Hi everyone, Just what I needed, Friday the 13th....although I understand in the Jewish tradition, this is a LUCKY day. Gotta hit the wiki on that one and see. It's been a long week, but a very beautiful one. Spring is really here in Israel. I went with my field map team to Ramat HaNadiv for the mediterranean part of our field work on Sunday. It was picnic weather; birds singing, flowers blooming (see attached picture). I didn't stay; Margareta (the blond lady in the picture) is responsbile for that part of the work and just wanted me on the first day for command decisions in case problems came up. (I head the Israeli team for the project.) So I went back by train. Hired a new student technician the next day, Sasha, a Ukranian immigrant and a biologist. She should work out well. I've had good luck with the Russians; they work hard and are pleasant company. In contrast I have a native Israeli as my other student technician. He is good too, but I never know where he is, have no idea how much work he is doing, and he is a nudnik. On the other hand, I put in him in a job that demands some creativity, which is where Israelis excell even though they are often a pain in the ass. So I actually have a balanced work force. I just need a firm hand on the reins, that's all. This year is really my intensive training in project management and I sure have a cast of characters.... We had our annual conference for the Nature and Parks Authority yesterday, down on the coastal plain at the Ministry of Agriculture's research center at Bet Dagan. More than a hundred people packed in an auditorium with some sitting on the stairs.... By lunch I was extremely claustrophobic. Took my Pepsi and sandwich and wandered off. At the back of the building was a beautiful meadow covered with blooming daisies, anemones, and other flowers. It looked like paradise, especially after a morning in a crowded room. I sighed with relief, flung my bag on the ground, disappeared into the tall daisies, ate my sandwich, and plopped on my back in the sun to smell the flowers, hear the birds, and watch the clouds. Spent the whole lunch hour there restoring my soul. Oddly, nobody else came out back but me; what kind of naturalists are these, anyway? The rest stood around gabbing, after spending a morning listening to people gabbing. Yech! That flower-filled meadow was the high point of the conference as far as I'm concerned; the rest of it I will forget by next week.....Wish I had a picture but I hadn't taken a camera with me. Came home late and found my cleaning lady Na'ama had not been by as she planned. Called and it turned out her sister and niece were in an accident, the sister lightly hurt but the little girl with bad head injuries and probably won't make it. Na'ama was devastated, in part because the girl's head injuries are horrific. Eyes were destroyed, among other things; sounds like her face is gone. Probably just as well if she doesn't live; the Palestinians are not equipped to deal with handicaps of this degree, certainly not major reconstructive surgery. It is very sad, but I've noticed people in this part of the world are too casual about safety, especially the Arabs. Cars are handled recklessly and people don't take precautions when working in dangerous conditions. So people routinely get blinded or limbs smashed; kids get run over by backing trucks, and people are eternally surprised. The grief is real but not enough to get them to take precautions in the future. There is a kind of fatalism which a Westerner would find very hard to understand and I barely understand it myself. Maybe Europeans in the Middle Ages would understand it, though - when life was short and dangerous, people became inured to risk and accepted suffering and death as very common aspects of a brutish life. Peasant Arabs are still living that life. Well, now that my field work is coming to an end I can lift my head and have a look around. It would be nice to take a day off and enjoy the spring. I might manage that, since the worst of the work seems over. shabbat shalom, Linda |
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