air Force, Iran’s nuclear sites are too spread out and well protected to do anything more than temporarily and partially cripple them. The only real solution would be sustained bombing of all critical military, Revolutionary Guard and Bassij installations. The regime doesn’t need to be toppled. That task is for the Iranian people. But it definitely needs to be defanged.

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Whenever I go visit Yotvata, the kibbutz where I made Aliyah eight years ago, I truly get a sense of how long I’ve been in this country. It seems like it has all passed in the blink of an eye. I spent a little over a year there. Now in the dining hall, I see babies that have become children, and adults who have gone grey and gained weight. Some people have even passed away. Life continues there, and I can see it in snapshots, giving me a better perspective of the time that has elapsed.

What have I been doing all this time? I’ve lived in a beautiful apartment. I had a fulfilling relationship that lasted five and a half years. I’ve built an impressive career. On that score, the last two years at Attunity have been the best ever. I’ve never been in any organization where everyone, without exception, was so nice. And not just nice and friendly. Nice and professional. Nice and cooperative. Nice as mentors. Nice as friends.

And all the while, I have dreamed about India. I’ve been everywhere else in the meantime, because I always knew that India would be a special and long sojourn. Ever since I came back from there in January 2002, to the worst portion of the Al Aqsa Intifada, I knew that my mission there was incomplete.

So I want to put all my achievements in my back pocket, and with a smile on everyone’s face, go and fulfill this mission. Any way you slice it, there really is no alternative to the working world and the rat race. It is against the order of nature to obligate a human being to sit and concentrate for ten plus hours a day in front of a computer. And I have another thirty years of this to look forward to? If so, then a sabbatical is definitely the order of the day.

And I want to share the experience with you.

If you’ve always thought I was crazy (in the mental state sense of the word) about Bollywood, well then get ready for The Dream Factory. You know all those movies about the young country bumpkin that takes the Greyhound out to Hollywood to make it in the movies? Well, this is the middle-aged computer professional taking El Al to Bombay to do just that.

Ever wondered how it is that curious Jews somehow manage to square non-theistic Buddhism with archetypally theistic Judaism? Get ready for the theological face-off with the followers of the Dalai Lama and Beit Chabad of Dharamsala in The Supermarket of Spirituality.

How long can one laze around on the most perfect beach in the world without going stir crazy? Longer than you might think. We’ll find out for sure in Andaman Adventures.

And there’ll be an ongoing series of food, book, art and film reviews in Bag of Culture.

*********************

Just as the U.S. is getting out of Iraq, now seems like a logical juncture for me to spread my wings and get out of Israel, for the trip of a lifetime to India. After the Passover holidays, on April 12, 2007, I am closing the beautiful apartment, leaving the excellent job, and bidding farewell to such dear friends who have never let me know a single day of loneliness. For all of this, I am expansively grateful. However, unless my digestive tract definitively gives out or I run out of money, both of which are unlikely, the sojourn will be for a year.

Welcome aboard.

At Salem's House (5)

Salem came to fetch me. His village was several kilometres away. We went through all of Tarabin, which didn’t take too long, and stopped in a warehouse-cum-provisions store. I managed to find and buy a bottle of water entirely in Arabic. He bought what we needed for our meal, and then some. He asked if I had any cash on hand. How much did he need? Sixty pounds. Quite a sum in Egypt. But I reckoned we would settle up for any differences later on. I didn’t want to offend my host in any way.

We travelled down the main road, past a Korean restaurant (no kidding!) and over the beach until we got to his village. It was the home of his clan, presided over by the respective sheikh, I assumed. The range of houses was fascinating. Some were quite beautiful, and it was apparent that a lot of effort had been put into them. Others were more modest, but certainly very liveable. And then there were the concrete shacks, roofed with corrugated metal. Salem lived in a house like this. I didn’t have the heart to ask about the sixty pounds.

Salem tied up the camel and invited me in. I duly removed my shoes, as is customary in Muslim homes. He introduced me to his children. There were five of them. I wondered if he realized that the sheer quantity of his offspring had a direct impact on his economic condition. Probably not. Humble people are often very fatalistic about life. As God sends them, He will surely provide the means to sustain them.

The oldest daughter, wearing a hijab, was blind. There was another daughter who apparently was in charge of the household chores and duties. The two youngest boys were twins, around seven or eight. One had orange in his hair. I think it was from malnutrition. Flies were buzzing about.

The domestic daughter brought out tea, which we drank, and she proceeded to prepare the meal. The children were adorable. I talked to them a little through their father and with my broken Arabic. Salem and I spoke of Israel, Sinai and Egypt. He had previously been to Tel Aviv, when Sinai was under Israeli administration. He struck me as somewhat ambivalent of the Egyptian regime, and not really caring about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His more immediate needs were of much greater concern, I would think.

The meal was brought out. It was rice with bits of chicken – very tasty. Salem encouraged me to eat my fill, which I did. He did his best to make me feel welcome in his home, and I felt honored. Afterwards we drank more sweet tea, and he suggested dozing off for a while. It was a good idea. The domestic daughter brought in blankets to cover our heads so the multitude of buzzing flies wouldn’t bother us. It worked beautifully.

I didn’t sleep, but I was able to relax and let the entire experience gel in my mind. After an hour or so, Salem arose, and I followed suit. I noticed that the glassless window was shuttered my cardboard that bore the letters “MRE”. I asked if there was an American base around. There was UN contingent monitoring the peace between Egypt and Israel in the Sinai. The US Army supplies food aid to local populations as military-issued Meals Ready to Eat. Salem and his family must have been recipients of food aid.

We turned on the black and white TV. The news came on. It was all about President Mubarak. He went to Syria, and was well received. He travelled to one of the Gulf States, and lectured the monarch there. He was trying to broker a deal of sorts between the warring Palestinian factions (with no success – although that wasn’t mentioned). Interestingly, in reports on our country, there was no insinuation that Israel as a state had no right to exist, like in the media of several other Middle Eastern countries. It was just behaving unacceptably. If peace could be like this, with all sides accepting this existence and presence of the others, and everyone could travel freely and safely, it would have a direct impact on the lives of people like Salem and his family. A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say, and general prosperity in Sinai, driven by tourism and other investments, would bring benefits to almost everyone. There is such a thing as a peace dividend.

Finally, towards the end of the afternoon, the middle son got me on the camel and led me back to Tarabin. This time, we took the coastal route almost the entire way. I love the sea. What a calming effect water has. I can just be by water and feel at peace.

Peace. There is tangible peace between people. And there is inner peace, that only you can bring yourself. It is independent of time, place and circumstance. It requires the realization that you are worthy and that everything that happens to you serves a greater purpose – to educate, strengthen and wisen you. Take events in proportion and perspective. Be at one with the universe. Love humankind regardless. Peace is yours for the asking.

Bollywood Dreams (4)

Looking out, reflecting on the early morning Sinai sea, I think about all the things I want to write. My greatest inspiration comes from being in a new or different place, and sitting alone in silent contemplation. I enter the world of fantasy, and return to India. I wish I could live as a writer of travel stories. This is my genre, describing places topographically, anthropologically, geo-politically, culturally, emotionally; interesting encounters with locals, lessons learned. My father fancies himself a writer. I reckon he’s just a rambling old man with a computer. The underlying fear is to end up like him. And yet, there is some foundation to the assumption that people actually enjoy reading my work. I am not him. I am me. I remember the fortune-teller on the sidewalk in Chennai, who told me, without any prompting, that I would be a writer. I don’t think he meant of software manuals.

I could go back to India, and arrange an adventure worthy of a book. I would go to Mumbai. I’d find lodging somewhere stylish, like in Colaba. I would enrol in dance and Hindi lessons. I would get an agent. I would be a bit-actor and dancer in Bollywood movies! And I could tell of lessons, and auditions, and actors and dancers, all from the inside track, but from my own unique perspective. Certainly there is lively theatre in Mumbai, which I could reveal to my audience. And movie reviews.

Do not make the mistake of thinking all Indian movies are schlock. To be sure, many are pretty bad, just as most of what comes out of Hollywood destined for the masses is pretty dim, too. However, the movies with the biggest budgets, destined for the widest possible audience, can often be brilliant works of cinematic art. Movies in India are an engine of social change. They present very progressive ideas to a society steeped in and bound by tradition. There is naturally a certain amount of cultural resistance to many of these messages, on the part of rural and religious populations. Therefore, it is essential that the message be conveyed in a very sophisticated way. There is always an elder representing tradition, who at the end, is shown the errors of his rigid ways. Sometimes even villains are redeemed at the end, instead of being killed, like in American movies. And all social castes are represented, each speaking to their respective compatriots in the audience. This multi-level dialog is one of the most fascinating and intriguing devices in Indian cinema. And of course there is the music and dancing. The actors are accomplished professionals, and often the choreography is excellent. And within all this, are the cultural elements that are uniquely Indian, which require a bit of background knowledge to appreciate. Any medium that can convey a message and equally entertain all, from the professor to the illiterate peasant, is a remarkable work.

India, of course, is a symbol. For me, it represents the id, the emotions, and a sense of freedom. It is the address of a desire to sometimes escape from a high-pressured job, and a country with an uncertain political future. And yet this cerebral combat between the rational and emotional has been played out, over and over for years. In my case, the emotional has usually won, often with disastrous consequences. But in retrospect, I wonder if terming them disastrous is being unfair to myself. As a result of my adventurousness, I have acquired languages, skills and knowledge that have all contributed to my present success, relative as it may be. On the one hand, to throw it all away for another adventure seems foolish. On the other, with the anticipated growing pains, it could also lift me to a higher plane. Since there is no real way of knowing the outcome without actually doing it, the debate continues, and the rational side carries the day.

You see, coming Israel was the ultimate victory my rational side. Kibbutz offered the quintessential concept of stability, after many years of roller-coaster adventures. It was not chosen by accident. Later, I was able to capitalize on my background in a country that appreciates things cosmopolitan like no other. I have prospered in every way.

At the same time, it has been nearly five years now, four in the same apartment in the same city. This is by far an all-time record, since the age of eighteen. My true nature is poles apart. The gulf remains unbridged.

Sweet Childhood Memories (3)

The next day I woke up early, as is my custom, even on holiday. I sat on the veranda and contemplated the water. I can do this for hours, in total silence. It is like a form of meditation. This water reminded me of my childhood summers on Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire.

My grandparents were interesting people. Born in rural New England to Jewish immigrant families at the beginning of the last century, they were a true partnership. My grandmother was an amazing person, who could recite Shakespeare by heart, and had earned a B.A. in university, even in those early times. She was a schoolteacher, one in a long line in my family. And I suspect that she was the brains behind my grandfather’s business success, which included a store and landholdings. In this environment, my mother and her two older brothers received an enriched education. Their childhoods, from my mother’s stories, seemed idyllic. When my mother was eight, my grandfather built her a playhouse for her birthday. I saw it once. It was a little cottage for a little girl, with a play kitchen for tea parties. When she was nine, he gave her a horse to ride out there on her own. My mother knows the meaning of an ideal situation. I reckon she has strived to correct imperfections along her life’s journey, and I would have to say that by and large, she has succeeded.

My grandfather built a cottage on Lake Sunapee. It had a real fireplace, built partially with stones from the lake. As children, my mother showed us her special stone that she had carefully chosen, and my grandfather had taken particular care to ensure a place of honor in the family’s summer hearth. I still remember my grandmother warming her back at that fireplace on cold summer nights.

There was a boathouse, with two boats. Once was a 1960s sky-blue motorboat, with a 40 horsepower outboard engine, that was murderously loud. I lived for rides in that boat. It was my ultimate childhood happiness. Trips to Sunapee Harbor for soft, machine-dispensed ice cream were the order of my childhood summer days. When my mother had completed her first year of university in Boston, she felt a certain unidentifiable sadness, and when my grandfather went to pick her up, she didn’t want to come home. So he offered to buy her a motorboat and water skis. I remember him telling the story of the boat purchase. How much horsepower did he need to pull up his daughter on water skis, he asked, pointing to her. She was a real beauty. She must have been quite thin, because years later, when I was eleven, she taught my sister Jessie, my cousin Susan and me how to water ski on that same boat, I can tell you that forty horsepower was not nearly enough.

There was also the small boat, which my Uncle Allan used to get to his sailboat, moored a few dozen meters away from the dock. It had a metallic blue, 1940s vintage 7.5 horsepower engine, and when I was nine, I learned to drive it myself. I spent hours upon hours of joy and solitude in that boat, taking rides around the lake, and to the marina at the end of Grandpa’s property.

One summer, when we were still quite young, Jessie and I were playing in her room in the cottage. I was in the closet, the end of which I had never been to. I crawled further and further, until I found myself in another closet! My heart leapt. I crawled through the length of this unknown closet until I found the exit curtain. There was my mother, reading on her bed in the next room. It was the Discovery of the Decade.

Today, only the boathouse remains. My mother has been back to visit the area. I haven’t. When you go back to a place you haven’t been for many years, it’s like walking into a dream. You have a sense of deja-vue familiarity, but often feel like an outside observer of external events, rather than a participant in them. My grandparent’s cottage is a memory that I wish to leave untarnished by hindsight. It is my happiest childhood memory.

On My Camel (2)

On the third day, the group of ten reunited. Actually they wanted to spend their last day together and I wanted to stay longer. I wasn’t about to trek down for just a short jaunt. Before they left, we were sitting by the beach, and an old Bedouin came up with two camels. I had always wanted to ride on a camel. I had been told that it was rather overrated, but I was undeterred. I arranged to have a short tour after my friends had left that same day, for the sum of 40 Egyptian pounds.

The camel owner’s name was Salem, and he spoke passable Hebrew. The camels were a mother and her calf. We decided on an itinerary of a ride up into the mountains to make a campfire and tea. First we needed provisions.

I mounted. Salem led the camels up ahead. They were very good-natured. We headed over the beach several meters, with all the tourists looking on. Admittedly, I felt a bit silly. We went up to the road to a store and left the camels standing just outside.

We bought a few supplies. Upon leaving the store, the camels were gone from the place we left them. You know that feeling you get when you realize your car has been towed due to illegal parking? My heart sank. Actually, the camels had just walked a few meters over to eat some scrub. I generally take my car to the station for filling, but the advantages of self-filling transport became immediately apparent. On I got, and off we went.

From atop, I further beheld the striking contrast of the brown desert mountains on one side and the deep blue sea on the other. We went through the residential quarter of Tarabin, with its block apartments baking in the springtime sun. We progressed towards the mountains, onto the main road. All of this was a question of a few hundred meters, but at a walking pace, it seemed like an odyssey. Now we were out of site of the tourists, alone in the desert, and I assumed my regal role of the neo-Colonial Baroness, master of all she surveys.

Higher we went, up to the base of the mountains, and in just enough that we could get a view from above of all of Tarabin and neighboring Nuweiba. The visibility was excellent and we could see both towns, the sea, and even the texture of the mountains on the Saudi side across the straits. Salem found a discarded can and began to gather twigs for a small fire. I dismounted and began to snap pictures furiously, keen to capture as much of this beauty as possible for subsequent sighs. Of course it is never quite the same as being there yourself. This is the magic of travel.

Salem and I climbed up onto a desalination tank to get an even higher view. It was the ultimate panorama. After some time, we climbed down, and Salem tended to the campfire. I began to wonder how he was going to make tea. Then it occurred to me that he intended to use the discarded can. Indeed, he started to clean it out with bottled water heated on the fire. My stomach felt conflicted. On the one hand, I wanted to be polite. On the other, I remembered paratyphoid in Indonesia. To its credit, the can was lined inside with a thin coat of white plastic, so there was no rust to ingest. And the water was both bottled and boiled. I figured that I’d taste the tea gingerly and only then assess and resulting rumbling in the lower stomach. When you have had as many tropical diseases and stomach ailments as I have, you become quite adept and ascertaining damage just from tummy rumbling. You also learn to discern different types of diarrhoea. Yes, it is true! You have the kind that thunders its way out in mostly liquid form, save for the odd lump, but without any major abdominal pains. It may occur several times, but you are confident that it is of the passing variety, and plenty of water and some light food will do the trick. Then of course, you have the more insidious varieties that are accompanied by pain that I shall refrain from relating, which continues over several days. This is the kind that requires medication. When attended by vomiting, this is the kind that requires hospitalization. I have managed to survive my journeys by being poisoned only once a day. Twice is like playing with fire.

When the tea was ready, I tasted it and waited a few moments. No rumbling. Fit for the neo-Colonial Baroness. I drank it up. It wasn’t bad at all. Certainly the view made up for any culinary shortcomings.

After some time, we went back, and I took a few more pictures from the returning perspective. As we entered Tarabin, I became more self-conscious. Finally, we reached my guesthouse and I descended. I paid and thanked Salem. And then something truly interesting happened. He invited me to his home for a meal the next day. I asked him if I should pay. He said 30 pounds for the camels would be enough. That was less than today’s trip for a much further distance. It was an authentic invitation. I was touched. I gratefully accepted and we arranged to meet at 11:00 the following morning.

Sinai After Saddam (1)

April 2003

I couldn’t stand it any more. I had to go back. And this was a perfect opportunity. Of course I was nervous. American soldiers had just entered Baghdad. Notwithstanding the gleeful crowds of Iraqis destroying portraits and statues of Saddam Hussein for all the world to see, there was inevitably a sense of humiliation amongst the greater Arab public, since the U.S. had achieved for them something they hadn’t been able to do for themselves in over a generation. The bad man was gone, but not of their own hands.

Tourism in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, which had once been a gush, had slowed to barely a trickle over the nearly three years of the Intifada. Israelis love Sinai, and had always represented the crushing majority of tourists there. But unsure of the depth of Egyptian and Bedouin identification with their Palestinian brethren, it was best to err on the side of caution, and simply not risk it. Goa was a better bet, further and more expensive as it was.

The truth is, when I went to Goa, I was thinking of Sinai. Sitting on a perfect beach, doing nothing. Indeed, for me, this is the ideal vacation. However, Goa was out of the question for the five days available during the Passover holiday, and after much cajoling from a large group of friends, I relented, and off we went, after the Seder meal.

Actually, I had wanted to go for the Seder meal itself. Although it was unrealistic to expect Egyptians to prepare us good down-home gefillte fish, the taste I had in mind was the irony of returning to Egypt, to the Sinai dessert, where Moses had wandered with the Israelites for forty years, during the anniversary celebration Jews hold for that very event.

Off we went, a group of ten. The full moon lit our path through the desert, and by six in the morning, we were at the border. Apparently many other Israelis had shared our thoughts, that nearly three years was enough, and come what may, we would enjoy Sinai, once again, as before. 15,000 crossed over for the holidays. The line-ups were pretty heavy, and while it caught everyone by surprise, we were waved through.

I must say now that the Egyptian authorities and public bent over backwards to accommodate the influx. Obviously the dearth of tourists had been a heavy burden, and they were determined to make it up to these brave arrivals. We were shooed through immigration. There was a large presence of police, with roadblocks checking all cars. Only the good guys were going to make it through. I was heartened.

The hour’s drive down the coast from Taba at the border to Tarabin and Nuweba some 70 km away is nothing short of spectacular. Desert with textured mountains catching the shadow of the sun on the right; the blue and turquoise sea on the left: a contrast so beautiful, it’s not difficult to understand why the Israelites might have wanted to linger for forty years. Dotting the coastline were scores of small tourist installations. Many were under construction, but had been abandoned. Many more had simply closed for lack of business. And yet the small percentage of establishments that had survived, were totally unaware and unprepared for such sudden and massive inundation. To their credit, they handled it very well, making us feel most welcome. And I couldn’t help imagining if peace could be like this.

For lack of planning and the unwieldy size of the group, it was impossible to choose common lodgings, so we split into two, with Ariel, two others and I staying in a guest house with showers and air conditioning in Tarabin, and the rest in huts on the beach further down the coast.

Tarabin is not much more than a village, mostly of Bedouins. Its charm of course is overshadowed by the stunning natural beauty of this coastline, where the desert meets the sea. Across the straits, on a day of good visibility, you can see mountains on the other side. The enemy at a not such a distance: Saudi Arabia.

On the second day, I went to the shops and stalls to buy some cool and comfortable “local” clothing, and to strike up some conversations with locals. Systematically, I looked at the wares of each place from a distance, careful not the get engaged in a conversation with the owners. “Looking is free,” is the usual bait they use. You can only imagine how much junk I have accumulated from various places because looking is free. At a certain point I became bored of browsing and my eye caught a pair of thick cotton pants. “What is your name,” a bearded merchant asked in English.

“André,” I answered.

“You are from Israel? But André is not an Israeli name,” he returned. The whole explanation would be too complicated, so I sufficed with the abridged version.

“I am from Brazil, but now I live in Tel Aviv.”

“Why would you want to leave Brazil to come here?” Legitimate as the question was, my thoughts went more in the direction of his real motivation to ask. If Israel is a bone in the throat of the Arab world, then Diaspora Jewry is the whole chicken.

“Tel Aviv is my home,” I answered. “How much for the pants?”

I bargained the price down, in the usual manner. I couldn’t help but notice a newspaper on the ground, bearing a photo of angry Palestinians facing down an IDF tank. I do understand their plight, and even identify with it up to a certain point. I tried to say something conciliatory, while pointing to the picture. “The whole world is angry at us.”

His body language changed and became more aggressive. “You are here as my guest, and as such I give you much respect. But I must ask why Sharon only wants to make war?”

I explained, in as simple English as possible, that while the Israeli government certainly is not innocent, blame for the conflict’s continuation rested squarely on the Palestinian leadership. While many Palestinian citizens and even people in the leadership do want to make compromises for peace, Arafat continues to block their every move. Every tentative withdrawal by the IDF at Sharon’s behest was met with more attacks, until more resolute military action had to be summoned. The Israeli side is guilty of exploiting the conflict to create further facts on the ground that will complicate eventual negotiations. However, such negotiations are a foregone conclusion. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that there must be a political resolution.

He wasn’t listening. The problem could only be solved by a unilateral Israeli withdrawal. The other side would definitely reciprocate. “Even Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Hizballah?” I rhetorically asked. Even them.

Wrong as I am certain he was, throughout his tirade, he did however demonstrate an acceptance of Israel as a permanent presence. I wasn’t actually expecting this. OK, so you hate me. But you treat me as a guest in your house and you respect my integrity in my house. And you’re only too happy to take my money. If peace could be like this, then it is certainly worth a try. I was able to conclude the conversation amicably. I paid and left.