Progress

It's been an interesting week. I found out that there is another holiday going on this week, which means another 3 day work week, followed by 4 days of country-wide shutdown. I suppose it probably isn't as much of an issue in the bigger towns, but when you're stuck in Sede Boqer, with no transport, no entertainment options, no food options, etc. it can be a bit of a challenge. I had planned to send of a pile of job applications this week, but I guess that will be on hold until Sunday (I'm starting to get used to the work week beginning on Sunday).

Speaking of work, the bat research is finally under way, after many dozens of intercontinental e-mails deciding what doses, sampling times, feeding regimes, sample sizes, etc. The bats are really interesting to work with, sort of like little dogs with very weird hands. The are obviously very smart, and are quite responsive and communicative. And the fruit bats are kind of cute, especially when they are hanging upside down, staring at you from a dark corner. Nothing like lizards, of course, but I guess I won't hold that against them. The wings are quite interesting - they are a bit like the hairless part of the ears of a dog with floppy ears. Very odd. They are mostly cooperative, if held properly, otherwise, they are a bit unruly. So far, I've been working with Carmi Korine, who is a real bat expert (postdoc here), and has a lot of experience handling bats. I can tell that it will be different working with others who have less experience with handling them (e.g. me). Anyway, the experiments seem to be moving along. We won't have any actual data until I send the samples back to Wisconsin, but we're getting samples.

The weather here has been very odd this week too. We've had two nights/mornings with heavy fog. Not a weather pattern I'd normally expect from a hot desert, but that's what it was. The other day, I emerged from my apartment, which had all the sun shades pulled, so I was totally clueless about the weather, and walked right into fog soup. I could barely see the next apartment, which is only about 30 feet away. Amazing. Last night was a full moon, and the fog rolled in again. It was a bit higher, so it was more like really low clouds. It almost felt like the sky right before a heavy winter snow storm, except that it was about 65F (19C).

Today, we had a new weather system move in, called a hamsin (or something like that). It's a particular weather pattern that is best described as stinking hot. It actually rolled in late this afternoon. At midday, it was a pleasant 90F (31C) and dry, but at around 4pm. the temperature went up to 96F (35), and muggy. Now it's about 25 and 100% humidity, just bordering on fog (it's about midnight as I write this - I'm in the middle of a bat experiment right now that goes until about 12:30). We're all hoping this hamsin goes away soon. On the brighter side of things, this weather has less wind, so the dust levels have dropped a bit.

Yom Kippur report

Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. It apparently represents the beginning of the new year, and the day when the fate of the upcoming year is sealed. It is quite a national holiday here. Apparently, it is illegal to drive on Yom Kippur, except for emergency vehicles. That makes for a very quiet day. Even in this sleepy town, it was eerily quiet. No planes flying, no cars running, no engines at all anywhere. I rather enjoyed that.

I took advantage of the day off to go on a bit of a hike down into the valley below Sede Boqer (after doing some mundane things like cleaning and doing laundry). This time I went the other way up the valley (mostly west). It was quite beautiful. The floor of the wadi was a brilliant white, which apparently makes for a spectacular moonlight hike during the full moon. It is easy to see why - it would reflect just about all the incoming light. I'm sure you wouldn't need a flashlight at all during the full moon. The wadi went from a broad, flat dry stream bed, into a narrow, steep-sided canyon. Very cool, both literally and figuratively. It was several degrees cooler in the shade of the canyon walls, than out in the blasting sun on the white flats. I found a great little side canyon that was just wide enough to walk through, with walls maybe 10m high (photo below). Very cool area. The whole system is obviously popular - lots of candle remnants, and other spoor of late night hikes. Still, there was lots of evidence of nocturnal wildlife. Rodent burrows were everywhere, and I saw a few lizards around.

All in all, a good hike.

Canyon Moon

Canyon Moon
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

Sunset down in the canyon. I'm told that this direction is a popular hike during a full moon. The rocks at the bottom of the canyon are so white that during the full moon, it is quite bright down here. It certainly is a beautiful walk at sunset, and I'm sure it would be really spectacular after dark also. There seemed to be heaps of wildlife in the wadi floor also - mostly rodents, by the look of the burrows. And what looked to be a fair number of scorpion burrows too. Might need to find a black light and shine for those guys one of these nights. Apparently there is quite a high diversity of them here.

Side Canyon

Side Canyon
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

A little further up the canyon, and off to the right. This was a great little canyon that never got wider than this. The walls were about 10m high, so it was easy to see sky. It went on like this for a couple hundred meters. I found a few geckos climbing the walls along here, as well as a few birds avoiding the sun for a while. Wouldn't want to be here in a rainstorm either.

Canyon Sunset

Canyon Sunset
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

This is a bit further up the wadi from the last photo. The canyon sides got a bit steeper and narrower. Wouldn't want to be standing here when it rained. Beautiful walk, and quite pleasant at this time of evening.

Sede Boqer sunset

Sede Boqer sunset
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

This is a photo from the wadi below Sede Boqer. You can almost make out the buildings on top of the hill, about 150m above where I took the photo. The Blaustein Institute, where I work, is on the other side of the town.

Slog (not blog)

After a brief period of optimism that things were starting to move along, I've returned to the daily slog that is the preparation for research in Sede Boqer. This week, I discovered that there is a new issue with centrifuges - the ones here can either spin at the 14,000 x g (for 1 hour) that I need or they can fit eppendorf tubes, but not both. Actually there is one here, but its owner is out of the country for 3 weeks. bah.

On the lizard front, I'm still working out how to deal with catching them. It looks like we're going to try to convince the reserves people to let us collect in a place where we already know that there are lizards, and that is closer. Wish me luck. fortunately, at least one of the biologists involved is a student of the guy who has been helping me 'catch' lizards so far.

I also had the pleasure of dealing with various visa issues this week. I have to switch my Israeli visa to a student visa, but I was sternly told to wait for that because my current visa is good until November. Apparently the folks here have more confidence in the speed of such things than I have. On the other front, I also spent a fair bit of time dealing with the Australian Department if Immigration, Migration and Indigenous Affairs website. In Australia, it is possible to talk to a person in this department. Before I left Darwin I had a very helpful conversation with a woman there. She gave me all the information I needed at the time, told me which forms I would need, and recommended that I file my application in Israel. When I called here, they said that they can't give any information, except the URL of the consulate's web site, which has no information whatsoever, except that the embassy will be closed on the day of the Australian election (October 9). I protested that I'd already looked at every link on the website (both of them), but the guy there said to send a letter, which might take 6 weeks to respond to. I did try to send an e-mail, and got a terse, but helpful response. Turns out I won't have to get an FBI background check or a complete, certified medical exam (with chest x-ray), at least for this visa.

The other slog I've been dealing with this week is my paycheck. I still haven't received my September paycheck (which I was supposed to get at the beginning of the month). Apparently, I didn't give them my bank details soon enough to have them directly deposit my paycheck, so they have written a check and promptly lost it. Before the holiday (most of last week), I was told that it would be ready, then I was told that it wouldn't be ready until after the holiday, now I'm told that it exists, but they are having a hard time getting it from Beer Sheva to Sede Boqer. I also recently found out that so far, I've only been getting half of a paycheck. I knew my pay would be low coming here, so it didn't register when I got a very small paycheck, but half of a small amount is not really enough. So, since I've been here, I have received half of one paycheck for my nearly two months stay (see my earlier post for the explanation of how I went about turning that into actual money). Fortunately, there isn't much to spend money on in Sede Boqer, so I'm still holding up. Might be going on a quick diet if they don't find my paycheck soon. On the other hand, I should be getting an October paycheck pretty soon, and it is supposed to be directly deposited. It will be interesting to see which I get first, and whether I actually get a full paycheck someday.

On the brighter side of things, I'm starting the lengthy job application process. I have been getting good feedback from my references about the letters of recommendation that they are writing, and good thoughts about my chances. Unfortunately, I know some of the competition, and am less optimistic than my references. Actually, for one job, I'll be in the same pool as my Master's advisor! He's one of my references, too. He didn't think that would make a difference, and we both suspect that the university is more likely to go for a solid junior candidate than an expensive, senior one. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away at trying to get a datapoint. I'm thinking about shifting to work on antlions or some other insect that (1) is easy to keep, (2) is easy to collect, and (3) requires no permits whatsoever.

View toward Jordan

View toward Jordan
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

This is another view of the field site, looking toward Jordan. The border is a fence about 200m from where I took this photo (it's probably too small to see here), and the mountains are in Jordan. There is a burrow in this photo, to the right of the acacia tree and marked with a cairn. This spot had 4 active burrows in it, but we never saw an actual lizard. This is also as close as I could get to showing how spectacular the scenery is at this site, and how barren the terrain is on the Israeli side of the rift valley. To give you a sense of scale, the acacia tree is about 7 feet tall, and the mountains are well over 1000m.

Michal setting net

Michal setting net
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

Here is Michal setting up a net to catch the lizard. This particular burrow actually had a lizard in it, but the lizard was much smarter than we, so it's still in the burrow. You can guess how easy it is to spot these burrows in a field of rocks.

Field of rocks

Field of rocks
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

This is the field site. I'm supposed to find herbivorous lizards here. Look at that lush vegetation. It's great terrain for running after lizards too.

Rocks

There are plenty of rocks in this country, and not just on the ground. Some are in people's heads, and some are in place of heads. It's been a frustrating few days.

On Monday, we (me, Amos - a herpetologist here, and Michal - a postdoc) were supposed to leave here at 5:45am to go to Eilat to meet at 8:30am with the regional ecologist with the group who oversees wildlife and with the local ranger. Then we'd go to the field and set traps for catching lizards the next day. Michal and I were supposed to travel down with Amos, who has a lot of experience with these lizards, and stay with an ornithologist in Eilat. The next day, Berry was going to come down and pick us up after a half day in the field, and return to Sede Boqer with the 6 lizards we caught. All of the vehicle shuffling was necessary because, while I have valid driver's licenses on 2 different continents and an international driving permit, I don't have permission from the university to drive their cars, and Michal's permit has expired.

So, at 6:00am I got a call from Amos - the battery in the Land Rover was flat. So Michal and I walked over to his place to give it a push start. When we got there, Amos was on the phone with the security company. Apparently, when the battery goes flat, you can push start it, but the alarm goes off. So, we went to get one of the other Departmental vehicles to jump start it. As soon as there was juice in the battery, the alarm went off and kept going off. Fortunately, it isn't one of the security systems that cuts the fuel, it's just loud, especially at 6:30am in a residential neighborhood. But it does somehow keep you from starting the car. So, there we were, with a blaring alarm, and no running engine. The security folks said, go ahead and push start it, and once we got the car running, they'd use their remote system to deactivate it. Well, we hooked the two trucks together, and pulled the dead one until it started, at which point the alarm kept blaring. When we called the security company again, they said that they couldn't see they car on their system - drive it around a bit. So we drove around Sede Boqer at 7:15am in a University Land Rover, with the alarm going off. No luck, so we had to drive 10km away, to the top of the ridge before they company could turn off the alarm. Fortunately, no cops to ask why we were driving around in a car with the alarm going off. We finally left town at about 7:45, much too late to make it to our 8:30 meeting in Eilat, which is about 2 1/2 hours away.

We called the folks we were supposed to meet to let them know the story. This set off a whole new tirade about how unreliable we are, and how we're trying to trick them into doing something. I don't know what, but we were surely guilty. This was the beginning of 2 hours of phone calls bewteen us, Berry, the ranger, the ecologist and national headquarters in Jerusalem. At one point, about 90 minutes into the drive, it began to look like the ranger was going to refuse to meet us, and he had called headquarters in Jerusalem to tell them to tear up our permit. Several phone calls later, we were back on track to meet with him, though he was still steaming.

We got to the meeting place which was a turnoff on the main highway, about 15km north of Eilat, in the middle of nowhere, next to a sculpture that was the barrel from a cement truck turned on end, and with a crashed out car wreck on top of it. Apparently this is Israeli propaganda for what happens when you drive over the speed limit. The ranger showed up after about 20 min, and there was a lengthy discussion (in hebrew) about how distrustworthy we are, and how we shouldn't be allowed to do anything. The result of this was that we were forced to write several amendments onto our permit and sign (in hebrew), saying that we wouldn't even breathe near Eilat without telling the ranger and ecologist at least 1 week in advance, and asking their permission. (I should note that the ranger looks just like one of the guys from ZZ Top, or at least what they'd look like if they had been wandering around in the desert for 30 years or so.) The other result was a big change in travel plans. The ranger wouldn't let Michal or me do any collecting without Berry or Amos present. Amos had planned to leave that afternoon to go back to Sede Boqer because he was scheduled for guard duty at the front gate from 6-11pm. Berry had planned to come to Eilat just in time to pick us up for a late lunch (that is, after our day in the field). So Berry took over Amos' guard duty, and Amos stayed in Eilat for another day. I don't think Berry was happy about this.

So, now at 11:00 am, we headed to the site - right across the highway. There should be photos posted here somewhere so have a look. It is an area that is to be turned into an airstrip sometime in the future, so you can imagine that it is pretty flat. It was mostly rocks. Imagine an airport tarmac covered with about 2 feet of rocks up to about basketball size, and you'll have a pretty good idea of the area. It was about 1.5 by 4.5 km (about 1 by 3 miles), and stretched from the highway to the Jordan border. I'll digress from the disasters a minute to say that the area we were in was genuinely spectacular. The border between Israel and Jordan in the Negev goes right through a rift valley and is surrounded by impressive, and massive mountains. I'd guess the valley is about 15 miles wide or so. The mountains form a wall on either side that is thousands of feet high, hundreds of kilometers long, and very beautiful in a stark, desert sense. The valley itself is interesting. The Israeli side is very rocky, and the Jordan side is very sandy. Apparently this is because the Jordan side has shifted several hundred kilometers to the north, so the rock is quite different. There was no way to capture the scenery in a photo because you are surrounded by massive mountains on all sides. Very impressive.

Back to lizards. We drove around on the dirt roads on the site, and looked around for lizards, with the ranger following us, of course. It's hard to pick out lizards in a sea of rocks. They tend to blend in. It's even hard to pick out burrows, especially when they only occur every 500 meters or so. We spent about an hour before finding our first lizard. We hopped out of the car and set up the first trap. I should mention the weather conditions here. It was about 40C (about 105F), with a steady, 40km/h wind. Not quite hurricane Ivan, but not pleasant, especially in an area with a lot of sand (the rare ground that wasn't covered with rocks, was covered with sand). After driving around for several more hours, we had found 3 other burrows, and placed our traps. We only saw one actual lizard.

The next day, we were back out on the site at around 9:30am, with the wind still blowing. It was a little cooler, however, which was probably a bad thing because this species likes to be hot. We spent about 2 hours driving back and forth between the 4 traps, waiting for lizards to come out. The method is that once the lizard comes out past the edge of the burrow mound, we pull the net over the burrow entrance, and chase the lizard. This requires that lizards come out of their burrows. around 11:30, we saw the first lizard (the one we'd seen the day before). We carefully crawled up to the end of the rope, about 50m from the actual lizard. We had carefully place the end of the rope behind a tree (the only one for several hundred meters) to block the lizards view of us, and to allow us to get a little closer. Unfortunately, the howling winds had blown the rope off of its anchor rock and out into the open by 4 or 5 meters. Amos crawled toward the rope while Michal and I kept watch. We watched as the lizard poked up its head, saw Amos, who was still 3 meters from the rope, and went into its burrow for the rest of the day. We know this because Michal spent 2 hours sitting under that acacia tree, which doesn't really provide shade, watching the burrow entrance. Amos and I spent the rest of the day driving back and forth between the other burrows, and occasionally looking for others for the next trip. By 2pm, we'd given up, packed up our nets, and headed back to Sede Boqer empty handed.

It's going to take a fair bit of work to get the 8-12 lizards we need.

South America - east

There is a surprisingly big latino population here in Sede Boqer. So far, I've met 3 Colombians, 3 Peruvians, 2 Argentinians, and a couple of other spanish speakers of unknown (to me) S. American origin. One Colombian has decided that I need to refine my spanish skills, so I'm in the unusual position of practicing spanish in a country where Hebrew and Arabic are the official languages.

The up side of all of this S. American influence is, of course, good dance music. Friday night we had a bit of a gathering that started with an interesting potluck dinner at about 10pm, and continued well into the night with various S. American dance hits. The ketchup song was not among these. There was one interesting medley of songs from the last 6 decades or so of American music, in spanish, mostly. There is something a little strange about hearing 50's tunes sung in spanish. Still good to dance to, but a little disorienting, especially when it blends into something called Speedy Gonzales.

goin' lizard hunting

A strange thing happened this weekend. The bureaucracy parted long enough for me to plan a field trip to catch lizards. There is still some red tape to cut through before actually getting to catch them, but I'm at least as far as planning the trip for tomorrow. We'll head to Eilat tomorrow to meet with the local Wildlife Ecologist, and the local ranger, and see if we'll actually be allowed to collect. Apparently we're going to be collecting on an area that's to become a landing strip, so they're okay with us collecting lizards there. That hasn't kept them from making life difficult, but we do at least have permits. The plan is to go there, meet with the ranger and ecologist and go set up the 'traps'.

The way we catch these sounds a bit comical. They are large lizards, about the size of an iguana or a medium sized goanna, and live on the ground in the desert. They dig big burrows - up to 10m long, according to a guy who dug up a couple of them. They sit at the entrance to these burrows and bask most of the day, and if they see you coming, they bolt into the burrow. So the trick is to set up a net around the burrow entrance, but not actually covering it. We'll attach strings to the net and back away far enough that the lizard won't be disturbed. Then, when it comes out, we'll pull the net over the burrow and run. In theory, the lizard will run into the net and either get caught, or at least get held up long enough that we can grab it. Otherwise, it's a footrace across the desert. Should be rather comical, I think.

We'll be doing this for a couple of days, hopefully that will be long enough to catch 6 animals. We'll also be hanging around in a great spot to see migrating birds. Israel is the major migratory corridor for birds migrating from Europe to Africa for the winter (and back in the spring, of course), and this is the height of the migration. It's really amazing what you see here. This week, we've been seeing huge flocks of eagles soaring from thermal to thermal. It's an impressive sight to see 400-500 eagles flying in a slowly spiraling bunch. They rise for a few minutes, then head south to the next thermal. Amazing really. Lots of other, smaller birds flying by, too, but I'm not good enough to tell what they are yet. Learning, though. So, the upshot is that if the lizard trip fails, we should at least be able to see some interesting birds. At least that's the hope.

So, it occurred to me that I've been writing about how small Israel is, so here are a couple of facts and comparisons. Israel is about 21,000 square km (about 8000 sq miles), which is about the size of the state of New Hampshire, or for the Aussies reading this, about the size of Kakadu and Litchfield Parks combined. Current population estimates are about 6.5 million, though that is just an estimate as official numbers are hard to come by. That's a little smaller than the population of the San Francisco Bay area, or not quite twice the size of Sydney. Sede Boqer, where I live, has a population of perhaps 400, which is about the size of my high school graduating class, or one section of the freshman biology lecture at the University of Wisconsin.

sand bath?

Haha. Okay, I was just perusing the news when I ran into this story about a saharan sand bath. I might have to try this while I'm hanging around the desert, if I can round up a few folks to unbury me. Or maybe I'll see if I can convince someone else to try it first...

Beach party!

Apparently, the student council here has a small budget to keep the students happy. This includes various forms of entertainment like weekend movies, and the occasional barbecue. It also seems to pay for an occasional trip to the beach. Yesterday, about 30 of us piled into a bus and headed over to the Mediterranean for an afternoon on the beach. It was an interesting experience. We went to a place called Nizzanim, which is a reserve somewhere between Tel Aviv and Gaza (I think, the maps are all in Hebrew). It is quite an interesting place, and includes a fair stretch of semi-stable dunes (dunes held in place by some shrubs), which makes it biologically interesting. It also has a nice beach, which makes it... well, fun. It had some good beach additions - showers, toilets, changing rooms, shade cloths, volleyball nets.

The weather was great, except for the wind. You know how Hurricane Francis slowed down right before hitting Florida - well I think I figured out where all that wind went. It made things interesting. On the good side, it made for some nice waves. Good fun to play in, but no power. It's nice when you can be in 3-4 foot waves, and still stand without trouble. There was some body surfing, but not much, mostly just playing.

There were several downsides to the wind, though. It made throwing the frisbee a challenge, especially for those who had never thrown one before. It also did interesting things to our food. The student council provided us food, soft drinks and a fair bit of beer. Imagine that - university funds for beer! The wind acted as an extra condiment, so we had, pita with sand, hummus with sand, salad with sand, chips with sand, beer with sand, water with sand, and a little sand on the side. It was comical watching people trying to chew without grinding their teeth to nubs.

The wind helped make an interesting volleyball game more interesting. It was a bit like trying to play with someone on a moving vehicle - when the ball went up, it also went downwind, no matter which way you hit it. We compensated by making the court about 3 meters deep on each side of the net. Sort of like playing a whole game inside the 10 foot line of indoor volleyball. The net also contributed to the adventure. One side consistently fell down, so we had to re-dig the hole for the pole every few points. Digging was easy - it's just sand after all - but keeping the bloody thing upright was a challenge. We even had an audience of sorts. A couple decided to have a romantic interlude about 2 feet ouside our out of bounds line (fortunately for them on the upwind side).

It wouldn't be a cross country trip in Israel without talking about the military. (Okay, I'll point out here that the 'cross country trip took less than 2 hours). First, we had an armed guard on our bus. Or at least we had a teenage girl with a loaded uzi. I'm sure she was official and trained by the military, but she looked like she was 15. I suppose if you're an armed guard, doing if for a group going to spend several hours on the beach would be a good way to go. Along the way to the beach, we passed an armed convoy moving through the desert parallel to the highway. I suspect that it was the same armored column that you may have heard about being involved in a skirmish in Gaza. This is a very small country. We were a safe distance north of Gaza, but that's probably only about 40 km north. There were enough military aircraft in the air while we were on the beach that we thought something might be going on, and there was. 7 dead, I think. Weird country.

Ah bureaucracy...

It's good to know that governmental bureaucracy can work, even in a place as mixed up as Israel. I finally got my collecting permits yesterday. We've been waiting for about 6 weeks to get them approved. Apparently the process is that the applications go to a local council for approval, then they go to Jerusalem for final approval. The person on the local council is actually a student of one of the people helping me catch the lizards, so we figured this would be pretty easy. So, I called him shortly after I got here and asked what the status of the permits was. He said he couldn't remember the application coming to him, but that he might have forgotten it. So we spent a week or so trying to get in touch with the folks in Jerusalem - apparently they don't answer the phone on even numbered days, and don't make phone calls on odd numbered days. Anyway, they said that they had our application and were waiting for approval from the council person here in Sede Boqer - the guy who didn't remember seeing it. Well it turns out that it went to the council for the place where we wanted to collect the bloody lizards - down by Eilat - and he approved it right away. But the folks in Jerusalem didn't notice that because they saw that the permit was coming from Sede Boqer, so were waiting for approval from the person who never got it. so we had the guy here send an e-mail saying that if anyone was interested in his opinion, which they shouldn't be because we're not collecting here, he would approve the applcation, and would they please fax a copy of the permit ASAP to make up for the unnecessary delay. So I now have a permit.

Now I just need to get the rest of the stuff ready. I'm still hauling rocks around, building 'burrows' for these guys. I'm beginning to understand what it was like building the pyramids. This week, I get to work on my electician skills as I rig up some heat lamps for the scaled ones so they don't get cold overnight. could be interesting. I'll also be starting to work with bats this week. I don't have much experience handling bats, but I'm told they are a little like small dogs. I'm not sure if that is good or bad. I'll let you know.

For those of you interested in birds, the fall migration has started here. There are a lot of interesting things moving through the area. Israel is part of a major migration corridor between Europe and Africa - it's the only way between the two that doesn't involve flying over the Mediterranean. Lots of birds go through here. We've been seeing huge flights of eagles going through this week. It's impressive to look up and see literally hundreds of eagles soaring on thermals, then moving on to the south. there are also a lot of little brown birds, but who can tell which is which on those guys. Actually, the eagles are pretty hard to identify for us novices too - they are a long way up, and they move through pretty quickly. Fun to watch though.

Beer Sheva trip

I made a trip to Beer Sheva today. It was quite interesting after the bombings earlier in the week. There are a lot of heightened nerves in the area. There were a couple of times on the bus ride to town that the bus slowed suddenly, I think because of camels wandering around, and each time everyone on the bus sucked in air, and immediately sat up straight to see what was going on. Before that, everyone seemed mostly relaxed.

As I sat waiting for the bus in Sede Boqer, a very isolated stop, were there are never more than a couple of people waiting, I started thinking about what you'd look for to spot a potential bomber. When I got on the bus, it was relatively full, and it was clear that it would be impossible to tell. Anyone could have explosives in a bag, backpack, purse, or even just under some clothes. I'm glad I don't drive a bus.

I left the main bus station as quickly as I could - too many people around. Even though most of them were carrying military weapons, it was still a bit too crowded. I chose not to take the local bus to the university - we still think that one of the busses hit was on this route. It's about a 25 minute walk, and I passed by the attack site. it was almost impossible to tell that anything had happened. there were two spots with lots of lit candles, some flowers, and various significant items across the street from each other - the location of both explosions. there were a few bits of broken glass that I could imagine were the remnants of the bus windows. Otherwise, nothing. No scorching on the ground, no obviously gory bits. Just business as usual. Except for the memorials. it was eerie.

And it was hot (it was 2pm), so I kept walking to the university. Finally got my Student ID (yes, postdocs here are considered students). Tried to go to the bank, but it's closed from 1-4pm. I'm not sure I'll ever figure out the bank hours here. Or how to do my banking at all for that matter. At least the ATM has been giving me money, so I don't ask too many questions (the answers would probably be in hebrew anyway).

On the way back, I went to the shouk - the local produce market. That was impressive. there were a lot of fruits and veggies for sale. Most were familiar, but some were unknown. Also big bags of spices, etc. Very interesting. I bought too much fruit, but it all looked good. the big fruits seem to be apples, grapes, watermelon, peaches, plumbs, nectarines, mangos, and pomegranates. lots of potatoes and tomatoes too. Didn't see any dates, though I was looking. Berry came in with a pile of really good ones the other day, and reminded me how hooked I can get on dates. yummy.

Bus bombing update

Well, by now you've probably heard the news about the two buses that were attacked by suicide bombers in Beer Sheva today. Everyone here is okay, as are our friends and families. It is a bit of a surprise because it has been 5 months since the last suicide bombing and Beer Sheva has been out of the fray mostly. It is certainly unnerving. Some of us in the lab had been planning to go to Beer Sheva today, but decided against for various reasons. It is likely that we would have traveled along the street that was hit because that area is between the main bus station and the university campus (Beer Sheva campus, not the one in Sede Boqer). It made me think twice about running routine errands like getting a university ID or grocery shopping. On the other hand, those things need to be done, and it is pretty unlikely that anything will happen there again right away. I suppose, in some strange sense, it would be good to go soon for just that reason - security is high, and the likelihood that another attack will happen again right away is slim. It has made me a bit more nervous, which is frustrating.

This has also emphasized just how small this country is. Even though it feels like Beer Sheva is a long way away, it is really only about 40km from here. And Gaza is only another 25km beyond that. The Egypt border is probably 50km away, and Jordan is about the same (farther by road, than in a straight line). Eilat in the south is only about 2 hours away. The spot of the bombings today is one where I've been several times already. And most people here know many people in Beer Sheva, many in the area of the bombings. In Sede Boqer, it is easy to feel like you are a world away, but events like this emphasize just how close things really are.

At least Sede Boqer is still sleepy.