welcome palestine

i have had two very cultural experiences in the past week or so. one involving driving, and the other involving a doctors visit earlier today.

the first experience happened last week when sarah and i went to the tel aviv airport to pick up another volunteer, aaron. we left about an hour and a half before we needed to be there, leaving plenty of time to get through rush hour and just overall insane traffic in jerusalem. however, we got through jerusalem fine, but when we got onto the freeway, traffic was backed up really far and almost to a stand still. we were going an average of 20 km/h for about 30 or 45 min. the whole time, sarah and i were trying to figure out what in the world was going on that was making traffic so backed up. there were no exits so it couldn't be merging problems, so we thought there must be a wreck. we were right...kinda. we got up to one place to find a wreck..on the other side of the freeway. there was a cement wall acting as a median between the two sides of the freeway, and the wreck was on the clear opposite side. why did this slow traffic on our side down? because people were stopping in the middle of the road to look at the wreck. after we passed the wreck, there were no cars and it was clear normal driving the rest of the way to the airport. awesome.

next experience: doctor's visit. yesterday (sunday) i woke up with a sore throat and congestion, but i thought that it was just probably allergies, so i didn't really think anything of it and i went to saleem's village near ramallah. but as the day went on, i started feeling worse and worse, and when i got back home about 7:30 i collapsed on my bed and fell asleep with no problem. i am pretty sure it is strep throat, so this morning (monday) sarah took me to the doctor. we got there about 9 in the morning and sarah asked if i could see the ENT (ear nose throat) specialist, and they told us to come back about 10 bcause that's when he came to the clinic. well sarah had a meeting at like 9:30, so she took me back to the house to wait for the meeting to be over..which wasn't until about 11, then she came and got me and we went back to the clinic. and, of course, the ENT doctor was not there. he only works for an hour apparently. so we just asked if i could see a regular doctor. after the doctor asked me lots of questions about what kind of contact i've had with foreigners lately to make sure i wasn't infected with swine flu, he looked in my ears and said they were fine, then looked down my throat and says "ah, yes, yes, you have a sore throat". thank you captian obvious. he didn't do a throat culture, so i guess i'll never know if it's strep or just an infection, but he gave me a perscription for an antibiotic, so hopefully that will do something.

however, despite the weird inconviences, i still absolutely love it here :)