Meet in the middle

Tabgha has a unique area for its guests called the meeting grounds. It is a huge outdoor patio connecting the guesthouse (you may hear me refer to it as Beit Noah) with other bungalows and tents. Running in the middle of the patio is a man made river (which the Germans insist on calling a pool yet it still has fish swimming in it) that runs down to the Galilee. It is called the meeting grounds because it is where two or more different parties can come and meet each other. It is meant to promote integrated religious friendships, and that is exactly what it does. Yesterday a group of mentally handicapped Arabs arrived, supervised by Mustaffa (who is an extremely sociable and amiable man with a huge smile and who barely reaches my shoulders when standing next to me but probably weighs the same) and today a group of Jewish kids led by a group of German volunteers turned up. As Mustaffa and I were walking across the patio, laughing at the story of how he learned German 8 years ago and now will only speak it to me so that I can learn it, one of the German woman volunteers came outside and we introduced ourselves and Mustaffa (who is a frequent visitor to Tabgha with a variety of groups) hugged the woman (he hugs everyone, a lot) and said this is what things should be like, this is what the world, what Israel, should be like; everyone together happy and peaceful.

When I meet people who come to visit Tabgha three things surprise them about me: I am an American, I chose to volunteer (not mandatory like for the Germans), and I will be here a year. It is an eerie feeling to live in a country where when you hear an aircraft coming or going by you immediately look to the sky to see if it has military signs. People ask if I am scared, and I don’t know what to tell them. Of course I am a little nervous about the tension (but I don’t see any of it from the comfy confines of the monastery) but there are people who have to live in it day in day out for their whole lives.

Let me try to show you how hot it is here. When I was at SJU I would average close to two 32 ounce mugs of coffee (Sean and Pete used to call me crazy, and Crest White strips became a great friend) and maybe one Nalgene bottle throughout the day. That put me at 3 liters on a good day. I drink three 2-liter bottles of water during the workday because I sweat so much. At meals I do not go for the food first, it is water or juice then food. I drink about three glasses of water at breakfast, lunch, and then again at supper and after supper before I go to bed I do another 2 liter bottle. Gonna get personal here, my pee still is still quite yellow. Water will become the next oil.