By Adar
In Israel, as is Jewish tradition, the weekend is one day from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, or Shabbat -- the day of rest. While in most places the weekends are busy for businesses and public transportation, on Shabbat Israel shuts down. This happens more in some places than others, and because Haifa has a large non-Jewish population, many things are still open and running. But much is still closed down or very much reduced.
A group of 12 of us all wanted to go to the market in the village called Daliat al-carmel, and since buses don't run out of the city on Shabbat, we figured taking a couple cabs would be fine and not too expensive if we filled them. As the only person who could speak anything close to a moderate amount of Hebrew, I made the call. I think this was the first time in my life I have called for a cab and been told they can't come. Ok, fine; we called a different company and asked for three cabs. They sent two. Finally, I got in the third taxi and as we were well on our way, the driver asked me which market we wanted to be dropped off in.
uhhh
The first or the second?
I don't know...? Carina, can you call the other group and ask them where they are?
They're still in the car. Ok. Which market is better?
The second.
Ok, that's fine then.
So do you want to be dropped off here? Or the next one?
I don't know, do you know where this (insert) restaurant is? That's where they are.
No I don't. DO YOU WANT TO BE DROPPED OFF HERE? DECIDE!
...ok! Ok!
As you can probably guess, we were not dropped off at the same place the others were. We were the rogue cab and in the wrong village when we discovered that wherever the rest of the group was also had no cell reception. So, there was nothing to do but sit down, enjoy lunch, and go to the nearby market by ourselves. We were relaxed and sitting at a restaurant, trying to decipher the menu, when we got a call from someone in one of the other cabs. Apparently, their driver had also been confused as to where they wanted to be dropped off, and it was my job to attempt to explain to him where we were. I hesitantly answered the phone, and tried to describe where we were. He yelled. I apologized. He yelled. He hung up. Their bill was already three times higher than ours had been. Eventually they made it to the other village's market (Daliat -- the one we were originally supposed to go to) and ended up doing fine.
The food I had in that little village was the best food I've eaten in months, potentially years. The restaurant was called Razan, and we had lamb kebabs with rice and majudarrah, hummus, pita, and a huge array of tapas-sized salads with so many flavors! I was quite pleased. And the waiter seemed to take a slight interest in one of our group members and offered us coffee, tea, and baklava on the house, which was perfectly fine by me. Next was the market which was shockingly cheap but actually really nice. I purchased a lovely warm scarf for about $2.
After meandering for a while, I called the cab company and asked for a cab to the market in Esfaria (I think that's the name). Sorry, nobody now, call back in ten minutes. Hmmm. The next answer was simply No, I don't want to go all the way out there. This was the second time in my life that I called a cab and they told me they didn't want our business.
Here we are, a group of four Americans, in an unfamiliar Druze village a 20 minute drive outside of Haifa (not to mention a two and a half hour walk) with no buses and no cabs that want us, nobody to call and no real plan of action. So we decided to go for a hike on the nearby trail. Our hike took us up one of the hills, through brush and trees, through mud and dirt, and gravel that started sinking if you didn't move quickly enough. It ended up being quite a long hike, but not too difficult and absolutely beautiful. We finally made it back to the road and somehow flagged down a cab who piled us in with another passenger and took us back to the dorms entrance.
But the walking didn't stop there. That entrance was closed and the security camera is under repair. We had to walk another mile and a half to get to the other entrance of the school, and again the mile and a half back to the dorms. By the end of the day we were all exhausted but quite pleased, and we certainly learned that going anywhere on Shabbat needs a backup plan.