first attempt at connection with local civilization

Today is our first experience with Shabbat in the Holy Land. Strangely, it doesn't feel much different from weekends in Paris during the two weeks I was there, aside from the everything shutting down around Friday dusk and all of Saturday here instead of Sunday in Paris. Last night, I fell asleep on the living room couch while waiting for my husband to put our son to bed and woke up around 11:30pm by young-sounding guys and gals yelling while partying outside. I turned off all the lights and went to our bedroom, to discover that our son's sleeping with one leg slung over the side of the bed so that if he were to roll over by a little more degrees, he would have most certainly fell to the hard floor and conked his head. Close call.

Daniel has stumbled upon a Messianic congregation online that appears to be half an hour by foot from our place, so we set out walking to there this morning under the blazing sun. Twenty minutes later, we found ourselves on the top of the famed Bahai Garden. Turns out the map Daniel was relying on required us to walk through the Garden to the bottom of the hill into downtown. Unfortunately, one could only do so via a guided tour through the Garden. Plan change-- we hailed a taxi instead... and discovered that the driver had no idea where he was going or could barely understand what we were trying to convey. He asked for our destination at least four times, and each previous time seemed to remember the information incorrectly. We ended up riding down the hill to downtown and then up the hill to somewhere that he was sure was where we said we wanted to go. It was a very strange experience to be pointed to a place that's obviously not where we said we wanted to go and being refuted over and over again that, yes, in fact, that was the place. I finally said, NO IT'S REALLY NOT. WHAT SHOULD WE PAY YOU TO JUST LEAVE US ALONE? as we got out of the cab and waited for him to leave. The thing is, he had not turned on the cab meter, so he said, "What do you want to pay me for driving you all over the city?"

Like, WHAT.

Anyway, we ended up paying him the price he named, even though I think we were supposed to haggle a bit but I was too disgusted to care by then.  And, 45 minutes later, we found another 100% more competent cab driver to take us to the Messianic congregation after we got a map that shows explicit directions from a hotel we stumbled upon. I am very grateful that our son was pretty calm and quiet through all this traveling, despite the heat and going in and out of his stroller.  We actually made it to service fairly on time (five minutes late).

The service was interesting... I really appreciated being able to worship with other believers. The congregation consists of Hebrew, Russian, and English speakers. So everything was in Hebrew, and Russian and English speakers get earpieces that we can hear instantaneous translations from the professional translators sitting in the back. Kind of like worshiping at the U.N. I'm starting to discern some Hebrew alphabets via the hymns we sang, and I really hope I'll be able to learn a lot more Hebrew while I'm here. I'd been lazy about picking this language up since a lot of people assured us that most Israelis speak English, but I'm discovering that a lot of them don't speak it very well, or don't like to speak it. And 90% of street signs are only in Hebrew, which really drove home to me a feeling of being shut out literacy-wise. I've never felt so disconnected with words, which is usually my one lifeline. I wasn't that intimidated while traveling in Japan, since I've studied Japanese,  simplified characters in China were fairly easy to adapt to, and most European languages are honestly not that daunting. This is an entirely different story, with a completely foreign script.

I don't know if we will stick with going to this congregation. We met some nice people, but that's always the case when going to a new church. Somehow, I'm having a hard time shaking this stale feeling of "here we go again." I must confess that I'm afraid... I'm afraid I'll be as unhappy here as I was in China, that maybe I'm just an unhappy person no matter where I go. So of course nobody will want to be friends with me.

Somehow I feel like I've failed so many times in the past to fit into a new place, to build a life in which I feel truly purposeful. And throwing a tantrum-prone toddler and another impending birth into the mix basically finishes off any shred of optimism and self-confidence left for me.

Well, we'll see what happens. Day by day.