By the Dea Sea

Yesterday I was at the Dead Sea. (Don't think I go every day. The trip takes 2 hours and I work 6 days a week. I haven't been there in 7 years.) There was a kid there, around the age of 10, who was wailing apparently because the skin on his back was burning him. I didn't know if he had a cut or a burn, but my Hebrew was too poor to discuss this with him. None of the Israelis were helping him at all. I motioned that he should go under the outdoor shower. There were only 2 of them in the entire narrow walled up men's section that we were in, but the people using them wouldn't relinquish them. After a while, another man came over to help. I could tell that he wasn't Israeli because he didn't have that look of murder in his eyes that so many Israeli men have. So I said to this man in English, "It's frustrating that I can't talk to these people." He said, "It's the same with me." I said, "How long have you been living here?" He said, "You call this living?" He went on to complain about all the aggressiveness on the road, at the stores, "the lack of decency," he said. But I got it out of him that he's been here 20 years. Still can't speak Hebrew.

I saw him later outside on the bench. Another man joined us, a South African/Canadian. He asked if the kiosk (food stand) was open because he was thirsty there by the Dead Sea where the temperature read 45 degrees C. But it was closed and there was no place to get water.

He started telling me how he doesn't get along with Israeli culture and would like to return to Canada but has family here.

The three of us sat there, stewing in regret for coming to this crazy place. Somehow the Dead Sea seemed a fitting setting for the mood.