Did you already wonder, when you travel, that you can meet someone that you know?
We have a French proverb for that: "
There are only mountains that never meet."
Last time that happened to me, it was in 2011 in NY. I recognized the back of a friend from University that i haven't seen since 12 years. We used to live in the same area. We met when i just moved in his area, and never after.
 |
Tram stop in Yerushalayim,
A little girl is fascinated by the white bearded man, then love doesn't last,
January 2015, ©emmarubinstein |
Last Thursday, it was a little different. I bumped into someone that i know, but this person doesn't know who i am.
That person used to live in NY and to hang out with Hasidim there. Indeed, we have met the same ones: bad and good, OTD… Not all of them but many of them.
I heard a lot about that person, and i saw some photos.
I was at the tram stop in Yerushalayim, and it was crowded.
What made me turn to watch the people who were sitting on the bench? Maybe my obsessional need to take photos of Hasidim… I remember very well that i was not in the mood of a pursuit of a photo, at that moment when i saw that person.
I was stunned.
I thought of talking to her/him, but something stopped me doing it.
I realized that the chapter of NY was definitively over, and what would be the pleasure to talk about people that we have already met there?
I let him/her go. We took the same tram. Unfortunately, i took the wrong way.
The person who lives in the apartment with me told me something that i have already noticed: Israeli don't know the geography of their city. :-)
I enjoy reading maps, and i always have one in my bag.
Anyway, i lost that person in the crowd of the Central Bus Station, and i think that was for the best.
Breakfast is my favorite meal, and when i travel, i take a breakfast which won't make me hungry till late evening…
Last Friday, i had one. I didn't want to walk too much that day to come back home before the sundown.
The other reason is that i walk 6, 7 hours daily, and i have blisters, and pain, like the kids.
 |
| The horse in the gan, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein |
 |
| Father and son, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein |
Spontaneously after the breakfast, i decided to follow a path of a crusade. I asked a person where the path went. He didn't really know but he said that i would probably arrive in an Arab area.
I saw that the path was divided in two, and i couldn't see where it will go after the second section.
But, naively, i thought that the path will go along the hills till the place i live, crossing an area that i have known 10 years ago.
 |
| Meadow, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein |
 |
| Meadow, horse and garbage, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein |
It was quiet, surrounding by a spring-like nature with a warm temperature, i couldn't dream better.
I met a man who was riding a horse with his son. They talked to me in Arabic, i smiled and replied in English.
I followed the two paths till i arrived in a sort of meadow where there were young men with another horse.
I didn't feel to cross the meadow, so i went back on a road.
I felt the looks, nothing special, till i arrived in a street where many young men were gathered in different groups.
I asked my way to a young man who was fixing a car. But he was not sure. I was walking in the street and a young teenager came to me, trying to threaten me with his bike. I didn't show him fear.
I felt that i was not very welcome, but also that it might be dangerous to be circled by those different groups if i go further in that street.
I went back, and the teenager on the bike followed me to do the same thing once again. I didn't react but i showed him that i was getting annoyed.
On my way back, i bumped into four teenagers. Two of them were holding a seagull, and another one a pigeon. Maybe i am paranoid, but i thought that the poor birds will die soon. I felt very sick suddenly.
The way they looked at me was very weird.
 |
| Garbage, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein |
I too felt very sad to see that they live in houses, and they throw their garbage in this beautiful landscape. I don't know how it's inside their house, but even in their courtyard, garden, that's disgusting.
I felt a total carelessness.
The only Jews i talked with about that, don't like Arabs. Thus, that's complicated to actually understand what it's going on there. Did they give up, and prefer to live in a sort of ghetto that they have built themselves? That won't be easy to have a good answer because it will be very subjective.
That won't be easy either to fix that, if the peace comes one day.
That was an experience with cold and wet sweats.
