"Finding Family in Friends," by MSIH December blogger of the month Tamara Kliot

Studying medicine abroad is exciting! There are always new places to explore, people to meet, languages to learn, cultural norms to adapt to, and things to discover. The opportunities to procrastinate studying for biochemistry or immunology are abundant. However, with the ending of classes and beginning of exams, there has been a noticeable shift in how people are allocating their time. Priorities are shifting as that list of important information to review continues to grow.

While having fun and taking “mini-vacations” are important stress relievers, it is easy to lose sight of that when you are in the thick of studying. It is easy to isolate yourself in a study fortress and spend your time surrounded by books and watching videos on metabolic processes. It is easy to forget to be a human and spend time with friends and talk to family.

I was reminded of this when my Israeli neighbor wished me a Happy Thanksgiving. He was the last person I expected to hear those words from, but he forced me to stop and think. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it's an opportunity to spend time with family and reflect on the things we are grateful for. Living in Israel, it would have been easy to forget to celebrate or even acknowledge Thanksgiving. It is just another day in Israel and in many other countries for that matter. We had had a busy week, multiple quizzes to study for, and a paper to write; the last thing on people’s minds was Thanksgiving.

But as Thanksgiving continued, it was not just another day in Beer Sheva. Some of our classmates had the forethought to organize a dinner at Butchery to celebrate the end of first semester classes and well… Thanksgiving! It was a fabulous time with delicious food (tons of meat!) and amazing company. It was fun to see our non-American classmates get in the spirit of Thanksgiving as well! The night was filled with stories, laughs, and celebration (we did just finish one semester of classes!). I learned so many new things about the awesome people I am lucky enough to call classmates. It was a great way to recharge from a long week and reminded me that I do in fact have a family here in Beer Sheva, people I call friends and accomplices in this adventure we call medical school. 

Beer-sheva's "Beach", by Sakal Kiv

On those occasions I am not drowning in Endocrinology and learning about hormones that gush out of our glands and flow down lymphatic or hematogenous course ways, I try to take a walk with my family to the “Beach,” an affectionate nickname given to the fountain park that has recently opened in the neighborhood. It is a nice place where our family can go and enjoy ourselves. It is just as much fun to the kids (and a lot less expensive for us!) as any water park. It is even better at night, when all the gushers light up with lots of bright colors. It is such a contrast to the hot summer sun. I like to hear and feel the cool, crisp water. It shoots up and down. It rains all around. The lights seamlessly morph from one mesmerizing color to another. Everything is synced to create this cool dancing effect. Majestic palm trees line the way and plenty of leafy plants and flowers bloom in the perimeter landscaping. Adults chatter away as they sit under the wooden shelter made to look like an impressive giant wave. All the kids are laughing, playing, and splashing. Some try to sit on a jet of water. Others try to run through as many as they can. Another group is playing tag in the middle of the pillars of water. Parents are snapping pictures while others are gently coaxing some of their shyer and younger ones to brave the water. Some walk their dogs along either the boardwalk or the path made to look like a sandy beach. Aside from actually being at the Mediterranean, this is not a bad place to be, especially since it is only a few blocks away. Of course, we often come home with our children soaking wet. Faith and I rinse them off in the shower, change them into dry pajamas, and sing a bedtime song like this one:

I've got river of life

Flowing out of me,

Makes the lame to walk

And the blind to see;

Opens prison doors,

Sets the captives free,

I've got a river of life

Flowing out of me.

Spring up, O well

Within my soul,

Spring up, O well

And make me whole.

Spring up, O well,

And give to me

That life abundantly.

-blogger of the month Sakal Kiv

Goats, Garden and Graves, by Sakal Kiv

The desert surprises me, particularly the Negev. You find so many things that you would not expect to see here. Who would have known that people drive out to the middle of the desert for fresh farm-raised tilapia or goat’s cheese? When we stayed for a week in a desert farming community, we saw red-ripe tomatoes (yum!), crispy bell peppers (mmmm!), and beautiful flowers being grown out there. The Cambodian agricultural students there told me, “It is amazing the skill they have to make things grow out of the desert, in our country, we just defecate on the ground and something grows, yet we haven’t really learned to fully take advantage of even that.”

A few days ago, we had another unexpectedly pleasant time in the desert. On the way to Sede Boker (which, until this trip, I had incorrectly heard and thought of as “Stable Care”), our friends took us to a kibbutz where they raised goats for cheese and milk. The kibbutz even gave out samples for us to enjoy! My kids especially liked watching the goats being milked. I had expected that they would be milked by hand, but instead, they were all hooked up to a milking machine like the ones used for dairy cows—a real-life Mister Rogers Neighborhood experience.

At Sede Boker, we walked around the garden where David Ben-Gurion is buried next to his wife, Paula. Our kids had a wonderful time walking and playing with each other there. It was a beautiful place to be, quite shaded and cool and full of lush, green things growing out of rock. On our class hike when we first arrived, I remembered looking up from the valley of Wadi Chaverim at night and seeing the lighted garden and wanting to visit, so it was good to have the chance. It is a very fitting resting place for Ben-Gurion, a visionary leader who looked beyond the desolation and saw its potential, something that is becoming more and more a reality today.

After our walk, our kids played at the playground (I love it how there’s one of these everywhere!). Then we finished the evening with a dinner and conversation between friends. Sometimes it astounds me, especially when I take time to think about it, of all the momentous events that have taken place here. This desert is where Abraham raised sheep and received divine promises, where Elijah sought refuge in a cave and heard the Whisper, where some of the last great cavalry battles took place in the Sinai-Palestine campaign against the Turks, where David Ben-Gurion kept a home and lived and worked, and where some of the best medical students the world has ever seen are being trained. When I think of all these things, I feel blessed to be here in the Negev desert with family and friends. - Sakal Kiv, blogger of the month

The Day After Shavuot, by blogger of the month Sakal Kiv

Dr. Shimon Glick, co-chair of the MSIH admissions committee, delivering a lecture on Endocrinology to first-
year medical students at the MSIH.

As I sat in Dr. Glick’s Endocrinology class looking at the backs of all my classmates on the day after Shavuot vacation, I was reminded that one of the things that I like about my class is that there is a lot of camaraderie. All of us, without exception, are generally good-natured, interesting, and personable. We share notes, help one another out, and invite each other to parties and get-togethers.

We study and play together. There is a lot of maturity here. Many of us are married or are soon to be married. Many have served in a humanitarian capacity overseas. Almost all of us speak at least one other language. Others bring corporate work or graduate school experience to the mix. I have rarely been part of such a dedicated group of leaders and compassionate people. I know my classmates will all make amazing doctors. This past Shavuot, I was reminded of other things we have in common. We like to travel and go to the beach. We are hooked on technology, even on holidays. We want to change the world, even on holidays.

 Even in our apparently more significant differences, such as faith, there is commonality. As a cheese-lover, I was not only glad to learn that cheese is such an important part of Shavuot festivities, but as a Christian, I was happy to learn that Bible reading was so integral to Shavuot. In fact, I was invited to read the Bible, along with other classmates, at the home of an observant Jew for the evening of Shavuot, something I was quite happy to do. I am thankful to learn about how Shavuot commemorates the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, a story I have often read and heard preached. For me, this adds richness and dimension to Pentecost, the Christian celebration of the receiving of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church during Shavuot. Being here in Israel, reminds me of the Jewish roots of my faith, the land where Jesus and his family went to the temple in Jerusalem and where the disciples read the Scriptures in synagogue. It reminds me that my classmates and those around me are able to function together, even synergize, because of tolerance. Not the blanket resignation that everything we believe is the same, but the ability to maintain social conversation, even a mutually beneficial and thriving relationship, while acknowledging the very real value we each place on personal ideas, beliefs, and traits that make us unique.

I think that the basis of tolerance, the idea that all people have value, is the cornerstone for any healthy society, no matter how seemingly homogeneous. Not so long ago, my parents had to flee from a country where Cambodians were murdering other Cambodians, sending millions to the killing fields. I think something similar has happened in other parts of the world. What happens is that one group of people begins to envy and despise another group of people within their circle. They begin to think themselves superior. Even after the extermination of the Others/Inferiors within that circle, they start to find in their ever-shrinking circle still more Others/Inferiors. The slaughter never ends so long as there is untrammeled pride and a vacuum of tolerance. In conclusion, i.e. the moral of this story/blog, I want to thank the MSIH class of 2016 for their example of tolerance. Thank you for being curious about my life and for asking questions. Thank you for talking with me about food and faith. Thank you for accepting me among your fold, even though I am a Cambodian, a Texan, and a non-traditional-orange-glasses-wearing-medical-student-father-of-four-children. - Kiv Sakal, MSIH blogger of the month