Bus drivers and Schoolkids

Yesterday I waited with a mixed crowd of boisterous kids and patient alta kakers (old folks) at the bus stop on Yehuda HaMaccabi. As the 25 bus pulled up a swarm of 10- year-old boys stampeded to the door while the oldsters did not hesitate to join the fray. It was every man, woman, and child for him/herself. In contrast, on the way home I was the only rider to enter an empty 24 bus at the stop near the Carmel Market where it originates. I was having a hard time coming up with the exact change and stood by the coin box as I fumbled with my purse. As the bus pulled away I wasn’t really listening to what the driver was saying. Then, he started to yell at me in Hebrew—“What are you doing? You didn’t hear what I said? Sit down!” I was chastened but loved the fact that he thought I would understand him. I also love the cooperative effort it takes to pay on the sherut (mini-bus). As on the bus, the driver is in a hurry to continue. Concerned for safety (or possibly wary of being sued), he demands that everyone be seated immediately. So unless you have your change handy, you need to pass your shekels up person to person to his waiting hand, cupped backward to receive the coins. The process is reversed as he sends your change back to you. There are a lot of b’vakashas (pleases) and todahs (thank-yous) along the way. Can you imagine doing this in the states? Would the money make it safely all the way up and back?

I was on my way to a public school just off the main street, Yerushalim, in downtown Jaffo. I had responded to a request for volunteers to teach English to fifth and sixth graders. The Jaffa Institute has been running an English tutoring program in the local primary schools there for twenty years. Jaffo is a relatively poor community populated by a mix of Arab and Jewish immigrant families from North Africa and Eastern Europe. At this school a dozen or so Arab children participate in this supplementary class for an hour and a half each week. After the organizer, Marc Schoen, introduces the day’s topic in a lively give and take exchange, the tutors work in small groups with two or three children. Since it was my first day, I paired up with another tutor who has had about three weeks’ experience. Isabelle is Scottish and has a lovely accent. She is here with her husband, a minister who has been posted to a local church, but her visa does not permit her to work. We had a lot of fun attempting to engage two charming girls, Aya and Seneen, in conversation about the months, seasons and what items of clothing we wear for different kinds of weather. Isabelle: “Seneen, what is Aya wearing today?” Seneen: “Aya is wearing a white scarf (head scarf). Aya is wearing pants jeans. Aya is wearing pink and white shoes.” Aya: “Seneen is wearing a blue sweater. Seneen is wearing light blue and dark blue pants. Seneen is wearing yellow and white shoes. Seneen is wearing a blue hair band.” Next week Isabelle and I will continue to work together with Aya and Seneen and another new girl.