shabbat shalom 23.04.10

Thu, April 22, 2010 8:54:35 PM
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From: Linda Whittaker ~Email: olsvig2000@yahoo.com

Hi everyone,

My gosh, a busy week. We had two holidays (Remembrance of Israel's Fallen Soldiers, followed by Israel Independence Day) and then I was off to the Negev for two days. Just got home and got a bit settled.

With so much going on, I stayed home for Independence Day. It was a rare chance to just putter around the house. A couple friends came over and we had a late lunch together, but I didn't go out; every public place was crowded and I didn't feel like dealing with crowds. Maybe next year.

Another of my friends was in deep financial distress; she has to move and didn't have the money to do it; she didn't even have bus fare. So I am selling another gold coin and loaning her the money. Not much choice, she is a pensioner with limited income; tried for a loan and the banks just laughed at her. She had given up in despair.....well, it seems to me that helping an old woman in distress is the sort of thing a Christian ought to do, and this is a friend also. If I can't walk the walk, I'd better shut up on the theology, eh?

This second year of the world recession seems to have a special bite because people of modest means have used up their limited reserves and are now in bad shape. I got bit a little myself, although I have reserves here and there. The grasshoppers who fiddled through the boom years are now shivering in the cold....and those who have always been simply poor, like the gardener and the cleaning lady, never did have a buffer. Most people like that have to turn to family for help, and without family they are truly screwed.

So I bailed out a couple friends and am glad I did; now it's my responsiblity to make sure I keep those buffers to my own income so I am in a position to help others and not need help myself. So I will have to be careful. But at least it looks okay for now.

Off to the Negev; my student finishes his field work tomorrow and goes back to Holland at the end of the month. He did very well. I basically threw him into the desert with no previous experience, and he had to learn both species and methods of sampling them. He did, with a little help, and produced good results. He also learned to love the desert in the process. (It's easy in the spring; try July and August....)

I was two days down there, the first out in the field looking for lizards, and the second looking at the data. It was nice to be back in Sede Boqer, where I had lived for ten years before joining my current organization. I still have friends down there and had to see them, but the best part was sticking my face in the desert landscape again. Not sure when I will get another chance so I made the most of it. Amazingly, at the end of April, it is still blooming well; many areas were covered with the little yellow and white daisies which are common there, and many other species were in bloom. The lizards were hopping and we had fun spotting them. Desert warblers were singing. We found some big fat green scorpions, and some interesting ancient ruins. The desert experience.....

With all the disruptions caused by travel and holidays, I now have quite a backlog of work in the office and hope to spend some time just catching up. That's fine. We all know the feeling after a vacation, that getting back to routine can be a treat.

shabbat shalom,
Linda

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