Going East – The Iranian Adventure
“I think it’s a great idea!” I exclaimed
when Waldir showed me the letter from Pahlavi University in Shiraz, Iran,
inviting him to come as a visiting professor, to help set up the Pharmacology
Department in the new School of Veterinary Medicine.
“It will be a great adventure!” I
argued, to his skepticism. “I always
wanted to know that part of the world…”
John backed me up. He was always ready for new adventures. Miriam wasn’t so sure. She would miss all her good friends, her
gymnastics, and she wasn’t thrilled to go on an adventure to a country she
didn’t even know the language of.
Marcello could care less, one way or the other. Our relatives in Brazil thought we had lost
our minds.
Auburn University approved Waldir’s leave request to
go teach in Iran, and we made preparations.
I had to stay behind to finish up my B.A. and the kids’ school year. We
rented out our house and I moved with the kids and our Weimaraner Rina to an
apartment. Waldir left, buoyed by my
excitement.
That excitement was rather dampened by the mystery
of the place we were headed to. We had
some good Iranian friends who assured us we’d love our stay there, but I knew
I’d miss my newly found colleagues in the English Dept. Under the mentorship of Mr. Roden, we had
formed a Poetry Club. We met every other
week and brought at least one poem to share.
We also became the Publications Board of the new student literary
magazine we were pushing the Department to sponsor – The Auburn Circle. I was
writing short stories and poems, as well as my columns for the Auburn Alumnews.
I had told Waldir that I wanted to be an American
citizen. “I refuse to leave this country
without the guarantee that – if something happens -- I would feel safe with
this protection.”
I applied for citizenship, and was proudly sworn in
a ceremony in Montgomery, thus becoming an adopted Alabamian, and a proud
citizen of the U.S.A., the land promised to me by God, a sign of my liberation
and intellectual growth as a female person endowed now with the gift of liberty
and the pursuit of happiness.
The day finally came to pack our suitcases and say
our goodbyes. It was sad to part from
Rina – Katharina Von Grauengeist – our regal and loving Weimaraner, but we had
found a loving home for her with the people who had bred her mother in the
first place.
The trip was indeed exciting, more so than we had
bargained for. My comment “I thought
this was going to be an adventure but this is ridiculous!” became a motto
around the house, as Miriam repeated it all the time, sarcastically.
The great day of departure came, and we set out to
Columbus, Georgia, to start our journey, helped by a bevy of our Brazilian
friends. We sat at the airport lounge,
chatting away, and either forgot to keep an eye on the clock, or failed to hear
the call for the flight to New York. Our
luggage went, and we missed the plane. The
airline, whose desk attendants had neglected to look for us four passengers
that were missing, told us the only way was to catch another flight from
Atlanta. João Saibro, bless his heart,
gathered us in his car and set out to drive us to Atlanta in order to try. We raced against time, and would have made
it, except for the road work, and the slow tractors we encountered along the
way. As it was, we missed our flight to
New York there too, by a few minutes, as well as our PanAm flight to Rome. We were finally rushed into a Delta-PanAm
flight Atlanta-Washington-London where we’d be booked into an IranAir flight to
Tehran. By this time I was in a
daze. Our luggage was gone, so we had
only our carry-ons, with minimal necessities.
In Washington covered with snow – to the kids’ delight – we bought a few
things we needed, like an American flag, chewing gum, and liquor.
I hadn’t slept for the last three days so I was
truly exhausted. As soon as we took off
for London, I went to sleep, while the kids watched a movie, without the soundtrack,
as it was too expensive to rent earphones for all three!
We landed at Heathrow at 9:00 a.m. the next
day. England looked lusciously green
from the air. I had been so immersed in
English Literature, history, and culture for the past months that I was
actually thrilled to be in British soil.
“We’re really in Europe, children!
We made it!” I exclaimed to my exhausted children.
The first few hours at the airport were hectic. We had been scheduled to fly to Tehran that
same morning, but a mistake on our flight number put us among the crowds,
waiting in nervous expectation, on standby, the whole afternoon. We ate meat pies, yogurt, and cheese
sandwiches, in expectation of hearing our names called.
At the end of the day we were told that “we didn’t
make it” and were supposed to be taken to a hotel near the airport. We also heard the awful news that our missed
flight from New York had been the target of a terrorist bomb in the Rome airport. The PanAm desk crew being really nice to us guaranteed
we’d be on a flight to Tehran the next morning.
We were ushered to a shuttle that took us to the
airport hotel, where we had our showers, our suppers, and went to bed on the
luscious beds. I asked the desk to wake
us up early in the morning. The phone
rang dutifully at 6:30. I answered and
called out to the kids who groaned sleepily.
Our flight was scheduled for 10:30, so I thought we’d sleep a few more
minutes. I woke up suddenly and it was
9:30! Oh well, I thought. No need to rush now. What will be will be. I called room service for breakfast, and we rolled
around the airport very late for our scheduled flight. The desk folks were on a tizzy.
“Where have you all been?” they asked. “The whole world is looking for you guys!”
They gathered us together and rushed us through the
corridors and to the IranAir airplane.
“I won’t let you go now until I see you all sitting
in your seats!” the nice Delta attendant told me.
We finally arrived in Tehran. Our first sight was of a crowd of wailing
women, in long black veils, whose relatives had been killed or hurt in the
bombing at the Rome airport. I had goose
bumps all over my skin. Waldir wasn’t
waiting for us.
I had a new problem to solve: Where to find my husband. I hadn’t the slightest idea. “Please, God, we need your help, now!” I told the kids to pray, as we took a walk
around the airport and then I saw a sign for Tourist Information, in
English. We headed there and I spoke to
a very helpful young man about our plight.
“Do you have any idea which hotel he could be in?”
he asked. I had no idea. He asked what my husband was doing in Iran,
and I told him about Pahlavi University in Shiraz.
“Huh!” he said, and riffled through a thick phone
book. “We’ll try this one.”
We listened as he spoke in Persian to someone. A few minutes later he handed me the phone:
“I believe it’s your husband,” he said.
“Waldir?” I asked, hopefully.
“Oh my God!
Where in the world have you guys been?
I was desperate here!”
“We’ve been all over,” I said. “But we’re alive and well. When can you come to get us?”
“I’ll be right over!
Don’t move!”
When I asked the young man how he had found the
right person so quickly, he told me that the clue was Pahlavi University. Its faculty always stayed at that particular
hotel. And he found someone to accompany
us to the passenger pickup exit.
After three long months, it was wonderful to sleep
safely in Waldir’s arms. Our ordeal
finally did come crashing on me, but I was numbed to the horror of having been
spared the terror at the Rome airport.
It all seemed like a dream. It
had been worse for Waldir. Our names
were still on the passenger list of the PanAm flight, but none knew of our
whereabouts. Our luggage arrived without
us. He could only pray and wish that we
were alive and well. He’d called
everywhere, including the American and Brazilian Embassies.
Waldir seemed well, and excited about his new
projects. He liked the university and
the people he worked with. We spent a
couple of days at the hotel and looked around Tehran. It all looked very alien to me, but having
had a head start, Waldir was full of enthusiasm for the place. He showed off how he had learned to speak a
little Farsi. I just wanted to go home
and get settled.
Shiraz seemed a much nicer looking town than Tehran,
and our apartment was in a nice part of town, near a beautiful rose garden –
Bagheran – and the majestic Intercontinental Kourosh Hotel. We lived upstairs and our landlord’s family
lived downstairs. They were Iranian Jews. Our first weeks were idyllic.
Some of Waldir’s graduate students came to visit and
gave us a mini tour of Shiraz, telling us about the Bazaar, the delicious wines
(they brought us a couple of bottles) along with insights on the etiquette and
religious customs. Miriam and I were
relieved that we didn’t need to wear a chador.
We went to visit the Shiraz International School
where the kids would be enrolled and immediately the Principal asked me whether
I’d be interested in working at the school.
I could be a substitute English teacher, or, they really needed to hire
a librarian, and with my library skills, I’d be a perfect fit. Eager to do anything not to be at home alone,
I said I’d be thrilled.
Meantime, I was recruited to teach English as a
Foreign Language at the Iran-America Society, starting immediately. I was on a roll! The only drawback, insulting my budding
feminist psyche, was when I was told I’d need written permission from my
husband to work.
“What?” I said to the Director. “I am not Iranian! I am an American citizen!”
“It doesn’t matter,” he responded gleefully. “It’s the law here. And anyway, why would you want to work
outside the home? You have a good man,
and three children to take care of…” he was enjoying my irritation.
I had no choice but to comply, and after a couple of
days of adjustment, came to enjoy teaching the class of mostly male students
who were eager to learn the language.
Church was another matter. That first Sunday I was told where to go to
church and I found the nice, big church building, not too far from our
home. Walking in right before Mass
started, I admired the high nave, the Byzantine-Armenian look of the
architecture, but as the liturgy progressed I found it a little strange. But no problem, I thought. The Eucharistic prayers were the same, and I
went up for communion, under both species – bread and wine – which I loved. The Mass over, I went to meet the priest, and
was surprised when he introduced his wife!
That’s when I realized I was in an Anglican Church celebration. The
Rev.Axtell was very nice and told me that the Catholic priest would come from
Tehran and celebrate a Catholic Mass for us every other week.
John and Marcello enjoyed the new school and made
new friends. Thirteen-year-old Miriam
was the only one who was unhappy. She
did not like the place, the people, the strange language and customs. She missed her friends, her Middle School,
her neighborhood. She wanted to go
home. We started considering sending her
back to stay with our friends.
The Axtells introduced us to the British community,
mostly military Air Force advisors, and we went to eat hamburgers at the
Commons where the kids could frolic in the playground and the pool, and watch
movies.
I did accept the position of school librarian and
immediately I had a quite large budget to build the library from furniture to
book orders. I began to catalog the
books already there and set up story hours for the lower grades as well as
study and research hours for the high school kids.
Time rushed by fast, and during spring break we got
together with a British family who had bought an old two deck British bus and
outfitted it for camping. The two
families set out on the road south to visit the countryside en-route to the
Persian Gulf and Bandar Abbas.
We visited Persepolis, where the Shah Pahlavi had
been crowned, and marveled at the well preserved ruins of the ancient
site. John and I found out we had a new
interest – Archaeology – and marveled at all the digging sites, collecting pottery
shards and all kinds of marvelous relics.
Driving through the desert toward the Gulf was an
unforgettable experience; dehydrating
hot during the day, but rather cold during the night. Barren hills, rocky roads, sand. Once in a while sculptures carved into the
rocks -- Kings in battle armor, mythic
animals, horsemen. Riding through the
villages our bus would call the attention of bands of dusty kids who would run
after us shouting “Hello!!! How are
you? What time is it?”
At one stop for bathroom break, we lost Marcello from
view. He was found when we heard some
whimpering calls for help. He was stuck
on the barbed wire of a fence.
We finally got close to Ahwaz where we saw the
awesome flames of the gas and oil burn-off shooting up into the air. Iranian families were camping and pic-nicking
all over the place. Across the water was
the Shat-al-Arab from Kuwait and Iraq.
Petrol! Black gold, like the Beverly Hillbillies would call it, the
source of Iran’s wealth, and the envy of the world. The air was warmed by the flames, as we drove
by the seaside, and could see across the Persian Gulf the lights of Kuwait
City.
Colorful and exuberant, Ahwaz was a good break from
the monotony of the rocky desert. The
river, the beautiful bridges, trees and greenery, and tasty food, as well as
hospitable people made it one of our favorite cities in Iran.
Driving back to Shiraz we stopped several times at
archaeological digs around the countryside and had the opportunity to see how
the painstaking work of recovering artifacts from the rubble was done.
Coping with homesickness and depression
Miriam was one unhappy child. Surly and uncooperative, she was like a fish
out of the water. Nothing would cheer
her up. We were concerned.
One day one of Waldir’s students came over and
presented her with a squirming brown bag.
Gingerly she opened it to find a tiny kitten that immediately scampered
through the living room and hid under the sofa.
We named him Kourosh after Cyrus the Great. Kourosh grew up into a stunning velvety white
Persian, and brought great joy to the kids, especially Miriam.
I myself had my dark moments. This is the entry in my journal, October 30,
1974:
Once again I am writing on my journal, perhaps in an effort
to try to sort out my thoughts and feelings, and make some sense out the chaos
I find in my soul.
We’ve been in Iran for more than ten months now. The
greatest adventure that had thrilled me in the beginning has turned into the
most harrowing of nightmares. Like
Frost’s transplanted peach tree, the environment is killing me, destroying my
sensitivity, annihilating my creativity, to such an extent that I sometimes
wonder about my sanity. I can’t really
understand the feeling. I do try, but I
am unable to pinpoint the root of the discontent.
Is it the awesomeness of nature around here – brutal,
unconquerable environment defying the centuries of struggle for
domination?
Whatever it is, I find its presence in the air I breathe, in
the dryness of the soil I tread – a dryness that permeates my soul, and numbs
the depths of my psyche. I feel like a
grain of sand, whipped by the storm winds, who doesn’t know the meaning of its
existence, or where it’s headed in the maelstrom of this chaos. I feel the nausée of this alienation, this loss of touch with beauty, this
confrontation with the nakedness of the reality around me. I am afraid; I tremble in the most inward
recesses of my soul. I am totally lost
in this desert, inside and outside, and this alien feeling oppresses me.
I have gone through the dark night of the soul, many times,
and I have suffered the agonies of rebirth, but nothing compares with this
lonely voyage through nothingness.
Nothing is as brutal as this sense of evil, lurking in the
shadows that envelope me. Will I ever see
again the rays of sunshine through the thickening darkness?
November 1st
All Saints Day -- and
the clouds are finally blowing away. A
while ago, as I went out to buy bread, the moon was high in the dark
night. The moonlight surrounded me, as
if separated from the darkness – the moon alive in its beauty, its
peacefulness.
Yesterday, as the depression that encroached on me had come
to a critical climax, I had no escape but to fall on my knees, during some
precious minutes I had to myself (they’d become rather scarce) and cry for
help. My prayer was as dry as my parched
lips would allow. The tears burned in my
eyes, rather than fall. But I begged my
Lord to come to my help, and pull me out of the quagmire where I was slowly
sinking. What I had in my hands were the
Penitential Psalms, and David’s cry for help, from the depths of his own
despair, were my own most desperate cry.
“Do not take from me your Holy Spirit, Lord. Be near me in this most trying period of my
life! Let your Love be the balm, your Grace the living water to my parched
soul! Let me have the gift of faith once
again, my Lord, that simple, childish faith that brought me to you, as a humble
child. Let your Love bring to my soul
your heavenly Peace! Lead me out of this
valley of the shadow of death!”
And this morning at Mass, He was with me indeed. Once again, praising God with his angels and
his saints, the realization of his incommensurate love for us, for me, his
most unworthy child, brought tears of joy to my eyes. Not burning tears, though. Sweet tears, the kind that assures me that
not all is dead and lost within me as yet.
What should I say to my Beloved?
That I long for his divine presence?
That His love for me is more precious than this world’s
finest array of treasures and worldly glories?
That my love for Him is the only guiding force that will
bring me safely to everlasting peace and light?
I surrender into your arms, Beloved! Let your Love heal the festering wounds of my
soul.
November 3rd
Up and down my moods go.
I came home yesterday from work, stressed out and unhappy again, without
any real explanation.
I spent a few hours trying to fix my guitar, badly mangled
in the trip from hell. I thought it
could give me some pleasure, if we could sing together. But poor thing, it also is broken, like me,
like Colin Clout’s pipe. No matter what
I’d do to its strings, my fingers could not awake the magic chords, the
beautiful music we would make together before.
Discouraged, I filled out the tub, and tried to relax in the
warm water. But as I lay there, all
kinds of thoughts filled up my head. I
tried to feel the intensity of my dislike for this place, and it was
awful. I really thought I could have a
nervous breakdown, if I didn’t watch out.
Wrapping myself in a towel, I stepped out of the tub and headed for the
bedroom. Under the blankets, just lying
there, snuggled, I tried to pinpoint the reason for my distress.
I felt something in this place, something beyond alien,
something deeper than mere hostility. I
had the awful sensation of being face to face with Evil itself; evil lurking
everywhere – in the bare forbidding mountains that loom like walls of an
impregnable fortress, shutting out the rest of the world, transcending
comprehension.
It’s a terrible loneliness, mine! I have none who’d understand my inner
struggles. If only I could reach you, my God, like I had before? Do you catch my wavelength? Are we in the same channel? What if you
changed your plans and left us out here to our own devices, to wither away and
die of loneliness?
Look at us – we’ll soon destroy each other, and our
beautiful planet to boot, and then nothing will be left of your creation, and
the civilizations we built, ruined, and rebuilt, only to crash again in
ashes. This place you deigned to come
and visit, to show us how to live peacefully, it will be gone, Lord, and evil
will prevail. Nothing left but a dead
planet, like many others, lifeless, circling aimlessly forever, through the
indifferent universe.
Nobody cares, Lord.
Look at us! We don’t even have a
place to run away to anymore, a new world to start over. It’s all taken, all spoiled, all
finished. I hope you don’t give up on
us, entirely. Remember your mercy, your
promise to be with us to the end of the ages.
That night, a fierce sandstorm blew all night, terrifying,
whistling and scraping against our windows with ferocity. In the morning the landscape was covered in
sand, like brown snow.
Stranded at home, sand bound, I wrote a poem to the
mountains:
Mountains
Encircling me, like prehistoric monsters head to tail.
Undulating torsos bare and dry
Ancient
sentinels beneath the sky.
Rocks
Where even hardy furze
does wither
Bare hides buffeted by ice, and
wind, and sand.
Trembling
with the world’s first quickening
Burning,
freezing, melting, and rebuilding.
Whole
empires have treaded your barren dust
Their
glories flickering once to die again
Ignis fatuus in the marsh of human splendor.
Awesome hills!
I look at you and tremble
Mind
twisting in pains of unknown fears
I
want to reach to you with meager hands
To
touch your coldest rocks and understand
The
taunting enigma you’ve held
In your ageless memory, so clear.
Sphynx-like
You
claw with death-cold fangs
Spreading
over me your towering precipices
You
curse my arrogance, I know.
Greater
men have hewn out of your barren rocks
Mighty
cities, monuments to their own glory
that
lie now in ruined shambles.
Mountains
reminding
me
as
spires touch the golden clouds
that
eons ago you’d risen above the waters
covered
by all that’s sweet and pleasant.
Cedars
and pines,
grasses,
verdant pastures by flowing rivers
where
deer and lions roamed and birds nestled.
But
now
Raped
and razed,
burnt
and despoiled
you scorn my brazen dare.
Yet,
mountains,
when
the moonlight
bathes
your naked sights
in
bright veils of silver light
I
will climb your highest heights.
A Summer to Remember—the adventure continued
Knowing that we had almost 3 months of vacation in
the torrid Middle –East summer, Waldir decided that we’d go to Europe to buy a
car in Munich. And we had to go by bus,
so we’d get to know the western part of Iran, ride through Turkey, and take the
train from Istanbul to Munich. It was
well with us. Thus, on that sweltering
June morning, we were driven to the bus station and boarded the nicely
air-conditioned Iranian autobus to Istanbul.
I settled the kids in and got my window seat from which I could
contemplate the countryside. Taking
notes on my diary, my language waxed poetic:
We board the bus – Friends, Pepsis in order to stay
hydrated, farewells; the tremor of a tear in the good-byes.
My window opens toward a wild landscape of
mountains. Awesome mountains, built
layer upon layer, when the world was new, their naked saber teeth cutting
ragged edges in the steel grey sky. These rocks were torn from the flaming womb
of Earth when it was still being born in the cataclysmic birth pains of the
universe.
Like primeval beasts, they lie in petrified sleep
through eons, their tough dorsal bones blanching in the searing sun –
inclement, primeval sun scorching life out of trembling lizards, scurrying the
veiled cavalier in a cloud of dust.
The passenger in front of me does not like
mountains. He’s drawn the curtain
against the blazing landscape and turned up the volume of the piped in music
where a female voice wailed.
I dozed off, and when I woke up, the sun sank slowly
in a sea of golden dust. Twilight
smoothed down the lizard skin of mountains, as twilight brought out the
freshness of dew, the peacefulness of falling dark, to shepherd hands parched
by dust and heat, returning to shelter their restless sheep.
Only one little mountain hides the setting sun. It wears its rays like a golden cape and
stands there, like a holy mound, wrapped in gold, edged in onyx, ancient altar
to unknown golden gods who once dwelt in this desert.
I ride into this velvety darkness in hope, for I had
sat too long in the ashen dust of my desolation.
Let me borrow a sprinkle of gold from the setting
sun – I pray – a sliver of silver from the evening star. Let me be bathed in cool moonlight wearing
out the edges of my discontent.
We spent the night in Tabriz and set out the next
morning, crossing into Turkey where sunflowers stood in perfect rows, sleepy golden
heads bobbing in the morning’s breeze.
Awaking, they praise the sun god newly risen in their fields. Straight they stand, clapping their leafy
hands for joy.
Our road winds through multicolored mountains
following now the trail of the sparkling stream, through valleys pregnant with
grain. Sheep huddle together under
scrawny trees, a calf stumbles in the pasture, after its mother. An old man leans wearily on his pitchfork,
watching the bus roll by the golden piles of hay, while a woman tosses the
golden threads up over their heads.
I pursue your rainbow mountains, golden country – what might lie beyond the crest of the next hill?
I pursue your rainbow mountains, golden country – what might lie beyond the crest of the next hill?
Istanbul -- and the bus ride from hell
she lifts a million minarets like thin hands of a
multitude
reaching out, starved for truth’s manna.
Her tresses of golden hay are left behind,
twisting golden braids in the sunshine,
as she daintily lifts her sooty skirts
to poise a silver-slippered foot
on another continent.
We had made friends in the bus, a couple with two
kids, and together we searched for a place to stay. We planned to sightsee in the morning and buy
our train tickets to Europe. We ate a supper
of kabobs at the teeming bright bazaar and visited the Blue Mosque and Hagia
Sophia.
The next day, after a breakfast of sweet hot tea and
delicious pastries, we made our way to the train station. To our great dismay, no train tickets were
available for at least four days. As we
stood there, trying to decide what to do, a well-dressed young man approached
us, speaking almost perfect English.
“Are you going to Europe?” he inquired. As we responded in the affirmative, he
continued:
“And did you have problems getting train tickets?” Waldir answered that yes, we’d have to wait four days.
“If you don’t want to wait, I have the solution for you,” he said. “I happen to work for an autobus company that travels to Europe twice a week,” he said.
“The tickets are half the price of the train, and it’s a very comfortable, Mercedes-Benz air-conditioned coach. You’ll have one stop on the way, and will arrive in Munich in less than 24 hours.”
We were rather skeptical, but the young man insisted that it was a great deal, the bus would leave the next morning from the bus station, and he guaranteed we’d have no problems. In the end, we bought his tickets, paid half the fare, with the other half being due when we boarded. They’d send a taxi to pick us up in the morning to take us to the bus station.
The next morning we were all packed and ready to go,
waiting in the lobby by 10:00 a.m. as directed.
By 11:30 and no taxi, we were certain we had been duped and there’d be
no bus to Europe. Half an hour later a
van pulled up and a bearded man came in looking for us. That was our taxi. We were driven through the back streets –
where was the bus terminal? – and delivered to the basement of a house where
several men sat, drinking chai and smoking pipes. We were concerned, and asked the driver where
had he driven us, where was the bus. He
said the bus would pull up soon. This
was better than the hectic bus terminal, we were told.
The kids were restless and we were concerned, but in
another couple of hours the bus did pull up.
A Mercedes Benz indeed, but beat up, with cracked windshield, floor
covered with spat-out pistachio shells, and no toilet. We paid what we owed, simply because we
wanted to get to Europe as soon as possible.
The seats were soon filled with the men –
guest-workers obviously – bound for Germany.
The driver welcomed us in his broken English and Arabic, and assured us
that we’d stop in a couple of hours for dinner.
It was getting late in the afternoon.
We started off in silence through the streets and onto the thoroughfare
that I could see in the rather small tourist map I had bought in Istanbul. I looked forward to crossing the beautiful
bridge that linked the two horns of Turkey, but soon we exited and took another
road. All quiet on the bus. Our kids had fallen asleep from tiredness, as
it was getting darker outside. I called
the bus attendant.
“Where are we going?” I asked. “Why are we out of the main highway?”
“We’re taking a shortcut,” he answered in pretty good English. “To avoid the heavy trucks. We’ll be stopping for supper soon.”
I leaned against Waldir’s shoulder and dozed off. I woke up with the bounces of the bus on rough road. It was darker outside, as I craned my neck to look at the landscape we were traveling by. Poppy fields! I turned to Waldir:
“We’re on a bumpy road, through poppy fields!” I
said.
“Not good…” he responded.
“I need to go bathroom…” Miriam stated.
“Me too…” from Marcello.
“I’m hungry!” complained John.
“When are we stopping?” I asked the attendant.
“Soon,” he answered.
After a few minutes we stopped in the middle of
nowhere, surrounded by the poppy fields.
The attendant and driver got out.
I looked out the window and saw a big pile of watermelons being loaded
in the baggage compartment.
“Oh good,” I said to the kids. “They’ll give us watermelon snacks!”
We bumped back to the road and sped on. We finally arrived at the place where we
should find something to eat. No rest
stop on the highway, but a rather small canteen, with long tables and
benches. The ‘restrooms’ were
outside. Miriam and I stepped gingerly
into one -- the traditional smelly latrine on the ground, with places to put
your feet and crouch down. I knew Miriam
hated those things, but she really had to go.
The toilet had no roof, and when I looked up I saw a pair of eyes out of
a hooded head, looking down on us. The
bus attendant!
“Damn it!” I yelled. “Get out, you son of the devil!”
“Damn it!” I yelled. “Get out, you son of the devil!”
When we were done I saw him sitting at one of the
tables.
“You do that again and I’ll beat the hell out of
you!” I yelled.
“Me?” he said, innocently. “I didn’t do anything…” I turned to the driver:
“Me?” he said, innocently. “I didn’t do anything…” I turned to the driver:
“He was spying on us in the restroom!”
The driver shook his head, pretending not to
understand.
The fare was a thick stew of lamb and potatoes, or
sandwiches of flat bread and sliced lamb.
I ate bread and hummus with hot tea.
I hated lamb. The kids tried the
sandwiches. They were famished.
“Can we have some watermelon?” Marcello asked the driver.
“No watermelon...” he answered, surprised.
“So why did we get that big load of them?” I asked.
They looked at each other, puzzled.
“No watermelon, hanum.”
I was thirsty, but didn’t trust the water from the
jugs, so I drank more chai. The kids had
their Pepsis. It was going to be a long
night, I thought.
Miriam wanted to sit next to her dad, so I traded
seats with her – the aisle seat right behind the driver, obviously the only one
driving for the whole trip. I could see
the lighted road in front of us, and we were the only vehicle on the road. We kept going through the darkness until we
finally got to an exit and were back on the main highway D2. Company at last – trucks and cars zipped by
us. I tried to sleep, but had too much
chai. Passengers were asleep. We drove on, and the traffic thinned
out. I kept my eyes on the driver.
“Lord!” I prayed.
“I guess we’re trapped on this bus from hell… Please keep us safe. Send your holy angels to protect us! ” I started praying the rosary, counting the
beads on my fingers.
Whenever I’d see the driver dozing off I’d kick the
panel between us.
“Stay awake!” I shouted angrily. “I am watching you! We were really tricked into taking this bus
but we have kids here, and I want to arrive alive. So you stay alert!”
“You must be Greek!” he said, irritated.
“I certainly am.
My name is Heleni.” The Turks had
just lost the Cyprus war…
He spat on the floor.
In the middle of the night we arrived at the border
with Bulgaria. I told Waldir I was going
to say I needed to go to the restroom, and would go to the police and tell them
to check the bus for drug trafficking.
He said we’d never get to Munich if I did that. I said we could never get there alive,
anyway. Miriam and I made it to the
restrooms, and then I walked to a window where a border patrol guard tried to
understand what I wanted in German, French and English, to no avail. He finally called in someone who could
understand English. I told him about my
misgivings about the bus and the watermelon load. Explained about how we were misled into
buying their tickets; and that we had 5 kids on board who had no food, or water
to drink.
Suddenly the bus passengers were told to disembark,
and open all their luggage. Bags strewn all
over the ground were searched. Everybody
complied, and there was some concern. They didn’t search ours, though, but they
checked all passports and travel documents. I really didn’t know the word for
watermelon, and I couldn’t tell them to search the bus baggage compartment, as
I watched the search helplessly.
They hadn’t seen me talking to the border guards,
but Waldir was concerned about what would happen if they did find some
contraband. I’d hope they’d put us on
another less dangerous bus.
After a while, the border patrol liberated us to go
on, so we got back on our seats, and drove off
into the night, but this time the driver and his assistant were sobered
and quiet. I prayed, and kept watch, as
we drove through Bulgaria.
We crossed into Yugoslavia in the wee hours of the
morning. We’d been traveling almost 24 hours without stopping. I could hardly keep my eyes open, but I
fought to stay awake. As soon as we made
it through the border, and this time we weren’t stopped or searched, one could
see the relief on the demeanor of our driver and attendant. Most of the passengers, who had been sleeping
through it all, woke up and started chatting among themselves.
“We’ll stop soon for a
big breakfast!” the driver announced,
cheerfully.
We did so, at a roadside restaurant that seemed more
civilized, with tables, and servers, and plenty of good food. We’d clambered out of the bus, exhausted and
bleary-eyed, but the smell of coffee and nice pastries, milk and orange juice
for the kids, and the enthusiasm of the crew of two, gave us hope that we’d
finally arrive alive in German territory.
All I could see was that we seemed to be at a nice tourist area, near a
lake. I couldn’t tell the name of the
town.
After our repast we got back in the bus and cruised
through Yugoslavia as fast as we could.
Belgrade and Zagreb flew by and we crossed into Austria as in a
dream. When we made it to Innsbruck I told Waldir that -- God be praised – we’d
make it to Munich in a couple of hours.
We expected to be taken to the bus terminal in
Munich, but no, knowing the address of our hotel, our relieved driver dropped
us off at an intersection and pointed us in the direction of the hotel. We had to drag our luggage a couple of
blocks, but we found it. We had been
traveling, nonstop, for 36 hours.
I have only a foggy memory of that evening, but in
the morning of the next day I asked for directions to the nearest police
station. I had a complete description of
the bus, their license plate, the names of the driver and attendant and the
details of the trip, including the watermelon load. A very nice and polite young woman detective
greeted us and I asked if she understood English. She asked if I spoke German. I told her about my meager vocabulary
acquired in college classes. She said to
try. So I proceeded to describe our
ordeal as well as I could. When I had
finished, she talked back to us in perfect English! At my surprise, she just said that I did
well, and I just needed to practice more, while in Germany.
“You are very lucky,” she said. “We are very aware of these traffickers, of humans
and drugs. Under the cover of the gast-werkers, they bring loads of opium
and other drugs into Europe. It’s to
their advantage to have innocent passengers like you all, especially with
kids. You were very brave to keep a
record of everything, this will help us to try and hunt them down.”
She kindly gave us some information about the best
places to go look for a car to buy, and wished us a nice stay in Europe and a
much nicer trip back to Iran.
The very next day we bought a car, from a very nice
young couple – a VW Squareback – exactly what we needed. Then we proceeded to a sports store and
bought a tent and all the camping equipment we needed and we were free to go
into our next adventure – the trip back to Iran – but not before we toured as
many places as we could on our way.
Traipsing through Germany, Austria, and East Europe
The German campgrounds were wonderful as we settled
in Munich’s Kampingplatz Thalkirchen by the Isar River and toured the Zoo, the Deutsches Museum,
Marienplatz, and all the beautiful churches we came across. Dachau was sobering, as the kids learned
about the horrors of the Holocaust, but it
was wonderful to be back in civilization even as we made our way through the Black
Forest to Nuremberg, since I wanted to go to Chekoslovakia to show Marcello
where his ancestors came from. We tried
to cross the border at Torflohe but were greeted by border patrol guards with
machine guns who, after searching our passports, were thrilled to see Brazilians, because of
soccer and Pelé, but not pleased that we did not have visas.
“Need visa,” the nicest one told us. “No visa, no Chekoslovakia. You go to Vienna, get visa, then come back.”
So we drove south again. It was late, and raining, and we tried to
find a Gasthaus somewhere down the road.
We saw a nice one, a Heidi gingerbread kind, and went up to find out if
they had room. They did, but when we
said we had three kids, the rotund owner, decked in Schwarz Wald costume, told
us “kein Kindern!” He had a brand new
Gasthaus, and kids were trouble, and destructive. He would not believe our kids were older and
well behaved. We left,
disappointed. Since it was getting dark,
we came upon a rather nice rest stop and I suggested we just stop there and
sleep in the car. The rain had stopped,
so John and Marcello took out their sleeping bags and settled on the grassy
knoll. We were tired enough that we
didn’t mind the car seats. Miriam curled
up in the back.
We woke up in the morning with the noise of
garrulous old ladies who had come out of a tourist van and were peering at us,
while commenting, amusedly:
“Look! Isn’t
it wonderful? That’s how the Germans
travel! Look at those cute boys sleeping
on the grass, in their bags!”
We pretended not to notice that they were all Americans. Thankful that we had no rain, we set off for
Vienna, Austria, through the breathtaking beauty of the Bayerische Wald and the
Danube River valley, hoping that we’d
make it to the Czech Embassy before the weekend. We did, and turned in our passports, but were
told that we had to return on Monday to pick up our visas. Thus we had time to explore Vienna on the
weekend. We had no problem finding a
campground, right across the Danube. We wandered around the Innere Stadt,
enjoying the music in the Parks, the art in the Museum, the delicious food, pastries,
and hot chocolate, connecting the dots to the things we had learned about the
history, and the famous artists, writers, and composers we loved. I promptly fell in love with Vienna; Miriam
with the Austrian good-looking boys.
Early that Monday we got our visas and set off to
Prague. This time we had no problems at
the border, except for having our car and luggage thoroughly searched. Perhaps most for curiosity, as one of the
female border patrol handled some of Miriam’s belongings, admiringly, such as her round radio hanging from a chain.
The countryside of rolling hills and verdant
pastures was unremarkable, as we drove by quaint villages past Brno and on to
Prague. It was early afternoon when we
parked downtown and looked around, marveling at the golden town, rather
deserted. I wondered at the lack of
stores, even for souvenirs, the only displays at the windows being of food. We were experiencing the way of life in a
Communist country. We finally found a
tourist information booth where we got maps, postcards, and directions to a
good place to go with the kids. We were
told to drive to Vysehrad where we could
visit the castle and stroll in the park.
It was indeed a good choice, as the kids loved the castle, whose
medieval owners were avid hunters and the whole place was covered with hunting
trophies. We feasted on bratwurst
hotdogs, beer and sodas.
After watching the sunset light up the golden city
like a gigantic castle, we drove off to
camp by the Vitava River. We pitched our
tent at the recommended site, and were pleased by the cleanliness of everything
in the campsite, such as restrooms, and the communal kitchen where we could
cook our soup.
“So Marcello, you can be proud of where your
grandparents came from. Perhaps when you
grow up you can come and stay for a few days and tour the countryside,” I said
to my adopted son.
He was too tired and sleepy, as he nestled next to
me.
We sat down with our maps the next morning and took
stock of our vacation days. It was
almost the end of August and we needed to be back in Iran by September. We drove south again to Vienna, Zagreb,
Belgrade and Sofia.
We enjoyed driving through Bulgaria’s countryside,
the roads flanked by fruit orchards. We
could just pick tasty apples off the ground by the roadside. We found a campground, rustic, but
clean. I only had some trouble finding
some milk for the kids. Although we’d
seen plenty of cows, there were no food stores.
I finally found a small one, down the road. I went in and tried to explain what I needed,
in German, French, and English. The
woman behind the counter could not understand.
I finally fished a pen and paper from my purse and drew a cow with
udders dripping.
“Ahhh…” she said, and went in the back, returning
with a bottle of milk, which, back at the campsite, the kids rated as the best
tasting one they had drunk in a long time.
We soon crossed into Turkey on the way to
Ankara. We had been warned of the perils
of the Turkish roads, where droves of kids roamed by the roadside, begging for
cigarettes. If the tourists didn’t
comply, you’d run the risk of having your windshield cracked by thrown rocks. We noticed that the British Land Rovers were
all well protected by wire mesh on the windows, but our VW was
unprotected. We were also warned not to
stop except in urban centers or gas stations.
We bought lots of cigarettes and John and Marcello
were given the job of throwing them out the window to the kids. John had the brilliant idea of packing the
cigarettes with the heads of matches so they’d flare up when lighted… Hopefully nobody got seriously burnt! I just hoped some of the kids would lose interest
in cigarettes.
The road to Iran had been recently resurfaced, so we
had no road hazards. We made it to
Tabriz in a couple of days, traveling all day and taking turns driving. We had made it, safely and economically
within our budget.
Back to Shiraz I resumed my job as the International
School’s librarian, enrolled in the Master’s degree program at Pahlavi
University in English Literature and Linguistics, and continued to teach
English at the Iran-America Society in the evening. No chance for depression or
homesickness. The kids were doing
relatively well in school. Miriam had
made new friends and stopped talking about going back to Auburn. Marcello was his hyperactive self, riding his
bike all over the neighborhood, and learning Farsi quickly with the Persian
kids.
John was a little bored at school, so we enrolled
him on Mr. Axtell’s tutoring program to work on his British O-levels. He learned all there was to be known about
Britain’s history, as well as advanced Algebra.
Waldir was doing well, beloved by his students, and
going places now that we had a car.
As for church, we suddenly were deluged with 300
Catholic families from Baltimore, Maryland, who had come to work for the new
Westinghouse and Bell Helicopter plants.
In a few weeks we had rented an apartment to serve as our new community
church, and brought in a resident priest who celebrated liturgies and provided
spiritual direction. We started CCD
classes for the kids, preparation for First Communion and Confirmation.
Westinghouse provided a Community Center where the
kids could go watch TV, movies, play sports, and swim. As a home away from home, Shiraz could not
have been better.
My interest in Middle East history and Archaeology
grew as I was fond of going to lectures at the University and forays to
archaeology digs in the areas. I also enjoyed
reading the Sufi poets and philosophers, especially Hafiz and Saadi, held as
saints by the Persians, and whose beautiful garden tombs were sacred sites
where one could stroll and meditate.
The only area I avoided dealing with was Islam. Reading the Koran did nothing for me, and
thus I avoided getting into the tenets of Mohammed’s religion. Jesus, the Son of God, continued to be all I
desired and wanted to know about. But I
did get very interested in Judaism and Israel.
A holy desire to go visit the Holy Land grew in my heart, and when
Spring break came around, I proposed that we travel to Israel. Waldir could not go because of his research
projects, Miriam was scared because of the wars and terrorism, Marcello was too
young to care, but John, my faithful travel companion, said he’d certainly go.
To leave Iran with my child I had to have my
husband’s full blessing, with all kinds of protocols and paperwork, but we got it all done, and thus began one of
the most spectacular and inspiring voyage of our lives.
ISRAEL – Past and Present – in Less than 5 Dollars a Day
It had been a long, cold winter, the second of our stay in Iran, and I still felt like Robert Frost’s transplanted peach tree – unable to grow any roots in that barren soil. For fourteen-year-old John, the chance of a vacation in Israel was like a reprieve from that self-inflicted exile, and a reward for his good work in school.
After getting through El-Al’s strict security, we
settled exhausted in our seats, and gave a sigh of relief as we taxied off. It didn’t take long, or so it seemed, for the
747 to start descending serenely through the wisps of cloud, the captain’s voice informing us that we would
be landing in Tel-Aviv in about ten minutes.
The passengers craned their necks, eagerly, toward the windows, tugging
at seat belts, to catch a glimpse of the city below. Suddenly, the soft music coming through the
intercom turned into the rousing chords of Hava Nagilla. Soon everyone joined in, singing and clapping
as the patches of green fields sped by below, and we approached Ben Gurion
Airport. We too joined in the joyous
Hallelujahs and it was like coming home again – the emotion of our companions
was contagious! Tel-Aviv shone in the
sun, flanked by green fields on one side, and the deep blue of the
Mediterranean on the other.
At the airport we had a little trouble shaking off
the over-eager taxi drivers who wanted to take us to the Hilton. They had trouble being convinced that we
weren’t rich Iranians, or American tourists, that my “fur” coat was really
fake, and that all we wanted was to go to our cheap hotel, away from the
glitter of downtown. We finally chose a
condescending driver (or he did find us) and with the help of Tourist
Information we found one hotel that wasn’t over-priced.
We settled in with reams of leaflets and brochures
from Tourist Information, but in a couple of hours we had decided that hotels
and tours weren’t freeing enough for us,
and if we really wanted to see as much of the country as possible in fifteen
days, we would have to rent a car. That
would take about one third of our budget I explained to John, so would we be
able to survive on the rest? We’d have
to give up good meals in restaurants, sleeping in soft hotel beds, and other
amenities, really roughing it. We
considered the matter carefully as we strolled next morning through Tel-Aviv’s
downtown area, and got acquainted with its people.
Our first impression was not of a nation just out of
a crushing attack at the Golan Heights, or stooping under a long drawn out war
with its neighbors. We saw the joy of
freedom and the pride of achievement in the eyes and the expression of everyone
we met. “How do you like Israel?” and behind
the stereotypical question, we could read the comments: “Isn’t this wonderful? See what we have accomplished?” as we
strolled through streets lined with sidewalk cafés, where young and old people
sat and talked loudly. European-style stores
and boutiques opened their doors, offering all sorts of merchandise – mostly
Israeli-made
We climbed to the top floor of Shalom Tower for a
splendid view of the city, aware now of the threat that hung in the air –
terrorist attacks – when our bags and packages were searched by security guards
posted at the entrance of every shopping mall, and public place. People had grown accustomed to this, and were
very conscientious about their security.
By nightfall we had decided to take our chances and
rent a car. The man from Hertz – having
the most competitive prices and economical cars – put me in the driver’s seat
of a brand-new Ford Cortina, assembled in Israel, and we took off under the
bright blue sky of that Sunday morning, breathing air salty with sea-smell, to
discover the glories of the past and the achievements of the present, feeling
elated by the adventure we had embarked in.
Riding Out in Faith
We backtracked first to old Jaffa, ancient Egyptian
and Canaanite port-city from which Jonah had sailed for his encounter with the
whale. Here too Jesus’ first disciples,
Peter and Andrew were called to leave their fishing boats and follow him. There, at lunch, we ate our first falafel,
which is to Israelis what hamburger was to us.
Fried cakes – made of mashed chickpeas, mixed with chopped onions,
garlic, parsley, coriander, salt, and pepper – stuffed into a flat, round roll; chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles, and
sometimes even coleslaw, give the finishing touches. Pour hot tahini sauce over the whole thing,
and you’ve got a meal tastier than a taco and more nutritious than a Big Mac
for less than one dollar.
The highway connecting Tel-Aviv to Haifa runs
parallel to the Mediterranean through modern towns like Netanya, basking in the
sun of what is called the Israeli Riviera.
In the middle of March we could already go for a swim along stretches of
white sandy beaches, bordering fancy neighborhoods.
From there on, the countryside becomes hilly and
increasingly green, covered with forests.
We reached Haifa late in the afternoon, after visiting Mount Carmel,
where the prophet Elijah lived in a cave still preserved under the dome of a
beautiful church dedicated to Our Lady.
We wanted to make it to Akko (the famous Acco of the Crusaders) before
dark, but we had to linger for a while in the restful Persian gardens of the
Bahai Temple. The aroma of pine, salvia,
thyme, and jasmine wafted up in the crisp afternoon breeze, and blended with
the laughter of a wedding party on the lawn.
We reached Akko at sunset, and -- strolling by the ancient battlements
in the seashore -- we dreamed of knights and ladies fair, in pursuit of the
Holy Grail. We tried not to think of the
bloody battles and the casualties on both sides.
We bought some dark bread, milk, peanut butter,
oranges, and a can of tuna, and drove up the mountain in search of a place to
spend the night. It is a busy road, the
one connecting Haifa to Kuneitra on the Golan Heights, and military trucks and
tanks chugged continuously up and down the steep, winding hill. We made it to the observation point atop the
mountain at sunset, and gasped at the magnificent view below us of Akko and
Haifa, 24 kilometers away. The city
shone brightly, cradled in the bay, the sunset enveloping everything in golden
hues.
This was a nice rest stop, with restrooms and a
grassy area, a perfect spot to spend the night, so after our frugal dinner, we
crawled inside our sleeping bags and tried to rest our now weary bones, tired
but satisfied – it had been a perfect first day, and we had spent less than 5
dollars!
The heavy traffic kept me awake for a while, but
soon exhaustion overcame the noise and I fell asleep, watching the stars
shining through the windshield. Suddenly
I woke up with someone tapping on the side window. I sat up, cracked the window, and saw a male
soldier standing with a couple of other comrades, looking in. He inquired what we were doing parked there,
in Hebrew. I asked if he spoke
English. He said he did, so I said that
we were resting, sleeping, before going on our journey.
“American?” he asked. I said yes, and he conferred with his
comrades.
“But this is an uncomfortable, dangerous place for a
woman to be sleeping!” he commented.
“It’s OK,” I said.
“I’m not alone. My son is
sleeping in the back seat.” I didn’t
mention that the son was 14 years old.
He looked in the back, at the still sleeping John.
“We’re still concerned with your safety,” he
said. “If you’d like, I can take you
guys to my mother’s house, just down the road, and she’d be glad to put you up
for the night…”
“Thank you so much, but we’ll be all right. We’re used to traveling like this, and we
want to go on to Jerusalem really early in the morning.”
“All right, then, but be very careful. Do not open your door to anyone, and if you
feel threatened, honk your horn, put your warning lights on, and yell for
help. The soldiers in the road will come
to the rescue.”
I thanked him, they left, and I went back to
sleep. Birds woke me up at the first light
of dawn. I got up, stretched my cramped
legs, and looked around. We were high
indeed –1,500 feet above sea level, according to a poster, and we could see as
far as Tel-Aviv. The plain of Zebulon
stretched for miles below us, as far as the eye could see. We were in the Galilean hills, covered with
forests and blooming with all kinds of wild flowers.
At the picnic table, still moist with dew, we ate
some of our bread with the milk, said our morning prayer, ate an orange each, and
before 5 a.m. we started out, hoping to see a lot of the northern countryside
that second day. The cruel reality of
war was inevitable, contrasting with the peacefulness of those hills. All along the road we would see groups of
soldiers, in full military gear, carrying machine guns, heavy rifles. And the charred remains of tanks and trucks
reminded us that not too long ago a full-scale war had raged in those
hills. We found it strange that the
soldiers were asking for rides from the civilian drivers coming down the road. One billboard on the right-of-way read: “Driver, have you given a soldier a lift
today? ” We obliged, and soon had a
carload of weary soldiers riding with us in their heavy boots and their
automatic weapons. John was thrilled,
and chatted with the ones who could speak English.
Hazor and the Kibbutz experience
Our soldiers were on their way to the Golan Heights;
security had been increased along the border with Syria. Passover was coming, and the Israelis knew
only too well that a time for rejoicing is also a time for watching; they kept
us up on the latest news, and again reminded us to be careful, always on the
alert for terrorists. We arrived in
Hazor, one of the oldest Canaanite towns, before 7 a.m. Hazor had been at one time the capital of the
Canaanite kingdom and later King Solomon’s royal city. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the
remains of that city is the underground water system.
We descended 130 feet below sea-level to a tunnel that led to the water source outside the city walls. In times of siege, those water systems meant the survival of the city’s inhabitants.
We descended 130 feet below sea-level to a tunnel that led to the water source outside the city walls. In times of siege, those water systems meant the survival of the city’s inhabitants.
Contrasting
with the ruins in the National Park, Tel-Hatzor is the new, modern museum, built
with the patronage of an American Jewish couple -- Ayala and Sam Zacks in 1966. The exhibits show findings uncovered during
the Tel-Hatzor’s archaeological excavations of the 1950s.
As we waited for the museum to open,
the caretaker asked me something in Hebrew.
When I stated my ignorance of the language, he rebuked me in perfect
English:
“For shame! Don’t you say your
prayers? Every Jew who says his prayers
will know enough Hebrew to get along in his own country!”
“I don’t doubt it. Trouble is – I’m not Jewish.”
He was surprised: “You look Jewish…”
“I am starting to feel like a Jew!” Perhaps centuries ago in Portugal, one of my
ancestors was forced into conversion to Christianity, or perhaps did it
willingly. It’s known that names of
trees and animals were used as last names to baptize these new converts. My maiden name is one of those: Pinheiro or, pine tree.”
“Poor Jewish people!” he sighed as
he shook his head sadly. “Persecuted,
tortured, murdered, converted, slaughtered, and denied a homeland…”
He recommended that we have
breakfast at the Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar, and sold us a
card that entitled us to visit every State, National Park, and Monument in
Israel. It cost us fifty cents. Without the card we had already paid that
much in entrance fees! When we finished
looking at the exhibits --
finds
from the site and explanation of its history, as well as a model of ancient Tel-Hatzor, we did as he’d
told us and headed for the kibbutz. We
were starved by then.
I
had heard of kibbutzim before, but thought of them in terms of the 1950s shabby
farms with makeshift buildings, put up in haste to house the returning Jews who
had to live there and rough it, farming the land. We drove up to the guest house, through wheat
and corn fields, and vegetable plots, all emerald green. The work day was already in progress. Crops were being dusted by airplanes, cows
milked in brand-new, shining-with-stainless-steel stalls, and more ground was
being prepared for planting by modern tractors.
The guest house was an impressive building, with picture windows all
around, surrounded by well-kept gardens blooming with exquisite plants and
flowers. We walked into the immense dining hall. Tables were littered with the debris of
breakfast. Young men and women laughed
and sang, as they cleaned up. We found a
clean table, and soon they began bringing the food: olives, pickles, fresh vegetable salad,
smoked salmon, rolls, fresh butter, jellies, yogurt, cheeses, coffee, tea, and
milk, scrambled eggs, all fresh and delicious.
We stared at the profusion with disbelief, as through my mind ran the
words of the prophets about how God would bring them back to a land flowing
with milk and honey, where they would eat and be satisfied. So we ate as much as our hollow stomachs
would support, and I was amazed when the man at the cash register told me two
dollars for both of us.
Galilean Spring
It
was with a spirit of reverence, awe, and wonder that we took the road south,
toward the Sea of Galilee. This was now
for us holy ground; we couldn’t stop thinking that we were now following in
Jesus’ footsteps. We came upon the Mount
of Beatitudes first – a beautiful church commanding a view of the plains and
lake – its blueness enveloped still in the morning mists. By the lakeshore there is a place called
Tabgha, with a simple Franciscan church covering the rock where Jesus is said
to have stood after his resurrection, and where he fed a multitude with a basketful
of bread and fish. The ancient Byzantine
mosaic floor in the chapel depicts the two fishes and five loaves. The mystical peacefulness of the place took
hold of us. We were absolutely alone,
and speechless with emotion. We could
almost hear the voice of Rabbi Yeshua calling the poor, the peace-makers, the
merciful -- blessed. Pointing to all
those beautiful flowers that even now bloomed all over the tender green grass
to remind us how God provides for his creation and his little ones
We
arrived in Nazareth in the middle of the afternoon, and suddenly everything
changed. This now was Palestine. The faces in the street, the peacefulness of
the fields, and even the civilized rush of Tel-Aviv and Haifa changed to the
loudness of voices speaking a different language; brown-skinned children ran barefoot through
dusty streets amidst donkeys, chickens, and sheep; men wearing caftans and
headdress; veiled women – it was like being back in Iran. We rushed through the Church of the
Annunciation where a guide tried to convince us to go eat shish kabob with him.
Annunciation where a guide tried to convince us to go eat shish kabob with him.
Instead,
we visited Mary’s well and climbed one of the hills to see that breathtaking
view on our own. The city lay cradled in
the hills, the plain of Esdraelon stretching all the way to Mount Tabor, before
our eyes. Just like in the Bible. Woolly sheep munched on the soft new grass,
sprinkled with flowers. We thought of
the young Miriam of Nazareth, standing on the hillside, tending the sheep, as
the sun sank in the horizon, startled at an angel appearing before her with a
greeting – Hail Mary, full of grace!
Back in town we also thought of a young child running barefoot through
the dusty alleys, laughing and shouting like the town’s children.
By
this time we had already filled our gas tank twice, each fill-up taking a
considerable bite from our budget. Of
all the nations enduring the hardship of the Arab oil embargo, Israel was, of
course, suffering the most. One dealer
told us that all the oil pumped out of the Sinai wells was being sent to Europe
– Israel needed the money badly. So the
people just had to walk more; with the
price of gas at two dollars a liter, most people had no choice. Thus I was becoming a little concerned about
our fast-shrinking traveler’s checkbook.
Our stomachs grumbled for a full meal, and I was beginning to long for a
hot bath and a good night’s sleep on a comfortable bed. In this not so bright a mood we drove south
of Nazareth, toward Beit-Shean.
Youth-Hosteling
It
was then that we decided to try the Youth hostels. The woman at the Ministry of Tourism in
Tel-Aviv had told us about them, but I was reluctant to try. I knew that in the U.S. and Europe only
students under 25 years old could stay in hostels. Although I was a student, with a university
card, I was certainly way past the age limit.
But then it was getting dark, and we were hungry, and the area was
getting less populated – this was the Jordan Valley, lusciously green and
amazingly beautiful in early spring. We
were also close to the Jordanian border, where trouble frequently
occurred. We followed the signs for the
Maayan Harod Hostel, and finally got there just before dark. It was in a national park, one of King
Herod’s resorts, where he and his court came to relax in pools heated by hot
mineral springs.
Now a band of noisy young people – obviously some school on holiday – romped on the grassy slopes and splashed in the pools. We finally found the hostel’s guardian. He was a tough-looking fellow, who spoke only Hebrew and French, and the first thing I noticed was the .45 he wore conspicuously at his belt. When we inquired if we could spend the night at the hostel, he simply asked for our passports, handed us a key and some bedclothes, and pointed to a low building near the park’s entrance. The room was furnished with eight bunkbeds. We made ours and walked over to the dining hall, as instructed. Dinner – all we could eat of a hearty stew made of fresh root vegetables and tasty chunks of meat, served with all the brown whole wheat bread we could eat, plus orange juice to drink, cost $4 for both of us, and the price of the beds -- $5 – included breakfast the next day. Not bad, for we were truly famished – all we had eaten all day was some fruit bought at the Nazareth’s bazaar. On the way to the dining hall we noticed the first signs of the strictly enforced security we would find from then on. All the workers wore guns, and signs warned guests to beware of any packages left unattended, suspicious or not.
Now a band of noisy young people – obviously some school on holiday – romped on the grassy slopes and splashed in the pools. We finally found the hostel’s guardian. He was a tough-looking fellow, who spoke only Hebrew and French, and the first thing I noticed was the .45 he wore conspicuously at his belt. When we inquired if we could spend the night at the hostel, he simply asked for our passports, handed us a key and some bedclothes, and pointed to a low building near the park’s entrance. The room was furnished with eight bunkbeds. We made ours and walked over to the dining hall, as instructed. Dinner – all we could eat of a hearty stew made of fresh root vegetables and tasty chunks of meat, served with all the brown whole wheat bread we could eat, plus orange juice to drink, cost $4 for both of us, and the price of the beds -- $5 – included breakfast the next day. Not bad, for we were truly famished – all we had eaten all day was some fruit bought at the Nazareth’s bazaar. On the way to the dining hall we noticed the first signs of the strictly enforced security we would find from then on. All the workers wore guns, and signs warned guests to beware of any packages left unattended, suspicious or not.
After
nice hot showers, we crashed on our bunkbeds and slept soundly until the bright
sun shining through the windows woke us up.
After a hearty breakfast the next morning, we left for Beit-Shean, a
city that has been inhabited for over 6,000 years. Here the bodies of King Saul and his sons had
hung from the walls. The magnificent
remains of the Roman theatre must be one of the best preserved in the
world. Beit-Shean was once wealthy Scythopolis,
on the trade route of the East, one of the ten cities of the Decapolis. We climbed the mountain-like mound, or tel,
to see the ruins of the Canaanite and Israelite town at the top. The view was breathtaking – if one still had
breath to be taken after the climb.
Sprinkled with yellow flowers, the grassy slopes fell precipitously
toward the valley, as the cool rapids below cascaded down toward the
Jordan. The only incongruous sight was
the ever-present machine guns of the soldiers.
Meggido
rises spectacularly out of the plain of Esdraelon. An archaeological wonder – twenty different
historical periods, from 4,000 B.C. to 400 B.C., were brought to light during
the Rockefeller Foundation financed excavations, between 1925 and 1939. Being situated in a strategic position,
astride the great road from Egypt to Syria and Mesopotamia, it was the scene of
mighty battles throughout history, right up to the First World War. According to the prophecies in Revelation, it
is here that the great final battle of Armageddon (a corruption of the Hebrew Har and Megiddo) will take place.
With the overwhelming sense that I was touching and trampling on the
history of humanity, I limped on my now blistered feet through the magnificent
halls of King Solomon’s fortified chariot-city and the remains of Hyksos and
the Canaanite cities.
The Good Samaritan Rerun
And
then we had to drive through Samaria – where one felt a lot less secure than in
the Israeli-settled part of the country.
Where indeed, from time immemorial, the Jews traveling to Jerusalem had
been fearful for their lives. I
remembered the story of James and John asking Jesus to send fire down from
heaven to consume the inhospitable Samaritans; and the heartwarming episode of
Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman, asking her for a drink from the well; and here
we strangely and marvelously relived the parable of the Good Samaritan.
We
stopped at Sebaste for a quick lunch, and then kept driving on down to Nablus,
ancient capital of Samaria, where I planned to find an emergency clinic to get
treatment for some badly infected blisters which by that time had left me
almost unable to walk. At the gas
station where we filled up, I got directions to the local hospital, but somehow
I missed it at the top of a long hill.
Feverish and in pain, I tried to ask for directions, but nobody
understood English, French, or
German. Even my reduced Hebrew
vocabulary found no response. I turned
around and said to John:
“This
is not good. We really need help. Only the Lord can help us here. Let’s return to the gas station. Pray!”
At
that moment, a gentleman came across the road.
I must have looked at him piteously, because he walked up to my window
and asked, in perfect English:
“May
I help you?”
I
sighed with relief and explained my situation, how I had gotten in the present
condition, and he was immediately sympathetic and kindly offered to ride with
us to the hospital’s emergency room where he’d try to find one of the doctors
who was his friend. The doctor came out
immediately, and looked at my infected and badly swollen foot. My Good Samaritan, Mr. Marbruk, and the doctor,
got me to lie down on a stretcher, and the two of them disappeared for what
seemed long minutes. I looked at John,
worried, but then they came back and Mr. Mabruk explained that this was a
Friday, a holy day, and with the exception of real emergencies, everything was
locked down, and they were having trouble finding some anesthetic for my
foot. I affirmed that I was in such
pain, that whatever they had to do to clean the blisters would not cause any greater
suffering. The doctor started the procedure
then, while Mr. Marbruk stayed at my side, and held my hand, throughout the
whole ordeal of having the festering blisters lanced, cleaned, and dressed.
Because
I was a tourist, I didn’t have to pay anything, not even for the antibiotics,
and Mr. Marbruk insisted that we drive to his house and rest before we went on
our way. There I met his lovely wife and
daughters, who settled us in comfortable chairs in their beautiful garden where
we were served tea, and cake, cookies, nuts, orange juice, and all sorts of
sweets. We chatted about our adventurous
trek through the country, the women astounded at my courage to be driving alone
with a teenager, and about Arab-Israeli relations, and the history of Nablus.
“We
do our best to co-exist with the Israeli occupiers,” Mr. Marbruk told us. “If we are civil toward one another we have
no problems. But then there are the
troublemakers.”
Mrs.
Marbruk insisted that we spend the night with them, but I explained that I was
anxious to get to Jerusalem, where I dreamed of arriving on Palm Sunday. We thanked them profusely, promising to
write, as Mr. Marbruk warned me about the dangers of stopping on the road, and
not to trust hotels in the region, to try and get as close to Jerusalem as
possible.
“If
you do have to stop, look for a police station.
Stay in your car.” We all hugged
and kissed, and we departed. I was more
than a little choked up, as I asked John if he understood what Jesus, with the
Marbruks help, had done for us.
“Healed
your foot?”
“Well,
not yet. Do you remember the parable of
the Good Samaritan?”
“Yep. Well, I guess we were the actors in this
one?”
“You
bet. Above all God wants to remind us
not to discriminate against people, whether they are Jewish, Palestinian,
Christian, Moslem, black or white. We
are all travelers on the road and we should always look after each other, as
the Marbruks did for us.”
“Amen!”
he said, smiling. “But we can discriminate against bad people, like the ones
that didn’t help in the story?”
“Maybe…but
even them might have had a reason not to stop and help. Maybe they were too busy, or overzealous not to break any rules.”
"But love is the greatest rule, right?"
"You're a wise young man, son!"
"But love is the greatest rule, right?"
"You're a wise young man, son!"
We
had about three hours of daylight left, and with luck we would have made it to
Jerusalem, but the road was curvy and busy, my foot throbbed, and a light rain
began to fall. We arrived in Ramallah at
night, and I told John that I could go no further. I still had a fever, and my head hurt. But where could we stay? There were no hostels. We came upon the local police station. There were two military trucks full of
soldiers and machine guns, and even a tank in front of it. I asked if anyone spoke English. One of the soldiers came forward. He had a New York accent.
“Is
there a place around here we can spend the night?” I asked.
“Are
you tourists?”
“Yeah…”
I answered.
He
scratched his head. "Well,
there’s a hotel downtown, if you want to take the chances…”
“What do you mean -- take the chances?”
“This
is a troublesome area, bad things happen around here all the time. You know – bombs,
hostages, things like that.”
hostages, things like that.”
“Oh
wow! Any other suggestions?”
“I
suggest you go on to Jerusalem. On the
other hand, stay around, I’ll be off duty at midnight, we’ll go into town, eat
a shish kabob, have a few drinks, and talk until morning.”
“What
fun! But I really cannot.” I showed him
my bandaged foot and explained my health problem, and how I didn’t feel very
well. I said I’d rather park the car and
sleep in it. He then escorted me inside where
he introduced me to the Palestinian officer in charge of the station, who also
spoke English well. I asked permission
to park in the parking lot and spend the night there. He found it very strange that I’d want to do
that, when there was a very good hotel downtown.
“The
trouble is, we don’t have too much money.
I’d rather sleep in the car and go to Jerusalem early in the morning,” I
explained.
He
showed concern for my hurt foot. I
suppose I looked rather tired and bedraggled.
I assured him that I’d be all right.
“You
shouldn’t trust these Israeli soldiers.
They’re no good. Just no good.”
“I’ll
lock the doors.”
He thought for a while, and then went to speak with the police chief. He bade me to sit down, and disappeared across the street. After a while he returned.
“Turn
your car around, and park in front of the station. Then you guys come with me. I found you a place to spend the night where
you can be more comfortable.”
He
took us to a house across the street. We
climbed the wooden staircase to the top floor, where a young man met us. They talked in Arabic, and then we were shown
into a room with two beds. The place
looked like a rooming house, or a pension.
In the living room a TV was showing a western movie.
“Is
it good?” the captain asked about the room.
“It’s
great, but how much will it cost?”
“Don’t
worry about that,” he said, and I saw him slip the young man some money.
“Please
let me pay you back,” I asked, when John and Yasser, the young man, had gone
down to get our belongings.
“Listen
– Ramallah is my country. I am proud to
have you here as my guests. When you get
to Jerusalem tomorrow, say a prayer for me, for all of us here. Do you want anything to eat? Some tea?”
“Tea
would be great.” I had tears in my eyes.
When
the boys came back, he helped carry our sleeping bags and clothes inside the
room and told Yasser to bring us tea, milk, anything we might want. Then he wished us good-night, and warned:
“Lock your door before you go to sleep.”
He
left, and soon Yasser brought the little cups of tea on a tray. We ate jelly,
peanut butter, and crackers we had brought from Iran, and stretched our
sleeping bags on top of the not-so-clean bedding. We fell into a deep sleep in no time.
Yasser
took some time to ask us about America in the morning. Like so many young men in that part of the
world, he dreamed of one day going to America to study, or to work and get
rich. He told us his father had
emigrated to Brazil, and being the oldest, he had to take care of his mother
and sisters. He gave me his father’s
address in Brazil, and asked me to write to him and tell him that I had met his
son, and that all was well with them, and to come home – everyone missed
him. He also told me that although things
in Palestine were better than before, it was very sad that they didn’t have a
country of their own anymore, and were instead the “slaves” of the Israelis.
We
had more tea and cookies, and said goodbye to our new friend. Yasser said we didn’t have to pay anything;
the captain had paid for it all. At the station, the captain had gone off-duty,
but I left my address and a message of thanks for my Good Samaritan. I also humbly thanked God for this most
wonderful experience of his love and care.
My foot was healing, I had no fever, nor pain, and I had now this most
sacred memory to treasure. Up to that
point, my interest and pursuit was basically scientific – archaeology and the history
of the places we had visited. But now a
new dimension had been unfolded for me.
This was God’s country, Jesus’ people, whose stories he had told his
disciples, teaching us how we must love and care for one another, selflessly. And here God was showing us how He could take
care of our needs through the kindness of strangers. As I started down the road under the now
clear blue sky, I shared my thoughts with my son, and we prayed the Lord’s Prayer,
full of gratitude, and peace.
The Jericho Guide
The
road from Ramallah to Jericho waves through the terraced Judean hills. Here one reels back to biblical times. People dressed in robes and brightly striped
headdresses, sedately guide their mule-pulled plows. Barelegged children ride
donkeys in the dusty roads, alongside long-skirted women carrying water jugs
and firewood on their heads.
Ageless
Jericho is an oasis amidst the barren hills.
Believed to be the oldest city in the world, it was Joshua’s first
conquest in the land of Canaan after crossing the desert from Egypt. To Jericho Joshua sent his spies who came
back loaded with produce from the land that flowed with milk and honey.
When
we went to visit the walls that had fallen at the sound of the Hebrew trumpets,
we made another interesting acquaintance.
He was a small, withered old man, full of vigor and vivacity. He came to offer his services as a guide.
“You
American? Speak English?” he asked.
“Yes…”
I answered.
“Me
guide. Me show you all Jericho. Me show you beautiful synagogue nobody knows
about.”
“Well,
thank you, that’d be lovely, but we can do it on our own. We don’t have much time,” I answered, knowing
there would be a price for his services.
“Me
guide here for sixty year. Me boy when
start guiding. German peoples, French
peoples, all come here and me guide them.
Me learn French, German, English, Hebrew, from guiding peoples.”
He
followed us into the compound, talking incessantly.
“German,
French, American, British peoples pay me seven, eight, ten dollars for
guiding. Me very good guide. Me know all about Jericho.”
“Is
that so? Well, thank you very much, but
we can’t possibly pay you. We just have
to do it on our own. The Bible is our guide.”
That
didn’t discourage him, for he followed us on, explaining about the buildings,
about how one could tell the difference between a Canaanite and a Israelite
building by the way the stones were laid on top of each other. He also pointed out how the Crusaders built
theirs, borrowing stones, pieces of columns, and whatever they’d found lying
around.
“Listen,
Mr. Ahmed, don’t you think that you may be missing some tourists that can pay
you for your services? We’re just poor students. We just really cannot afford to pay a guide!”
He
shrugged and kept on telling us the history of each wall, each foundation. Then he showed us to the top of a hill, from
where we could see the actual city of Jericho, with its wall that had fallen at
the sound of the Hebrew trumpets.
“Jericho
is valley full of flowers, date trees, almond trees. All drinks from spring. People drink from spring, animals drink from
spring, trees and flowers drink from spring.
Whole Jericho drinks from spring.”
He gave us a drink from the spring.
We
were stuck with him. Noticing my hurt
foot and how I was limping, he cut a tough branch from an almond tree and
fashioned a cane for me. Then he guided
us to see the synagogues and Sheik Hisham’s Palace – a marvel of Islamic
architecture destroyed by an earthquake long ago. Then he invited us to eat breakfast at a
small Arabic restaurant.
“You
eat now true Arabic breakfast,” he said, showing us how to eat the chick-pea
paste with the flat bread, while sipping cardamom tea from tiny cups.
“This
is real good food for you. Chick-peas
with lemon and olive oil good for you.
You going to Dead Sea? Dead Sea
good for you. You go there, get on
water, foot be good as new again. Salt
good for hurt foot.”
And
he’d look around, proud to be in such good speaking terms with his American
tourists. He wanted to take us somewhere
else, but I absolutely refused, saying we had to return the car in Jerusalem
the next morning. I paid for the
breakfast, and gave him a couple of dollars after all, thanking him so much for
his kindness.
“You
go to Jerusalem, return car, then come back to Jericho tomorrow, with bus. Car too
expensive, anyway. Bus cheaper. Me take you in my car to Dead Sea. You come tomorrow, OK? ”
“Sure!”
I answered, to get rid of him. I gave
him a hug, though. “We’ll be right
here.”
Tempted at the Mount
At
the Mount of Temptation I couldn’t resist climbing to the summit where an old
Greek Orthodox monastery stands, perched on the rocks. Of the community that once amounted to more
than one hundred men, five monks are left; living up there, in the middle of
the wilderness, with hardly any human contact – the monastery is almost
completely inaccessible, except for those with strong legs and a lot of
determination. But the view from the top
is fantastic. Here Jesus had spent forty
days and forty nights, fasting and praying.
Here those men – dedicated to prayer and worship, live in sacrifice and
self-denial. We were shown around by the
white-bearded monk, who gave us to drink from the spring flowing from the
rocks. He told us that someone from the
village would bring them food once a week.
They baked their own bread.
Then
we climbed down, the warm sun making sweat roll down our faces. We got to our car and had an unpleasant
surprise – I had locked the car keys in!
“Oh
my God!” I said to John. “What are we
going to do? We’re miles away from
civilization, and the monks have no phone!”
“It’s
hot! We’ll die from thirst! How could you do this, Mom? Do we have to wait for a week for someone to
come to the rescue?”
I
had left the windows cracked because of the heat, but I had nothing in my bag
to help in any way. I lifted up my eyes
to heaven and prayed:
“Lord
Jesus, you were tempted here, and Satan told you to leap down from this
mountain, that the angels would hold you up.
We need an angel now, Lord.
Deliver us from this mess, please!”
John
had walked to the wire fence at the foot of the walking path. I followed him, and he said to look for a
loose piece of metal. I walked a few
feet and found one. John bent it back
and forth until it broke off. But it was
only a 3 inch piece of wire.
“Look
in your bag,” he said. “See if you have
a piece of string.” I had dental floss.
That
future mechanical engineer made a hook at both ends of the wire, broke off a
length of dental floss, and we walked back to the car.
“Pray
hard!” he said, as he dangled his apparatus from the crack on the window and
swung it back and forth. I was on the
second Hail Mary when the hook caught on the closed peg and the door
miraculously was opened.
“Baruch
ha-shem!” I exclaimed, as I hugged and kissed my resourceful son. “Thank you, Jesus and John!”
Driving through the desert to the Dead Sea
Coming
down from the Judean hills to the Dead Sea is a truly unforgettable
experience. The surroundings change
completely from verdant oasis to a salt desert.
In one of the many caves around the Qumran area, a shepherd found the
invaluable Dead Sea scrolls. We
descended 1,300 feet below sea level, the lowest place on the planet, and
suddenly the sea appeared out of the brown earth, sparkling like a precious
sapphire in the sun. Salt sculptures
were an interesting attraction along the shore, reminding us of what had
happened to one over-curious and disobedient woman – Lot’s wife.
Its
surface smooth as polished glass, the sea sparkled with myriad specks of
light. We stood there, mesmerized. At the resort town of Ein-Gedi, we stopped to
try the amazing experience of swimming in that strangest pool. All one has to do is sit and lie back, and
the magical waters that have the feel of heavy cream, hug you, cradle you in
their arms, and make you float, without any effort. And after getting out, one has to march
immediately to the showers provided on the beach, otherwise one turns into a
salt sculpture immediately.
It
was a beautiful moonlit night, and we decided to sleep on the beach, under the
stars. Other people were doing the same,
and we joined two Hebrew University students from France, who had a
guitar. We sang folk songs into the
night, and went to sleep when the moon set in the horizon. I woke up at dawn and just sat in utter awe,
watching the east light up in different shades of pink and orange, until the
sun came up in glory. We had a long way
to go, so we started early. It was a hot
day, and the desert sun was burning, even in the early morning.
After
eating breakfast at the modern cafeteria, while watching Henry Kissinger’s
helicopter take off, we drove down again, toward the Negev desert. The heat increased as we went further south.
And suddenly Masada loomed before us, a massive rocky fortress, impressive and
disturbing. My knowledge of its history
was sketchy, so John read to me from the tourist book, while I drove to the
parking lot at its base. Contrary to the
Mount of Temptation, this modern tourist facility had an escalator to
facilitate the climb to its top.
Masada
– King Herod’s fortress and refuge during wars – had been the last stand of
Israelites against the Roman army invaders after the fall of Jerusalem. It was a somber review of the abandoned
quarters where men, women, and children chose to die, rather than surrender and
be killed by the Romans. We came down
again with a heavy heart.
On
the way to Avdat, we hit a sandstorm.
Heaven and earth were enveloped in dust – greyish like moon dust – and
suddenly we found ourselves riding a cloud of sand, the high winds whipping it
against the sides of the car. I had no
idea where the road was, and could see nothing around us. But I had learned in Iran that you do not
stop in a sand storm, or you might be buried, or blown away, like in a
tornado. We kept rolling, blindly on, and
then it was over.
John looked at the map and told me to make a
left turn into a side road and suddenly, like on a movie, we found ourselves in
a breathtaking oasis in the middle of that desert. Stream of limpid water
flowed from the rocks, verdant grass full of blooming exotic flowers, palm
trees, almond trees, and the sweet perfume of lilies of the valley. We stretched our cramped limbs, drank from
the fountain, dusted ourselves and the car off, and lay out in the warm sun,
contentedly. We were utterly alone in
Paradise.
We
had a few hours of daylight left and several miles to ride back to Ber-Sheeva
and Ashkelon. That would bring us back full circle, and we decided we’d better
save more time for Jerusalem, instead of driving all the way to Eilat. We found a campground by the beach, rented a
cabin for the night, and dined on olives, cold baked beans, bread, nuts and
wonderful Jaffa oranges. In the coolness
of the night, looking at myriad stars under the darkened sky, we slept under
the shadow of the wings of Almighty God, who had kept us safe and totally
overflowing with thankful hearts.
In
the morning we sat at the breakfast table and talked about how absolutely
overwhelmed we were by the beauty of the country, the diversity of its
landscape, the kindness of its people, the energy, happiness and enthusiasm of
its settlers. And we understood why this
people had remained loyal and kept their faith, against all odds; against oppression, enslavement, persecution,
exile, rejection, un-relented hatred, and the final solution slaughter of the
Holocaust. They were God’s chosen people
then, and were God’s people now, again a remnant, but a faithful remnant, that
had come through fire and water, from the edges of total extermination, back to
this Promised Land. If we indeed had, in
our chromosomes, a link to family ties with this people, we would gladly assume
our heritage and be proud of it.
Yerushalaym my love
Thankful
to go to Jerusalem, at last, at such an auspicious time – the Jewish Passover
and the Christian Easter coincided exactly that Holy Year – made this a very
special spiritual pilgrimage for us Catholics.
And, above all, there was peace in the land.
Bethlehem
was disappointing. In its eagerness to
protect the holy places, the Greek Orthodox Church has covered them with cold
marble bathed in incense fumes forever.
One can’t really associate the mausoleum-like Church of the Nativity
with the place where Baby Jesus was laid in a manger. The fact that the Basilica is the oldest in
all Christendom may account for its being built like a fortress, in defense of
the holy places from the hands of the infidel.
It’s a relief to walk out to Shepherds’ Field and breathe the pure air,
sweet with the memories of Ruth and Boaz, of the little shepherd boy David, and
of angels singing their song of peace to humans besieged by war and slaughter
throughout the ages.
Passing
on the shadow of Rachel’s Tomb and through the Valley of Hinnom, we came to
Mount Sion and Jerusalem’s walls. Crowds
of people – tourists, natives, pilgrims
– filled the streets and the square in front of the Jaffa Gate. We drove around, trying to find the Youth
Hostel where we hoped to find room.
Fortunately, I was accepted – on my old Auburn University ID card –
which the warden preferred to my most recent graduate student ID from Pahlavi
University. Thus a very expensive short
stay in Jerusalem turned into an exciting week of sightseeing for about $20,
including
breakfast, for the two of us.
breakfast, for the two of us.
We
had one more day of rent in the car, so we drove off the next morning to see
another one of King Herod’s fortresses – the Herodion – and the
surrealistically beautiful Beth-Guvrin caves, the filming site of the Jesus Christ Superstar movie. The man-made caves resulted from years of
cutting blocks of limestone for building purposes. It’s a beautiful, peaceful place: fields sprinkled with red poppies, daisies,
wild irises, and numerous other flowers and shrubs – God’s own little garden.
Back
in Jerusalem, we set out to visit this sacred city – adorned as a bride,
shining in the sun as carved in jasper and onyx –as we reverently approached it
from Mount Sion. And then we entered the
city walls through the Jaffa Gate, and instantly wished we could stay there
forever.
There
is a mystical enchantment about this walled piece of holy ground that takes
hold of one’s soul. Here Moslems, Jews,
and Christians of every denomination have lived in friendly cooperation, even
in the midst of Israel’s worst times.
And now, when the holy city had gone back to the descendants of King
David, this sense of unity, of the disappearance of barriers of language,
costumes, and prejudices is truly amazing, at least as we talked to the local
people. Whether one worships at the
Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, at the Dome of the Rock, or at the Wailing
Wall, one feels God’s presence most intensely, as one feels the suffering, the
contradictions, the faith and hope of mankind.
We
walked through the streets teeming with people, speaking loudly in every
language of the world, selling their wares, souvenirs and other relics. We bought gifts to take back home, and a new
pair of sandals for my achy feet; large pilgrim crosses for our necks,
rosaries, among other things. Then we
ate our falafels, and bought supplies to take to the hostel for snacks. Filled with joy and expectation, we walked
around like we belonged to the place.
John insisted that he wanted to pray at the Wailing Wall. It'd be like a Bar-mitzvah for that 14 year old, so I bought him a yarmulke and watched from the women's side as he placed his special note on the rocky wall. I did not care to go inside the Dome of the Rock. To me it is the abomination on the sacred Temple mount, I said to John. I knew that all around its wall there'd be inscriptions about Allah being one and having no son. I wanted nothing to do with it.
John insisted that he wanted to pray at the Wailing Wall. It'd be like a Bar-mitzvah for that 14 year old, so I bought him a yarmulke and watched from the women's side as he placed his special note on the rocky wall. I did not care to go inside the Dome of the Rock. To me it is the abomination on the sacred Temple mount, I said to John. I knew that all around its wall there'd be inscriptions about Allah being one and having no son. I wanted nothing to do with it.
We
entered the coolness of the Dormition Abbey instead, and followed a group of tourists
being guided around down to the crypt where the body of Mary, the holy Mother
of Jesus, was laid down by the caring hands of her Son’s disciples and
apostles. The air was cool, and perfumed
by incense and flowers. In
semi-darkness, the only light being the oil lamps by the slab of stone where
they had laid her lifeless-looking body, I knelt at a pew in silence and awe,
as the words of a prayer failed me. I
remembered the story I had read, as a teenager, about how the disciples who had
protected Mary while she lived, as the very presence of their Rabboni’s flesh
and blood among them, had covered her body with roses, and not knowing if she
was really dead, as she appeared to be only asleep, left her that night, in
sorrow.
At that time I still struggled with the Protestant prejudices about Catholic near adoration of the Mother of our Savior, but my love and appreciation for her brave YES to the announcing angel of the Lord, for her fortitude through the many trials that commitment had brought to her life, for her courageous last stand at the cross when she cradled in her arms the body of the Son she knew was hers and God’s, and for her final joy when she embraced his resurrected body, convinced me that she was indeed a treasure for Jesus and his followers, for me, her daughter, who now knelt at this place and asked her to give me a sign that she was indeed alive and at work, body, soul and spirit, Queen of Heaven, and Mother of us all who believed.
At that time I still struggled with the Protestant prejudices about Catholic near adoration of the Mother of our Savior, but my love and appreciation for her brave YES to the announcing angel of the Lord, for her fortitude through the many trials that commitment had brought to her life, for her courageous last stand at the cross when she cradled in her arms the body of the Son she knew was hers and God’s, and for her final joy when she embraced his resurrected body, convinced me that she was indeed a treasure for Jesus and his followers, for me, her daughter, who now knelt at this place and asked her to give me a sign that she was indeed alive and at work, body, soul and spirit, Queen of Heaven, and Mother of us all who believed.
I
remembered how the disciples had returned the next day and found that her body
was gone, and only the roses remained.
Nowhere in Christendom would the bones of Miriam of Nazareth be found,
even as she was already venerated as the Most Holy Mother of God.
My
folded hands rested on top of the pew I was kneeling at, and I felt something
under my hand. Beads. Olive wood carved little rosary, the small
kind one held around one’s fingers.
A gift? Something forgotten by a careless
pilgrim? A sign! My fingers curled around it and I held it to my
lips. Ave Maria gratia plena, Dominus
tecum! Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb --
Jesus! Holy Mother of God, pray for me a
sinner, now and at the hour of my death.
Amen!
It
was a most holy week indeed. On Thursday
we visited the Upper Room, that cenacle where Jesus ate his last Passover with
his disciples, and where he consecrated the bread and wine as His own body and
blood to be poured out for our salvation.
Then we followed the crowds to the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane, where
we prayed through the night at the Church of All Nations. The Church of Saint Peter in Gallicantu
reminded us of Jesus’s suffering as he was arrested and brought to the High
Priest, thrown down to the pit where prisoners were kept till they could be
sentenced. There Peter, the rock where
Jesus built his Church, denied three times that he knew him.
On
Friday we went to the Antonia, the Roman fortress where Jesus was tortured and
flagellated, condemned to be crucified by Pontius Pilate, to placate the fury
of the reigning High Priest. And in sad
remembrance, we followed the Stations of the Cross all along the Via Dolorosa,
pilgrims from all over the world taking turns to bear the heavy cross, while
singing and praying with tears of sorrow
for our sins.
for our sins.
After
that we relived the tragic hours at Calvary, the descent from the cross, the
burial at the Holy Sepulchre. It was
late when we sadly walked back to the hostel, in silence, under the brightness
of a full moon. We had nothing to eat
that day.
Saturday
was a day of rest. Being the Jewish
Passover, all stores, restaurants and businesses were closed. After our frugal breakfast of Matzo and tea,
I told John I was going to go back to the Garden Tomb and pray. John said he was tired and was going to go
back to bed and rest the rest of the morning.
We had been told that there’d be no dinner that evening, and the hostel
would be closed until sundown. We could
stay in, but if we’d go out, we could not return. John said he’d meet me at Holy Sepulchre by
noon, so we could find something to eat.
Encounter with Mary and the Lost Child
At noon I was there, faithfully waiting for him. The bells tolled at midday, thirty past and then 1:00 o’clock. No sign of John. I walked around the neighborhood’s empty streets, looking for him. No John. By three o’clock I became concerned, and walked back to the hostel. All doors and windows, closed. I knocked and knocked at the door. Nobody opened it.
Panicked
now, I went back to the places we had been the day before, in case he had
forgotten where to meet me. No signs of
him. Thoughts were flying through my
head – kidnapped, held as hostage, disappeared.
And how would I ever call my husband and tell him I had lost our son,
left him alone and vulnerable, not protected him? I entered a small Franciscan chapel and fell
on my knees before Mary’s statue, holding the lifeless body of her son.
“Mother,”
I prayed. “You know my anguish. You also lost your twelve year old son, and
looked for him all over Jerusalem!
Please help me find John… I promise to be a better mother and never,
ever, leave him on his own again!
Forgive my carelessness!” At that
moment the church’s bell struck six o’clock, the Angelus, and I remembered the
door of the hostel would be open and I could go back for help, for direction on
what to do.
I
ran back to the hostel. The door was
indeed open, and I heard voices. As I
walked in the dining room, a few of the hostel’s youngsters were sitting at the
table, talking and laughing, munching on matzot. John was among them. I ran in and hugged him tight, weeping.
“What’s
the matter, Mom?” he asked, surprised.
“Where
have you been? I was looking for you all
over Jerusalem!”
“I
am sorry, Mother. I slept most of the day… Got up just a few minutes ago… why
do you worry so much? I was just here talking to my friends…”
Thank
you, Lord, I thought to myself. One more
little reminder of how we can be part of your own Story…how believable it all
can be!
Early
on Sunday morning all Jerusalem’s bells pealed for joy. Hallelujah!
Christ is Risen!
High
Mass at the empty Tomb was celebrated by the Vatican’s Envoy, with the mighty
sound of the organ and the choir singing Alleluias at the top of their voices,
sending shivers through our bodies. The only
regret was that our time was up, and we should leave the next day.
That
same night we boarded the bus to Tel-Aviv.
It had been a most inspiring, most wonderful experience! We had just enough money to get back to
Shiraz, and we had to spend the night sitting in the airport’s lounge where we
had lots of company – youngsters and their families lying around the floor –
while we comforted our hungry stomachs with the matzos from the box the
hostel’s hosts had provided us with, as we thought of the meal we would have on
the airplane – even though it would be only El-Al’s matzos…
And
as our plane flew over the city in the morning, I looked out toward Jerusalem
with longing, and repeated in my heart the words of the psalmist:
If I ever forget
you, Jerusalem, let my right hand be withered
If I don’t make
Jerusalem my highest joy.
Peace be within
your walls, in your streets -- peace!
Shalom, Yerushalayim…