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Honey is Sweet I remembered something - 2009-06-24 I'm grateful for: old friends; new friends; goats and goat kids. Okay, duh, now that I seem to have flushed that out of my system, my brain is running again. And, gee, what have I missed? Well, we went on a tiyul yesterday. !!! I don't know how to *squeee* properly in text. I've been thinking about/wanting to do this for longer than I can remember. I occasionally think up ways and means I can make it happen, but it doesn't. So, finally, yesterday, I took my kids out on a 'field trip.' Actually TH could be said to be the one who took us out, since he drove, but anyway... We went to the Armistice House site, and Black Arrow memorial. The Armistice House is where the armistice was signed with Egypt after the 1956 war. *** Interrupted by phonecall from D2. I need to smash the phone, or something. The Black Arrow memorial commemorates the paratroopers who fought back against the (they would call them terrorist attacks today) cross-border attacks from Gaza and what people now call the West Bank. In which 500-1000 people - civilians, women, infants, elderly, you-name-it - were killed between 1953 and 1956. For anyone who doesn't come from a small country, that is a simply huge number as a percentage of the population. I forget how many people that would be in the U.S. for the same percentage, but I think it would be a ballpark of 50,000 to 150,000. Those number could well be low. Yah, so anyway, it's a lovely site, beautifully put together with informational recordings in three languages, including English. There is also a playground and picnic area, decent facilities, a very nice water fountain... Then we wandered further up the road and ended up at an observation point from which we could see Gaza City, and might, with powerful enough binoculars, have been able to make out the moshav where we live. Gaza City was further away, but takes up a rather large chunk of the horizon, easier to find than a handful of individual houses set among fields. While we were at the observation point there was also a tour group from the W0rld C0uncil of Chuches. There was a tour guide giving a fairly good informational lecture in English (her English was very good), but after a while we seemed to become the main tourist attraction. That was funny. We were asked all sort of questions, and one woman asked if she could take our picture! ;-) It was so funny. TH suggested perhaps we could make a deal with the tour company to show up again the next time they had a group. Not quite like being monkeys in a zoo, but something like. Genuine *gasp* Israeli Settlers! Of course, we aren't 'settlers' any more, since we no longer live in the 'West Bank.' The proper name for the region where we lived is the Shomron, which is the name it has held since Roman times and before. But anyway. Time to stop kicking that particular dead horse maybe, but I can't help having a backlog of frustration on the subject. They were very interested about what it is like living with the rockets coming at us, at first they were surprized to hear that rockets fall outside of the immediate area of Sderot. Whatever news they are reading must be curious. When their bus driver honked the horn, we had a following of at least half the tour group. It was both amusing and sad. Their response was almost entirely positive except when TH said that this can end any time they (the other side) wants, all they have to do is stop shooting at us - and it will all be over. That got skepticism and some emotional withdrawal, although right up until that point they were following us close behind. It's like it doesn't matter how much logic you throw at a person, if they've learned to 'believe' in some bit of 'Truth' without thought, logic doesn't stand a chance. Drat, there were a couple of other things I'd thought to write about, but D2's phone call has driven it all out of my head. I took photos! On the tiyul. I haven't got them posted yet, but I did put up some more new photos on my fotolog, for anyone with an interest. Including baby goats. And I'm off, 'cause now D3 is talking to me. It's nice to be in demand, I guess. I'm listening to Bustan Abraham: Fountainhead 0 bleats so far:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::
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