June 16, 2004

Alison on Aliyah:  What Really Bugs Me

            I’m finding it hard to type right now because I have a few bug bites on my arms and fingers.  To be honest, “a few” is the understatement of the year:  a more educated guesstimate would be more like 400.  My arms and feet are so covered that there is not enough room between bites to scratch, and my fingers look like pincushions.  Needless to say, I’m not in a great mood these days.

            The longer I am in Israel, the more I realize that there are little things about this country that no one put in the brochure.  Don’t get me wrong, I love this place and we all tolerate the small annoyances.  But there have been a few days lately that have put my coping strategies to the ultimate test.

            When I first woke up with ten bites on my arms, I figured simply that there must have been a small family of mosquitoes in my apartment that night.  I lathered the bites with ointment, went to class, and didn’t think much else of it.  The next morning I had no less than 200 bites concentrated solely on my left arm and hand.  That was around the time I realized there was a problem, but I still didn’t know what to do about it.  Amidst the urgings of a friend to get my apartment fumigated, I hoped desperately that whatever had bitten me had had its (their?) fill and trotted happily (or rather, staggered drunkenly) away.  I decided to wait and see.  After the fourth morning of waking up to at least 30 new bites, and noting that the infernal animals had chewed up my fingers and toes in an attempt to branch out to uncharted territory, I realized this had to stop.

            While the fumigator was saturating my apartment and belongings with god-knows-what-kind of poison, I went to a dermatologist to see what I was dealing with.  She told me, in broken Hebrew with a heavy Russian accent, that I should use the small tube of ointment she prescribed and clean my house.  Of course, two applications on my checkered arms and feet quickly laid waste to that prescription.  Meanwhile, although no one could tell me what exactly was biting me, everyone I asked had a different piece of “helpful” advice to offer, from “Your apartment is totally infested, burn your mattresses!” to “It’s just mosquitos, no big deal!”  I spent the rest of the week fuming and scratching, not being able to leave the house because putting on a shirt and shoes proved far too painful to bear.

            Finally, a full week after it had all started, I lost my temper.  I marched to the nearest clinic associated with my health insurance company and demanded an appointment, adding haughtily that it was urgent.  I waited in the receiving area for two and a half hours.  When I finally managed to see a doctor, I was defeated, teary, and at my wits’ end.  I explained my pathetic situation in my own broken Hebrew, and he was either so alarmed by my body’s reaction to the bites, or so convinced of his own inability to treat me, that he gave me an immediate referral to a dermatologic specialist.

            Of course, it didn’t end there.  It turned out that by seeing the first dermatologist, I had inadvertently committed myself to consulting her for all of my dermatologic needs for the entire three-month quarter.  When I protested that she was clearly incompetent, I was told that “these are the rules.”  (And I thought I had left HMOs behind me in America!)  Armed with a special permission slip – reminiscent of middle school – I went to the main administrative office to beg for the opportunity to see a qualified specialist.  After much arguing, the writing of a formal letter to the head of the organization, and – I’m not ashamed to say it – not a small amount of crying, I received the blessed permission.  Off to the supposedly qualified specialist I went, where I was promptly pumped full of antihistamines, given a bagful of steroid creams, and told that he had no clue what was biting me either.  His last words to me as I walked out the door were “Good luck!”  This was not the professional encouragement I was looking for.

            A week later, I am still slathering myself with ointments and taking so many antihistamine pills that I can barely stay awake in class.  I am forced to wear long-sleeved shirts in 95-degree heat because showing my arms in public would surely place me immediately in a smallpox and/or leprosy treatment facility.  And I spend my nights lying awake, wondering what is biting me and what else I can do to get rid of them.  And then there is the frequent high-pitched whine of a mosquito whizzing past my ear, eager to join in the blood-sucking party.  I shudder in anticipation of the next piece of flesh that will start to burn, and I think quite seriously that I may not be able to handle this for too much longer.

There is little on earth that makes me feel more homesick – or rather, less at home – than the knowledge that I am not safe in my own house.  That feeling of being preyed upon, and knowing that one cannot stop the inevitable results, and feeling trapped in the one place that normally is one’s sanctuary – I find that infinitely hard to take.  In Jerusalem, this feeling is much more common than we would like to admit, bug bites or not.

            And so, late at night, I lay there and I think that this must be one of the things people mean when they say that life here is hard.  I know too many olim chadashim who have returned to America, or who are seriously contemplating doing so.  Although the government tries its best to make this country as inviting to immigrants as possible, actually living here and making a reasonable living is close to impossible.  We stumble along through our first few years as olim and try desperately to make our rent and utility payments on a less-than-minimum wage salary.  While some succumb for financial reasons, others leave because they miss their family and friends too much, or because they simply can’t find suitable employment at all.  We all have our personal battles – those demons we fight off while trying to make our lives work here.

Me, I hope I never succumb.  But I know that if I do ever decide to return to the States, it would be the little things here that would force me there.  I have no air conditioner to casually flip on when I come in from walking home drenched in sweat.  I have no protection from the fleas, bed bugs, mosquitoes, ants, cockroaches, snakes, and rats that outnumber the human inhabitants of Jerusalem at least a million to one.  I am in constant battle with Israeli bureaucracy, and I frequently feel like I have to beg for even the simplest human courtesies.