Cultural Comparisons

Monday August 5th 

As promised I watched Vampire diaries Sunday night. My mentee was absolutely thrilled when I got to the shelter and told her. We talked about it for a while and then starting typing up our before I die lists. We both had somewhat of a hard time coming up with ideas but most of hers centered around traveling to different places or meeting different American celebrities like beyonce and the cast of vampire diaries. I tried to include goals with some emotional depth to show her it was okay but it didn't really succeed in getting her to open up about her life. But she seemed to enjoy it and I've realized as long as she is having a good time it doesn't matter how much about her past I know. After she reached about 60 things on her list we took a Pinterest break to find quotes and pictures for her scrapbook we are making. She really enjoyed getting to see all the things in Pinterest and after the success of baking the day before she too wanted to pick out a recipe to bake on Wednesday.

The schedule changed up a bit for this week so Hannah and I's group time was cut short by gardening. But I was okay with that. Now originally I wasn't going to put this in the blog but I am being honest with myself and so I figured I might as well write about it. Plus, it shows a definite cultural difference between American and Israeli society. So.... Monday morning before we left for the shelter I was itching my neck and all of a sudden I saw a bug in my hair. I began freaking out because I had heard that some of the little kids in the shelter had had lice several weeks ago. But, I had someone look at my head last week and they saw nothing. I went into panic mode though. During lunch I went and bought shampoo (which in Israel doesn't exist, they use lice sprays) and a comb. Shiran left me leave early so I could get started with the treatment to see if there really were any bugs in my head. As I waited at the bus stop a man in a car drove up and asked me for a ride. Having always learned in school to never ever get in a car with a stranger I kept telling him lo toda (no thank you). But he wouldn't leave. Now I have seen this happen before in this country. Just last weekend when I was with Shai we picked up two guys at a bus station because the bus can sometimes take forever. The old man kept insisting and pulled out his id. He said look I'm a professor at the University, I'm heading that way where do you need to go. So I took a chance (sorry for going against the rules mom). The entire ride I kept my phone close by and bag on ready to jump if needed but it wasn't necessary. We had a nice conversation and somehow I managed to get us to the apartment. I ran upstairs as fast I could anxious to get whatever was in my head out and used the shampoo right away. Then as I was combing another bug fell out of my head. I was in shock, the spray was supposed to kill them not keep them alive. To my luck though Ariella's mother used to be a professional lice lady and taught Ariella how to deal with the little annoying bugs. She proceeded to really comb out my hair and check everyone else nearby. The lice had won. Several of us from the shelter who work with the little kids had it. Luckily they were going to the pharmacy and got my a much better shampoo spray thingy so after combing my hair out the first time I used the shampoo and combed again. Oddly enough it became a nice bonding experience for those of us who spent our entire night combing our heads. And while freaked out at first we began to laugh at the situation. The only rough part was that those who didn't have lice made us feel like we were some disgusting specimen who had to be locked away by ourselves. They screamed and made us feel even worse about the situation. In comparison when we told Shiran the situation her response was yeah it happens a lot here, just comb it out. You see in Israel lice isn't a big deal. It is extremely common (I have yet to figure out why though all of my friends who have been on long term programs have noticed the trend as well) and no one seems grossed out by the concept. In the U.S. however when you get lice you have to stay home from school, you send out a red alert for everyone in the nearby area and school to be checked and you completely clean out the house.

I was not entirely thrilled that my night was devoted to this issue but it was definitely a learning experience. Not entirely one I am happy I had to deal with but nonetheless it provided me with several opportunities to see just how scared America is compared to Israel.