shabbat shalom 08.01.10

Hi Everyone, The warm weather continues here in Israel. It's in the 70's during the daytime, here in the Judean Mountains, at a time when we should be getting rain or snow. And the drought continues. On the one side I enjoy the balmy weather, but I know it is a disaster for the country. We are racing to get desalinization plants online but the funds are limited. The money is supposed to come from raised water taxes, but there are political screams about how this hurts the poor (which is true). The manager of the water board is tearing out his hair; he rightly sees desalinization as the only way to provide fresh drinking water. We already irrigate with sewage so we can't really divert more from the agricultural sector. So funding must come from the government; desalinization is not a profitable enterprise, so private industry won't invest. In the end, I am sure a sliding scale tax will have to be the source of the funds. The need is without question: we have been in a drought situation since 1992 and finally accept this is a permanent climate shift. We have to deal with it. The good news is that this is the kind of technical problem that Israel handles very well, and we are on it. Other problems are less tractable. I just spent yesterday at a conference in Tel Aviv University, focused on peace parks. These are trans-boundary parks with part in one country and part in an adjoining country. They are often used to foster peace and cooperation between neighbors, as well as maintain an unpopulated buffer zone between them. We have successfully started several with Jordan, who is now a good and friendly neighbor (really, the only friendly neighbor we have), and our eyes have turned to Syria. The main thrust of the conference was the possibility of using peace parks as a tool to resolve our conflict with Syria over the Golan. In the end, it doesn't seem very likely. Syria wants the Golan back for its own purposes (military; it overlooks the Sea of Galilee) and we need to hang onto it for the same reason (it protects the Galilee and looks over Damascus, their capital). From the conservation standpoint, we are doing better on the Golan alone than we would with Syria as a partner, as the head of the Golan settlement committee demonstrated very clearly (and pissed off half the audience doing it too). He's right wing and I'm liberal, but I have to admit he's right. We'd gain nothing by giving up the Golan to Syria or even sharing it. These peace park ideas work only when both sides have something to gain from them. In the case of Jordan, both sides gain. Not in the case of Syria. I had to resolve another problem. My car died again last Friday and I had to leave it in the repair garage over the weekend. This was the fifth time in six weeks. same problem. On Sunday morning I was waiting for the manager when he arrived to work, and probably looking like trouble on two legs. This time I ran through the whole history. This time the manager himself took the car apart. The problem seems to have been a bad alternator, putting out too much electricity, burning the ignition coils, and causing my engine to fail, 'dafka' in heavy traffic moving slowly. The failure of the ignition coils caused the catalytic converter to also fail. All told, I spent about 5000 shekels (or 1,500 dollars) on replacement of parts while mechanics didn't think upstream to figure out why the parts were failing. I pointed out to the manager, rather strongly, that it isn't right to keep charging me for repair of the same problem over and over again, and not fixing it. He agreed, talked to the owner, and this last time I didn't have to pay anything except for a rebuilt alternator. The new ignition coils and labor were free. Like most women, I get taken to the cleaners when I have car trouble, because I don't know much about cars. I've resolved that in the future I am taking my car to a garage where I have some "protectzia" from guys here who do know cars and have their own cars fixed there. It's wimping out, but hey, I'd rather wimp and pay half the money. My neighbor is a mechanic and another guy in Har Gilo owns a garage. Screw dealership garages, from now on, I go to them...... This of course left me rather broke, since 1500 dollars is more than half a month's salary for me. Had to open and use up my savings account since there had been other big bills this month. It has given me some insight into the sickness other people are feeling as they watch their monetary resources fail and go negative. Even though physically I am am still okay, the worry was making me quite sick. Now that I seem to have sorted it out, my health has improved. I can well imagine other people are going through the same process this year, and maybe haven't seen resolutions yet. I personally like to keep my affairs in order and my bank account on the positive side of zero. But if debt cannot be avoided, there must be a way to avoid the obsession and worry that go along with it. I haven't figured this out yet. It's part of the general problem of not having a backup; also if I get seriously ill or incapacitated, everything collapses. Families have their usefulness at times like that.....No point thinking like that, however. The challenge is to deal with life as it is. Plenty of other people here in the same boat. Other than that, not much to mention. Work is chugging along okay. I have a month's break while my student is in Holland but he comes back in February to start field work in the desert. I'll have to get more active then. January is the slow, dreary month after the holidays (Christmas, Hanukka) and a depressing time. I should take a day off and go to the Dead Sea, which restores my soul in winter. Not sure when, but if the car proves reliable, it will be this month. shabbat shalom, Linda