Haircut Israeii Style

Before leaving for Israel, David got his hair cut really, really short.  Seven months later he needed another one.  Well, he needed one earlier than than, but he keeps thinking he's going to let it grow and wear it in a pony tail in back.  However, he's been getting calls for job interviews and most employers don't go for men wearing pony tails, so he decided it was time.

I'm glad, because his hair was at the point where it was too short for a pony tail and so long he was looking kind of like a clown especially when he put on his baseball cap.  His hair would bush out at the sides.  What's so unfair, is he has great hair.  Very little grey, no baldness, and his hair is thick, black and naturally wavy.  My hair is thin and limp and if I stopped dying it -- white as snow.

We're still learning the language, and it will take years to become conversational.  Although, I'm kind of conversational if people will talk really, really slow.  But they don't.  Lately, I've been pretending like I speak Hebrew, which doesn't work so well, because I understand very little and end up looking at whoever is speaking to me with my mouth gaping open and a dazed expression.  At which time they immediately guess I speak English, not Russian, but English.

Well, anyway, there's this shwarma place that David and I visit about once a week.  Shwarma is this wonderful food that I love and David thinks is so-so.  But red meat is expensive here and you have to get it from a butcher and our Hebrew just isn't there yet.  So the only meat available is when we go out either to a real restaurant which runs around 200 shekels or the shwarma place which costs 60 shekels.  Normally shwarma is served with pita bread, but neither of us eats pita, so we get it on a plate.  Shwarma is shaved lamb that has been roasting on a vertical spit, and it comes with hummus and a variety of other vegetables including fried eggplant. Yum!

We frequent a shwarma place walking distance from our apartment.  The owner has a brother who lives in Miami, and lived in the US himself for many years.  He missed Israel too much and came home, but he speaks English very well.  He is very friendly, and every time I come he claims he can tell I'm learning more Hebrew and speaking better.

Well, David asked the shwarma guy where to go for a haircut.  The shwarma guy pointed and said, "Across the street, down the stairs, and on the left is a barber shop.  They're very good. They speak English."

The next day David got up and trekked out for his haircut.  Now you must understand, it was a very hot and humid day.  He was back within half an hour, drenched with sweat, angry and his hair was still attached.  "What is it Israeli's can't do?"  he hollered at me.

Me cowering, "I don't know."


"You know!  We learned this the first day we were here."

Me cowering, "I don't know."

"You know!"

Me no longer cowering.  "I don't know, just tell me."

"Israeli's can't give directions worth a damn."

"Well, did you go down the stairs?"

"Down the stairs?  He didn't say anything about down the stairs."

"Yes he did."

So later, in the afternoon, we set out together in search of the barbershop.  David was correct, even going downstairs, there was no hair cutting place.  The only other place we knew to go was a salon in the mall that would be rather expensive.  We walked in the baking sun to the Grand Canyon Mall.  Some of the prices on the salon services went up to 1700 shekels.  In American dollars that would be $420.  Yikes.  Fortunately, a simple haircut for a guy was only 70 shekels or around $18.

One of the guys took David in the back and washed his hair then I watched while he got sheared.  On our way home David said, "You know how in the United States when they wash your hair it smells really good?  The shampoo they used here smelt like Clorox or something."

Remembering the Israeli brand hair dye I purchased that had a terrible smell, I asked, "Ammonia?  Did it smell like ammonia?"

"Yeah, ammonia.  Can you believe it, they put ammonia in the shampoo here.  That must be to kill some kind of fungus or something."

Israel on High Alert

All you who have been keeping up with the news are aware of what's going on in Syria and the instability there.  When I lived in Colorado and was a member of the Multi-Lingual International Club, I knew a woman named Strasia from Syria.  She was a blond overweight woman who was more interested in her friends from France than me.  She tended to act like nobility and wore really great designer clothes.  You could tell she was moneyed.

One time I asked her about Israel.  I can't remember what she replied, I only remember her normally sweet demeanor changed into sheer hatred.  The last I heard she was back living in Syria.  Now I wonder if she is dead.

Since the bombing in Bulgaria and Syria seems to be falling apart, little things are happening.  Yesterday the Israeli government tested the air raid system.  The alarm went off for a minute, and the siren sounds different than the Shabbat and Memorial Day sirens which are long wails Yrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-for a whole minute-rrrrrrmmm.  The air raid siren is more like a wave or echo YRrrrYRrrrYRrrrYRrrr.  That's good to know.

Maybe they test sirens once a year no matter what.  According to David, for many years in Chicago they tested the air raid sirens every Tuesday at noon.  No on paid attention.  The USSR needed to be sure and attack Chicago on a Tuesday at noon.  In Atlanta they test tornado sirens on a weekly basis.  Since we've been here, the first test of the air raid siren was yesterday.

Other little things are happening.  Like there was no furlough for Israeli soldiers this weekend.  Usually, they get to go home for Shabbat.  El Al the Israeli national airline has tightened their already tight security.  The guard at the grocery store is now has a holstered gun.  Little differences.
Our view of the Mediterranean allows us to see northward toward Syria and Lebanon.  A lot of times we hear fighter pilots overhead but can rarely see the planes.  We figured out most of the planes we hear are patrolling the gas reserves under the sea belonging to Israel and Cyprus.  Today I saw a low flying plane heading north, as in north toward Syria.  Probably just doing reconnaissance...right?

Thursday in Israel is equivalent to Friday in the US.  Thursday is go out and party night, kids walk around the street at midnight laughing and talking loud.  They can do that in Israel because they don't need curfew laws here, because the kids aren't causing a lot of problems and it is safe for kids to be out at night as there is relatively little crime here.  You do have to lock your doors, but only for theft.  Rape and murder are very rare.  So anyway, Thursday nights and Friday mornings are generally quite loud.  Last night and this morning, Haifa was subdued.  Even our Russian girl upstairs who likes to blast American Heavy Metal or as David calls it devil music has been unusually quiet.

We can't listen to Hebrew news, but there has been nothing in the English edition of the Jerusalem Post and other English news outlets about a potential attack:  at least nothing different than the norm.  It's just a sense.

At any rate David told me to be aware, Israel is officially in a heightened state of alert. What he did was make me really scared.  Obviously, I knew something like this could happen even before moving to Israel.  It's one thing to understand something in the abstract and another to experience it first hand.  David said whatever Syria/Lebanon -- possibly spurred on by Hezbollah -- does to Israel, they're going to get it worse.  Small comfort.