From the moment I arrived, we have had a packed schedule with very little time to ourselves and I have had even less time to reflect over the fact that I've left my life in the States and popped myself right into life in Beit She'an.
First impressions of Beit She'an is that it is a small town of around 16,000 people, so bigger than both Burlington and Shelburne. It is located along the path of the Great Rift Valley, which is also what the Dead Sea sits upon, so likewise, Beit She'an is below sea level, which makes it unyieldingly hot. If you thought Florida, California, or even Texas was hot, you'd have nothing on Beit She'an. "Welcome to the Inferno", said one of my fellow Americans. It's a hazy, slightly humid hot from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm (19:00); there are typically no clouds in the sky, and the sun beats down and fries you without a care whether you are human or cat.
At night, you can look across to the East and see the lights of villages in Jordan around 3 kilometers away situated on top of the mountains. During the day, if you hike up to Mount Gilboa in the West, you can see a glimpse of the West Bank.
These infamous presences don't feel threatening. They're just entities existing along with us and filled with people like us who are just going about their days, maybe even vaguely noting that we're out there as well.
If you stood from a vantage point on Mount Gilboa, you would see beneath you a patchwork quilt of fish farms spread out beneath you. Yes, fish farms! The Galilee region that Beit She'an pushes up against is a worldwide supplier of fish, so the area is decorated with large rectangular pools full of tuna and salmon, I think. Somehow, in some Israeli sort of irony/devil-may-care attitude, they intermixed fish farming into the scorched earth of the area and there is rich, fertile production taking place here. This is only supported by the other agriculture in the area, which includes row upon row of date trees and banana tree farms that stretch out for miles and miles.
The most striking part of city life in Beit She'an that takes a lot of adjusting is the cat problem. As my host sister explained, "Cats are like the squirrel of Beit She'an." They sit menacingly on dumpsters, staring at you menacingly from on top of dumpsters as you walk by. They are scarred and marked by how life is for cats in Beit She'an; they are marred from fights, encounters with jackals and diseases - missing parts of tails and even eyes. Because of our proximity to Jordan, the cats have the ability to wander into a third world country where rabies is not controlled; therefore, there's a chance the cats have rabies and they definitely have fleas, so we cannot touch the cats. In the yard that surrounds my home, we have a mother cat and her four kittens who live there. They're all very, very cute, but each is malnourished and suffering from some form of disease that is infecting their eyes, which they will likely go blind from. It's hard to see and not do anything about.
The city of Beit She'an itself is a jumble of crisscrossing streets, filled by one, or two story sand colored buildings. Half of the city is being developed into new single family houses in modern suburban style and the other half was constructed maybe 15 to 20 years ago and hasn't been updated since, but it serves its purpose.
The ITF House of Beit She'an is located in the older part of the city, that we joke is on the wrong side of town. Our street is no masterpiece, it's filled with dry and dead grass and lots of trash; air conditioners from tightly packed-in houses protrude out from our neighbors nondescript houses. We have a bomb shelter on the end of our street. But we are located in perfect proximity to nearly everything in the city. Supermarkets, discount stores, liquor stores and favourite falafel spots are all around a 15-25 minute walk from us.
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| Street crossing sign at the airport that features a rabbi. |
First impressions of Beit She'an is that it is a small town of around 16,000 people, so bigger than both Burlington and Shelburne. It is located along the path of the Great Rift Valley, which is also what the Dead Sea sits upon, so likewise, Beit She'an is below sea level, which makes it unyieldingly hot. If you thought Florida, California, or even Texas was hot, you'd have nothing on Beit She'an. "Welcome to the Inferno", said one of my fellow Americans. It's a hazy, slightly humid hot from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm (19:00); there are typically no clouds in the sky, and the sun beats down and fries you without a care whether you are human or cat.
At night, you can look across to the East and see the lights of villages in Jordan around 3 kilometers away situated on top of the mountains. During the day, if you hike up to Mount Gilboa in the West, you can see a glimpse of the West Bank.
 |
| Looking towards the West and the border with Jordan |
These infamous presences don't feel threatening. They're just entities existing along with us and filled with people like us who are just going about their days, maybe even vaguely noting that we're out there as well.
If you stood from a vantage point on Mount Gilboa, you would see beneath you a patchwork quilt of fish farms spread out beneath you. Yes, fish farms! The Galilee region that Beit She'an pushes up against is a worldwide supplier of fish, so the area is decorated with large rectangular pools full of tuna and salmon, I think. Somehow, in some Israeli sort of irony/devil-may-care attitude, they intermixed fish farming into the scorched earth of the area and there is rich, fertile production taking place here. This is only supported by the other agriculture in the area, which includes row upon row of date trees and banana tree farms that stretch out for miles and miles.
The most striking part of city life in Beit She'an that takes a lot of adjusting is the cat problem. As my host sister explained, "Cats are like the squirrel of Beit She'an." They sit menacingly on dumpsters, staring at you menacingly from on top of dumpsters as you walk by. They are scarred and marked by how life is for cats in Beit She'an; they are marred from fights, encounters with jackals and diseases - missing parts of tails and even eyes. Because of our proximity to Jordan, the cats have the ability to wander into a third world country where rabies is not controlled; therefore, there's a chance the cats have rabies and they definitely have fleas, so we cannot touch the cats. In the yard that surrounds my home, we have a mother cat and her four kittens who live there. They're all very, very cute, but each is malnourished and suffering from some form of disease that is infecting their eyes, which they will likely go blind from. It's hard to see and not do anything about.
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| Some of the kittens that seem to have made a home of our courtyard. "One-Eyed Jack" is in the forefront. |
The city of Beit She'an itself is a jumble of crisscrossing streets, filled by one, or two story sand colored buildings. Half of the city is being developed into new single family houses in modern suburban style and the other half was constructed maybe 15 to 20 years ago and hasn't been updated since, but it serves its purpose.
The ITF House of Beit She'an is located in the older part of the city, that we joke is on the wrong side of town. Our street is no masterpiece, it's filled with dry and dead grass and lots of trash; air conditioners from tightly packed-in houses protrude out from our neighbors nondescript houses. We have a bomb shelter on the end of our street. But we are located in perfect proximity to nearly everything in the city. Supermarkets, discount stores, liquor stores and favourite falafel spots are all around a 15-25 minute walk from us.
Hannah! Burlington has 40,000 people in it!
ReplyDeleteOkay, I had to get that off of my chest.
Now, as a poor comparison to the cats of Beit She'an... The raccoon of Noriega Street. It is currently chilling on top of a three-story-tall telephone pole outside my apartment's window. Couldn't tell if it plans to spend the night there, or if it's just using it as a lookout to plan its next move. Either way, it almost made me like raccoons (wait, my computer doesn't recognize the plural of "raccoon"?!) again, until I remembered the 4 am standoff I had through a glass window of the living room of my family's house in HMB. Not fun times, my friend, not fun times.
The raccoons must have the same sort of judgemental and entitled look. I can tell that a couple of the cats have staked a claim on certain dumpsters & don't get messed with since they're top "dog" apparently.
DeleteSpeaking of dogs, Israelis do keep them as pets, they never wear leashes, but generally seem to know where they bekong. They walk on courtyard walls & occasionally have friends they hang out in gangs with. Seriously. They go for walks with their besties without people.
This reminds me of where a friend used to live up in Tahoe! My friend Pete lived in Tahoma, CA, where there is an apparently enforced "no leash" rule for dogs. The pups would just own the area and walk around without their corresponding people. It generally seemed to work well, so long as one knew what to expect.
DeleteAlso, raccoon update: he was not there as of 7 am this morning. Either way, he was king of the crop for a little while, even if it was just a few short hours!
Somehow the Wikipedia page screwed that one up then! I thought it seemed low!
ReplyDeleteShelburne is smaller though.
Beit She'an cats = NYC Subway rats but much sadder and cuter
ReplyDelete