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December 26, 2006

Do you...?

“Do you have children?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Are you trying?”

“Uh……”

I can no longer count how many times this conversation has come up: a neighbor, the lady at the corner grocery store, the woman waiting in line at the post office. In this part of the world, a five-minute acquaintance is sufficient intimacy for conversations that are usually reserved for close friends. Although my Hebrew is improving rapidly, I was inspired to finally enroll in an ulpan (Hebrew class) after an embarrassing miscommunication with the lady in the clothing store who offered me unsolicited advice on relationships.

Two mornings a week, I sit with my fellow students speaking Hebrew with the accents and cadences of our native languages. We are from the U.S., France, Germany, Russia, Argentina, Korea, and Iran. I arrive to class early one day and the sweet Iranian lady invites me to sit next to her. We introduce ourselves and then, in Persian accented Hebrew: “Do you have children? Are you trying?”

Jerusalemites have been talking about the possiblity of a snowstorm since Monday. We all laughed when this is all we saw on Wednesday.

By evening, our street looks like this!

Children in the park. They watch their father slide down the hill, seated on a sled/plastic bag.

Posted by Ilene Weismehl  at 11:46 AM | Permalink

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