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DANCE101 BLOG
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| This blog is a personal account of the journey of Paul Zaidman and Cheryl Smith dating back to March 2005 when we first were recruited to sail onboard the QE2 as dancers, performers and teachers.
What started as a 4 month contract turned into almost two years as we progressed to the number 1 cruiseline, Crystal Cruises. This blog was updated regularly with photos and stories.
We are now back in Melbourne Australia and heading off to Israel for a wedding & holiday in Tel Aviv. (June 14 - July 1, 2010) |
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June 27, 2010
Kelly spent the night in a bomb shelter - but we are all ok!
Out in the deep southern suburbs of Israel, we found ourselves at a family Sabbath Eve dinner in a place called Ashqelon. Not even 20 minutes from the Gaza strip, we caught a taxi out there, knowing full well there would be no way of getting back until the next day after the third star rose in the sky (8pm).
We tucked into our new lodgings with Pauls cousins (Itzik and Tzeona) and various other family members for the most amazing Sabbath Eve dinner of all time! Incredible Israeli food that went down like a dream! No forcing us to eat either, just 'here it is, we hope you like it' and then wonderful conversation in this beautiful Israeli home in the burbs!
The next morning the shops were closed but we went down to this awesome mariner for coffee and watermelon. We saw some fantastic apartments for the bargain price of $75,000 if you dont mind the occasional missile flying overhead. What a price!
My father isn't alive now so I took the opportunity to ask Itzik (our host) to take us to see the Gaza strip (sorry mum). We took a drive out into the back of the burbs, the shops disappeared, the houses melted into the dusty colored dunes and then there was nothing, just desert. The barbed wire started to appear, the road signs got bigger and then the police appeared, some of them on quad bikes to ride over the dunes. We passed a massive Kibbutz and rose up onto a high dune to see the landscape unfold before our eyes.
A city appeared before us, approximately 3.5kms from where we stood, we could see a faint grey line of dusty road, Itzik told us this was the border between Gaza and Israel, he pointed out the hill where all the international photographers come to take their pictures. A large balloon floated in the air, we found out it was a surveillance camera, watching the border. We were told this was the closest we could get without fear.
Paul had a rather sudden and urgent need to go to the bathroom, Itzik whizzed us off to his Falafel shop about 1 km from the Gaza Lookout, Kelly and I wandered around the square where Itzik is famous for making the best Falafels in town. We then noticed some of the shops were newer than others and as we looked a bit closer, yep, there they were, schrapnel marks in the building walls. Big bullet holes, lots of them. Itzik informed us that 12 months ago a missile flew over his shop, bounced off a block of flats, did a 360 degree flip and headed straight for the small shopping plaza. It landed inside the main open square, exploded releasing millions of steel ball bearings, spraying in every direction. 20 People died that day, Itzik wasnt at his shop, but he knew all the people and told us he replaced his damaged roll-up garage door and went on with business.
As an 11 year old school boy, Itzik was asked when he thought the war would end, he replied "Never" and went on to explain "The Arabs ask for something, tell us it will be over when we give it to them, we give it to them, then they ask for something else" he gestures flamboyantly he retells the story and as he has done in every conversation with us "we keep giving, they keep wanting more" he says "so we have to stop giving and accept that we disagree" he concludes with a flip of his dark moroccan hand.
Itzik is a passionate and generous man, the banquet of food he and his wife served all weekend was just the tip of the iceberg of their giving. He feeds the locals in the town for free, sometimes they return to pay, other times they return to eat again. Paul recalls watching Itzik on his last trip, it was midnight, they were driving, he saw some electricty workers up a pole, Itzik wound down his car window and shouted to the men "have you eaten yet?" they replied "no, we have to get this work done" Itzik then went off to the local pizza shop, bought them dinner and took it back to the men up the pole. This is the kind of people we have met so far, absolutely incredible!
We stopped to take a few silly photos inside this small shopping plaza, one of them in front of this graffiti block, we liked the color and it was in the shade. Itzik then explained the block was actually an underground bomb shelter for all the people in the shopping square. The Israeli Defence Force can tell when there are missiles in the air, they set off the sirens and everyone rushes for the shelters. They remain inside the shelters until the sirens finish. If they happen to be inside a shopping mall, they just lie down flat on the ground until its over, then continue with their shopping.
When we returned home, Itzik showed us his home bomb shelter, he has two of them. One outside the house, it looks just like a wall at the edge of his property but its a small block that leads to a massive underground steel room, its for the whole street. When the sirens go a man comes around and unlocks it. They also have a bomb shelter inside the home. They call it a safe room but its the same stuff, 2 feet thick reinforced concrete walls and roof plus heavy steel doors but this one has a window (steel)!
6 Months ago, Itzik and his family spent 8 weeks inside this tiny room, every day they could roam about their property but at night, the whole family slept inside this box secure in the knowledge that if a bomb dropped on their home, they would wake to vast open space around them and all be safe inside this tiny room!
We then realised that not only did Kelly experience her first Sabbath Eve dinner in Israel with an amazing family but she was also sleeping inside a bomb shelter! What bragging rights huh!
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The latest updates are from the most recent cruises in January 2010 |
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