Cooking Coffee, Thought 1

Who's the foreigner here? Don't be too quick to judge
(or, ultimately, don't judge at all!).

I know there are 60 bajillion blog thingies but I have my suspicions that this may be quite an exciting adventure.
There are many things floating around my head and I don't often get the opportunity to express these thoughts and ideas fully because I am surrounded by foreign speakers. See how I call THEM the foreign speakers?

A wee while ago I moved to Israel with my husband and two children. We had been living in New Zealand for 5 years previous to moving here. I'm sure that if you pause and take a moment to consider the differences we experienced in that shift you'll be impressed at our adjust-ability.
To help you understand, here's how this family is made up: my husband is Israeli born & bred, I am Kiwi born and bred and our kids are Israeli born and Kiwi/Israeli bred. So what we've done thus far (i.e. since meeting in 1999) is spread our time between the two countries as best we can. It has been difficult at times, what with the children expressing longing for whichever country we are not in at that time, and simply readjusting to new surroundings - language, schools, work & day to day living - which, in fact, has not always been simple. ("simply readjusting" - ! a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one) Israel is really a wonderful country. Really! I'm not Israeli, hell, I'm not even Jewish, so no one's paying me to say that. And the people here are just like people anywhere else. Every type of soul is represented here.

The most wonderful thing that happened when I arrived in Israel this time was that I became completely non-judgmental. Let's admit it, we are generally pretty judgmental creatures. So to not judge others was, to me, a beautiful relief. How did it happen? Was it a flash of holy inspiration? A washing over of yogic teachings, We All Are One? No. I realized that I suddenly didn't know how the cool kids dressed or walked because I didn't know what was cool in this country. I didn't know how to tell if someone was likely to be richer or poorer, better or worse. I saw that, wow, we are so very conditioned to know, by site, what stereo-type each other fits. Or by someone's accent. Someone's hairstyle, footwear, which profession they work in, music they listen to, catch phrases they use etc etc. All those things that lead us to assume we know enough about that girl across the street or that guy serving us at the cafe, they all vanished for me. It really was freeing. Then on top of that, noticing that it had happened. Bliss!

Try to count the number of times you assume you know the kind of people that you come across in you day today. How many of those, "typical! female drivers!" sort of thoughts you have on your way out today.

photo of the family home in NZ. couldn't work out how to copy the photo of the israeli family home...... but in a brief description: less green, more brown. taking camera to fix-it shop today, so will post actual current, lovely pictures later this week.