The Golden Rule must lose something in translation...

It has not been hard to sense the cautious demeanor in some of the guests to Tabgha. I feel that those who understand the conflict or at least have a small grasp of its totality carefully choose their words when they speak around a multicultural group. Slips of tongue can be easily misunderstood here, and people are quick to backpedal and cover their mistake hoping a fuse does not get lit. I do not like some of the discrimination I have seen. So far it is only short remarks that go unanswered and I am left to be blown over by the wind (which there is very little of). The things I am talking about are discrimination in an indirect way. Trying to get me in the middle of a dispute, to pick a side, making a joke to make the previous crude comment seem like a joke, and so on. I would like to think this is just me in a new atmosphere searching for everything negative that has been disclosed about The Holy Land and reading way too much into words and actions, but I do not think it is so. “Actions speak much louder than words” and the body language of some people cannot be restrained. They can say one thing to the person's face and then when they leave immediately contradict what they previously said, which I know is not exclusive to Israel, it is in every population.

I am extremely lucky. My hometown has great lakes to run around, I was able to run next to the Indian Ocean in South Africa for 5 months, and now I get to run next to the Sea of Galilee for almost a year. The previous two have much more of a breeze associated with them. There is not much wind in the Galilee. It is a still, hot, dry run. I try to get up early and go to prayer at 6am (the volunteer corps would like all its volunteers to attend one prayer session daily with their hosts) and then go for a run afterwards because the day is deathly hot in the afternoon plus they do not leave much free time for you between 8:30am and 8:00pm. The Galilee is huge, there is usually a haze in the air that makes it hard to see across the widest point but in the distance you can make out the rise and fall of the mountains in the silhouette. There are trees all around it making the sight very green.

I was asked what the food was like. Tonight we had homemade PIZZA. It was not as good as my parents but I complimented it with a nice room temperature Israeli beer, Goldstar (which I swear has the same taste and label graphics as Castle from South Africa), and “its Pizza baby its good no matter what.” It was topped with fresh vegetables. The veggies, and fruits for that matter, are delicious. We get them fresh everyday from our garden. They are so fresh; I had to pull a caterpillar out of my salad this afternoon. I almost lost my cookies when there were some unexpected crunches in a plain lettuce salad.