Saturday October 28

I do love Athens. I'm glad we were here less than 6 months ago though, so we don't feel like we have to do any real sight-seeing and we can just wander around and be. It's a weird feeling of enjoyment of a place though, because when I recognize that I'm enjoying it I feel guilty. Mostly I'm sad and have a headache. We heard a fair amount of Hebrew being spoken as we roamed the tourist shops earlier. It seems there are families with young children who are spending some time here right now. Makes sense - it's a cheap flight to get here and there are no air raid sirens.

The Israeli airport yesterday was hauntingly empty. I've never seen it so desolate. There were at least as many security guards walking around and checking documents as there were travelers. The passengers were all young families and the elderly, all people who would have a hard time dealing with how stressful it is to be in Israel right now. Or maybe they have lost their homes and it's easier to be abroad than to stay with relatives.

A. and R. took us out for lunch the day before we left. We talked a lot, and choked back a lot of tears as we shared news that we had heard from people we knew across the country. I told them about a friend of mine who had attended the funeral for the young man who had organized the Supernova concert; she didn't personally know him, but he was the nephew of a friend of hers and she went with the friend so she wouldn't have to bear it alone. My friend said that though she has been to many funerals in her lifetime, she had never experienced anything so gut-wrenchingly awful. There were so many people there that cars were backed up from the site all the way to the highway. Relatives were shrieking and wailing. She couldn't even start to describe it without choking up. 

A. said that the kibbutz was full of refugees from the south, who they were all housing and feeding at the kibbutz residents' expense. Different volunteer entertainment groups were coming by every evening to lift morale -- singers, acrobats, theater troupes. But there is so much fear and uncertainty, while it diverted the children's attention for a few hours, everyone else was constantly on edge. He said that the government had told families from the south who had lost their homes -- and lost many of their relatives and neighbors as well -- that it could be a year before they would be able to go back and rebuild. A. was incensed, asking where and how these people were supposed to live in the meantime? The government has given subsidies to only some of the families, and only for 3 months. Most people have been relying on help for housing and basic subsistence from the massive volunteer efforts that other Israelis have coordinated for them. Nothing from the government. And they're all wondering if and when the food shortages are going to start. Without anyone tending to the agriculture in the south, it's only a matter of time. Even at the restaurant where we ate with them on Thursday, we were told that not everything listed on the menu was available. And many of the items we were looking for at lunchtime at the airport yesterday were similarly crossed off.

We talked with A. & R. about the 24 children orphaned because Hamas butchered their parents. We talked about the children being held hostage in Gaza, many of whom had been raped, injured, and/or seen their parents or other friends and family killed. We couldn't dwell on that too long. I asked how their own grandchildren were dealing with everything. They said the youngest one (she's 2) is scared all the time, ever since the air raid siren had sent them all running to the bomb shelter last week. Her mother (their daughter) is expecting her third child in December.

When we were driving to the airport yesterday there was a lot of graffiti on the highway. "Blame Netanyahu" in big letters in Hebrew stands out most in my mind, but there were other strings of words with "Netanyahu" in them that I couldn't read fast enough. The taxi was going 140 km per hour -- the driver commented that the only good part of the war was that the roads were empty. He spoke Arabic to his wife on the phone, but Hebrew with us. He proudly showed us a photo of his son on his phone (at 140 km per hour...) in full uniform. He was fighting on the front lines in the south. We whizzed by lots of signs with Israeli flags on all of the billboards and buildings, about victory and about unity. One of them said to hug the security forces. I'll post some photos below. 

I don't have much else to say at the moment. I seem to write the most when I'm angry, and at the moment I'm just too sad. 

My daughter took me to a favorite spot of ours from our last trip here so that we could have vegan nutella-filled crepes with gelato as a birthday treat, so that was a nice moment. Last year on my birthday we were in Toledo; I'm looking at pictures from our Spain trip to cheer myself up.

I'll try to write more tomorrow. On Monday I'm flying to the US where I'll be hunkering down at my folks' place in Florida and getting back to reading the news and being angry. I'm sure you'll hear from me more then. My daughter will fly to Edinburgh to visit her best friend who's doing her 3rd year abroad there, and then she'll rejoin me. The plan is to wait in Florida until she gets notified that classes are starting -- they say they will give 2 weeks' notice. Then we'll fly back. We're hopeful.