The End?

I have been thinking a lot about Jerusalem lately. I had originally intended to write one final post to summarize what I learned, how much I grew to love the city, goals for my future, etc. while I was still in Jerusalem or shortly after returning. It has now been exactly one month since I returned home, and despite having plenty of extra time during my Christmas break to reflect I find myself unable to put into words what I don't know how to put into thoughts. Every time I pause to write about the experience I realize that my thoughts and feelings are not fully formed. I have now concluded that my thoughts and feelings about Jerusalem will never be fully formed. I think that's the real beauty of the experience--it's never actually over. The things I learned and the places I went have become an active part of me and not nearly a thing in my past that will be buried with time.

There's a part of me that groans inside every time a friend innocently asks, "How was Jerusalem?" and I, knowing that they don't have enough time or attention span to listen to the detailed answer I would like to give them, reply with a simple "great!" or "incredible!" I worry that every time I give my one-word answer this complex, 4-month-long section of my life becomes cemented in my mind as a simple, one-word experience.

It's hard to communicate what I would like to about the experience. It was completely different than I expected. There are not enough pictures or words to describe how I've changed. But I know that I did. I like to think that I don't need to type out a bullet-point list to prove it, but that it will be obvious in the way I live my life. Maybe that's the biggest lesson I came away with. If people only know I changed because I keep insisting that I did, then I probably didn't actually change very much. Hopefully, the way I live the rest of my life will prove that I am a better person because of the things I've experienced.

And on that note, my friends, I would like to conclude this adventure.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

was simply delightful. Petra, crusader castles, ancient Roman cities, a polyandrous date, new friends from Lebanon, and of course, King Abdullah and King Hussein. The people of Jordan love their king and after seeing his face everywhere for four days I think I love him too.





And here's a final picture just for fun. It was actually taken in Jerusalem, not Jordan, but I love it all the same.



Welp, Happy Hanukkah everyone!

Gratitude.

To honor American thanksgiving this week, here is a list of ten things I am grateful for:

1. The beauty of the Galilee.


2. People who build churches with beautiful domes and good acoustics that allow people like me to have extraordinarily wonderful experiences.


3. Sunsets over the Mediterranean that remind you that your life is awesome, even if you are missing your last Galilean sunset.


4. Singing “O Canada” on a small boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee (picture pending).

5. People who are hypothetically willing to hold your hair back when you hypothetically throw up on the bus after hypothetically eating an entire chocolate bar and a package of cola flavored Mentos for breakfast.


6. Christmas decorations.


7. Having an appetite on Thanksgiving (picture pending).

8. Jerusalem flavored ice cream (vanilla, pistachio, halva, and white chocolate).



9. Eating shawermas to my heart’s delight.



10. Sister Killian. This woman is such a gem. My day is always better after talking to her.

Fear of needles: conquered

Dear friends and family,
I thought that if I told anyone my plan to donate blood today none of you would believe me. In fact, I only half believed it myself, which is why I decided not to tell anyone until it was done. Anyone who is familiar with my past relationship with needles would have good reason to doubt my ability to actually volunteer my blood to be drawn out of my arm. However, I am here to tell you that I, Stephanie Lee, conquered my fear and donated blood today! Special thanks to Jake, who filled my form out for me while I cried, helped me document the experience, and organized the blood drive, to Sister Judd, who was an angel and stroked my arm and told me stories while I was on the bed, and to the patient nurse who dealt with my periodic sobs and shaking. For proof that I'm not lying, here are some pictures:

"Sometimes I don't know if you're talking about antique jewelry or Jewry of antiquity..." --James Peter Grant

In case you were wondering, I am still alive, I am still in Jerusalem, and I still love my life. However, I now know more about the history of the Jews, the Old Testament, and the Pan Arab Peace Initiative than I ever knew their was to know. The past month has been both wonderful and stressful. I feel my sympathies being pulled in a number of directions at an increasing rate. It's an interesting experience.

Anyway, in case you think I do nothing but schoolwork, I have included some pictures to prove you wrong. Here are some highlights of the last few weeks:


The city after the first rain

After our last of 24 hours of class in 4 days, 2 (maybe 3? I don't remember) midterms and one paper, I was delighted to find out that it rained. Sadly it hasn't rained since. Apparently Jerusalem is unusually hot for this time of year and I can't decide how I feel about it. I miss fall weather, but I'm also not all that eager to return home to a pile of snow.


Dome of the Rock

After at least 3 attempts, I finally saw it up close!


Snorkeling

Last week our group took a much needed break to Eilat for some snorkeling. Eilat is located on the southern tip of Israel. From the beach we could see Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I'm usually not a beach person, but everything is more fun when you have an underwater camera.


Hezekiah's Tunnel



Fort Night!

Fort? Yes. Smores? Yes. Cool Runnings? Yes. Best night ever!


Olive Pressing

Being here during the fall has many advantages. One is that we are here for olive season. We picked a bunch of olives on the grounds, crushed them, and then pressed them for oil. This is me and Andrew by the press.


10/10/10 10:10 Party in the bomb shelter

We are always looking for reasons to celebrate, and the bomb shelter was made for dance parties. Please note the awesome shirt I bought in the Old City.

Pictures!

Here are a few pictures from Egypt. In order of appearance there is Sinai, THE pyramids, and the step pyramid of Joser. As you can tell, I am no longer afraid of looking like a tourist.

Oversimplification

I'm back from Egypt! Unfortunately my lack of sleep and abundance of things to catch up on will force this post to be shorter than my Egypt experience deserves. Also unfortunate is that our internet connection at the center has been especially slow, so I can't even upload pictures if I try.

Our Egyptian adventure actually started in Israel. Our first night we stayed at a kibbutz about a half hour from the Egyptian border. We played in sand dunes and then had some nice meditation time in the middle of the desert as the sun was setting. No description will do it justice, so just trust that it was amazing! The desert experience was followed by a pool party and a barbeque where we ate hamburgers on pitas and sat on mats on the grass.

The rest of Egypt is kind of a blur, to be honest. I don't really remember what happened on which day, so I'm not going to try to get the timeline right and move on to the best parts. Here are some highlights:

1. The Pyramids! I don't think any explanation is needed.

2. Valley of the Kings. For some reason I was under the impression that this would only take about a half an hour, so I didn't bring my water bottle. Two and a half long, hot, and sweaty hours later, I was regretting my ignorance. Luckily when you live in the same building as your professor he starts feeling like your dad instead of your teacher, and you don't even think twice about drinking his water to prevent your dehydration. Despite the physical discomfort, this was one of my favorites. I absolutely LOVED seeing King Tut's tomb, and was a little heartbroken that cameras were not allowed and I couldn't take the "In Memory of King Tut" picture that I was dying to.

3. Waka Waka. Waka Waka will heal the world. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should fix that. Look up Shakira's music video from her World Cup song, and then read the rest of this post. During one of the first days after getting to Jerusalem, one of my fellow students decided to make it his mission to teach everyone the Waka Waka dance. When I asked him why he liked the song so much, he replied with "This song healed the world. Can we please just let it heal us too?" We did. Since we were in Africa, we figured Egypt was the perfect place for our debut. We danced in front of the pyramids, in front of Hatshepsut's temple, and on the bus ride home. We shouldn't have done it at the temple, because dancing there is not allowed, but we forgot. Some security guards came to tell us to stop and get us all in trouble, but after seeing the video recording the head guard reacted by saying "Wow, that's amazing! How did they learn that?" and then he let us off the hook. An awesome video should be coming soon. And by soon, I mean not that soon.

4. Sleeping on the night train from Luxor to Cairo. It was fun, except for the part where we didn't actually sleep and it wasn't actually fun. And the bathrooms were really gross.

5. The Egypt museum. There's nothing quite like staring into the face of Rameses II. I loved the mummies the most, but the rest of the museum was amazing as well.

6. Shopping! That's a lie. Shopping was extremely stressful for me. I don't do well with people yelling at me from every direction and trying to convince me I want to buy their stuff. However, I had one delightful experience in the bazaar. In one of the shops, I found a ring that I really wanted to buy. The guy I was with wanted one for his girlfriend, and he bought one first for more than I wanted to pay. After my friend left, I turned to the shop owner and said, "I won't tell him if you give me a cheaper price." He insisted that no, the price is good for Americans. I smiled and asked Canadians get a better price. He gave me a big smile and pointed to his window where he had at least 6 Canada stickers. He told me about how much he loved Canada, made me take a picture with him in his shop, and then gave me a discount. I love Canada!


Welp, that about sums Egypt up. It's weird that Jerusalem now feels like home. The Jewish holiday of Sukkot just ended, so we got back in time to see a lot of cool things related to that. I'll save those stories for another time. Happy Sabbath!

Ode to Food

Instead of posting about the educational and uplifting activities I have been doing this week, I thought it important to create a dedicatory post to food. For those who know me well, it will be no surprise that I have found a few favorite treats in Jerusalem. Here are a few of my favorite and not-so-favorite ones.

Freshly squeezed pomegranate juice.

I know it sounds good, but don't be fooled. I don't plan on buying it again.


Hummus

Our friend Shabon ordered us some free, homemade hummus yesterday with warm, fresh, fluffy pitas. It was by far the best hummus I've ever had.


Shawarmas!

I have to admit that I've been getting excited for Jerusalem shawarmas all summer, and they do not disappoint! This one tasted quite similar to the ones you can get at Eau Claire. Eating it made me a little bit homesick, which is sort of strange since it is a middle eastern food. It's going to be hard for me not to spend all my money on these suckers.


French toast breakfast

I've been trying to resist the french toast, but somehow these delicious treats end up on my plate every morning. It's basically just deep fried bread, but boy does deep fried bread taste delicious. If I come back with a softer stomach than you remember, you can blame these little guys.


Heart of palm and pomegranates

Pomegranates taste a lot better than pomegranate juice, and heart of palm has always been a favorite of mine. I think I've had this exact same salad for both lunch and dinner for the last two weeks, and I'm still not sick of it.

These are a few of my favorite things

Going to Hebrew University has allowed me to put up pictures! Here are a few of my favorite things I've seen so far.


This is the cool Ramadan chandelier I talked about in my last post.


Cool thing at the Garden Tomb.


Remember that Coldplay song that talks about the Jerusalem bells? Yeah, that's me, right after I played them for the entire city to hear. Cool right?


Jericho!


Wadi Qelt, also known as the road between Jerusalem and Jericho.

Marhaba!

Yes, that's right. I now speak enough Arabic to give this post a fancy Arabic title. Unfortunately that is one of the only words I know so far, so hopefully no one reading this knows enough Arabic to also know that the title has little to do with the subject of the post.

Anyway, on to more important things. Jerusalem is pretty great. It gets better all the time. I mean, it was cool to begin with, but I feel like as time goes on I get more attached to it. I am slowly starting to understand why everyone who has done this program comes away with an eternal loyalty to this city.

Since the last post I've been able to do a ton of cool things, including:

The Ramparts Walk: This is a cool touristy thing that allows you to walk on top (sort of) of the walls surrounding the old city. My favorite part was counting the satellite dishes on top of people's houses. Actually, that was my second favorite. My first favorite part was knowing that I was walking on the wall surrounding the old city instead of walking down 700 E on my way to school.

Geography Field Trip: This might be the coolest field trip I've ever been on. We took a bus to various look-out points surrounding the city to learn all about the geography of the land around Jerusalem. This is to help us visualize things and also help us understand how and why the city developed the way it did. My favorite part was looking at Bethlehem. I'm so excited to go there!

St. Anne's church and the Pool of Bethesda: A small group of students went here a couple of days ago. The church was built to honor the birthplace of Mary, and has BEAUTIFUL acoustics. Two of our group members were able to sing inside the church and we were blown away by their talent. We weren't the only ones though. A group came in just as our friend was finishing up, and a lady that was in the group followed us out and demanded that he give an encore performance. That was pretty great. So was the pool. They have excavated down about 30 meters to the steps into the pool that would have existed during Christ's time.

Western Wall Shabbat welcoming: Also a treat. I can't wait to visit the wall more times during the day. There was plenty of singing, dancing, and people-watching to be had. I was happy.

Garden Tomb visit: Today we were able to visit the Garden Tomb as a group. It's another thing that I am excited to do more of.

Enjoy all sorts of holidays: This week was both the end of Ramadan for the Muslims and Rosh Hashanna for the Jews. My favorite part was admiring the creativity of the Ramadan lights. One that particularly impressed me was a chandelier made from plastic cups and tissue paper. I would include a picture, but our internet is too slow and it won't let me.

Group bonding: There has been everything from dance parties and soul sessions to watching movies like "Charly" and "Prince of Egypt." I have loved getting to know everyone in this group, and can hardly wait to see how well I know them after a few more months.


Egypt in one week from tomorrow!

Live from the Holy Land

I'm here! After two hours of sleep, a minor panic attack, 24 hours of nearly sleepless travel, and a few more hours soaking in the city, I made it! The jet lag has almost worn off, but I think that the three hour accidental nap I had yesterday didn't help much, nor does the virus I contracted sometime in the last 24 hours. The night before last I fell asleep around 11, but my roommate didn't come in until around 1:30. For some reason when she came in I woke up and thought it was time to get ready, so I hopped in the shower and didn't figure out it was only 2 until I was ready for the day. It was funny, in a not very funny kind of way.

Jerusalem is wonderful. Right now it's Ramadan, which is really cool. Actually it might have ended last night. Anyway, for the last few nights the call to prayer has been extra cool, and extra loud at 4:30 in the morning. When we first got here nothing really seemed real and I felt bad that I didn't feel as thrilled to be here as I expected, but as soon as the call to prayer sounded I got really excited to be here. We've only gone into the city a few times. I'm really excited to spend more time there. Today a bunch of us walked to Gethsemane. Isn't it cool that I can do that? Yeah, I thought so too.

Anyway, we're not really supposed to upload pictures here because the internet is slow, but I'll include two just to prove that I'm here. The first is a picture of my first night's sunset over the city, taken from the Jerusalem Center, and the second is of our first day of school.

Jerusalem!

As you may have discovered already, this blog was once used to record the Lee sisters' trip to Guatemala. Since I didn't feel like creating a new blog, I decided to continue the travel/adventure theme and use this blog for Jerusalem as well. Enjoy!

Recap!

Alright, I don't know if anyone checks this anymore. As most of you are well aware, Jen and I have been home now for a little over a month. I'm sorry we didn't update for our last few weeks. A lot of crazy things happened, and sadly our attention was refocused and our blog became neglected. Nevertheless, I've been feeling like this whole thing is incomplete. In an effort to give myself and whoever faithfully is reading about our adventures some closure, I'd like to share some of my reflections on this entire experience.

From the beginning, I felt a very strong pull to go to Guatemala. I don't know why. While there, I often wondered when I was going to have that one experience that made me go, "Oh, so THAT'S why I'm here!" Looking back, I can't pinpoint a single experience. However, I have absolutely no doubt that going to Guatemala was what I should have done with my summer. I can't imagine not going, because this trip has become so much a part of me.

One thing I'm always afraid of is that everything that has gone on in the last few months will be nothing more than a blur or a memory. It really deserves so much more attention than that. I want to be able to remember every single detail. I realize that's not very likely, and it kind of makes me want to cry. So, in order to make this experience last a little longer, here are some of the main things I will take away from this summer.

First, the importance of families. It's one of those things I've been taught since I was little. You know, families are the building block of society, one of the most important things you can do is raise a good family, etc. So many problems we saw in Guatemala could really be reduced if more people raised good families. Not to say Guatemalans are the only people that could benefit from that. It just gave me more of a visual of why strong families are important.

Another thing I learned is the importance of hope. The concept of hope has never made that much sense to me. I think when all of us left for Guate, we had this hope that we would be able to change people's lives and make the world a better place, and although we were warned many times, I don't think any of us fully anticipated the real struggles we would fave in attempting this. It seems like one of those monsters that grows two heads every time you cut off one. And eventually, when you start seeing how deep and complicated so many problems are, it becomes pretty easy to get discouraged and lose that hope you started with. As someone in our group once said, "I've suddenly become much less enthusiastic about saving the world." We all laughed, because we all knew exactly what she meant. A few weeks before we left, we had a pretty major safety incident that kind of threw everyone off. I'd rather leave out the details, but I would like to talk about the way this incident affected me. I started to realize what we were actually dealing with. I think it made me reevaluate what hope really is. It's not being naive to the evils or struggles that we face. I think you can fully recognize the difficulty of these things and still have hope. I think that hope comes when you don't let these things discourage you from your fight for good. It's caring about the little things you can do, even if you can't change everything. It's realizing that the moment you let those things stop you is when they win. It's loving humanity and trusting people's ultimate ability to be good, even they seem to choose otherwise.

Which brings me to another things I learned: the importance of agency. Once again, this epiphany came as a result of this incident. We were talking to this man once that told us that as soon as you just give people things without letting them work for it, you're sending the message that you don't believe in them. Which, for me, put our ability to make choices in a completely different light. We have the ability to choose, because we are capable of choosing right, even if we choose not to exercise that ability. But it's just so necessary that we are given the chance, or else no one would actually become what they could, or what they were meant to.

On the topic of service and giving things, I'd just like to comment on the importance of serving your own people. while in Guatemala, there were so many instances where I would just think to myself about how much more effective our jobs would be if we had even more Guatemalans serving Guatemalans. There are so many advantages to this. They understand and can empathize with their people better than anyone, and they can communicate with them on a much deeper level. After thinking about his, I realized that the times my service will be most effective is probably when I'm serving my own people. Not that people should only serve their own communities, but I think I could definitely do more of it.

I think the last thing I learned that I want to talk about is how wonderful and open the culture is there. They are so individual focused. I love the way they greet you with a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. They greet everyone individually, and they seriously give the best hugs that make you feel like you've been friends forever, even if you just met them. I hope I can adopt some of this and become more open and loving.

In the end, it was a great experience. Definitely a lot of surprises and adventures along the way, but it was so worth it.

Pictures from the Weekend

Last weekend the group took the long drive north to Tikal and Semuc Champey. It was incredible! Semuc Champey was beautiful. We spent the Friday night in a small town near the park. We left at 3am on Friday morning and arrived around 10am to our hotel. We put our bathing suits on and crammed all 18 of us in the back of a rickety old pickup truck and drove to the park. Some consider Semuc Champey to be the prettiest place in all of Guatemala, and I would have a hard time arguing against that. It consists of these beautiful waterfalls and pools of green water that you can swim in. The pools are in the valley between huge green mountains. Here is a picture of the pools looking down from a lookout point on one of the mountains we climbed up:

Here is a picture of the mountains around the pools from the same lookout point. It was stunning!

Here is Stephanie floating in one of the pools.

The next day we drove most of the day until we came to a zip line in the jungle. I don´t really know where it was, but it was awesome, and it helped break up the drive to Tikal which was far away. We flew through the canopies of the jungle for about an hour. There were about 12 different platforms to zip line to. I didn´t see much wildlife, just some pretty birds with really long tails. The best part about the zip line was doing The Monkey. The Monkey is going on the zip line upside down. It looked really scary at first, but then we all did it and loved it. Here is a picture of Steph doing the Monkey. She loved doing it and did it every single time.


Here is a picture of our group walking up the ladder to get to the first platform of the zip line:

The next day we woke up at 4:30am to get to Tikal by 6am. Tikal was amazing! After taking my Mayan art class last Fall semester, this place was so interesting to go to. Tikal is huge! There are ruins everywhere, and many mounds in the park that haven´t even been uncovered yet. We climbed two of the largest temples which took us above the canopy of the forest where we could see for miles. We could also hear howler monkeys in the forest all around us for most of the morning. We saw a few Spider Monkeys, Tucans, and we even ran into a giant family of Coatis (these are kind of like raccoon/lemur looking things). Here is a picture of me with Temple 1 (this was the king´s temple - I´m standing on Temple 2, the one he dedicated to his wife):

Here is a picture of Stephanie on Temple 4 overlooking Temples 1 and 2 and the forest around us. They use this shot in Return of the Jedi, except it has a fighter jet flying through it and is supposed to be the planet Endor. Seriously.

We had a great weekend!
We wish we could post more pictures of us in the communities we work in and with the people we work with, but it is not very culturally appropriate here to take pictures. Just know we´re having a great time and are hard at work every day trying to contribute what we can to the developing world. To end, here are some pictures I took outside our van, just so you get a feel for what Guatemala is like. The last one is of me and Steph when we hiked the volcano Pacaya one of the first days I was here.