Communication

To get back to the hotel from the flooded Amazon beach (next week it should be okay), I took a local bus to Santarem. Ten minutes passing by, when suddenly I notice an older man standing behind me. Since I don't speak a word in Portuguese or Him in English, I didn't bother to try, so I spoke to him in hebrew.
Our conversation was something like that:
Me: (hebrew) (hebrew) (hebrew) . . . (hebrew) ?
Him: (Portuguese) (Portuguese) . . . (Portuguese) !


"Between 55 and 70 percent of your communication is non-verbal. Only about 7 percent is actual words used and the rest is tone of voice, etc."

A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall

Sitting in a Brazilian restaurant, wearing clothes with the colors of Argentina, on my bag a sticker that reveals my love to Colombia, around my table there's a couple from Holland, and I'm Israeli. Twenty-two players are on the field. At the end of the game, there will be only eleven, who wear different colors then mine.

At 3 Brazil will play, but before that there's a big game as well. Eight-number-T-shirt that I wear paint me in yellow, but the heart is red. After 120 minutes the red turns to black, England's out. '59, Henry score for the wrong net and by doing that, sends Brazil home. Brazil's out? Can't be. Our (the Brazilian) plan was different, my timing was perfect. I didn't even get to Salvador yet.

A third world war I thought to myself. Violence on the streets. What a shitty timing I have. I was wrong. The Whistle that marked the end of the game, was blended by the samba music that threat to tear the speakers. The Brazilian are happy, smiling and dancing.

In every place in the world, when a new baby is being borned, he first learns how to crawl, stand and walk. Not in Brazil. Here they learn first how to dance and then run (for the soccer, of course). Everybody's dancing, the mother and the son, the grandfather and the daughter, even the doll that wears the festival colors, joining the party.

In New Orleans people preparing for the next hurricane that hit last year at the same period, and destroyed houses, families, and belief. And I'm here, dancing. A pathetic try to get rid of my guilty feeling, I donate to the war against racism. Knowing I'm doing that to feel less guilty, made me feel more guilty.

The King of the World

Beautiful. I found myself repeating this word every time I turned my head back, and looked at the breath-taking, colonial town of Villa De Leiva. Climbing this mountain wasn´t an easy assignment, especially not for one who acted like a bum in the past three months, like I did. But it was worth every spit of blood. The beauty of the city can not be described by words, even a picture isn´t good enough.

Einav once wrote me of her New York City experience. She was describing the feeling of walking on the streets surrounded by huge metal building, as being the king of the world. Well, I love my friend, but I must disagree. I´ve been in New York and walked those streets. The monsterity buildings are hiding the sun and that´s exactly how I felt. Like I´m walking at the shade of these building. I felt so small, so meaningless.

But here, landing alone in an unknown country, where the people speak ununderstandable language, buying a hungry man a hot meal, taking a bus to unfamiliar destination, passing indescribable beautiful views and writing from the top of the mountain, while listening to Bob Dylan - This is being the King of the World.

Like a Rolling Stone

It's been a while since the last time I wrote, and I don't know where to start. I have so much to tell and I'm afraid I'm gonna miss something important. But I probably will, so I better just start writing. After a month working for Franklin, I finally started my trip, my journey. During my last days at Maryland, I bought a one-way flight ticket to New Orleans, in order to volunteer there. Buying the flight ticket was pretty much everything I did about N.O.

A week after, I found myself landing on N.O Land, not knowing anything about the city, where I was going or where I was gonna spend the night. The hour was about 6 pm when I went out thru the airport doors, thinking whether to turn left or to the right. I guess the warm weather made me feel at home so I was calmed and relaxed, following the signs to the ground transportation. I got to this boutique, with no one in it, trying to read some papers hanging on the wall, without great success I must add, until I saw a backpacker entered the room with a bandana on his head. "Where are you headin' to?" I asked. "The Common Ground Relief," he answered. "I'm coming with you!" I replied. At the Airport we met John from California, who had been in N.O before, and was waiting for his friend to pick him up. He offered us a ride to the "Common Ground" site, and a few minutes after, I found myself standing in front of an old GMC vehicle, drawn with peace and love, but the inside was much more interesting. John's lovely friend had removed the benches from the back of the car and put in an iMac computer, a closet and a bed. Forget about "pimp my ride". That was the coolest car I've ever seen, and she did that by herself! So we took a ride sitting on the floor talking about god knows what, and after a long forty mins, we finally arrived.

Apparently, she dropped us off at the wrong spot. The place that we left the van at was the old site of the common ground, while the new one was about 7 blocks away. I will use this space to mention I have a HUGE bag. So we found ourselves, two strangers from two different countries (Mike was from Massachusetts), speaking two different languages, walking in a ghost city in the middle of the night towards a place we think we're going to. Fortunately, we were actually going to the right direction and we got there after an exhausting 30 minutes of walking (yay! I'm back in the army).

I couldn't think of a better first impression. When we got there, a band was playing jazz, and dozens of volunteers were dancing to the music they were producing. Everybody was so smiley, so happy (so hippy) - that was perfect. I felt at home right away. New Yorker Ian was welcoming us, introducing us to our new accommodation, and giving us a short speech about what this place is all about (or: where the fuck are we).

After I got rid of my fat-ass bag, I went out and started to get to know the people. I've been in America for two months already and I can tell that in this place I've met some of the best people I've met in my whole life. I have so many new friends, friends that I connected with really fast, friends that I love. We have a lot of artists, writers, journalists, photographers. Lots of college students who devoted their spring break to help and volunteer, while their friends are getting drunk in Mexico and Florida. So many good people, interesting people. I've heard so many opinions and perspectives of people. I learned here in a week what I didn't learn in three and a half years in the army. And that's just the volunteers. I learned so much from the people of N.O about pain, belief and hope. Seeing a 54-year-old trying to hide a tear, after such a long time must change something in anyone. I met Alice from Chicago on my second day, who took me to a demonstration in the city and a march along the bridge where people were left to die. Alice is a journalist for the "Revolution" newspaper, and one of the most interesting people I've met. People are so much more beautiful here. Once you get to know them, and see the passion in their eyes. The passion to change, the passion to do the right thing. At the march, we were selling the newspaper to people, saying a few words about it. There I got to know the people of the city, the pain of those poor people, and how they keep believing. After you see what happened and how they got treated, you realize how amazing it is.

The work that we do is mostly gutting houses. We get into a flooded house (which is almost every house in N.O) and we start to remove everything from the inside. You enter a house and you see everything, ruined. You can't stop yourself from thinking about your house, and all the stuff in it, ruined. The carpets, the TV, the beds, the tables, the playstation, the photo albums, books, cds, cellphones, everything is still there. All the houses here are built from wood so the houses got lots of mold in them, that we need to take care of. The most difficult place to be in was the "Martin Luther King School". They had a big music room, and all the instruments inside were ruined. I can't describe how hard it is to throw a violin to the garbage.

But New Orleans is not all about pain and misery. I'm sitting outside the cathedral. An old black man is sitting on a bench, singing a soul song to the sky, occasionally playing with his harmonica. An Asian guy memorizes the moment thru his huge telescope camera, a Chinese girl sits on the sidewalk playing the violin while a black girl behind her dances to Jazz music only she can hear. Two minutes after, the magic is still in the air, the rest are gone. This is the soul of New Orleans and it's everywhere. In the decorated buildings of the French Quarter, in the bicycle riders all over the streets, the people folding their clothes in the laundry room, the protest banners on the shirts hanging on the windows of bourbon street, the Jazz music coming out of every street corner, the volunteers who leave their families, work and school to help poor people build their houses. The magic of New Orleans I will never forget. My New Orleans.

Gotta Serve Somebody

I'm afraid of America.
I'm afraid that the country will change me. They got a new religion here and its god is Franklin. I can't say I'm surprised coz one of the reasons I came here was to make money, but it's more than that. When I worked in Boston at the mall, some guy dropped his wallet. I stopped him and gave him his money back. a man passed by and nodded his head on me, giving me the look of "you're crazy, man". The guy with the money was so grateful that he wanted to give me 20$. On my way back to D.C from Boston I took the metro. There was an old lady, tryin' to carry her bags down the escalator. I grabbed her cases and took it downstairs and waited for her. She came amazed, as the people around her, smiling and thanking me like it was the first time in her 70 years of living that something like that happens to her, and saying: "thank god America has tourists".

Boston
I took a flight to Boston, landed at the airport where Eldar's (my cousin) employee, Guy, picked me up to Eldar's place. I got there, met Sabrina (Eldar's wife), and studied the work. The day after I was at the mall, tryin' to sell hair straighters I had no clue about. Since I learned the basic rule of the job, I started to sell. The rule was: Hit on every girl you see. It was like being in a club for twelve hours. Along the time I became really good with the straightens and did the hair of dozens girls a day, all ages, all sizes, all colors. I even once did the hair of an eighteen years old California model. Of course she knew that a top hair styler from Spain is messin' up with her hair :) All the other workers at the company were girls from all over the world: Hila, Nofar & Hadass (Israel), Laura, Isabel (France), Ariel, Kim (USA) & Nikki (Japan).

Since I don't wanna stay here for too long, and I don't have the time to learn a new job, I was looking for a job with a safe income. That's how I started to sell motion pictures. A really Corny item that only the shopping obsessed Americans will buy. I get 25% of the sales and a minimum of 500$ a week.

Maryland
These days I live somewhere between Baltimore & D.C, sharing an apartment with three other guys. Avi from Israel, Chris & Gabe from Chicago. Ever since I've been here, me and my Americans friends are going out every night. We went downtown to Georgetown. That's a neat long avenue full of bars and clubs. The weird thing about US nightlife is the bars & clubs close very early. I found it out when I was dancing with sabrina in a Boston club, and all of a sudden the lights turned on, and the music changed. The party was alive and the place was packed. It was only 2am. After I spent almost 70$ at the bars of D.C and Baltimore, we were looking for a cheap drinks place. That's how we got to a students place in College Park. The funny thing was that I've been there before with my American ex-girlfriend and now I'm with my new American friends.

Back to work. At First I was satisfied with the pictures coz I saw people checking them out. Than I noticed they were mostly girls, and then I found they were checking me out. Horny American girls...

Right now I'm at the mall and two boys and two girls entered a furniture store and sat on a sofa infront the showcase window. They were sitting on a sofa in a weird kindda way, frozen. a group of people gathered around them when they sharply moved. The people were scared to death and then they couldn't stop laughing.

Americans may be stupid, but they are sure fun.

New Orleans, South America
Soon my friends...

On the Dark Side of the Road

College Park, Maryland
United States

This blog writing finds me at the University of Maryland dorms, at Shira's room. This is where I spend the weekend, when my weekstart was in New York.

I landed at JFK airport in New York, Went thru the long & exhausting immigration proccess, got my 6 months staying visa and walked out thru the doors to the journey I was dreaming about for so long. The freezing new york's atmosphire outside the airport made me forget about the journey and think about surviving. The snow covered the city in white, but it was still more alive than most of the places I've been in for the past few years. I took the subway to the city (they just call manhattan "the city", for a good reason - this is the capital city of the modern world), jumping from one train to another to get to my hostel. "Toilets are for the hostel guests only", was the sign that welcome me to my new hostel. I felt so lucky.

How was the hostel you probably asking yourself. so, I was thinking about it, and the best way to describe it is picturing a double sized bed and walls surrounding it. that how big my room was. You can't be disappointed if you paid only 27 bucks for a room in the heart of manhattan. Manhattan is thrilling and exciting. I've been to all the cool places such as Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire state building. I woke up in the morning after a pleasant night at the doghouse, checked out and went to find the "88 E Broadway", as the resarvation of my bus ticket to Washington D.C said. Now I know the E in the middle is East Broadway and not 88 East. I didn't know that then. So I came to the cross of Broadway and 88 street, looked around to find a sign of a bus terminal but none. Do you know the look on the face of the tourist on movies? I looked worse. I was so lost, because I can see both streets but I can't find the bus stop. So this nice lady comes to me and ask me: "are you lost?" (you must be a magician I thought to myself), I'm looking at her, with a pack of 60 kilos on my back, mumbling something about Broadway, Washington and the sun. We both understand I'm not going to make it even if I will magically find the place, so she offered me to take a new bus. It was something like this: "so, you're taking the subway to the times square and 42nd street, then you switch to the shuttle train to the grand central station, you know, it's like the tachana merkazit". When I told Dorit abou it, she asked me if I wore the backpacking bag, hiking shoes, nylon cover for the bag, and sunglasses. no more words needed.

So I got to the university of marryland to meet Shira. I spent the night there and than I went to travel DC (the capital city of US). Unlike New York, the city is really quite and peaceful. You really find it hard to believe that the capital city can be laid back like that. All the buildings are huge and amazingly designed. I got there really early at the morning, went straight to the US Capitol building. Along with me, a company of the marines arrived for their morning training. When I told them I was an officer in the Israeli army they all gathered to take a picture with me. I know that it seems like I took a picture with them, but don't be confused by how it seems, its them taking a picture with me. I spent the rest of the day wandering there, passing the White House, Washington Monument, National Archive, Cathedral, Lincoln Memorial, China Town (just like NY, the chineese got their own spot), and more.

As written above, now I'm at Shira's room in College Park, Maryland. Yesterday we wen't to a students party on the local pub. now we're getting ready for Shabbat (I believe she still think I'm going to the temple today), so Shabat Shalom to everyone in Israel, Thailand and UK.

I love you all,
Ori.

Crossroads

Tenuvot, Israel

That's it!
After serving the Idf for 3 and a half years, I can summarize this era and say few things about it.
When I joined the army I was a frightened teenager, who had no idea what he's going in to. I chose to serve the artillery unit because my sister's boyfriend served there, and was highly recommended me about it. in that time, that was the only thing I knew about the army.

So I joined in. It was the middle of the summer in August 11th 2002. I was the first of my friends to join so I had no clue what I'm going in to. from a spoiled teenager that all his worries were what party to go out to, now I had to deal with long distance journeys, discipline, taking care of others and mental distress.

I didn't do really well at the army at the beginning. after a long, difficult basic and advance training I've become a fighter. I wanted to go to the commanders course like my friends but they sent me to Qalkilia for 4 months. those were the most difficult four months of my whole serving period, and probably my life. I didn't believe in what I did there, I didn't get to sleep much at all (5 hours a night was a privilege), and I felt inferior.

I put all my efforts to make a good impressions on my commanders so they let me go to the commanders course, and after 4 months, they did. since now and on, my serving was much smoother. after a 3 months long commander course, they found me appropriate to go to the officers course. that was a longer course (about eight months) that after it, I became an combat officer.

The thing with being an officer is that you need to sign another year. that means I needed to serve four years instead of three. When I signed for this extra year I had so much motivation, and the feeling I need to prove my ex-commanders they were wrong and I can be more than a commander and be an officer.

Ater 8 months of officers course, I got my lieutenant rank and sent to the syria border to be a commander of 33 soldiers. I had an amazing time being their commander. We moved from place to place all over the country, from the north to the south, serving places like the Jordan valley and the edge of Ramallah. After another 8 months I got a new assignment, and did mostly desk work for another 8 months. During this job, I started regreting about the extra year I signed. That was a grind job, but that wasn't all. add to that, me falling for a temporary guest from the states and now you have pretty much of an estimate how I felt.

I ask to leave the army sooner than I was supposed to. When she left I got a new assignment as a new immigrants commander. I had soldiers all over the world, just name it! Australia, Russia, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, United States, Argentina and more... I did this job knowing I'm leaving after it.

Well, it didn't go smooth as I was hoping. After I finished, the army gave me really hard time about it, but after being stubborn enough, they let me go. (yay! I'm finally free)

The same day I left I met my travel agent, and after less than a week (today), I'm holding my ticket to freedom. Yes, I'm talking about the long journey most of ex-servicemen do. My destination is South America thru the states (I miss my girl).

Where in south america?
Well, I've got a ticket to Bogota so I guess I'll be in Colombia. Besides of that I don't have a real plan, because I believe that's the right way to travel for a long period. If you have suggestions I would like to read them, just leave them as a comment or email me.

Lets all have a wonderful year!
Ori.