A taste of the life in Israel

I wanted to title this one “Jackass Potato Man” but didn’t because it may have been too shocking at first glance, but then again, I just wrote it in the opening line. Oops. So, people have been waiting for this blog for a while and here it is.

One day last week, Nicole, Matt and I were at the shouk (Israeli open market that sells things like fruit and veggies really cheap). We had a long list of things to buy, one of which was VERY important because it involved making Grandma’s amazing potatoes which are the best thing to eat.

I guess to picture what the shouk is like for those of you who don’t know, it is filled with small narrow lanes with stands or vendors lining both sides, and all very squashed in. Walking in the middle of these lanes is just about every type of person you can imagine shopping there, all day long: old ladies with carts who don’t stop at ALL to get by you, if you get knocked over with a cart, well it was your fault; then there’s the occasional slow-walker who stops abruptly to look around, thus causing people backup and lots of impatient yelling; or the large cart filled with pita and bread making deliveries that some small Israeli boy is trying to push down the center lane but is taking up the whole road and people are not getting out of the way OR they are trying to squeeze around it. Yes, it’s insanity most of the time. On top of all this is the bantering back and forth of vendor keepers yelling out prices per kilo in Hebrew and trying to get people to buy their apples, as opposed to the apples right across from them.

Ok, so with that in mind, our first stop was at a long row of vegetables, including the potatoes. Standing there, it all of sudden dawned on us that the Idaho potatoes that we needed were not exactly available in this country. HA, never really thought about that before! So we kind of stood there to discuss our options, and not really knowing what to do, will these ones work, and what should we buy…..when all of sudden, I get this very HARD slap on my arm a few times that shocked me and I turned to see the actual owner of the booth giving me an angry look to get out of his way so he can unload his carrots or something. I wasn’t even in his way…and excuse ME for shopping at YOUR booth, sir! Ok, I’m telling you, it doesn’t sound very mean how I’m writing it, but I can’t get across the ridiculousness of it.

You’d never get away with this in America, the guy would be sued in a second!

At first we all stood there gawking at him, like did he really hit me? He did. He kept fussing and commenting and saying things that Nicole translated for us later on like “You guys want to live here or something” and “Get out of the way” AND he had the audacity to accuse me of dropping a carrot on the ground, as he huffed to pick it up and shove it back on the huge pile of carrots that were just waiting to topple over anyway (PLUS you should see how dirty and nasty the sidewalk is). Meanwhile we left, wanting to yell and scream but too angry to say anything and just thinking, well hmmph, you’re not getting OUR business, which was the only thing we could think of at the moment.
Still, when we settled down we were all saying, why didn’t we throw a potato at him! Why didn’t we yell back!!

But you know, you’re better off NOT doing all these things. This, my friends, is life sometimes in Israel and you almost can laugh about something like this. They are abrupt, loud, tough and “in your face” people. I’m sure the dude didn’t think twice about what he was doing, it’s just the way they live. And in some ways, you can learn to appreciate it (when you’re not the one being bothered) and in some ways, you respect it more than those other types of people who would wait until you left and then talk about you behind your back. Ha.

In typical Israeli way, they’ll huff and fluff over you for a while, but if I went back, I’m sure we’d be best friends like nothing ever happened. That’s just the way they are. Well in this case, I’m definitely not going back, but still, it makes for a funny story.

And by the way, Grandma’s potatoes turned out quite nicely, no thanks to him!