Foreigner

One of the times I miss home most is when I’m calling my house from my cell phone or from Skype. No, it’s not the thrill of hearing the voices of my beloved family members, but the much anticipated American dial tone that graces my ears as I wait for them to pick up. That “beeeeeep…. beeeeeeeep…,” sounding like more like a growl, or a long burp, than its European cousins, never fails to bring a wistful smile to my lips. I guess I could say the same of the crunchy Pepperidge Farm goldfish and thin mint Girl Scout cookies I delightedly discovered in the family carry-on and quickly devoured during our first few hours settling in together in Spain. The fact of the matter is that no matter how Westernized Israel becomes, it’s still no America.

Most people would say that’s a good thing, and many would say that the extent to which it actually has Americanized during the course of the past few decades has all but destroyed its character and charm. I can see both good and bad in Israel’s metamorphosis, but that’s not my point. Maybe I’m too sensitive to the very, very… verrrrryyyy… specific differences (i.e., shape of toilet flushers, style of traffic lights, aesthetic of prescription medicines, the way Hebrew looks on a receipt), but despite all my blabber about how nice it is to integrate into the Be’er Sheva university community, sometimes I feel completely lost.

The truth is that while succeeding to do things the Israeli way and not being the sucker most of the time makes me feel pretty good, sometimes I stop and think, do I really want to be hanging around a place where I always have to be on the defensive/have to be a total jerk to get what I want? The other day I arrived in the laundry room, and after sticking my first load into the machine, started putting the rest of my clothes into a second washer. The girl at the machine next to me looked up and said, “Oh, I was going to use that one.” Now, she hadn’t actually touched the thing, and it was clear that she had two other washers under her jurisdiction (granted, it looked like she was sharing them with someone else, for some reason). I kind of looked at her with exasperation, but before formulating an argument, someone else sitting in the room pointed out that two other washers had finished their cycles and the clothes owners should be on their way over. I turned to the girl and said, “Do you want to wait, or should I?” She shrugged and said, “Well, I guess you can take it.” So in theory, I won! I got the washer which I had claimed by creating a reality on the ground (i.e., my clothing in it). Still didn’t feel so good. She had gotten there first, after all.

Maybe I’m hyper-obsessed with the notion of fairness – everyone should get their share/their turn/what they deserve. (Could be backlash of being one of four siblings, though I’m the oldest, so I should be more okay with the equality thing by now, so maybe I missed something in my mental development.) I just wish I didn’t feel like I have to gear up for battle every time I need to get something done around here.

(For the record, it did feel good to stand up to a woman at the grocery store last week who claimed to have been in line behind the guy right in front of me despite her seeming to have appeared out of nowhere, by frowning, mumbling some words of semi-comprehensible argumentative Hebrew, and blockading her with my torso. That was cool.)