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April's Adventure around the world!
I decided to do an internship in Jerusalem for a month. The hospital put me in the Pediatric Emergency Department for most of the time and some other departments on occasions like pediatric nephrology, cardiac, urology, gastroenterology ect. We get Fridays and Saturdays off which is different than the USA. Their "Friday" is Thursday, and "Sunday" is Saturday. I am learning a lot being here even though I do not speak the language, but thankfully they all speak english and have been able to translate everything for me. I gave my first history and exam workup to an American girl the other day. She was having abdominal pains and was not able to eat for a week. So I asked her about the pain, her history, and gave her a physical exam. It felt good to do it for the first time. We have done it in class before, but never to a real patient. I also practiced putting IVs in. I practiced on one of the volunteers in the hospital and a doctor. I was surprised to make it on the first try both times. I ended up trying on myself as well, but that did not work out LOL. you need two hands really to do it and well, one hand was literally tied down hehehe.
Last weekend was my first weekend here, so I decided to go into the West Bank which is the Palestinian territories. My first stop was Bethlehem, the place where Jesus Christ was born. I got off the bus after a 40 minute journey and walked into the city center. I was haggled by a bunch of taxi drivers trying to rip me off with the price to get to the church of Nativity (the exact location of Christ's birth). I am a well seasoned traveler, so that does not ever work on me. I know better than to trust taxi drivers. I walked 10 min into the center and the streets were all quiet and beautifully laid out at 10am. I made it there before the crowds of tourists, thank God. I hate the feeling of being a tourist. I loved the old architecture, it gave me the feeling of being in the past.
The Church of Nativity was beautiful inside! The entrance was a small square doorway where I had to crouch down to enter. Upon entering was a beautiful layout of large roman looking pillars from the floor to the ceiling and in the far end, a large chandelier. Tourists eagerly lined up to see the spot where Jesus was born. I was not even sure until later what they were doing. I meet an off duty tour guide who took pictures for me and told me a bit of the history behind the church free of charge! I toured the church by myself and made it down to some sort of caves under the church where groups were having prayer and taking about jesus. I walked into a dimly lit tunnel where no one was and heard chanting and singing from monks. I saw a hole in some large wooden door and saw that there was a religious prayer going on towards the wall, and as the monks moved and swong their smoke thingies that hang from a chain (not sure what it was called), I could see an alter. I thought what they were doing was beautiful and the chanting enchanted me, so I started filming through a hole that was the size of a pencil round. I was lucky to have the experience from filming through a microscope in medical school, to know how to film through a small hole. So I was in luck! I filmed the ceremony and walked back above. I met up with the off duty tour guide again and he even took me to the side entrance to the location where everyone was standing in line for. The line was 3 hrs long! Crazy tourists! I realized the place where he took me down below was the same location i was filming through the hole in the door. I saw the place where jesus was born without waiting 3 hrs in a line and even was offered the bread to eat from the monks at the ceremony. So i was actually the only tourist that was able to participate in the celebration and prayers for jesus…this is being a tourist outside the box and thats what i love about traveling. So I ate the bread and went back above to where I saw another church, The Milky Grotto, where Mary breastfed Jesus. After that I wanted to see the Aida Refugee Camp and the wall separating Palestine from Israel. I haggled with the taxi driver from 100 shekels to 3 shekels! so only 1 dollar to get to the camp! At first sight of the wall I was astonished, it was covered in magnificent graffiti artwork from travelers and people who support the Palestinian refugees and want to make this ugly wall and ugly situation more pleasurable and better. It was to be uplifting to the refugees and stand for making something good out of something bad.
The day after I went to Jericho (one of the oldest and lowest cities in the world) and the Dead Sea. I was covered from head to toe in black Dead Sea Mud. They say its good for your skin. I applied it and washed it off in the Sea twice and floated for a while. The mineral content is 30% which makes a person very buoyant and impossible to drowned if you ask me. Its definitely an experience that can not be overlooked!
With this Palestinian/Israeli conflict, I am getting two sides to the story. One from the Israelis that say that the Palestinians are always bombing them and are terrorists and the Palestinian side that they are friendly people and can not stick up and protect their rights because they are not violent and they ended up getting all their land taken from them because they were not prepared and too nice. And so now it exists that the Palestinians have no where to go and are illegally living in the West bank as illegal immigrants. So they have a key as a resemblance of their freedom and to stand for their hopes in one day being able to return to their homes that where once brutally taken from them. So most Palestinians live in Refugee Camps because they have no where else to go and no money and not allowed to leave the Palestinian territories unless they have a working visa. The Israelis are also not allowed to go to the Palestinian side either.
I went to Ramallah in the Palestinian territory today. It is the biggest city in the West bank and I was hoping to inform about doing an internship and helping the Palestinians in their hospital., but little did I know the danger that lay before me. Palestinians are almost if not all arabic/islamic. I thought I would be safe as I was fully covered and even had a Muslim headscarf on, to hide my hair and some of my face. But the problem came when I left the main market area and ventured off to find the hospital or anything else of interest. It was Friday and as every Friday, their main religious day. Everything was closed except for the vegetable market in the main square. I probably would have been fine on any other day, but when things are closed and no one is on the street, it sets up the scene and the opportunity for bad people to get away or do bad things. A guy noticed me walking and asked where I was going, and so he told me the hospital is just 5 min walking and it seemed like he was also walking that way. So it was convenient. We walked for 10 min instead to the Palestinian Presidency headquarters called the Mausoleum of Yasser Arafat. There was no one around which was awkward, so I was very wary and on high alert. I was paying close attention but not obvious to the little guys actions. He was hands were shaky, he did not talk much and one of the first things he said to me when i met him was that Arabic people are crazy and when i asked how so, he did not answer. I guess his response should have been "like me" because I was soon to find out he was crazy. Long story short, he tried to rob me, but did not get away with it and he tried to pull me to the ground which I fought back while screaming cause I knew that would scare him. He would not want people to come out of their homes to see what was going on. So he let me run away. I ran into the first cab I saw and begged him to take me to the bus station. he saw that i was running from someone and scared so he told me to get into the car right away. I was safe….he took me to the bus station where i boarded a bus that took me to the border crossing where i had to get out and go through the security and pass through the giant wall that separates Israel from them. I then boarded another bus on the other side and was safety transported back to Jerusalem….It wasn't until 5pm that I reached my the house I was staying at. That will be my last visit to Ramallah! Maybe situations like this and the mentality of muslims is why Israel has a HUGE wall separating them with the Palestinians….
Here is something I found on the internet about Muslims mentality: "Islam is not a respectable religion; it is a vicious cult that creates a blinding slave mentality among Muslims. A common Muslim name is Abdullah, which literally means "servant of Allah" or "slave of Allah". Allah makes it clear that humans are his slaves, and slaves have no freedom, except do what the master orders. Though the infidel government spends in billions to protect their citizen, they often fail to see this point. Little do they understand that it is impossible for a Muslim to live and commune with non-Islamic societies without an obligation to convert them to Islam by force or by deception. Anyone who has put a single grain of trust on Muhammad and his Qur'an fills up his mind with unjustified hate and paranoia."
Well....I just got word from my classmates that we have an oral exam in my psychiatry class as an interview with a patient and a doctor in two days. I am not sure that I will make it, I would have to leave now as I am typing this and I still have to do pediatric cardiology here. So i am hoping my teacher lets me participate via internet corospondance. Fingers crossed!!!
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