Hello everyone,
I don’t remember when i sent my last email, and i know it has been a long time so i apologise! I think Beck sent a couple, so hopefully those that received it will have had a little cover! I entered Israel from Egypt late last December (wow, sounds like a long time ago!), into Eilat only to leave to Jordan for a couple of days. In Aqaba, there is a giant Jordanian flag which can be seen from Egypt, so it attracted me to the place. No really, I went to Petra, not to see a big flag. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with Petra, it is an ancient city which was carved into the stone by a (rather large) group of salesmen with their camel caverns as a central location for the economy of the time. Petra was a lost city for hundreds of years, discovered by a Danish explorer only in the last 100 years. As you can imagine, the state of the city is exceptional. The city is carved in a red rock, causing indescribable views across the landscape where hundreds of houses carved into the rock can be seen. For those of you who have seen the film `Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail`, they blow up the Mausoleum at Petra (commonly misknown as the Treasurary). Arriving at Petra requires a solid hours walk down the Siq, a water channel which leads to the Mausoleum. This building, the most famous of them dawns through a small crack in the wall which opens up to provide a 50m tall building carved into the stone. Phenomenal.
From Petra I returned to Aqaba, ate great Shwarma, then back into Eilat. I hung around Eilat for the day, but i found nothing to do there that i didn’t do cheaper in Egypt. Hence, I moved straight on to Jerusalem, where I stayed for 10 days.
Jerusalem truly is a city of 3000 years. Amazingly, the city is still split up into the old and the new. The old city, city of the ancient kings, still has remains from the time of David and Solomon. One such example is the Kotel/Western Wall, the last remaining wall of the Second Temple.
Despite all the religious tension in Israel, it is incredible to see the 3 major religions of the area in one place. The Kotel, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I managed to get to the Christian quarter of the old city on Christmas day, and it was an awesome place to be!
At one point I decided I wanted to go to the Dead Sea, so I did! Beck and I caught went to the Dead Sea, and spent 10 minutes getting into the freezing cold water (its winter here!). Covering ourselves with dead sea mineral extract mud, we got into the water, and floated! It was unreal. We then walked to Masada, yeah, from the dead sea! and when we arrived, we were told that it was closed for the day. Far out, it was only 3pm!!!! Might go back this weekend or something like that.
The end of the week proved to us that we would have to get into gear for study mode. The MDA (ambulance) program required a full week of study, involving studying from 8:30am -> 9pm, including food, and then studying our selves afterwards. Wow, we barely slept. Fortunately most of us in the course passed, and we have been volunteering on the ambulances since then.
It has been nearly 3 weeks since our first shifts, and we are having a great time. By the book, we are meant to be volunteering on the White ambulance, which is the lowest level. Being Israel and all, we have all had a chance (if not more) to be on the ICU (intensive care ambulance). For me, i have had most of my shifts on the ICU, which is great!
Infact, my very first shift was on an ICU – thats a cool story, i’ll tell you about it. I arrived around 6:45 to my shift, where an anxious paramedic comes to me and says – quickly, we need another person on the ambulance. We arrived at a house of a 200kg woman, who smelt like she hadn’t left her couch in weeks, and was sweating, leaving a noxious set of fumes behind. She was having problems breathing, and after heaving her into the chair (half-out), she was into the ambulance. Now it gets fun. Halfway through preparing an IV, the paramedic turns to me and says – do you know how to do CPR? I nodded certainly, causing him to rip open her shirt (and fat fall everywhere), and command me to do CPR on the little bit of her chest not obstructed by fat. Sorry with my obsession with the fat, but it was so overpowering that it got lodged in my brain like a clot.
For 15 minutes, I was doing compressions which i found out was very tiring. It was amazing to see how i was providing her pulse which I got to see on the Lifepack. We arrived at the hospital, still doing compressions on the patient on the stretcher, and then got to see all the cool stuff the doctors did in the emergency room.
Admittedly, from that point I had hope to see lots of really intense stuff, but old people are a bit of a disappointment sometimes! Regardless, I have seen a lot, from CPR to amputations to trauma in car accidents and falls. All this in less than 3 weeks! Yikes!
I am staying currently in Ra’anana, one of the richest areas in Israel which has its ups and downs. Ups – cool houses, very clean area, lots of parks, etc. Downs – very expensive. If anybody would like to send me a msg or something – my mobile number is: +972 525 851 099. I would love to hear from you.
So, at this point I must leave you all, and if you write back to me, and let me know what is happening with you, you will find more emails in your inbox 
.
Keep well, and have great holidays,
Seb
