what's your favorite color?

Today during all 3 of my ESL classes, I had my students interview each other to get the basic get-to-know-you info. One of the questions asked "what is your favorite color?" To my great surprised, about 10 of the total 45 or so students said white. WHITE. Not that there's anything wrong with white, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone choose white as their favourite color. Have you?

They were all Korean, too. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Hmm...

flies

I feel ridiculous and am exceedingly glad no one can see me. I have been sitting here at my computer desk reading my email while wildly waving my arms around at the Most Pesky Fly ever to be hatched on this earth! It's one of those slow moving flies. You know the ones; they land lazily on everything (especially on you), buzz around your head, and move just fast enough to evade every attempt on their lives. It brings all sorts of curses to mind...

I remember the montón de flies that used to terrorize my family when we lived in my grandfather's farmhouse (which is located about 25 feet from the front door of the barn). As a kid, I don't think I really minded the flies. But I did find it rather repulsive to turn the corner into the kitchen and look up to a strand of sticky tape hanging from the ceiling with dead flies plastered all over it. I'm' sure my parents were rather shocked to turn around and see my little sister with fly wings stuck in her teeth because oddly enough, she enjoyed snacking on them as a 2 year old.

Of course, someone was usually readily equipped with a fly swatter at all times. The same fly-loving sister would inevitably flee in horror when ever it came out for fear of touching the fly guts. Once, my dad even offered to pay us 5 or 10 cents per fly swatted. My money grubbing little heart jumped at the change until he informed me that I also had to pick the dead ones up I swatted. No thanks, fautieo! Soon it simply became a crime to leave the doors open. My mum spent her time feeding us, working, swatting flies, and shutting the door behind us to keep more flies from coming in, a futile endeavor indeed.

And now I find myself wishing for one of our speckly old fly swatters or even a small strand of sticky tape. I could go buy some, I guess. But it hardly seems worth it for 3 rotten flies. Perhaps I'll have a go with my havaianas, number one choice of angry Brazilian mothers in need of something to launch at a stray dog or cat, spiders and other insects, unruly neighbors, or even poorly behaved children.

Infernal insects

HELP! A strange and irritating flying white bug has made itself (or rather, themselves, for they are many) at home on the underside of my basil, sunflower, and zucchini leaves. So far they haven't been able to munch too much of my plants, but I fear what fate my plants will suffer if I leave them to fend for themselves. They don't look like aphids (or at least any aphids I've been able to find pictures of). Does anyone have any ideas? Or know someone who might know?

I need help quickly; I feel like I have the blasted white things crawling all over me.

OBX

And because I feel bad that I've only said angry, grumpy things the past 2 posts, I supposed I'll put up some pictures from our wonderfully fantastic relaxing heavenly week at the beach (although I really should wait until my mum sends me her pictures because they are bound to be much better than my own). I don't know why I ever come home from the Outer Banks. I'd really like to abandon all my real life pursuits and become a light house keeper. Except all the lighthouses are now automated. Curses upon all the wretches who thought that was a good idea!

Woops. This is supposed to be cheery...sorry! On with some fotos.

This is our house, charmingly named "Dare-E-Aire." Yes, it is about 100 feet from where the waves crash on the shore.


When I wasn't reading a most excellent novel by the name of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell or sitting on the beach watching the waves like T-rav, this is how I spent my time.



This is where I wish to spend the remainder of my days. Or at least some of them (the Currituck Beach Lighthouse).



And finally, when our time at the beach was up, we headed north to Colonial Williamsburg. If my plans for lighthouse keeping don't work out, perhaps I'll become a member of the "revolutionary city" and dress in colonial attire, speak with an old fashioned accent, and cook delicious food like sweet potato muffins, gingerbread scones, pottage pye (yes, pye, not pie), and various local salets (or salad, for those of you who speak the modern tongue). Alas, I don't have any great pictures from this day, but here are a few awkward ones.

It really bothered T-rav that the main road was paved.


Fautie, finally getting what he deserves...just kidding, oh wise padre.


And finally, T-rav's idea of heaven.


It was a great trip.

Another rant

You'd think that out of 32 or so ESL classes that are taught at UVU I would be able to get at least ONE class that I requested, right? Just one? All I asked was this: that I not be given any level 1 or 2 classes, that I have any level 4 class, and I would prefer a reading level 3. I didn't even care about dates and times!

So how did I end up with these:

• Writing Level 2 (did I mention that I bordered on loathing this class when I taught it last year?)
• Listening/Speaking Level 3
• Writing Level 3
  

I guess it's what I get for being a measly adjunct.

Curses.

1. We just got back from 1 glorious week at the beach. It was too short.
   
2. We're probably 98% sure that in 1 month we're going to be kicked out of our house because our rotten landlord is in the process of selling our house (it's under contract).
3. One of the ESL faculty at UVU refuses to be flexible with the fall schedule...which means I don't get to teach the class that I want.
4. Everything is brown here.
   

I hate coming home from vacation.

There is No Word for Goodbye
by Mary Tall Mountain

Sokoya,* I said, looking through
the net of wrinkles into
wise black pools of her eyes.

What do you say in Athabaskan
when you leave each other?
What is the word
for goodbye?

A shade of feeling rippled
the wind-tanned skin
Ah, nothing, she said,
watching the river flash.

She looked at me close.
We just say, Tlaa. That means,
See you.
We never leave ecah other.
When does your mouth
say goodbye to your heart?

She touched me light
as a bluebell.
You forget when you leave us,
you're so small then.
We don't use that word.

We always think you're coming back,
but if you don't,
we'll see you some place else.
You understand.
There is no word for goodbye.

*Sokoya- maternal aunt (in Athabaskan, a Native American language)

a piece of my soul

Today I gave away a small part of my soul when I made the dreadful decision to turn down the only real job offer I've had in Italy. The tentative plan was to go on a student visa and for both of us to work part time teaching English. The school would find us housing, pay for our first month of rent, and allow us to take Italian classes for free. Sounds good, right?

Well, I thought so at first. But several things made me start feeling a bit apprehensive about it all. To start things off, we discovered that the guy who wanted to hire us was actually planning on paying us under the table. Then he suggested that I could choose to either work on a student or a tourist visa. Now, I'm no expert on Italian law, but I was positive that it is illegal to work on a tourist visa. And he wanted me to work 30-35 hours a week, which seemed high for being on a student visa (international students here may only work 20 hours if it's an on campus- I think it's 20. Maybe it's 10). So then I proceeded to call several Italian Consultates in the US (several because you never know if the peeps really know what they're talking about- better to get several answers to the same question). They informed me that it was 100% ILLEGAL to work on a student visa, even to work part time. Bah!

Well, since T-rav has lots of morals and doesn't want to break the law, and I fear the punishment that may come from being caught (something about being banned from Italy for any extended period of time for the rest of my life...), we decided that maybe it would be best if we didn't accept this shady job offer.

So we're going to stay here in Provo for a while. At least one more semester. T-rav is going to keep working for the IRC, but start looking for jobs doing some kind of non-profit work or refugee stuff, etc, hopefully overseas. I'll keep teaching at UVU. Although I'm very disapppointed, I feel ok about things. At least I have a job here that I really love. And at least I don't have to wait to see how things turn out...at least now I know.

I heart Palestine part 2

We are now going to jump from the late 40s to the late 60s, skipping over the war known as the War of Independence by the Israelis and Al Nakba (or catastrophe) by the Palestinians, and go straight to the Six Day War. I'm sure it had many causes, after 9 years of relative "peace," what it came down to was disputes over land and water (like always), as well as the haughty boasts of Arab prowess by Egyptian President Abdel Nasser.

So one day Arab guerrilla fighters crossed the Lebanese border and blew up the water pipes by the Sea of Galilee, Israel's main source of water. Might I add that Israel had diverted much of the Jordan River away from the Arab States (because, you know, they needed it more).

• "Israeli jets had bombed Syrian waterworks in the Golan Heights, across from Galilee, so that Syria could not diver those same waters. When Israelis moved into the demilitarized zones of the Golan [Heights] to plow disputed land, they drew Syrian fire, which in turn brought swift Israeli response." (p.125, The Lemon Tree)

Israel also claimed they needed to go to war because of the 100,000 Egyptian troops massing in the Sinai (American and British intelligence suggested closer to 50,000). Israel repeatedly exaggerated the state of things in Palestine, perhaps to influence the US or gain more support from Western Nations (which worked quite well). The CIA was quite sure that Egypt had no intention of going to war and were not planning to invade Israel. Even Israel's Minister of Defense would later admit that he never believed that Egypt wanted war.

But on June 5, 1967, the Israeli army made a preemtive strike against the Arabs and proceeded to seriously defeat the Egyptians, Syrians, and Jordanians, which wasn't enough- they also went into Palestinian territories and began a 40 year occupation of Palestinian land (the West Bank and Gaza), contrary to the UN Resolution 242 which mandated a withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the occupied territories. Which they refused to do. And still do.

Eventually, the PLO was formed as the voice of Palestine, since they were not allowed to have any government of their own. Palestinian children are born and raised with the idea that they have been driven from their homes and deserve to get them back. Or at least should have their own state in the West Bank and Gaza.

And we all know all about suicide bombings and Israeli retaliation. Maybe you don't know that the Israelis imprisoned and tortured Palestinian prisoners who may or may not have been guilty of "terrorist" acts (meaning anything that went against Israeli laws- obviously if they were alive, they weren't suicide bombers). Or that, in the beginning, Israel was just as likely to bomb residential areas as the Palestinians. Or that, although the Palestinians are not very flexible on their demands for land and freedom, the Israelis are not very flexible on what they will offer the people whose land they stole (or stole back, if you prefer to live by Biblical Law).

Obviously, there is no easy solution. If I were in charge of the world, I would give the angry Arabs their own state, consisting of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and part of the Golan Heights. And then I would tell them to get over the fact that they don't have all of Palestine. And I would tell the Israelis to give up some of their land and point out that they have treated the Arabs the way they wished to have never been treated (mems how no one liked that people were driving Jews out at gun point and then they turned around and did the same thing?).

Anyway. If you think this is interesting, you should read a lovely book called The Lemon Tree, a story that follows both a Jewish and Palestinian family through all the drama of the pats 75 years. Another good one is In Search of Fatima. If any of you have any suggestions of other good Israel-Palestine books, I would love suggestions!

Why I'm pro-Palestine

As long as I can remember, I have always been a supporter of the Palestinian cause. I'm not sure when it all started. Perhaps it's because I often find myself rooting for the underdog...or maybe it's because ever since I set foot on Moroccan soil, I've had a great love for all things Arab and Muslim. Obviously, I do not condone many of their barbaric methods that overstep the bounds of freedom fighting and merge into terrorism. However, if you get a bit more of the whole picture, you might have a little more empathy for their cause. So here's the start of a little history lesson about Israel and Palestine (I hope this doesn't bore you- I find it quite fascinating).

In my opinion, if the Palestinians had just gotten around to forming their own government hundreds of years ago, none of these Israeli problems would have happened. But they didn't and by the 1900s, they had been ruled by various Arab families and Caliphs, the Ottomans, the Egyptians, and then the Ottomans again. But the real trouble began when the Brits disbanded the Ottoman Empire after World War I. And then the dreaded Balfour Declaration (1917) was created, which named Palestine to be the eventual homeland of the Jewish people.

Why did the Zionist movement choose Palestine? In part because in the late 1800s, the founder of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl, felt it would be the best place. After considering Uganda and Cyprus as possible Jewish homelands, he determined that Palestine, being a "land without a people" (which I think he really should have said "government," since obviously there were people already there...silly Herzl) and also conveniently being the ancestral homeland of the Jews, would be the perfect place for all the Jews to live.

At the beginning, the Palestinians were fine with having Jewish people living in their country. After all, they had been living side by side with Jewish people (in peace, even) for hundreds of years. It was only after they started coming in droves (many of whom snuck in illegally) that the Arabs began to worry. In 1948, the UN determined that Britain should leave Palestine and that it would be divided into separate Arab and Jewish states, each with their own government: Palestine and Israel.

"The plan stipulated that 54.5% of Palestine and more than 80% of its cultivated citrus and grain plantations would go to a Jewish state. Jews represented about 1/3 of the population and owned 7% of the land." (p. 49 The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan- thanks to Marlo for telling me to read it!) For a nice map depicting this, go here.

You can see that this might cause a bit of conflict...and naturally it did. Fighting ensued, or rather continued, and many Arabs were left simply bewildered at the idea they were going to be forced off of their land that their families had owned for generations upon generations.

And this is where I will leave you in anticipation of what happened next...

*A side note: I am quite aware that what happened to the Palestinians has been happening to nations and ethnic groups all over for thousands of years. Their cause is not any more unusual or just than the Karen people of Burma, the Tutsi of Rwanda or the Nepali of Bhutan. However, the Palestinian situation is one that interests me and therefore I get a little more passionate about it than I do about other groups. I'm sure if I learned a bit more about these other groups, I would get just as up in arms as I do about the Arabs. I also want to point out that I do not have an dislike for Jewish people. I just don't think that just because they suffered an atrocitiy means they have the right to force another people, a people who had absolutely nothing to do with their woes, out of their homes.

And feel free to correct me on anything I might have gotten wrong. I'm no expert on this complex and confusing bit of history.