Bougvanalia?!

How do you spell that word? Bougavanallia? Bouvanalia? Bougavanalia? According to some spell-check it is "bougainvillea". Anyway that stuff is in bloom all over Jerusalem. I have to say that I have always found boug.... a little on the tacky side myself, kind of ungepatchked (a word my spell-check has no problem with) but there is this tree on Beit Lechem street that has bougainvillea climbing all the way up it maybe twenty five feet and it is a mass of purple flowers which is really impressive. There is also something in flower that looks like blue phlox which is very pretty. I don't think it is phlox because it is a bush. The pomegranates are getting ripe which is cool because they look so unlikely and there is carob looking very turd-like under a lot of trees (also a lot of turds under trees. My boys enjoy yelling "watch out for the poop" as we walk along the streets). I see rhododendrons around but they must have flowered quite a bit earlier in the year and a lot of laurel bushes which are quite pretty in the white to pink range. I see lantana occasionally with its pretty and very delicate, tiny flowers and think of that crazy Australian movie which took its title from the name of the plant. And there are a lot of geraniums (gerania?). Again, not a plant I love back in Montreal but it can be quite pretty here and grows to ridiculous profusion. Ariela is of course taking lots of great pix so be sure to check them out.
Benjy is doing okay in school. Today he had to go early because the President (and former Prime Minister) of Israel Shimon Perez decided to come visit his school. Every year he goes to a school and visits at the start of the year and this year it was Efrata (while most people are not aware this was a s a direct result of Benjamin being in the school. The president has been hoping for an audience for a long time). Benjamin said he seemed "nice and old." he also remarked that "Peres seems willing to change his stripes and bend on points of grave importance if it will extend his political career." Oh wait, that was me. The sad thing is thatin today's political landscape Peres seems like a giant of integrity. I also took lev to the Y for his first day. The building dates back to the period of the British Mandate (1931) and is beautiful though it goes pretty heavy on the towers, arches and domes, like they got them by the job lot. The inside is filled with furniture made for people with gout, giant heavy wood and upholstered chairs that would take four men to move. It is funny how antiquated it seems for something less than a hundred years old. Anyway, I took Lev past the Henry VIII size dining tables and to a back stair case and up a floor to the daycare, then went and sat in the cafe and had coffee (no breakfast. Not only is the Three Arches cafe not kosher, but a friend who works at the Y told me they serve bacon at breakfast, which raised in my mind the interesting question of how and where exactly you get bacon in Jerusalem? Do they have a Christian butcher in Nazareth drive it in each morning or from some militantly secular kibbutz in Emeq Izrael? Is there a small farm somewhere in the Armenian quarter of the Old City?)
Lev definitely misses being at Over the Rainbow though everyone at the Y seems very sweet. He said that he talks to people but they don't listen which we tried to explain is because they don't speak English, but I think he may also have to do with being ill prepared for the rigours of life in the real world by two over-attentive parents. We played at the Lion Fountain near the Yamin Moshe windmill and then home. The city is less hot now and the walk is lovely, past that towering bouganvillea. We also passed the spot where a suicide bus bombing killed eight Israelis back in 2004. There is little stone grave marker there.
A friend told us the other day that when they came to Israel, whenever they saw an Arab man get on the bus, they always wondered if he was going to be the one who blew it up. It is interesting because this friend went on to say something along the lines of "All Arabs want to kill Jews. It is part of their nature." What I found so interesting is how the subjective feeling of mistrust (reasonable and legitimate mistrust) became projected out as a fact about the world. It was as if this friend had said "Because any Arab may want to kill me, therefore every Arab does want to kill me."
I should say that I report my conversations with people whose politics, whose view of people, I disagree with because I find it such an interesting and tangled part of being here but those ideas are certainly not universal and I meet sabras and new Israelis who hold views more akin to my own.
Finally, and mostly to end on something less dour, I just had my first falafel since being in Israel. The boys prefer pizza. As I think I mentioned in my email to some of you, Benjy likes that there is so much kosher food here, though he remains as picky as ever, and pizza is about the only thing we can reilably get him to eat out. Falafel is far too brown and crusty to make its way past his pristine lips, hence I have not had a chance to eat falafel (I should say that the Eisenbergs did feed me falafel a few days ago, but it was fresh falafel balls from the stand across the street, in their pitas, their humus. Very tasty but not the greasy, street eating experience that I was going for). Lev fell asleep in the stroller and I ate a very nice half pita at Ovadia's (I think. On Bet Lechem). French fries on top +. Limited selection of toppings - . Ambiance +++ (it was a tiny green shack, just what you want when you eat falafel). Overall Good. The felafel gestalt was definitely there.
Love to all. J