מחנה יהודה

it's pretty amazing living above the shuk. for example, the bell pepper man below us gives us free peppers (and green onion, and tomato) every day, or at least when he sees us. we always try to pay him, but he just won't let us. so we bought him a cake. i'm pretty sure he said he doesn't eat cake, but i bet he ate it anyway. also, my favorite sunflower seed guy just remembered my order (a quarter kilo) without me asking for it. he doesn't have any teeth.

however, there is drilling, and i have no idea where it's coming from. also, there's wet cement right outside our front door, and i had to pull some macgyver stunt action to get in. i'm thinking of drawing something in the cement.

שקצה

so today i learned that the hebrew/yiddish word shiksa (aka a non-jewish woman) means abomination, like what G-d calls non-kosher animals. thats awful. in other news, i learned that breast milk and blood from humans are kosher. yay!

(נהג! (חלק ב

riding the high of my last successful nehag yell, i tried my luck again last night. utter failure. people staring. me mumbling. shame.

!נהג

yesterday morning was a real coming of age for me, perhaps the pinnacle of my experience in israel thus far. you see, here in israel the bus driver's name is nehag, or driver, no matter who it is (unless it's a woman, in which case it would be naheget, which i have only seen once here). it seems derogatory (perhaps hearkening back to the "garcon means boy" scene from pulp fiction), but it's standard here and is heard on the bus whenever the driver's attention is needed. every time i am ready to get off the bus, i worry that i might have to yell it and thus make a fool of myself (what if my voice is too soft?, what if people make fun of my accent?, what if i smell?). so yesterday, when the driver prematurely closed the door on me, i quickly took out one of my earphones and let out a loud and confident NEHAG!, and sure enough, the door opened. i was quite pleased with myself and my good friend nehag.