Driss-A-Blog

Otherwise, the conference ended well. I even miss being on it and all the people. It's funny how a couple weeks with the same people will do it. The last day we had an evaluation session with the fellow in charge. I give him credit for being honest and looking for criticism of his program.

I did get a chance to give my two cents, which I knew that at least a couple people agreed with. The first comment was that there were so many teachers there from across the country that I could learn from - but within the program structure there wasn't any time to speak to any of them.

Second was the lack of balance when discussing Israeli politics. There had been three Israeli Arabs, one Israeli journalist, and nobody from the right, like a settler. I said that it felt very one-sided, agendaish (I actually used that word). I said that if he was going to present the political side of Israel, which is a hot potato to begin with, it needed to be balanced. That there were left-wingers that were there who would have liked to have heard a settler. When I finished, there was a huge round of applause. I had no idea that so many people were that upset about the issue. I knew of a few who were disturbed about it, but not that many. I looked down, because I didn't know what to do with it.

The guy in charge was very honest. He basically said that it was his program, and if we didn't like it, we could create our own. Afterward, I spoke to him at the good-bye dinner, and he explained himself better. The idea that he was working under was since the Israeli concensus was that the land for peace was necessary and the only way to go, then the settlers were no longer part of the conversation. I told him that he was wrong since that wasn't the reality of the situation. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to finish the conversation since some other ladies wanted to speak to him. Afterward I did go over, hand him my card, and said, "We didn't get a chance to finish, maybe some other time."

I got a tad obnoxious at the dinner. I'm not sure what happened. I didn't mean to. While the guy in charge was speaking, and talking about one of the bus drivers and how we appreciated them, he mentioned that one of the drivers was a right winger... I called out, "Give him the microphone!" The fellow paused, took a moment and continued speaking. My table cracked up. I didn't mean to be rude, I think I was exhausted and quite done.

To be honest, I had a good time, minus the politics, altho' I had fun arguing and other stuff like that with the people who were brought in. We had gone to the desert a couple days before - gone to a Bedouin tent, met the people there. It was really interesting, how guests were so important to them. It totally struck me as something that Avraham would have done - with an open tent to all. I'm sure that is where they learned it from. Our guide said that they were Muslims, but they hadn't totally gotten rid of all their pagan ways (I don't know which ones they kept). Like I said, it was interesting.

Other highlights were: The Moroccan music group that played for us, The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, the visit to the Inbal dance troupe (the traditional dance parts were best), seeing the Negev - it really is pretty, seeing bright red and blue dragonflies, seeing the park where they have Israel's seven species - the date palm tree (the lulav), and a threshing floor with the panel that cut the pieces, and a real 2000 year old oil press.

That's the story from here. Tomorrow I'm planning to go to all of the classes, till 5:45pm, a long day. This afternoon I made a mess of phone calls letting some of my friends know that I'm here.

That's it for now. Love you all.