Safe in Israel

I arrived in Israel at 1am this morning. I am now at Wi'am, the organiziation where I will be volunteering for the next three months. Between that time there were a few minor events.

 

The first was when I tried to get my visa at the passport control. I had an official letter from CMU and the line seemed to be moving very quickly so I was confident. In fact, I was quite surpised with how low the security seemed to be. I remember South Africa being a lot more secure, at least in first impressions. Well, when it was my turn I went to my booth and handed over my passport and letter. The lady read the letter slowly and asked me a few questions. Then she leaned over to the booth beside her and said a few things in Arabic. Next, she got on the phone and said a few more things, again in Arabic. She asked me a few more questions and then a man walks by and she hands him my papers. He tell me to follow him. I get to a room and I'm told to sit down as the man hands my papers to another man in an office. I sit in this room for about a half hour as it slowly fills up with Hispanic people. At this point I am quite surprised with how calm I am but also expecting to hear that I am denied acess to Israel at any moment. I'm called into the small office and sit down. The man is very polite and hospitable (not what I was expecting) and he asks me a number of other questions. Eventually, and with a fair amount of reluctance, he stamps my passport and welcomes me to the country.

 

Next, I go to the baggae area and look for my backpack. A lady behind a desk tell me that it's not there and that they have been paging me for quite a while. She says that my backpack is still in Austria and that I need to provide an address or a phone number so that they can deliver it tomorrow. I tell her that I don't have either of those memorized. Luckily, there is free internet and my comptuer still has a small amount of battery power remaining. I write down a phone number that I have no idea is correct and move on.

 

At this point it is about 2am. I was supposed to meet my taxi driver at 1am. I walk into the main lobby of the airport and I do not see him. I then walk outside and still do not see him. This is important because I have no idea where I am going. I know that I should be going to Bethlehem but I have no idea where in Bethlehem. I walk back into the lobby and finally see a man with a sign that says Joshua Krueger. I introduce myself and he offers me some of his peanuts. I politely decine and we start walking to his cab. At this point, I ask if I am pronouncing his name corrently, to which he responses , "that it's my name." He takes me back to where I met him and introduces me to the actual taxi driver who knows where I am supposed to go.

 

Just outside Bethlehem I went through my first checkpoint. At first I was surprised with how easy it was. All I did was show my passport through the widow (we didn't even roll the window down) and the parking garage style barrier was lifted. This is likely because it was almost 3am at this point though. Once we rolled though that barrier we got to the real checkpoint, which consisted of a soldier with a fully automatic machine gun and the 10 metre high contrete wall. Again, probably because it was late, they immediately opened the massive concrete gate in the wall and let us through.

 

By about 3:30am I was in my bed in Bethlehem. I am staying in a small one room plus bedroom appartment. I have an excellent balcony and view. I will provide pictures soon. I am staying by myself, but I think that most of the neighbours are relatives of the director of Wi'am. I'm sure I will find out very soon.