Daily Things...

Here are some random observations about life in the West Bank...

The Sharons

The garbage system is fairly straightforward despite the fact that most civil servants haven't been paid in three months because of the West's refusal to provide any support to the Palestinian Government. Most municipal workers and policemen continue to work even though they aren't getting paid because they support their elected government even if they didn't vote for them. Anyway... basically you take your garbage out of your apartment to one of the dozens of smallish dumpsters that line the roads all over the place (every 200 meters or so?). The funny thing is that we call them "Sharon's" (Israel's comatose former Prime Minister and International fugitive from War Crimes charges) because each has been spray painted with his name in Arabic. I don't know if they were done so because they are short and fat and in green (Sharon in uniform?) or just because they are dumpsters. It's a phenomenon found all over the West Bank.

Wildlife

There's an array of wildlife here. The mosquitos look the same as those in North America but they fly faster and are harder to kill. The other night we were walking home and we saw a car pull over to the side of the road. We got closer and saw that a man was standing beside the road when the car raced forward all of a sudden in his general direction. Then we saw the snake and realized that the car was running it over. We passed by, and the man at the side of the road dropped a rock on its head and then kicked it. I'm guessing they don't like snakes here.

I've noticed that in every country I've been to in the third world there is a different species of random scavenging animal. In Latin America its almost universally dogs. My fiancee and I have a funny picture of us arriving in Honduras and there being an exhausted stray dog lying on its back at the foot of the welcome to Honduras flag pole. Hilarious. In Palestine it's cats. Stray cats that rummage through the Sharons for scraps of food.

Loud Noises

I've become fairly adept at distinguishing the sound of gunshots from fireworks. Both of which are nightly noisemakers that mark some sort of celebration.

Weddings

There are weddings here every weekend. Loud loud parties that last all weekend and late into each night.

Celine Dion

Restaurants play mixed CD's of cheesy mid-90's pop music. Celine is a favourite, Bryan Adams (I once heard "Everything I do I do for you" repeated a half dozen times while we were eating at a nice Ramallah restaurant) Whitney Houston... Strange....

I'll try to post more of these soon...