Reunion in Haifa
On Friday, June 27, the fourteen MISTI-Israel participants convened in Haifa for the first of only two times this summer. As far as I know, this weekend rendezvous was the brainchild of Mish. Part of the rationale behind the convention was to promote Hibur -- a group that connects students from the Technion and MIT. Of course, the side effect of the gathering was that we all got to see each other in person. Like at the alumni dinner on Tuesday, June 3, it felt strange for me to see all of these MIT people together in a foreign country. (We had all seen each other a week or two before the end of the academic year, I had taken this flight to Israel on my own, and now I'm here and it's... wait, what are these people doing here??? How did they get here?!)
The schedule for the weekend was quite light, in part because taking care of just the logistics for the meals took Mish a huge amount of time and in part because the Shabbat-observant students (five MIT students, I believe) couldn't do much anyway.
I was in Nazareth earlier in the day when Mish called to inform me that all of the MISTI participants had arrived and that they were hanging out in one of the dorm rooms. Of course, I couldn't come at that precise point. However, I wanted to get back as soon as I could (you know, once I finished my time in Nazareth).
So, I was dropped off by the Port of Haifa (not where I was expecting) at 5:00pm. The city had ground to a halt as businesses and even the buses had shut down for the imminent start of Shabbat. I asked a man in one lonely open convenience store on the side of the road the best way for me to get to The Technion. He suggested taking a taxi, which I knew would cost me at least NIS 30 ($9), or even more due to the extra fees taxis sometimes charge on or around Shabbat. I didn't want to do that. I asked whether the sheruts -- shared taxis -- still were running, and he said no.
I wasn't particularly happy about that. I had the impression the sheruts still ran on Shabbat (or at least longer prior to Shabbat). Unwilling to hail a taxi, I began walking in the direction of the Technion. I remember there was a sherut stand in the busy Hadar neighborhood of Haifa. I tried to recall the path I took during a tour of Haifa on June 4 (a tour that ended at the aforementioned sherut stand). At one point, I was standing in front of another tall building and a city map across the street from it. Finding my location on the map was like finding a needle in a haystack (cliché, I know). All the roads were in Hebrew (which wasn't much of a problem) and the map showed the
whole city, not just the vicinity (
that was the problem). Thankfully, I noticed there was a Carmelit (mini-subway) station across the street. The Carmelit was clearly marked on the map, and indeed I found my whereabouts.
Following a sherut that coincidentally came around the corner, a went a block away to find several out-of-town sheruts and then a couple blocks farther to find local sheruts, including one to the Technion. The sherut was only NIS 7 ($2). Much, much better, and it brought me right to the dorm.
Back at the Technion, I saw three of the MISTI-Israel participants -- Tamara '09, Stephen '09, and Jesse '11 leaving the Canada Dorms. The shindig that Mish had mentioned earlier had concluded, and, given it was 6:00pm, there were less than two hours before sunset. Shabbat dinner was scheduled to begin at 8:30pm.
On the weekends, the Technion campus is nearly silent. Many students, presumably, go home to their families -- if they don't live with their families during the rest of the week. That's what's great (or, terrible, depending on your perspective) about small countries; everything -- and everybody -- is so close. So, when I approached the location of the dinner (which I didn't know perfectly), I knew I had arrived when I saw other humanoid objects. The religious Jews who went to services didn't arrive for almost another half hour. The food took awhile to arrive as well, in part because it had to be carried on foot (or else, some said, it wouldn't be kosher).
Unfortunately, acquiring pictures of the event was quite difficult, in part because we decided to eat outside (in the poor light) and in part because many of Shabbat rules made photographing uncomfortable for those who observed them (as well as uncomfortable for some others who were aware of the Shabbat restrictions). However, I eventually got Risha, Ellann, and one of the Technion students, Danny, to smile for the camera:
Too bad this doesn't encapsulate the exciting evening we had. It was relatively relaxed, with everyone talking about their internships, their accommodations, and their travels. As I mentioned, this was one of only two times all the MISTI students would convene in one location.
We sat outside instead of inside because the air conditioning wasn't working. However, at the end of the meal, the lights inside still needed to be turned off. Mish couldn't technically
ask me to turn them off. So, instead she just stood by the door and the light switches and abruptly took the trays of food I was holding. (I then turned off the lights, as she noted to the others around her who looked puzzled that she didn't
ask me to do anything.)
Shortly after 11pm, we all dispersed back to our dorms or off-campus accommodations (several Technion Hiburniks offered their places -- on-campus or off- -- to the visiting MISTI students).
The following day, the only thing planned was lunch in the same location. Those who kept kosher were limited to the (by now) cold food that had sat in a refrigerator all night. Those who weren't kosher got warm food that was driven in by one of the Technion Hibur students, Omer. Setting up the food, we needed to put paper towels under the food trays to contain their leaking. Mish rolled out paper towels, but, again, she couldn't actually
rip the towels herself (or ask me to do so). So she just stood there, expecting me to take some sort of action to complete the task.
We ate outside again due to the problems with the air-conditioning. As usual, the weather in Haifa was perfect. It hasn't rained since I arrive May 26, and it should rain until I leave around August 21.
Meanwhile, in the background a couple of the stray cats that seem to permanently reside in The Technion were chasing each other around, hissing at each other, and, all in all, acting like mini-lions.
And that was all. Half of the MISTI people went off to the beach, while the other half took the rest of the afternoon off. I did the latter.