Randomness!

Today I went to volunteer again. I helped in a 3rd grade classroom, which went fairly well. I don't think I would have the patience to teach there full-time, though. The kids are pretty wild and the school seems pretty disorganized (both in discipline and other areas.) Anyway... Melissa, who had been going with me, was again unable to go today. I always miss her, but I am also growing in my confidence to go about the city by myself when necessary. Apparently I'm starting to look like I belong too. Today I was walking back to school from the bus stop and a lady stopped me by Jaffa gate to ask about "Mamilla." I think she was Muslim (by her head covering) and I think she was speaking Hebrew, so that's about all that I understood. I pointed her to the Mamilla Mall (hopefully that's what she wanted) and was thanked in Hebrew. Anyway, not sure why she choose to ask me, but I guess I'll take it as a compliment. :)

I heard a fairly strong indictment of Christian music the other day. I was talking to a friend here who likes to listen to rap music. He apparently especially likes this Muslim rapper from Chicago. I must have looked skeptical or something becaue he tried to assure me, saying something like "It's clean - pretty much the same as Christian music." If all we expect of Christian music is that it be clean and otherwise indistinguishable from the music of any other worldview (secular humanism, Islam, Budhism, etc.) then our standards are far too low. (In defense of him, that's probably not quite what he meant, and he would probably agree that Christian music should have higher standards, but I think that his statement, whether he meant it that way or not, reflects the attitude of a lot of people. We listen to Christian music because it's clean, not because it's specifically CHRISTIAN in its worldview.)

Today is election day in Jerusalem. Interesting issues in this city. An article I read the other day said that Jerusalem rated pretty low in "livablity" when compared to other Israeli cities - lots of trash, fewer city services, bad parking. Jerusalem is also on the border between Israel and the West Bank, which means it has a larger Arab population. In addition to the Arab population there are Religious Jews, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Secular Jews, all of which have very different ideas of how thing should be. I didn't know this before coming here, but apparently the Ultra-Orthodox don't work so they can spend all day studying Torah and Mishnah. They also have lots of children. They expect to be supported by the government. Kind of a drain on the economy. Jewish-Arab tensions aside, Jewish-Jewish tensions are fierce.

Here's an interesting article: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035415.html.

I have Hebrew today! We are working on translating Ruth. As much as I get rather frustrated with that class, I do enjoy starting to understand the text.

I leave for Jordan on Thrusday! I'm pretty excited. :) I get to see the "real" Petra. I'm sure I'll post notes and photos when I get back. Until then...