Where the East meets the West

Israel is a country that is so unique. While it is a first world country it still has many qualities of a 3rd world country. There are occasionally carts being pulled by horses and often peddler carts. The architecture is very old fashioned looking. On my bus route to and from work even though it is only 30 min, the view changes often. My ride starts in Bat Yam, a lower-middle class suburb of Tel Aviv. The apartments look relatively disheveled, and the city isn't very vibrant looking. Then my ride takes me to Jaffo, the signs start having Arab in them as well and the buildings start having more of the stoney look. More of what you see in Arab countries, and then I get to Tel Aviv, there are so many stores for high end shopping, vibrant and beautiful hotels, and just an atmosphere of amazingness. Though with all the metropolitianness of Tel Aviv, there are still the disheveled apartments in most parts of the city. On my ride in I see extremely secular people, religious people, and people in between. The culture here is so different from the states, I am having difficulty articulating it.

I am extremely happy that I am volunteering during the heat of the day in air conditioning. It has been so hot here lately- it got to around 100 if not more in Bat Yam. One of the things that I am helping with at the moment at my internship is going over the implementation plan that is going to be sent to USAID. Windows has so much to do now that they got the grant, but it is going to help their organization a huge deal. Another thing that I am going to helping them with is trying to start interactions with organization in the States. One way I will be doing that is trying to find groups (youth groups, hillels, summer camps, peace organizations) that would be interested in watching a documentary that has Windows featured in it. If you are interested in watching some excepts from the organization here is a youtube clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiZ7vlRf8aI.

also here is a youtube clip that is a little about Windows in general
http://www.youtube.com/user/windowsforpeace#p/a/u/0/zsxLrfzyAIo

So yesterday after work, I went back to Bat Yam and relaxed for a bit. Then we had a meeting with one of the vice director of Young Judaea. After we had a program with Michal Ben Dori, where we discussed Israeli music throughout the ages. It was extremely interesting to see how the music has changed so much throughout the years. After about 10 of us went to the beach to relax for a bit. It was so hot and humid yesterday- the cars, chairs... everything had condensation on it. It was sorta like the opposite of the frost we get at home. Today I am volunteering for the day and then heading back. I took a different bus route today and surprisingly it worked. Tonight most of us are going to Herzliya to watch the soccer game.