I completed my time here in the thick of the COVID pandemic, working in both the office and hospital. We wore masks every day all day, Regular surgical masks most of the time, N95 masks sometimes, and 3M respirators for higher risk exposures. Even though the exposure is higher at the hospital, i didn’t feel less safe there – we know how to deal with infectious risks and take adequate precautions.
I saw some friends once, at night after dark on their driveway. It was still over 90 degrees. They brought a fan outside, which blew hot air on us. We drank a beer and talked. It was nice. And weird.
I also had some time to myself in the desert. It is beautiful here. One evening I took some pictures at sunset. There’s an owl that lives in my parents back yard. We stared at each other a lot. It’s really a majestic bird.
i’m staying in the town of my home, in my parents second home, without them there. The house is closed up for the summer. The house that was our home is rented to another family for the year. So am I home? In a closed house that isn’t mine, all by myself? Or will I be home when I get back to Israel?
……
Well, made it back safely and its great to be back. The trip home was smooth, I flew through San Francisco. And there was actually a whole group including a bunch of college kids who were making Aliyah on our flight! They were met by Nefesh B’Nefesh people when we landed, and started singing “Am Yisroel Chai!” when we landed. The airports were empty once again, and there were a lot of gates with extra airplanes that had been totally shut down for storage, with jet covers, pitot tube covers, and wheel covers.
I think the jet lag is worse coming here. I hardly had any going to Phoenix and I was able to work the next day without any problem. Last night however, after arriving at 6:30PM, when I finally went to bed I lay awake all night until about 4:30AM. But, I was greeted this morning (thankfully at around 11AM so I was up 😊) by a phone call from an Israeli number. I always answer those – I don’t seem to get spam calls from Israeli numbers here, at least not yet. It was a woman, in Hebrew of course, who identified herself, nicely, as the police, and said they just wanted to check how I was coming back from my trip outside of Israel. She verified my address. Then she said what I thought was something about the window being on or looking onto the street. I couldn’t figure where she was going with this, thinking at first maybe she was warning me not to blow corona virus out onto the street or something, which made no sense. I thought maybe I had gotten the word wrong, so I said, “חלון -chalon – window?” to which she replied in her hebrew-accented english, “נכון – nachon, window.” It was then that I suddenly realised, she was actually on the street outside and wanted me to come the window so she and her partner could see that I was actually staying at home for my two week quarantine! So I went to the window, and she said, “yes we see you.” I saw them and waived and said, “בוקר טוב – boker tov! good morning!” She and her partner smiled, laughed, probably at my horrific hebrew, and said, thanks and have a nice day as they drove on. So in case you’re thinking about skipping your quarantine – don’t. The Israeli police know where you live….😄🇮🇱