beer in palestine

the other weekend a group of friends and i made a long awaited pilgrimage of sorts to palestine's only brewery! taybeh beer is brewed in taybeh, near ramallah. taybeh happens to be the only 100% christian town in the west bank. the friendly koury family runs the place. after leaving palestine and making it big in america, they were filled with optimism after the signing of the oslo peace accords in the early 90s, and decided to return to their homeland to start its first brewery. alas, retrospectively their political optimism may have been misplaced, but they're not giving up. mr. koury learned how to brew beer from americans who did it "in their bathtubs". now his daughter is taking over the business. peaceful and pragmatic resistance, they like to call it. we got a personal tour of the brewery, and heard about the plethora of struggles presented by the occupation. things like only having access to running water 2 days each week, though the surrounding illegal israeli settlements get all the water they want 24/7. and the bureaucratic challenges in exporting palestinian product through israeli borders and ports, which is the only way to get anything out of the west bank. a popular beer from palestine clearly does not help israel's rightist leadership propagate their preferred and disturbed narrative - that the west bank is economically stagnant and would be even worse off than it is without israeli "help", and that pretty much everyone in the west bank is a fundamentalist islamist. of course, a brewery in the west bank does face some resistance from the muslim majority in palestine, who aren't exactly big beer fans. but the koury's are adamant that the israeli occupation poses much bigger obstacles than does the muslim majority in the west bank, a sentiment shared by every palestinian christian i've ever spoken to. actually, there are significant numbers of relatively secular muslims who do enjoy the beer, and the palestinian authority even promotes the brewery as a tourist destination. it is also predictably popular among the international crowd - the one and only tony blair visited just a few days before us! due to the challenges of exporting beyond israel, most of the beer is sold in upscale establishments in tel aviv where it is purchased by leftist israelis who support the palestinian cause. we got to sample some product and chat about hops and occupation and boston, which is where the kourys lived in america before returning to palestine.

then we went to peter's place, an atmospheric restaurant positioned at the highest point on the west bank. one can look out over amman, jerusalem and the dead sea as the sun is setting. and the food was amazing, it took us about 5 hours to eat! a must visit place if you ever find yourself in the area. taybeh also has an ancient church called st. georges that was built by the byzantines in the 5th century and rebuilt by crusaders in the 12th. it is said that Christ spent some time there after raising lazarus from the dead. fascinatingly, this church is one of the few in the world where blood sacrifices continue on a regular basis. it is a syncretistic ritual that has its roots in ancient canaanite and pagan religions. they slaughter a sheep in the church and wipe the blood on the walls with their hands. 70-80 lambs per year, apparently.

we then hung out in ramallah for a while before heading back to israel. a day in the west bank never disappoints! a few weeks later we returned to partake in taybeh's oktoberfest!

summer's for studying...

this summer was devoted to studying for the usmle step 1 board exam. 14 hours/day, every day for a little over 6 weeks. for focus' sake, i felt the need to go back to the temperate climate, easy conveniences and loving parents in canada. my parents had recently moved to a new town in southern alberta. i studied at the local community college, where for most of the time, i was the only person there other than the security guards. i almost went insane, but am quite proud of myself for sticking it out. even when i was driving home from the college and running i was listening to audio pathology lectures. it was very nice to be at home with my parents even though the only time i was able to spend with them was a few minutes for dinner each night. special thanks to my mother for cooking and even doing my laundry for me so i could maximize time for studying! enjoying the conveniences of canada was also spendid, things like $6 footlongs at subway. go ahead and laugh, but see if you're still laughing after trying to find yourself a satisfying meal in israel for $6. its impossible. and driving a car again- that was amazing!

southern alberta experienced the worst flooding in its history this summer. one day i joined some folks from our local church to do some serious sandbagging to attempt to save portions of the town. it was nice teamwork. we were even working alongside the canadian military who were sent to help with the effort! attending the church my parents go to there was a highlight of the summer. its an exciting place with lots of little kids running around and a pastor who one couldn't help but respect even after just a couple weeks. the one and only church here in beer sheva - well, my comments are probably best left off the world wide web. lets just say that i love going to church when its the right kind of church. my family also flew down to tennessee for one day to attend my cousin's wedding. it was a great time.

i'm glad the summer of studying is over. it is a right of passage of sorts for medical students, but not really my style. on the way back to israel i had an all day long layover in athens, greece, where i chillaxed on an amazing beach! now we're spending our time in the wards of the hospital instead of listening to lectures - a nice change!

west bank adventures

i made it up to the west bank a few times in the spring. one day, a group of classmates and i visited the city of hebron. we went to the local hospital where we were able to chat with some palestinian medical students and get a tour of the facilities. we also walked around the old city that is hemmed in by ideological jewish settlements. we wandered through the alleyways where the settlers throw garbage and sometimes even acid and alcohol down on the palestinians below. we looked out over the infamous shuhada street, or "apartheid" street, so named because palestinians are not permitted to use it despite the fact that it used to be the main thoroughfare through the city. interestingly, even israel's supreme court recently ruled that palestinians should be able to use the road, but the military disagrees and defies the law by continuing to restrict access. the settlers really wield disproportionate control of the situation, even in open defiance of supreme court rulings. its all extremely sad. it was really encouraging to see some of my classmates make the decision to go see the reality of what is happening in palestine, some of them for the first time. we also visited a glass blowing factory in hebron, where they make all manner of glass things by hand with the help of a huge furnace. if you're interested in learning more about the situation in hebron, my friend michael mcray just published a poignant book about 3 months he spent there volunteering as an advocate for nonviolence with an organization called christian peacemaker teams. the book is called "letters from apartheid street: a christian peacemaker in occupied palestine". you won't regret reading it!

another day i headed up to bethlehem to visit my friend dr dave, director of the middle east studies program, and the intern at the program, chris, a friend from college. i got to sit in on an interesting lecture, and then we went to a nice lady's house in bethlehem with some of the students at the program for their cooking class. we made a nice dessert called basboosa. while there, some protests erupted at checkpoint 300, the main checkpoint through the seperation barrier between bethlehem and jerusalem. we watched as tires burned in the streets and tear gas wafted into the air and found its way into our nostrils. the protests were triggered by the suspicious death of a palestinian prisoner in an israeli prison. a major source of contention is that all palestinians in the west bank are effectively under israeli military marshal law. thus, they can be arrested at any time without any reason and held indefinitely without trial, a policy called "administrative detention". thousands are being held in israeli prisons, including many minors. of course, many are truly terrorists and deserve to be incarcerated. but many others are there simply because the israeli government doesn't like them or the things that they say, and some are never even given a reason for their detainment. huge problems. guantanamo bay disgusts me in the same sort of way. anyway, its fascinating to live in such a charged region of the world. ambivalence with regard to these issues isn't a very palatable option when the tear gas is wafting into your nose and making you cry.

long weekend in america!

one weekend in march i was lucky enough to fly half way around the world to attend the amsa (american medical student's association) annual convention in washington dc! big thanks to the amsa chapter at my school and to my university for almost all of the funding! flew there through both zurich and london - the more flights the more free food and movies, eh! the convention was quite interesting. we heard from the real-life dr. patch adams! turns out he didn't even want that robin williams movie made about him, and he doesn't like it. he's also a pyjamas-in-public self-described communist who did quite a bit of ranting about capitalism. he's worked his entire professional life for free. he did have some very practical and apt thoughts on how physicians can better relate to patients. we also heard from recently retired johns hopkins neurosurgeon, author, and recently potential presidential hopeful dr. ben carson. for me, the best talk was from another johns hopkins neurosurgeon, dr. alfredo quinones-hinojosa. from rural mexico, he "illegally" entered the united states as a child and started picking vegetables. long story short, he ended up becoming a prominent neurosurgeon, and a down-to earth one at that. proof that citizenship or a certain background isn't a prerequisite for living the american dream. when someone suggested that he change his last name because it was hard for americans to pronounce, he changed it by hyphenating and enlongating it in honor of his mother, and as a symbolic flippage of the proverbial bird to those who would want where he came from to hold him back. love it! cnn did a nice piece on him too which can be read here. almost got to see every medical student's favorite pathologist and bodybuilder dr. edward goljan, but alas he got sick at the last minute. a cool thing about the conference was that it overlapped with a conference of the international medical student's association, so we got to meet a bunch of medical students from all over the world! for example, we were hanging out at a party and met the israeli and the lebanese medical student contingents, and we all started dancing together! where else does that happen!?! it warmed my heart. i also got to hang out with my sister maria for a day, which was so nice. also a great day at the zoo with my friend sylvie, with whom i had been skyping quite a bit. and a big thank you to my friend joel who let me stay at his house!

on keeping my mouth shut

there are many things i'd like to rant about. they'd make this blog juicier. alas, not here, not now.

the rest of second year

just from this blog, it would seem that my life is just one holiday after the next. actually, i spend almost all my time studying. m2 as its called (the second year of medical school) was a lot more interesting than the first, but also significantly more academically demanding. instead of semesters, the courses were divided into "systems", each lasting 2-5 weeks and culminating in a final exam. these fascinating systems had titles like hematology, endocrinology, pulmonology, cardiology, gastroenterology, nephrology, musculo-skeletal, reproduction, neurology and neuroanatomy, interspersed with anatomy of the thorax, abdomen, head and neck, limbs, etc. i especially loved the anatomy, as we got to spend our afternoons (and some eery solitary all nighters too) in the cadaver lab - truly a remarkable place! throughout the year we also had twice weekly sessions on the hospital wards in which we learned various physcial exam skills and how to perform a medical interview in hebrew. the hebrew was, and continues to be, rather rough for me. i put in some serious effort though, especially toward the end, and managed to pass the clinical osce (practical exam) at the end of the year in hebrew! overall though it was a great year! i truly love studying medicine, and though sitting around with your face in a book isn't always the funnest thing one can imagine doing, i wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

some random other things that happened:

-did some zumba! epic sport! lots of hebrew commands that can be tuned out; just dance! at the first session i was the only male there, with about 60 ladies. at one point our chain-smoking leader makes an announcement in hebrew, and everyone turns towards me and applauds. weird, right? after i learned that it was because i, a male, showed up to a zumba class! lol, a truly special memory!

-during the jewish holiday of purim, we had a customary costume party. before that, my conservative jewish friend read the megillah, or story of esther, in hebrew. a custom during this reading is to make noise with noisemakers and air horns and incessantly boo whenever the name haman is mentioned. because he wanted to eliminate the jewish race. his name is mentioned probably at least 100 times in the story, so lots of booing.

-a new shopping mall opened in beer sheva - the largest mall in israel! some may know that i am obsessed with malls, so needless to say i was living with eager anticipation. it is an amazing place! it even has an h&m, which is probably the most epic thing to have ever happened to beer sheva. one more reason to visit!

-i ran the dead sea half marathon again, with a good group of classmates.

-some of my friends organized an excellent ted event at ben-gurion university, tedxbgu. there were a few very interesting speakers. my personal favorite was a blind arab israeli lawyer named abbas abbas. no one, not even his family or doctors, believed he could amount to anything in life because he was blind and had other disabilities. on top of this, success for arabs in israel doesn't exactly come easy. against all odds, he was able to graduate with a law degree from hebrew university and founded an organization that seeks to defend the rights of disabled arabs in israel. he was so enthusiastic that he kept shuffling further backwards without realizing it, and was soon speaking from the back corner of the stage. no matter. it was so inspirational on so many levels to see this blind arab commanding the attention of an auditorium full of israelis. doesn't happen as much as it should, but it did that day. i probably cried a little.

-my roommate and i had two fourth year students from our program live in our apartment for a number of months. minsoo and david. david taught himself a few languages while here, and also self-taught himself how to play the oud, a classic arab instrument. i like to think i played at a least a small part in convincing him to perform a song in arabic at their class's graduation ceremony, and he absolutely nailed it!