haha Israel is ridiculous

Hello dears!

Last week was quite eventful (two field trips! A big Shabbat dinner with friends!) but this week I have midterms and just don't have the energy or time to write a big post at the moment.

Hooowweever, two things happened today while I was volunteering at the integrated kindergarten that I wanted to share in a jiffy.

1. This will illustrate to you two very central aspects of Israeli culture that continuously prove to be difficult to get used to. Today, while standing at the playground watching the kids go crazy, the head teacher in the kindergarten next door (there are 3) said to me (in Hebrew) "My daughter has a nose ring, too. Don't you know they're not pretty? They're really not pretty. I don't like them. Why do you have that?" Thanks, other teacher that I don't know. I think this clearly shows that Israelis 1. have no understanding of being polite or politically correct. They call this "speaking directly" and think it shows that they're honest and forthright. This may very well be true, but they're also mean and 2. that everyone thinks they are entitled to an important opinion about your life. That lady probably thinks I was gonna go home and take out my nose ring, like all of a sudden I realized that I had made a terrible mistake! Hah.

2. Hhhahahahha. I can barely start this story I think it's so funny. First some background. Strangely enough (to me at least) the kindergarten has a full-time maid. By this I mean that the kids make a mess (they're 5 after all), the teachers ask them to clean up but might as well whisper it, and then usher the children outside to the playground so the maid can clean up after them. I think this is weird. It also means that we're outside at the playground quite a lot - after every messy activity of which there are many. At first I would run around with the little munchkins, throwing them around and playing hide and seek. Then I realized 1. that all of the other teachers take kiddie chairs out of the classrooms to sit and watch the munchkins (and look like giants in a toy house) and 2. they're not paying me so I really don't need to go above and beyond the call of duty. So now I sit and watch too.
Aaaanyway today, during one of these sit and watch moments, a little boy was talking with the teacher who told me my nose ring is ugly. She was giving him addition problems to do and he was doing them. And getting them all right. He's 5, and could add all sorts of double digit numbers in his head. I was impressed. Then he ran away and was stirring up some kind of trouble so the teacher wanted to get his attention and proceeded to yell "NIMROD!!!!!!!" Bahahahahha. This is an Israeli name!! (Oh no I just realized someone named Nimrod might stumble upon this blog one day. Just in case: Here in Israel this is a perfectly fine, not at all laughable name. My apologies that in English it is downright hilarious). Granted, it is pronounced nimrOD, with the Hebrew R (think somewhere between French and Spanish, but with phlegm in your throat) and emphasis on the second syllable. Either way, the sight of this teacher calling this tiny math genius a nimrod just about made my day. I also think that in the highly international age we are in, naming your kid Nimrod is a cruel, cruel joke.

And with that I return to writing my bagillion page paper about female pioneers in 1920's Palestine.
Bye!