Last night was the first time I felt I could get everything I was missing culturally from Australia, in Israel.
Sitting on a bus yesterday in front of an Arse (Middle Eastern hooligan), who was blearing Sephardic pop music from his mobile phone to the point that the person sitting next to me’s ears began to bleed, I felt this figurative butterfly floundering around in the pit of my stomach, giving me an ‘oil and water’ feeling in terms of my place in this land.
Then, as though from my bowels to God’s ears, a poetry slam pops up on the cultural calendar!
Free wine and popcorn, of which I had three glasses, (yes I was that guy, the guy who took cups of popcorn to his seat). Sufficiently full of fermented grapes and carefully constructed sentences I strolled toward the shuk (the current love of my life).
On Monday nights at the ‘5th of May’ bar in the shuk there is live music followed by a DJ who plays the latest tunes. Something about dancing in the middle of the alleyways of the shuk which, during the day are jam packed with people, just rocks my socks in a very real way! Like eating a delicious cake, instead of taking a bag of drugs.
Surrounded by a facade of smoke, dreadlocks, knitwear, nose rings, and music improvised by a band with an androgynous looking drummer I was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of ease, and I showed it to the WORLD through dance!
Sipping on a beer brewed in Ramallah perfected by Christian monks in the 1500’s who drank it to fortify themselves against their ritual fasts also helped.
(It tasted of oppression and x-ray machine)
