Wednesday was just another day... until I decided that I wanted to go for some grilled meat in Hakivah Quarter at Busi's. There's only one bus from Ramat Aviv to there so I got the feeling that it would indeed take a while for me to get home. The restaurant itself was just okay, nothing spectacular as the ones in Jerusalem (granted, this was my first in Tel Aviv). I just got lamb shilshik rolled in lafta bread with hummus, Israeli salad, parsley, and chips (how fancy the Israelis are to call fries "chips" like the Brits). When I waited for my bus (#7) to come, I saw so many 16 buses that I wondered if it would be more convienent if I took one of them to the CBS and get on #27 to Ramat Aviv. So I got a shreut around 9:50. I got off at the CBS and went inside to find it. Unfortunately, the last #27 was at 9 PM and the next one would be at 7 AM the next day. I sighed. Then I went out and caught #5 to Allenby where I walked quite a while to the bus stop on HaMelech George to catch the #25 or #24 back. What I thought said #24, I got on. I fiddled with my Blackberry a little. Then I decided that maybe the bus ride felt a little too logn so I looked around. Everything looked unfamiliar so I went to the bus driver and inquired if we were still in Ramat Aviv. The passenger next to me said that we had passed it a bit ago. I almost broke into tears because I absolutely hate getting lost at night because of my nightblindness. The bus driver was nice enough to write a short note on my pass to give me a transfer. I got off and went searching for the bus stop. I found one for the bus that I was on to go back. I called the Dan hotline to check out the time table. Every 30 minutes. So I decided to find out where the hell I was. Then I saw #24 zoom by in one direction perpeticular to the road I was on. So I went over to that road and looked for the bus stop. Then I found one with an Israeli guy waiting. He looked to be around 17 or 18 and spoke decent English. He was heading back to Tel Aviv so it was the right stop. As soon we talked a little, I felt much less alone. Just the presence of another decent human being made me feel a lot better because then he's there to help when I need it. Turns out he's 23 and is an university student. When #24 came by around 11:15, we got on together and sat together to TAU. Then I got off.... one stop too soon. So I actually didn't get home until almost midnight. That was probably my most scary night in Israel for as long I can remember! Yet, I knew it could be far, far worse... like what if this was in the United States where crime rates were much higher?
Then Thursday night, I got a special treat. My angel, Karen, got me and this man from Jerusalem connected. His name was Mordy. So we agreed to meet at Azrelli Center as I didn't feel like making the trip all the way out to Jerusalem, given the journey I had the previous night. So we met up on the bridge over Begin. I followed him inside and to Yohavta restaurant (fantastic, I love that place!). I noticed immediately what he could see with his current vision field. I almost felt like asking him if he needed help guiding through the mall but I stayed behind and watched out for him. I just wanted to see how comparable his vision was to mine. So we went in the restaurant and he stopped to chat with a waiter... in Israeli sign language. Cool, I thought, there's a deaf waiter here! I realized that it was perhaps the reason why he wanted to meet here instead of some cafe in Tel Aviv. We chatted for a while before making our orders. Then another waiter came by and talked to him in ISL. Two! Then we caught one waiter to take our orders but he was beng an idiot so the first waiter came back to help us out.
Throughout the next two hours, I was so surprised to see a lot of deaf waiters. Mordy counted about five or six of them. I told him that the hiring manager must have some ties to the Deaf community as it often happens in Rochester. We talked a little about our families, background, education, and so forth. He mostly used ASL and used his lips to talk. It was really challenging for me so I think I got probably at least half of what he said. I used some ASL that I could remember and talked at the same time. We talked about our connections to the Deaf culture and community. Like me, he didn't have many Deaf friends growing up due to our living environment. Now he's in Israel and has been able to connect with the Deaf community here. He said that eight of his friends had Usher's. I was excited when I heard that. We talked bit about the reasoning behind why Israel has quite a number of deafblind Jews- one of the genes traced back to an Ashkenazi Jewish community in Germany. He was from German Jewish family, and I... my family suspected that somebody on my grandfather's side had to be German because of the last name. I felt that he was opening more doors to the community in Israel and I was just amazed. It became harder for me to think about returning to the States where I'm shunned from the Deaf community for my CI. I told him that I wanted to embrace my deafness so much but with the politics in the Deaf community in the US, how could I? Like the people at Nalaga'at, he respected my oralness and CI. He understood that CI was no by means a miracle nor a solution to deafness. He had Telex when he was young but never liked it so like my friend, Jeff, he just never wore hearing aids. Also, since he was 10 years older than me, it was understandable that he probably would've have heard much about CI in the early 1990s.
On the same note about treatment from the Deaf community, I asked how was it being treated in Israel as compared to the United States. He pulled out his disability card that he shows if he needs accomodations, including riding buses for free. He felt that sometimes Israelis ignore him and make fun of him because he couldn't hear. I said, "Well, isn't it like that in the States?" I've seen it when I'm with my Deaf friends, maybe to slightly less extent. I told him that all these times I've been in Israel, I've been treated nothing but respect. He was surprised that it's one of the reasons why I love Israel and another reason was all the haggling and arguing involved in the culture. I knew that my CI gave me an advantage in being able to communicate with the Israelis, but still, there's always lip reading.
Like other deaf I've met, he hated speech therapy and said "NINE years! Nine years I was in speech!" I looked at him and said with a smile, "Try seventeen years!" He was shocked. I told him that my parents were very intent on having me to become oral and wanted to find solutions to everything. We talked about our blindness. I asked him how he got around and what did he do at night. He didn't really have any answers. I told him that it's possible to "see" at night because of memory image reconstruction from walking around a lot during the day. I didn't think he believed me, but just have to try it to believe it. I admitted to him that if I was suddenly put in a new place in the dark without having a chance to see it during the day, then I have a lot of trouble and have to ask for help. Then he asked about hiking trips on Taglit and we could just relate on that! We loved seeing the nature but hiking had become to difficult for us to handle. Then we laughed about glasses on table, running into glass doors/walls, cars, etc. He didn't really learn to drive and was happy to learn that I still could drive (with limits of course). He encouraged me to keep driving just for as long as I could. I was inclined to agree since driving was such a big part of American culture and symbolized freedom. Also, it's always good to keep a driver's license for emergencies.
Then I had to call it quits since I had to get back to do some laundry. He was sad and asked to keep in touch. I walked away from him feeling very happy about myself that I had a chance to practice some signing without reproachment for my oralness and CI. And I was finding my own group in Israel, at last.
Friday, I had class. Then I went to the beach for a couple hours. I missed the last bus to Herzliya so I had to fight with other people for shreuts in Ramat Aviv. But too many shreuts were full and there were about five or six of us waiting and then Linda called to see where I was. She decided that she'd just come over and get me. I brought her some flowers and Jerusalem Post (My guess is that she doesn't read Hebrew well enough to be able to read a whole paper from cover to cover). Anat and her boyfriend came over for dinner so it was all good time.
Today, I slept quite a bit, read the paper, ate meals, and talked with my family on Skype. While the Ravids went out to demonstrate in Tel Aviv for the protection of illegal foreign workers (mostly Sudanese) who were going to be deported, I went out for a 12 mile run. I had to do six laps around the mall, about a mile away.... fun. It wasn't so bad at first but once the sun started going down and it was getting cooler, I was very hot so it wasn't all that helpful that the air was becoming cooler! Seeing a few other runners kept me going. Oh the things I have to do sometimes to keep up with my marathon training, especially those long runs.
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