MSIH Passover, by Baila Litwak

            Passover break could not be at a better time, the weather is warm and beautiful and it is the perfect time to explore. Since the holiday began the country seems to be more alive with people, from Israeli children on break to tourists from all over the world. So far in the week of break I have visited family, saw live music in a town square of Yafo, and I have spent a few days soaking up the sun and arctic (Israeli ice pops) at the beach in Tel Aviv. While there I was able to see friends living in Israel, friends visiting from home, and I ran into other MSIH students enjoying their time off as well. With such great public transportation in this country it is easy to go from Beer Sheva to Tel Aviv or anywhere else whether it be for a few hours our a few days. I hope to take advantage of this fact and travel more of the country during the rest of this break.

chag sameach = Happy holiday

            Passover is a week long holiday that starts with a seder, a festive meal that follows an order of activities and readings (seder=hebrew word for order) and is filled with songs, food, and wine. Every year my family makes a big seder where family and friends come to enjoy the evening and traditions until the wee hours of the morning. This year, like every other, my family held a large seder but for the first time I was not there. Instead this year I was in Israel where there is only 1 seder instead of 2 and I had a seder with part of the MSIH family rather than my family at home. A gracious second year opened his house to the extended MSIH family and invited every student to the seder. Every day it seemed more and more people were saying they would be going to this seder and by the night of there were 21 of us. The seder was a great opportunity to hang out with fellow classmates, learn other people’s traditions, and was a lot of fun!

            As someone who observes Passover and does not eat bread or other food items that are prohibited for the duration of the holiday I have fallen more in love with Israel through this holiday. From what I have seen, most restaurants here have a Passover menu which even includes kosher for Passover bread! The food is always terrific in Israel, and that remains true during Passover.

            At this point in the year we have taken two finals and have three more before completing our second semester of M1. We are half way through our Passover break and last night we had a big BBQ for our class where we shared stories of our breaks so far. We had classmates all over the world this break, in Denmark, Austria, Romania, Jordan and there are some still traveling in Turkey, England, Ukraine, and Mozambique. Israel is a beautiful historical country with countless numbers of things to see, it is also an easy place from which one can travel to other parts of the world. -Baila Litwak, blogger of the month

Petra for Pesach, by blogger of the month Angel Eads

It’s hard to believe that it’s already the beginning of April and that our second semester is drawing to a close.   My classmates and I are returning to school today after a ten day break thanks to Pesach.  We have 2 more weeks of classes, another virology quiz and then a month of final exams. 

I spent part of my Pesach vacation catching up on studies (ask me anything about a parasite, I won’t know the answer, but I will shudder involuntarily) and taking care of other pesky chores like taxes and filing my FAFSA for next year.  However I also had the opportunity, along with 3 MSIH friends, to travel to Petra and Wadi Rum in Jordan.  

I don’t want to spend my entire stint as MSIH first year blogger forcing strangers to look at my vacation pictures.  However, when considering blog topics, travelling to another country seemed much more interesting than tales of flipping through Microbiology cards and falling asleep on my Pharmacology textbook (in the middle of the day, while sitting at my desk, because it’s just that fascinating).*

These travel stories also represent to me one of the most unique things about MSIH.   When I decided to go back to school I asked a friend for advice.  She had just completed a particularly demanding MFA program and suggested that I choose the years of my life that I didn’t want to be there for and devote those to graduate school.

My friend was joking, but when considering medical schools, I spent a lot of time wrestling with her humorous advice.  I knew I wanted to pursue international health, work with the underserved and see as much of the world as possible, and the idea of putting my life on hold for four years while I acquired necessary skills seemed wholly unpalatable.    It also didn’t make sense, from an educational standpoint, to spend four years learning the art of healing in a setting completely divorced from the context in which I wanted to practice it.  

In one sense, going to medical school here is a lot like going to medical school anywhere else.  Classes and studying take up most of our time, and most of our lectures aren’t related to global health.  They are the same classes you get at medical schools in the states.  This education is obviously necessary and hugely important.  It teaches us what we need to know so that we can become the doctors we want to be.  However, I have sometimes wondered why I moved halfway around the world, far away from family and friends, to sit at a desk and read the same textbooks I would be reading in the US.     

Our curriculum does provide global health opportunities.  Global health modules let us focus on particular topics we are interested in and clinical days bring us into contact with a diverse group of people, ranging from children at a cross cultural elementary school, to Holocaust survivors, to the local Bedouin population. 

However, in my experience, our curriculum is not really what defines our global health education. The real education happens in the spaces in between medical studies.  Whether we are teaching English in a Bedouin village, volunteering at the refugee clinics in Tel Aviv, experiencing the helplessness that comes with learning a new language and culture, or simply taking some time to travel and explore the corner of the world that we have found ourselves in, we have many opportunities to experience new things, meet new people and do life (the literal translation of the Hebrew phrase ose chaim, which means “have fun”).

During our Pesach trip, my classmates and I spent a day and a half exploring the spectacular ruins of Petra.  We went on an afternoon tour of the nature preserve of Wadi Rum, rode camels through the desert and ate a meal under the stars that was cooked in sand.    We had fun, did life and came back to Israel refreshed, ready to tackle classes and final exams.

Living here is not always perfect.   In fact, there are times when it can be downright awful.   The process of cultural adjustment, paired with the extreme pressure of medical education, can be difficult and discouraging.  I miss family, friends and the comfortable, familiar life that I had in the states.   But I also get to learn medicine, see some amazing places and have a pretty great time in the process.  

Besides, if you have to learn about larvae that live in your eyeball (Your.  Eyeball. People.  You can apparently feel them crawling around in there.), the place to do it is on the balcony of a Wadi Musa hotel after a day hiking around one of the seven new wonders of a world that’s basically filled with wonderful things.  - blogger of the month, Angel Eads

* Pharmacology really is interesting.  I promise.  My falling asleep has more to do with my being narcoleptic.**

**I’m not actually narcoleptic, at least not in the diagnosed, medical disease sense of the word.   I just really like to sleep.

Vacation! by Angel Eads

The goat farm

One of the best parts of going to school in Israel is the holiday schedule.  Next week, Passover starts, and we get a ten day break from classes.  I’m hoping to use those ten days to travel to Jordan, catch up on studying and rest up for finals.

A few weeks ago, thanks to Purim, we had a three-day weekend.   Purim is the Israeli version of Halloween, only with more alcohol.   It's a chance to wear a fun costume and drink until you can't tell the difference between Mordecai and Haman.

Turkish aqueduct

It also ended up being a great opportunity for some classmates and me to get out of town and go exploring.  We spent 3 days walking the Jesus Trail, a 60 kilometer footpath that stretches from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee.   On Thursday we took a bus to Nazareth, spent the night in a convent and started our journey bright and early the next morning.

Trail

The trail ran through wilderness, fields of wild flowers, construction sites, pasture lands, orchards, cities, along major highways, quiet country roads and through many historic and religious sites.   It was a great journey and there was always something new to see.

Mount Arbel

We stayed at a convent, an organic goat farm and a bed and breakfast.   We said hello to lots of friendly locals in Cana who were remarkably accepting of the sweaty strangers wandering through their town carrying backpacks.  We ate our weight in falafel, fries and trail mix and enjoyed a fantastic meal at a small restaurant in Moshte Arbel.  We saw ruins of ancient synagogues, holy churches, a Roman road, a Turkish aqueduct, a Bedouin castle and more cows and sheep then I can count.   We ended our three-day trek sitting by the Sea of Galilee near the ruins of Capernaum.

A shirut took us to the Haifa train station, and the next day I went back to classes, studying and the sometimes tedious life of a medical student.  It can be difficult to remember, amidst all the day-to-day tasks, what an amazing country exists outside of our classroom walls.  Fortunately, holidays like Purim provide a chance to see all the things this country has to offer.

Wildflowers

The Sea of Galilee

Bedouin castle

Forest on trail

Capernaum synagogue ruins 

(Many thanks to the awesome and talented Casey and Jonathan Ditty for all of the pictures!) - blogger of the month, Angel Eads